Planetarium Science Center

newsletterth rd 6 year | 3 edition Science For All! SPRING 2013 In this edition... Computer Hi-Tech: Friend or Foe? 2 Space-Tech Saga 2 Addiction Prevention From Papyrus to E-Paper 4 Google’s Smart Glasses 5 By: Prof. Dr. Mohamed S. Abougabal Genetic Engineering: The Controversy 6 Department of Computer Engineering and Systems Techno-Food 8 Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University The Smart Pill 9 Health-Tech Gadgets 10 The War Industry: A Downside of Technology 12 How Private is Our Techno-Life? 15 Communication Technology: Connecting People? 16 The Invasion of the Smartphone 17 Warning from WALL-E 18 The Return of the Woolly Mammoth 19 The Dawn of the Robots 20 The Nano-Tech Lifestyle 22 Technology and By: Sara Khattab Us Humans lived for millennia without the luxury of The advent of computer technology had than one hour per week. During this hour, the supreme technology we have today. However, they a great impact on our lifestyle; most essential child can play educational games; all violence have always sought the tools that can make their daily services are now automated in all games should be strictly avoided. life easier, using the simplest materials available. e-ready countries, which necessitates the early In the next stage, children, 10-14 years of With the application of technology, time-consuming exposure of children to the usage of computers. age, can be allowed to use computers up to two processes can be executed with ease and in less time; Unfortunately, technology is not properly hours per week. To avoid any psychological technological development has thus never stopped, introduced to children at an early age; barrier with computers, children at this age and will never stop to evolve and reinvent itself. instead, they abuse the usage of computers. should know the components of the computer. Now, we are surrounded with incalculable types of Over years, children may grow into introvert, They can also be introduced to programming technology; just by looking around you can name at antisocial, restless, impatient, nervous, and language and problem-solving techniques least five types of technologies. If you are at home, I poor face-to-face communicators who prefer to using flow charts. Usage of ready-made expect you will have a landline telephone, a mobile, a communicate via machines. packages serving the educational curriculum is laptop, in addition to a diversity of electrical appliances. Scientists agreed that the challenge is highly recommended. Can you leave all of these hi-tech instruments and not to just own computers at school; the real Under parental control, high school experience your grandparents’ life? challenge is suitable and proper exposure of students should be allowed to use computers I doubt! In fact, I am one of those people who children to computers, according to the different for only three hours per week. They can search spend most of their time holding their smartphone. age groups and capabilities. The most efficient the Internet, develop their programming skills, Actually, I cannot live without my smartphone even procedure to expose youngsters to computers and learn more about the basics of computer though one day not so long ago I had a simple mobile is via their school teachers and/or parents, operation, logic circuits, storage retrieval and and I was happy. To that end, in this issue, we have a who are trained to teach the proper usage and communication of data. number of articles in the “Science in Our Life” section, in which we examine how technology has invaded our programming of computers to young children. It is highly recommended that talented lives, with all its advantages and disadvantages. Adapted from the American, European, students, at this stage, participate in Naturally, we discuss how the technological and Japanese experience, a methodology of international informatics Olympics. Many revolution has helped Man reach outer space, delve introducing computers “Train the Trainer” was Egyptian organizations are starting to into the nano-scale world, and has led to developing successfully experimented in Alexandria, in a encourage these students through sponsoring numerous health-tech gadgets that can lead to great private English school, on 12 school teachers their participation in such events. leaps in medicine. We also tackle the controversy and approximately 1200 boys/girls in different Nowadays, with all the smartphones, of “Genetic Engineering”, explore the potential of grades. This methodology aims at the early laptops, and tabs, it is difficult to convince “Techno-Food”, and investigate the possibility of “The discovery of programming talented children children not to spend a lot of time using the Return of the Woolly Mammoth”, as well as “The as it will assist in developing creative and logic computer. It is very important to fill children’s Dawn of the Robots”. thinking, communication skills, in addition to time with other activities such as sports, Pondering the history of technology, we examine team working habits. reading books, or painting; we cannot just the history of papermaking “From Papyrus to E-Paper”, Teachers and/or parents should be trained forbid them from using computers without and investigate how peaceful technology was used on all computer tools and applications; they giving them anything to else to do. negatively in wars, and vice versa, throughout history. should learn how to use Internet security It is important to have fun in life; however, As always, we hope you will enjoy the selections tools to allow children’s access to specific you cannot let this fun become something that we offer yout; we also look forward to receiving you sites―for example, the school’s webpage and takes over your life. It is important to take a step feedback at [email protected]. educational sites. Children, 4-10 years of age, back and look at what you are doing to yourself Spring 2013 should not be exposed to computers more and your children. fascination with exploring is an inherent human instinct; we are always eager to better understand The the world we live in. Outer space with its galaxies, stars, planets, and other celestial objects, has thus always been one of the mysterious concerns of humans. By observing the Sun and Moon, ancient astronomers were able to measure the day, month, and year. Since ancient times, the movement of celestial objects has been attached to agricultural and religious events, and was related to natural phenomena. The only tools available to observe these celestial bodies were the eyes and human logic, which sometimes led to incorrect conclusion. The methodology of ancient astronomers predated the scientific By: Maissa Azab methods developed by Galileo and Newton later on. However, the methods applied by the ancient Egyptians, Mayans, Babylonians, and others laid the foundation for modern astronomy.

An Eye on Outer Space Galileo was not the one who invented the telescope; however, he was the first to use it systematically to observe when celestial objects and record his discoveries. It was not until 1608 when Hans Lippershey, a Dutch lensmaker, introduced a new tool using glass lenses to study Watching my sister’s 2-year-old grandchild using the the heavens; the “spyglass”. The instrument, later named the telescope, smartphone several months ago when he was even younger, soon became the astronomer’s most essential tool and one of the I was both amused and amazed. Little Omar browses the essential instruments of the scientific revolution. homepages of his mother’s or father’s iPhone, finds the folder A year later, Galileo Galilei, Italian physicist and astronomer, containing the applications they downloaded for him to play improved the telescope’s design, producing a variable-focus instrument with, opens it and selects the game of his choice, then plays. that increased the size of the observed objects eight times. Just like the Ironically, that happened when I still did not own a first telescope, Galileo used a convex main lens with a concave eyepiece; smartphone myself, not just because I had never been a this type of telescopes was the prototype for today’s refractor telescopes. technology geek, nor was I ever fascinated by owning the Although Galileo’s telescope was small and the images were fuzzy, newest equipment on the market. For me, a mobile phone was he was able to see mountains and craters on the Moon, as well as enough of a breakthrough on its own; having the ability to reach a ribbon of diffuse light arching across the sky, which would later be and be reached anytime, anywhere was hi-tech enough for me identified as the Milky Way. Galileo’s telescope was soon refined to for years. magnify objects 20 times; using this refined telescope, he spotted four I never used my mobile to download or listen to music, not Moons of Jupiter, and discovered the edges of Saturn’s rings and spots even to take photos except rarely. Yet, in just a few months on the Sun’s surface. of owning a smartphone after years of pondering it and being With advancing technology, astronomy flourished with the egged on by my friends and colleagues, I have become quite development of bigger and more powerful telescopes, then specialized dependant on it. This has been proven just a couple of days instruments that could peer into the distant reaches of space and time, ago when it slipped from my hand, fell and broke; it has only such as radio, infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray, and Gamma-ray telescopes. been two days without it as it gets fixed and I feel deprived! Eventually, enlarging telescopes no longer improved the view It is really amazing how we get addicted to technology. I of space. In 1946, Lyman Spitzer, a Yale University Professor and mean, the mobile was not all that common in Egypt in 1999 Researcher argued that a space telescope would offer great advantages when I first owned one, which means I lived 23 years of my life over ground-based telescopes. He explained that telescopes function without it; yet, with its entry into our lives it has become simply through collecting and magnifying visible light that is given off by stars indispensable. Today, with the advent of the smartphone, simply or reflected from the surfaces of other celestial objects, but the Earth’s connecting by phone anywhere, anytime is no longer enough; atmosphere blurs and distorts this light. Furthermore, the atmosphere one now feels isolated if one cannot use Email, Google, blocks X-rays emitted from high-temperature phenomena in stars and Facebook, whatsapp, or even play a game anywhere, anytime. other objects; even the most precise and advanced on ground cannot All this has gotten me thinking about life without technology; escape this phenomenon, but a telescope in orbit can. how technology has progressed in all aspects of life, and Later in the 1970s, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the how much more it can progress; what has been the impact National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) worked of technology on life, and how it is expected to impact in the together to design and build what would become the Hubble Space future. Just to begin this theme, my colleagues explore many Telescope. Designed to be visited periodically by astronauts, who take aspects of technology in this issue of the newsletter, which we new instruments and technology to make repairs; in 1990, this space intend to follow with continuing pieces on the subject in our telescope was carried into orbit by a space shuttle, Discovery. soon to be launched online magazine: SCImagic. The unprecedented images that Hubble delivered represented the Hope you enjoy the issue and please await the launch of fulfillment of a 50-year dream; and more than two decades of dedicated SCImagic. collaboration between scientists, engineers, contractors, and institutions from all over the world. One of the most technologically advanced pieces of equipment that humans have put into orbit, for more than 15 years, Hubble has helped researchers make important discoveries about our universe, giving them insight into the history and fate of our universe.

2 newsletter Spring 2013 aboard flight wasunderthecontrolofgroundpersonnel. manual controlsonthespacecraftwerelockedpriortolaunch,andentire carried chemicalbatteries,orientationrockets;themainretrosystem. The The craftconsistedofasphericalcabinattachedtoservicemodulethat which carried small scientific equipment that eventually discovered the discovered eventually as a successful that ongoing series of lightweight, scientifically equipment useful spacecrafts. scientific magnetic radiationbeltsaroundtheEarth. The Explorerprogramcontinued small carried which evident thatLaikahaddiedfromoverheatingandstress. no vitallifesignswerebeingreceivedfromLaika;bythefourthorbititwas carrying the first dog, Laika, into orbit. After five to seven hours into the flight, propagation throughatmosphere. optical methodsoforbitaltrackinganddeterminedtheeffects ofradiowave information onthedensityofatmosphere;italsotestedradioand a of size the beach ball and took only 98 minutes to orbit the Earth. Sputnik about was which satellite, artificial first world’s the 1, Sputnik first Moon-landingwerethemaingoalsofSpaceRace. first man-madeobjecttoorbittheEarth,livingbeinginorbit,and Both sides sought to prove the superiority of its technology; the launch of the for aColdWar competitionbetweentheUnitedStatesandSovietUnion. Spring 2013 became the first man to orbit Earth on the spacecraft Vostok 1, on 12 April The RacetoOuterSpace stations have been designed with the intention of rotating multiple crews, space vehicles. All space other on available than studies scientific of length on thehumanbody, aswelltoprovideplatformsforgreaternumberand spacecrafts candock. crew andremaininspaceforanextended periodoftime,andtowhichother spaceflight capabilities. A space station is a spacecraft designed to support a the Soviet Union to seek other ways such as space stations to display their attempts tolaunchalunarlandingcraftbetween1969and1972. of lunar material for return to Earth. The Soviets made four unsuccessful outside the spacecraft, Aldrin slightly less; together, they collected 21.5 kg aimed at Buzz most missions; Cosmos unmanned several gathering dataonaprolongedtimeinspace. flew also Union spaceships, toensuretheycouldlandsafely. Ontheother hand,theSoviet the John Kennedy promised theworldthat the United States would land men on The UnitedStatesrespondedbyputting Alan Shepardintospace The Space Race heated up when the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin Following theSoviet,in1958,UnitedStateslaunchedExplorer1, Months later, theSovietastonishedworldwithlaunchingSputnik2, The SpaceRaceeffectively began in1957withtheSovietlaunchof Following World War II,spaceexplorationservedasadramaticarena pc sain ae sd o td te fet o ln-em pc flight space long-term of effects the study to used are stations Space By landingontheMoon,UnitedStateswonSpaceRace,leading and Neil Armstrong humans, first 111969, the Apollo July landed 20 On Moon before 1970.Before risking people’s lives,NASA sent unmanned Aldrin, on the Moon. Armstrong spent nearly two-and-a-half hours Freedom 7, on 5 May 1961. Weeks after Shepard’s flight, President flight, Shepard’s after Weeks 1961. May 5 on 7, Freedom 1 provided 1961. vacations floatinginspace. Now, it is expected that in the not sodistant future, people will spendtheir space shuttles, satellites, and even human beings to explore outer space. only abletoobservethecelestialbodiesthroughtelescopes;theyalso sent Earth. With the continuous development in technology, humans were not was plannedthatticketswillbeavailableforflights,startingaround2012. it plane; space this of version new a using space, into flights tourist private offer to up set been has airline spaceflight. new manned A funded privately forthe future ofspaceexploration. incentives provide will development of new space technologies and lay the foundations for the markets profitable for companies between in the Space Race. Competitions between countries for national pride and nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov chatt.hdsb.ca www.spacekids.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk www.nasa.gov References Moon andMars. testing ofspacecraftsystemsandequipmentrequiredformissionstothe the for suited is station The fields. other and astronomy,metrology physics, research laboratoryinwhichcrewmembersconductexperimentsbiology, International SpaceStation(ISS). The ISSservesasaspaceenvironment United rarely morethanayear. with eachcrewmemberstayingaboard the station for weeks or months, but Throughout history, humans have sought to discover what is beyond ever first the made “SpaceShipOne” 2004, June 21 on example, an For In the21 What hasfollowedtheColdWar isaneraofcooperationbetweenthe AVAILABLE SHOWS States andnowRussianSpaceprogramstobuildoperatethe 45 Min. Live Show by the PSC 45 Min.LiveShowbythePSC st Stars ofthePharaohs century, othernationsjoinedtheUnitedStatesandRussia Mystery oftheNile 33 Min.Full-dome Show 35 Min.Full-domeShow 22 Min.Full-domeShow 25 Min.Full-domeShow 35 Min.Full-domeShow The LifeofTrees Cosmic Voyage Coming Soon Oasis inSpace resident astronomer 35 Min.IMAXShow 45 Min.IMAXShow Kaluoka’hina Stars Show Universe science.nationalgeographic.com outreach.atnf.csiro.au library.thinkquest.org • • By: SaraKhattab prior notification. change showsatany timewithout maintains theright tocancelor reasons, thePlanetarium notethat,fortechnical Kindly www.bibalex.org/psc. officialwebsite: the Center’s schedule andfees,pleaseconsult For thePlanetariumdaily VISITORS Planetarium newsletter INFO 3

Planetarium A Cosmic Point of View History of Science MuseumThe Story Behind the Science and codices European scribes. They wereusedinproducingallthefamousmanuscripts skin―was certain climaticconditions. it―animal making for needed readily availableeverywhereandnot limitedtoonegeographiclocationor raw-material the Also, durable. preparation final a as for writing. chalk or talc with treated and pumice, using polished smooth was it Then, scraped. and de-haired cleaned, was it frame―after interchangeably. were referredtoasvellums;however, thetwotermsarecurrentlyused calves. Finer types of parchment made from the skin of newly-born animals Parchments were made of processed animal skin—chiefly sheep, goats, and Bergama in Turkey—parchment was introduced as a new writing surface. Egypt owingtoitsdryclimatethatbestpreservedthem. throughout theGreco-RomanEmpire,thoughmostrecordswerestillkeptin guarded secret.Nevertheless, it later became the main writingmaterialused a statemonopolyinEgypt,andthemethodofitsproductionwasclosely explore ancienttimes.Becauseofitsimportance,papyruspapermakingwas accessibility ofthewrittenword,makingitpossibleforustolookbackand were finallyjoinedend-to-endtoformpapyrirolls. to holdthesplitstalkstogetherthanksnaturalguminplant. The sheets pressed and smoothed to be ready as a writing surface; no glue was needed in twolayers;oneverticalandhorizontal. After that,thesheetswere their sugary content. They were then dried, flattened and placed side by side layered stalksofthepapyrusplantwereslicedandsoakedinwatertoremove inhuman grew inswampsaroundtheNileRiver. surface writing paper-like first history. the Ancient Egyptians made papyrus from a plant of the same name that is which papyrus, invention, in varioustypesandforms. then, Since of paper. version paper hasgonethroughvariousstagesofdevelopment,andisnowavailable first very the papyrus, on writing introduced or wax.Itwasthen,around5000yearsago,thatthe Ancient Egyptians missed. At the very beginning, written records were carved on stone, clay, imagine documentationwithoutpaper, andseehowmuchwecouldhave Parchment Papyrus scientific works. andotherimportant literaryand the preferablechoice forcopyingtheQur’an, 4 Parchments andvellumswerethestandard writingsurfacesofMedieval Parchment hadmanyadvantagesoverpapyrus;itwasstrongerandmore The animal skin was dried under tension―usually stretched on a wooden In the2 The introductionofpapyrirevolutionizedrecord-keepingandthe multi- thick tall, triangular, the of core the fibers, outer the peeling After The word“paper”weusenowadaysisderivedfromthe Ancient Egyptian Imagine thelonghumanjourneyonEarthwithoutdocumentation. Then, By: HendFathy nd (1) centuryBCE,attheancientGreekcityofPergamum—currently of that time. In the Arab world as well, parchment remained newsletter shortage ofrawtextile materialsnecessitatedthesearch foralternatives. to addstrengthorstiffness, ortoreduceabsorbency. introduced the process of sizing, or coating paper with different substances technique appliedby Arabs. workmanship spreadtootherEuropeancountries—triedimprovethe in Italy—Europe’s dominatingpaper-producingcenterfromwherethe translucent thattheycouldonlywriteononeside. and thin so was it parchment, and papyrus than flexible more far was paper The mix was then left to drain in a refinery frame and dried. Although Chinese substances weresoaked,pounded,washed,boiled,strained,andbleached. a verylow cost in large quantities made it possibleformass production. The mulberry trees. The factthatall these rawmaterialscouldbeeasilyfoundat at official Emperor intheyear105CE. an Lun, Cai that show the ChineseImperialCourt,reportedinventionofpaperto records Historical CE). 220 – (206 BCE in EnglandbyBryanDonkinandthe Fourdrinierbrothers. instead ofthetraditionalsinglehand-made sheets;itwasfurtherdeveloped This machine produced seamless lengths of paper with squeeze rollers French J. L.Robert built the first paper machine, which was handle operated. operations andtheintroductionof sophisticated machinery. In1799,the From theFarEasttoEuropeviaMiddle TimeandSpace Paper: through AJourney The PapermakingRevolution was builtinthe11 substance andglossysurface. Damascus, and Samarkand; their production was distinguished by its stout paper first the up Cairo, Baghdad, in history animals―in or set humans either by mills―operated Arabs bamboo. rawmaterial and basic bark as the of instead Linin papermaking in introduced they quality; in finer much and prisoners capturedby Arabs intheBattleof Talas, in751. Arab Abbasid Empire,thesecretofpapermakingwasobtainedfromChinese making process.DuringthewarbetweenChinese Tang Dynastyandthe India, Japan,Korea,Nepal,andPakistan,withnomajorchangesinthe quantity ofpaperpasteamillproducedineightdays. a heavyrollthatrevolvesagainstbedplate;itcouldproduceinonedaythe modern camps. The “Hollanderbeater”consistedofanovaltankcontaining became thetechnologythatdividedpapermakersintotraditionalversus important milestoneinpapermakingdevelopment—thatreplacedmillsand In the17 The Italiansharnessedwaterpowertooperatepapermills. They also Papermaking graduallyspreadbytheendof7 bark of inner the and fibers bamboo rags, texture used paper Lun’s Paper, as we know today, was invented in China during the Han Dynasty The 18 A major advance in papermaking was in the 19 From there, the paper industry moved to Europe where the first paper mill The Arabs revolutionizedthepaperindustry, makingsheetsthicker th century witnessed the establishment of larger-scale papermaking th century, theDutchinvented“Hollanderbeater”—an th century. From the 13 the From century. th centuryonwards,papermakers th century when the serious th centurytoBangladesh, Spring 2013 In 1843, Saxon Friedrich Gottlob Keller introduced wood cellulose pulp as a major element in the paper industry. This milestone was soon followed by an alternative idea to turn wood into paper; namely a chemical pulp patented in 1854 by Hugh Burgers and Charles Watt. Chemical wood pulps were developed using soda and sulfite, which are responsible for paper brightness, strength, and permanence. That century also witnessed the invention of more advanced machinery. Machines were continually improved with the rise of the Industrial Revolution, making the production process fully automated, and leading to a considerable spread of paper production worldwide. Furthermore, in the second half of the 19th century, machines designed for particular paper products appeared, such as the Yankee Machine for tissue paper production. Same as anything else, papermaking technologies advanced rapidly and dramatically during the 20th century and the 21st century. New raw materials By Lamia Ghoneim were developed, such as mechanical and Deinked Pulp (DIP)(2), some paper types even necessitated their own raw material supply. For example, banknote paper is primarily made of cotton mixed with other textile fibers to Forget smartphones and laptops; Google has officially revealed its make it more resilient and more resistant to wear. New paper types were newest and perhaps biggest innovation: Google Glasses; a pair of “smart ZoomTech introduced: printing papers such as Light Weight Coated (LWC)(3), wrapping glasses” that are set to replace all your bulky technological gear. paper, writing paper, drawing paper, banknote paper, and others. Straight out of a science fiction movie, these “Terminator-style”, Another revolutionary change modern technology introduced is the augmented-reality glasses are designed to display real-time digital astounding drop in paper prices. Nowadays, paper can be enameled, information right in front of your eyes, and on top of your view of the world; creped, waterproofed, waxed, glazed, sensitized, bent, folded, molded, one that is enhanced and supplemented through computer-generated dissolved, and recycled. information and superimposed graphics. E-Paper The idea is to provide you with smartphone-like applications without the Computer technologies introduced advanced word processing need to take your eyes off the real world. The Google Glasses―really a applications where the user inputs data through keyboards; can save, edit sleek solid metal frame that runs across the browline with a small heads- and format it, and even print it if required. These applications, in addition to up display mounted on the right side―weighs just as much as normal the Portable Document Format (PDF) software, have given access to billions sunglasses, responds to voice command and a full array of motion sensors. of documents, papers and books in softcopy formats, saving huge amounts They are equipped with a powerful processor and memory, a battery built in of natural resources, money and avoiding environmental impacts associated one of the frame arms, an integrated camera that can capture images and with paper production. videos, GPS, Internet connectivity, and instant access to social networks. The last technological advance in papermaking comes with the The camera takes instant pictures and videos of the world as you see it, introduction of Electronic Paper. Though the technology behind it was whilst allowing the device to monitor the world in real-time, providing you with pioneered in the 1970s, E-Paper is still not widely into the market. E-papers relevant overlaying information about your surroundings such as weather, are fine, bendable, and foldable plastic display surfaces that, unlike other locations, surrounding buildings and your friends who might be nearby. display surfaces, reflect rather than emit light, making it more comfortable With these smart glasses, directions to your required destination or a text to read. message from a friend will appear literally before your eyes. Once you look These papers are created by placing tiny plastic containers―each out your window, a weather forecast will appear on the small screen right on containing white and black particles―between two flexible plastic sheets. top of your eyebrow. The white and black particles have opposite charges; when charged, When you see something you would like to share with friends, the images particles can be separated to opposite sides generating black text or a your glasses shoot will go to their Google+ social-media accounts. While you picture against a white background. Nowadays, E-papers provide full-color are walking down to the train station, a live train departure board pops up in ability; the power requirements for E-paper displays are also much lower front of you. If you need to buy something on the go, just say the name of the than for traditional displays. item and online stores will appear right before your eyes. The possibilities are immense; with Google’s arsenal of real-time, mobile, Despite the long journey paper has gone through, technology has only location-aware services―Search, Maps, Places/Hotspot, Navigation, Offers, transformed that ancient craft into a highly technical industry; the basic Product Search, Translate―that could all be built into the Android based operations have not really changed to this day. Paper has been used as raw glasses, one could only imagine what the end result would be. material for huge projects. Think of the huge countless number of books, Prototypes of Google Glasses have already been sold to a selected academic and scientific papers, dictionaries, and periodicals; not to mention group of developers earlier this year at the Google I/O Conference, who plans, maps, and many other informative documents that would not have lined up to collect their prized gadgets for USD 1500 each. The reason they existed without paper. Paper remains the best and most prevalent way to view were especially invited to try out Google’s invention is to come up with more and store information, and to disseminate human knowledge and experience. ideas and applications for its use, provided they maintain a shroud of secrecy Glossary about the new product. “This is a new technology and we really want you to shape it,” said (1) is an ancient manuscript text in book form. A codex company co-founder Sergey Brin at the Google Conference in San Francisco. (2) is the industrial process of removing printing ink from fibers of recycled Deinking “We want to get it out into the hands of passionate people as soon as paper to make pulp. possible.” (3) stands for Lightweight Coated Paper; a light weight; two-side coated printing LWC Google hopes to have the smart glasses ready to be sold to consumers paper commonly used in magazines, flyers, and catalogues. by early 2014, at a price comparable to the price of Smartphones today. Just References enough time to save up for your own pair of futuristic technology. users.stlcc.edu www.historyworld.net papyri.tripod.com www.paperacademy.net References fourriverscharter.org www.howstuffworks.com www.firstpost.com www.lib.umich.edu www.independent.co.uk www.britannica.com

Spring 2013 newsletter 5 If we try to explain the meaning of genetic engineering in layman terms we will start by saying that “Engineering” is the act of building or making something, while “Genes” are the building units of the living being’s body. Accordingly, we can say that “Genetic Engineering” is the science of altering the map of the body in order to enhance its properties. Imagine if you knew every detail about plants, animals and human beings; details such as: What they are made of? How they grow? How they change? Then, imagine that you learned how to

Discover Life Discover change and manipulate these details to add better properties or remove undesirable ones. This is how scientists believe they can use genetic engineering to make the world better; plants can be made to grow faster and bigger so that there will be food for everyone in the world; human cells can be cloned and altered so that diseases can be cured or avoided altogether; and so forth. By: Moataz Abdelmegid

1. Locating an organism that naturally has the The first commercial use of genetic Genetics 101 In order to understand how genetic desired trait; engineering was a relatively simple one; to ALEXploratorium 2. engineering works, it is best to start with some Extracting the DNA from that organism, which manufacture particular kinds of proteins, such as basic biology. The first step is to understand the in this analogy is like taking out the entire insulin, in abundance, which would otherwise be meaning of the “Chromosome” and the “DNA”. cookbook; tedious and costly to produce. 3. Chromosomes are the storage place for all Locating the one desired gene (ingredient) Insulin is the hormone that is involved in the genetic information; they resemble bundled up and copying it from the thousands of genes regulation of blood sugar; people who suffer from knots and loops of a long thin thread: the DNA. that were extracted, in other words cloning the diabetes are unable to produce enough insulin, DNA is the abbreviation for Deoxyribonucleic gene; and are thus regularly treated by insulin injections. 4. Acid; a specific acidic material that can be found Modifying the gene slightly to work in a more The question is how to economically provide the in the nucleus of the cell. The genetic information desirable way once inside the recipient large amounts needed of insulin. is written in the form of a code, almost like organism; Many years ago, farm animals, such as cows 5. a music tape; to ensure the thread and the Delivering the new gene, the transgene, into and pigs, were the only source to produce insulin. information are stable and safe, DNA is formed cells of the recipient organism, known as The organs of these animals were harvested and of a twisted double stranded thread known as the transformation. used to provide insulin through a rather tedious double helix. and costly process. Furthermore, the insulin Why Genetic Engineering? of these animals, though very similar to human When a cell multiplies it will also copy all the Recently, genetic engineering applications have insulin, was not identical to it and did not always DNA and pass it on to the daughter cell. The increased rapidly. Generally, all applications depend work with certain individual cases. totality of the genetic information of an organism on the manipulation of organisms to produce Now, thanks to genetic engineering, producing is the “genome”. Human cells, for example, useful products, which is something humans insulin in large amounts, at a reasonable cost, is a possess two sets of 23 different chromosomes; have been doing since the beginning of recorded relatively simple process by inserting the human one set from the mother and the other from the history. Selective breeding of domestic plants and insulin gene into a certain type of bacteria. This father. The length of DNA contained in one human animals, for example, is a kind of biotechnology, process was first developed by Herbert Boyer, in body is approximately 60,000,000,000 kilometers; though a very slow kind. What is different about 1978, when he took a version of the human insulin this is equivalent to the distance to the moon and modern genetic engineering is that we can modify gene and inserted it into a special bacterium called back 8000 times! organisms more rapidly and radically. “Escherichia coli” to produce synthetic, but very ABC Genetic Engineering similar to human, insulin. In fact, almost all insulin Genetic engineering simply works by used in medical treatment now is manufactured physically removing a gene from one organism by genetically-modified bacteria. and inserting it into another, giving it the ability The gene responsible for producing insulin to express the trait encoded by that gene. It is is “cut out” from the human cell by using a like taking a single ingredient out of a recipe and special enzyme called “restriction enzyme”. A adding it to another recipe. plasmid—a small DNA molecule that is physically The process of adding a specific trait to an separate from, and can replicate independent of, organism that does not have this trait includes chromosomal DNA within a cell—is then extracted 5 basic steps: from a bacterial cell; a second “cut” is created

6 newsletter Spring 2013 using the restriction enzyme, then the gene is This vigorously debated issue will always inserted into the plasmid by attaching both of the be a subject to discussion; as long as this “sticky ends” of the gene into it. At that point, the technology forges, the debate will never be off the hybrid plasmid is re-inserted into the bacterial cell table. Nevertheless, no one can deny the great where it will replicate to make the new DNA for the contribution that genetic engineering added to all cell and many more daughter cells will be cultured. scopes of modern science as we know it, and that The insulin produced by this method has a the role it is going to play in shaping our future has much lower cost and a much higher purity than now become an unavoidable fact. the one produced without the aid of genetic References engineering. Today, there are dozens of medically www.nytimes.com important proteins manufactured in the same www.greenpeace.org way, and hundreds are under research and historyofsciences.blogspot.com development. www.biology-online.org In the field of agriculture, on the other hand, dozens of transgenic crops are now in common commercial use. These crop species contain have already concluded that genetically-modified desirable traits that were absent in the original food posed no risk of damage to the environment. crops. For instance, new genes were inserted to Religious controversies are also often aroused History of Science Museum improve resistance to insects, other genes were especially when it comes to genetic engineering inserted to increase growth, while others are in human beings. While genetic engineering can inserted to improve the nutritional value of the be used to treat or prevent diseases, it also raises Visitors INFO plant, and more. To learn more about that, read the moral question of whether doing so is “right”. Opening Hours our piece “Techno-Food”, page 08. Many people oppose the idea of selective Saturday to Thursday breeding as a practice of mating two organisms to [from 10:00 to 15:00] Genetic Engineering in the Balance emphasize attractive qualities in them. However, Guided Tours Schedule Despite all the wide useful applications of when applied to plants and animals, selective genetic engineering that are currently present Saturday to Thursday breeding does not cause as much of an uproar [10:30 + 11:30 + 12:30 + 13:30 + 14:30] and play a very effective role in our lives, some as it does when applied to human beings. people have concerns about genetic engineering, Nevertheless, the idea of forcing people with including ethical, religious, ecological, and • Museum entry fees are included in certain IQ levels, for example, to mate in order all Planetarium show tickets. economic concerns. to produce highly intelligent offspring seems Opponents of genetic engineering cite unacceptable. • For non-audience of the Planetarium, various worries and fears that include: What The pro party would answer by stating that this Museum entry fees are EGP 0.50. constitutes proper and improper human use of is something that people already do voluntarily, as animals? Should we eat food that was genetically • Museum Tours are free for ticket we all seek potential mates by looking for qualities holders. manipulated using human genes? How does this attractive to us, and if they are positive qualities, affect religious, or any other groups with strict then we hope that they will be passed onto our dietary laws? How do we know that a genetically- children. ALEXploratotrium engineered food plant will not produce new In their point of view, genetic engineering is toxins and allergies? What are the effects on the thus just a technological means of doing something environment and on wildlife? How great are the that we have already been desperately trying to Visitors INFO potential risks involved in releasing genetically- achieve, which is seeking self-improvement or modified organisms into the biosphere without the fulfillment of one’s full potential as a value that Discovery Zone knowing all the possible consequences? Are we is deeply rooted in human cultures. They believe Opening Hours going to reach a stage where genetic engineering that it is an honorable pursuit to attempt to have Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday: is used for recreational purposes? Will genetic children that do not have any diseases and live a [From 09:30 to 15:30] engineering be used, or is it already being used, perfectly healthy life. Tuesday: [From 09:30 to 12:30] in biological warfare? Guided Tours Schedule Organizations such as Greenpeace—an The truth is it would be difficult for any average Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday: organization devoted to the preservation of the [09:30 - 11:00 - 12:30 - 14:30] person to answer any question related to genetic Tuesday: [09:30 - 11:00] environment—are completely against the use of engineering from a perfectly neutral point of Entry Fees genetically-modified organisms. Greenpeace fears view because one’s own views would color any Students EGP 2 that genetically-modified organisms will integrate attempted explanation regarding the controversy. Non-students EGP 4 themselves with organic organisms producing People who have fears believe that genetic new forms, and thereby permanently changing the engineering should be kept in laboratories, Listen and Discover environment and the ecological system. inside test tubes, and not be allowed on large • For the list of shows available at the “Listen and It also opposes the production of genetically- scale applications; while people who are strongly Discover” and the schedule, please consult the modified foods, which from their point of view, is Center's official website: www.bibalex.org/psc. supportive believe that genetic engineering is • For reservation, please contact the PSC merely a means through which business entities undoubtedly going to shape our future. Administrator at least one week before the can experiment with and exploit our food supply There is no doubt that ethical, religious, and desired date. for profit. Moreover, it mentions that there is much ecological concerns about genetic engineering are Show fees unknown about the effects of genetic engineering sure to become more pressing as this technology DVD shows: to be applied safely to our food sources. Students EGP 1 continues to spread and develop during the Non-students EGP 2 On the other hand, experiments in 1987 coming years. These concerns can be discussed 3D shows: by the Committee of the National Academy of fairly and intelligently only if people are willing to Students EGP 2 Sciences—an organization devoted to the pursuit educate themselves about the science involved, Non-students EGP 4 of scientific and technological advancement— and listen to one another’s points of view.

Spring 2013 newsletter 7 echnological advances and breakthroughs are popping up in fractions of seconds, with promises to enhance quality in each and every facet of life, and food is no exception. The Temerging food technologies address different issues from global food crisis and malnutrition, to environmental impacts, and even luxury. Let us examine some examples that demonstrate how technology introduces smart solutions that meet our increasing demands and decreasing resources.

The recently emerging nanotechnology had grown plants. Dr. Despommier further suggests a lot to present, offering benefits in food safety, that lands used for horizontal farming could be storage, packaging and nutrition. For example, forested, constituting a major counterweight to research teams developed different types of global warming. antimicrobial and antibacterial food films made of nanoparticles of zinc, calcium, magnesium Ctrl + P: Dinner is Served oxide, and titanium dioxide. Vulnerable foods, Back home, hungry and exhausted after such as cheese and sliced meat, showed higher a long working day, you only need to warm resistance to spoiling using these films. up your printer, select your favorite meal and print your dinner. A 3D printer is a machine that Science & Me Sky-High Food builds physical objects—dot by dot and layer by By the fifties of the current century, the world layer—similar to how conventional printers lay population would reach over 9.5 billion. Unless we down colors on a piece of paper, but in three think out of the box, we are to face dimensions. dramatic shortage in food, arable land, A research team at Massachusetts Institute of and fresh water. Dr. Despommier of Technology (MIT) is already ready with a 3D food Columbia University developed an printer prototype which uses “food inks” syringes innovative and smart solution; vertical filled with a variety of tasty ingredients to build farming. meals up. Foods that cannot be readily extruded Vertical farming transfers from a syringe such as meats and vegetables agriculture from horizontal farmlands are ground and mixed with other liquids to create to vertical skyscrapers in rural areas, novel food inks. Though still underdevelopment, where most of the Earth’s population 3D printing will definitely revolutionize printing will be living in the decades to industry, and most importantly, our perception of come. Instead of implanting seeds food and cooking. in soil, vertical farms would rely (1) Once the 3D printer gets an order, the printing on hydroponic systems, which process starts with feeding different ingredients, are sufficient to grow almost all originally stored refrigerated in canisters, into a terrestrial plants. mixing chamber. The mixture is then extruded A vertical farm project needs and deposited in layers of various and complex bringing together multi-disciplinary combinations of ingredients. During deposition technologies needed for minimizing to the service tray, the ingredients are cooked, or waste and energy use, facilitating cooled, in tubes attached to the printing head. recycling, and developing high- The most distinguishable property of 3D food tech irrigation systems. Accurate printers is their ability to control the nutritional monitoring systems are also needed By: Hend Fathy value of the printed meal; thus customizing the to ensure the needed temperatures products to exactly meet the needs of different are maintained for different crops. individuals. They can also turn ingredients of high Smarter Solutions The key advantage of vertical farming is nutritional value into entirely novel sets of tasty Eradicating hunger was one of the eight space, for one indoor acre produces an equivalent flavors that would otherwise be unimaginable Millennium Development Goals set following of 4 to 6 acres outdoors. Furthermore, similar through traditional cooking techniques; not to the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. Billions and to green houses, different crops can be grown mention adding healthier ingredients to produce billions of dollars are thus invested annually on all year round as the operation systems control fried fast foods that youth and children are food technology research and applications, aiming temperature and humidity levels. addicted to. to meet the increasing demand of a non-stop- Using sophisticated water recycling systems, Another ambitious attempt to 3D-print foods growing population. Both genetic engineering and vertical farming would contribute to saving is at Cornell Creative Machines Lab (CCML). The nanotechnology have shown highly promising fresh water, 70% of which is nowadays used project manager, Jeffrey Ian Lipton, has developed aspirations for achieving food security, although for traditional irrigation, rendering it unusable a new technique that allows the printer to produce many of them have not yet reached those in need. for drinking as a result of contamination with different textures of foods, instead of injecting them Nowadays, some countries are growing fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. as straight lines.This property would allow us to genetically-modified crops that resist pests and Further to this, it would not even necessitate produce porous structures whose absorbent quality diseases, tolerate climatic factors and herbicides using pesticides as long as the building is can be controlled; hence, making the food more juicy treatment, and above all carry higher nutritional carefully monitored. Vertical farming is also or deeper-fried. Researchers at CCML have also values. For example, with ten times the amount likely to eliminate the pollution caused as food is produced cakes that, when sliced, reveal special of added vitamin A, the newly-introduced “Golden trucked or shipped across borders to reach the messages buried within, such as dates or logos. Rice” is expected to help solve the problem of consumers; alternatively, people will get their Though still of a very high cost, 3D printers will malnutrition in the developing world. freshly harvested foods from the farm next door. transfer cooking and food from domestic kitchens With a gene adapted from the daffodil The major criticism directed to vertical farming into the realms of the digital world. Food and art flower, the rice grains produce a beta-carotene is that it would eliminate jobs of conventional will come together, allowing chefs, restaurants compound that our bodies turn into vitamin A, farmers. However, thousands would be required and food industrialists to develop distinguished the deficiency of which affects millions of people to build, operate, and maintain these vertical brands, and providing us with an endless menu farms, let alone harvesting and packing the 8 annually, causingnewsletter blindness and even death. of food printouts. Spring 2013 WikiWrapper: Bon Appétit Food and beverage packages constitute a big portion of the plastic wastes covering our planet and abusing the health of our ecosystems. Yet, foods will always need containers to keep them fresh and protected. Harvard University scientist Professor David Edwards, from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has an innovative and tasty solution: making packaging as delicious as the goods held inside. Yes, with the introduction of edible packaging technologies, dubbed WikiCells, after you finish your drink, you can have the bottle for dessert. A WikiCell acts like the protective peel of an orange or a coconut shell. It is a soft skin that holds and protects foods and drinks, such as ice cream, yogurt, cheese, juice, and pudding, keeping them fresh to the same extent as

ordinary plastic containers. or Fiction Fact The WikiCell has two layers of packaging. The primary soft layer is similar to the grape wrapping By: Lamia Ghoneim and is always edible. This layer is made of three main components: natural food particles such as chocolate, nuts, and seeds; a nutritive calcium; and a natural recently watched a movie entitled “Limitless” drugs produce an effect that is similar to the (2) molecule like chitosan . When the three components Iabout an unknown writer, who has a persistent effect of the drug portrayed in the film, albeit less are mixed together, they form an electrostatic gel layer case of writer’s block, then discovers a pill; an dramatically powerful. They boost alertness, that keeps water inside the food or drink. experimental drug named “NZT”, which enhances increase concentration, decrease distractibility, and The second layer is a protective shell, which may his mental abilities and makes him tap into his improve memory and wakefulness, making you or may not be edible. In cases where it is inedible, the unutilized brain power, completely transforming him. laser-focused on the task at hand, until mission is outer layer can be simply peeled off and thrown away Success, fame and fortune inevitably follow accomplished, at which point you are fired up to without constituting a threat to the environment, as it is his transformation; despite the pill’s serious side- tackle something else, from organizing your closet completely biodegradable. effects, the protagonist manages to overcome by color to solving complex trigonometry equations. WikiCells can mimic the taste of the food inside, thus them, and the movie ends with him being the laser- It is thus not surprising that a staggering 7% maximizing the experience of the strawberry-ice cream focused genius super-hero of our dreams. of American university students reported having consumer when he/she munches up its strawberry However, this is not about the movie or how taken stimulants “non-medically” at least once. tasting wrapper. On the other hand, edible wrappings the story ends; it is about the dream and the power Moreover, they are not the only healthy “users”; can play an independent part of the tasting experience fantasy of becoming more than what you truly fighter pilots on critical missions and time-pressed through adding a completely different taste of its own. are. This is about the promise of a smarter, more writers have been known to use wakefulness Although the hygiene of these edible packaging has enhanced version of yourself, delivered to you via drugs, as Modafinil, to boost alertness and meet raised skeptics doubts, Professor Edwards says people a single pill. deadlines. Even the military has a history of can wash their WikiCell products before consumption Is it possible? I found myself wondering why encouraging—and sometimes even ordering— just like they wash fresh fruits and vegetables. not; we are after all in an age of unprecedented soldiers to take Ritalin or Modafinil. In the near future, WikiCell production machines technological advancement, seemingly unlimited So why do not we see those stimulants will be available in restaurants and food factories. in its possibilities. If technology can make us look advertised on billboards promising to make little Juice and ice creams will shortly be available through younger, live longer, and offer us new organs, why geniuses out of each and every one of us? If they WikiBars, which will allow the public to sample and cannot it make us smarter? are so good, why are not we all using them? experiment with edible wrappings. The first WikiBar is Apparently it can. I just was not paying attention To name a reason, they can lead to a rebound already serving a curious hungry crowd in Paris, and to the amount of cognitive enhancing drugs that effect, in which the problem being treated many others are expected to appear this year. have emerged on the pharmaceutical market, worsen. Sleep disturbances, high blood pressure, now readily available for those of us who seek to Future food technologies still hold more and more emotional instability, visual hallucinations, become more intelligent. smart and far-fetched methods and applications to insomnia, and depression are just a few known Whether we should be using them or not is a feed our bodies and amaze our brains. In the few side effects. matter of personal opinion, that and whole bunch of decades to come, the notion of smart, high-tech, and So as much as I yearn to be a super-hero moral and health complications. environment friendly foods will become absolutely genius who undertakes challenges like there Smart pills—more precisely cognitive realistic and easily achievable. However, this will is no tomorrow, I think I have to pass on those enhancers—include a variety of controlled require various kinds of scientific and technological enhancers. For now at least, until something safer substances, presumably available only by innovations, huge financial resources, and official comes along. prescription. They consist of stimulants such as government support. Disclaimer: The information here is intended “dextroamphetamine” (sold as Dexedrine and The world’s decision makers should remember for informational purposes only; we do not, in Adderall), “methylphenidate” (Ritalin, Concerta), that the deadline for achieving the new millennium’s any way, encourage the use of performance and Modafinil (Provigil), all originally designed to goals is only two years from now, 2015, and that enhancing drugs or any other drugs without treat psychiatric and neurological disorders such only science and technology can save millions from professional medical advice. For information on as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) starving to death. any of the drugs discussed in this article, please and narcolepsy*; however, when used by otherwise seek the advice of your medical provider. Glossary healthy individuals, they can significantly boost (1) Hydroponics is a method of growing plants applying mineral Glossary nutrient solutions in water, without soil. When the required mineral cognitive functions. *Narcolepsy: is a sleep disorder that causes excessive nutrients are introduced into a plant’s water supply artificially, soil By mimicking brain neurotransmitters, sleepiness and frequent daytime sleep attacks. is no longer required for the plant to thrive. norepinephrine, and dopamine, those stimulant (2) Chitosan is a sugar that is obtained from the hard outer skeleton of shellfish, including crab, lobster, and shrimp. Spring 2013 newsletter 9 Science & Me 10 deserve. asimplemethodtoprovidethoseinneedwiththecare they applying This iswhyacompany, the“MedicMobile”,istryingtochangethisby areas withnofacilitiesnoraccesstohealthcareforemergencycases. unavailability ofdoctorsandhealthcareunits.Manypeopleliveinrural have easier access to healthcare, lowering their chances of complications. able to contact doctors, and those who have high risk pregnancies can had noaccesstohealthcare,through MedicMobiletechnology, theyare countries. Forexample,inremotevillages inNepal,wherepregnantwomen fifteen than more in services health improve to technology this applying patients aredoing;thus loweringthe risk ofarelapsegoinguntreated. nearest hospital.Itisalsoawayfordoctorstokeeptrackofhowtheir them withtheneededmedicine,ortheycouldbetransportedto suffered insilenceandpassedaway, nowahealthworkercouldreach figure out ifthesymptomsapatienthasneedshospitalizationornot. can doctors texting, through workers; health with people connect better access to health care, and improving their quality of life. They people already own, they could boost those people’s chances of having that mobiles as such tools, simple using by that, figured healthcare. They Healthcare Texting Hospital. “FrontlineSMS” tocoordinatecommunityhealthworkersatStGabriel’s in ahospitalMalawi. They startedusingafreesoftwareapplicationcalled One oftheproblemsfacingpeopleinpoorercountriesis This ideahastakenrootinmore than thirtyorganizationsthatare Hence, inaremotevillagewherepatientwouldhavepreviously Those studentswerenotdoctors,buttheywantedtoimprove Medic Mobile was an initiative started by students who had volunteered newsletter By: JailaneSalem a microfluidic chip has been built, rivaling in accuracy thegold-standard inaccuracy rivaling built, diagnostic test known as “RT-PCR” been has chip microfluidic a in ordertostartatreatmentplan.Itseemsscientistsareupthetask; swept acrosstheglobe;oneofissueswasgettingdiagnosedquickly to amediacircus. stage ontelevision,wecanonlywaitandseewhatnewepidemicwilllead center the longer no is flu) Swine (aka flu H1N1 world. Although the across though ithasbeenawhilesincetheiroutbreakscausedwavesofterror user everleaveaspecifiedzone. caregivers tomonitorshouldthe personalized trackingwebsitefor covers havingthatdatasenttoa station. The monthlytracking plan specified at data, intervals, toacentralmonitoring that sends and locationinrealtime tracks theuser’s selling GPS Shoes. The transmitter, embedded in the base of the right heel, System (GPS)trackingdevice. brand ofshoeshasbeencreatedcontainingwithinthemaGlobalPositioning are with Alzheimer’s inflicted who andwheretheyarewonderawayfromhomegetlost.Persons missing elderlyperson?Manytimesan Alzheimer sufferer wouldforget Instant FluDiagnosis TrackingGPS Shoes:Alzheimer’s Device external reader. channelthatreplicatestheDNAlower enoughtimestobe detectedbyan a middlechamberthatconvertstheRNA intoDNA,andaclimate-controlled virus, influenza A the with associated proteins signature from RNA extracts as accuratelythelab-scalemethod. The chipismadeofatopcolumn that of astandardmicroscopeslideandanalyzed twotypesofnasalspecimens solution. there arescientistsouttryingtheirbesttodiscovera tools aswell.Foreveryhealthrelatedproblempeopleface, are beingmade,notonlyinmedicine,butmedicinal leaps day, a new improvement is made in health care, and great migraines andmentaldisorders;thankstotechnology, every hole insomeone’s skullwasbelievedtohelpthemgetridof health. focused ondiscoveringmethodsinordertoimprovepeople’s the studyofherbsandtheirmedicinalqualities,whileothers aspect ofsociallife;manypeoplededicatedthemselvesto Nevertheless, many people were indeed affected by the H1N1 flu that flu H1N1 the by affected indeed were people many Nevertheless, even mind, everyone’s in fresh still are scares flu avian and swine The Shoemaker Aetrex, withthehelpofGPSdevicemakersGTX,isnow a finding in help for asking poster a seen we have times many How Researchers basicallyminiaturizedthe RT-PCR testintoachipthesize H We havecomealongwayfromthetimeswhendrilling From anearlytime,medicinehasbeenimportant care oftheirbodiesandcreatingtoolstostayhealthy. uman beingshavedevelopedgreatwaysoftaking at greatriskiftheygetlost;thatiswhyanew (1) , but is faster, cheaper, and disposable. Spring 2013 Researchers are currently working on improving the chip and reducing By making circuits that create opposing forces on each side, we can also its production cost to USD 5, as well as deliver a quick result in the span of turn the device left or right. With our relatively weak magnet, the prototype an hour. As many people who get the flu do not go to the hospital or seek moves 0.5 cm per second in a dish of saline. If it were in the bloodstream— medical help, this chip will lower the risk of them developing complications, cleaning out your arteries, for example—you would need a stronger magnet since they will know that they have the flu and therefore seek medical help. to overcome the flow of blood; but that is still a ways off. In the near term, On the other hand, if they believe they have the flu and their test turns out we imagine using the device to image the Gastro-Intestinal (GI) tract; to be negative then they do not have to go through extensive tests just to there, it would not need to travel as fast. It could reduce the cost of cancer find that out. screenings, and it would be a welcome alternative to at least one traditional method: colonoscopy.” Crab-like Robot Not only tiny robots are being developed to flow in your bloodstream, Imagine having a seafood dinner so can newly-created cameras. Usually, when one has to get their insides and getting hit by an amazing idea examined, a tube is shoved down your throat, which is quite an unpleasant that could help lives? This is what experience. Hence, a team of researchers in Japan recently successfully happened when two scientists, tested a remote-controlled, self-propelled capsule camera that can examine Lawrence Ho and Louis Phee, were the human stomach and colon. having a signature Singaporean The camera is like a fish-shaped mermaid and is 4.5 cm long, dish, chili crab, for dinner. They electromagnet-powered capsule with a fin-like tail. The camera can be observed the crab’s pincers and controlled and can take two images per second. The Japanese research admired its ability to pick up sand, which shows how precise its movement team believes the device could be used to image the entire digestive tract, can be; they thought they could apply this idea to remove early stage including the small intestine. stomach cancer. There is still a long way to go before the devices are ready for clinical use; They worked together, creating a mini-robot that mimics the shape and however, advances made so far will revolutionize the medical field, and we movement of a crab’s pincers. The robot is attached to an endoscope, with may soon be injecting, rather than implanting, devices. a small camera to provide visual feedback. It has the ability to go down a patient’s throat and remove cancerous tissue by having the pincer hold the Inspector Pill cancerous tissues, and then the hook slices them off, coagulating blood to Doctors are always telling their stop any bleeding. patients how important it is for them This idea was developed in 2004 and so far Ho and Phee have used the to follow their instructions and to robot to help remove early-stage stomach cancer in five patients in India take their medicine on time, but one and Hong Kong. With the use of the robot, the surgery that used to take a of the biggest problems is patient long time, and would leave a scar where the incision would be, now takes a compliance. They tend to forget fraction of that time. to take their medications on time, Not only that, the use of the robot lowers the risk of infection present and this is why a new pill has been in open surgery and offers patients the choice of opting for a non-invasive created to solve this problem. procedure. “Our movements are very huge and if you want to make very Instead of carrying out the traditional role of preventing or curing illness, fine movements, your hands will tremble ... but robots can execute very fine this pill monitors your insides and relays the information back to your movements without trembling,” said Gastroenterologist(2) Lawrence Ho. healthcare provider. The pills are made by Proteus Digital Health, and have It has not become commercially available yet; however, the scientific duo sand-particle-sized silicon chips with small amounts of magnesium and are hoping to make the crab-like robot available in the coming years. The copper on them. researchers said “Many things are a certain way because they have evolved After they are swallowed, they generate voltage as they make contact and adapted to certain functions ... we created something that followed the with digestive juices. That signals a patch on the person’s skin, which then human anatomy and borrowed ideas from nature and incorporated the two”. relays a message to a mobile phone given to a healthcare provider. The pills This goes to show that inspiration and solutions are all around us; all we have are still being tested, but the producing company is looking to release it on to do is pay close attention. the market soon. Injectable Devices Maneuverable Wheelchairs If you think crab-like robots are gadgets out of a science fiction novel, Many people rely on wheelchairs to move around, but available wheelchairs how about surgical devices that can be injected into the bloodstream? are usually quite limiting, and do not allow its user a full array of movement. Researchers are, in fact, coming closer to actually realizing this idea. To remedy this situation, Japanese researchers led by Masaharu Komori, Some implantable devices, such as pacemakers, have been around now Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Kyoto University, recently for quite some time; however, devices are now becoming much smaller that demoed the Personal Mobility Vehicle, as a prototype for next-generation they can pass through our bodies and be able to deliver drugs and perform wheelchair. diagnostics. The Permoveh (its shorter name) The major problem that researchers faced was the size of the battery, has four wheels instead of just the because they were not small enough to enter and travel through the usual two; what makes it special is bloodstream. Researchers in Stanford Integrated Biomedical Systems have its ability to move not just forward been working on creating a battery-less device that is powered wirelessly via and backwards but also sideways electromagnetic radio waves that are received from outside the body through and diagonally. The vehicle can a tiny antenna on the device. move in any direction when the user One of the researchers on the project said: “We operate the device near operates a hand-held control. a magnet—we imagine the patient lying on a magnetic table—and use radio Each wheel has rollers in them; waves to tell the prototype how to use its electrodes. The electrodes send when the wheelchair moves forward electrical current through the surrounding fluid, creating a net force that moves only the wheels move, but when the device. With an upward magnetic field, a counterclockwise electrical current it moves sideways the rollers only pushes the device forward, and a clockwise current pushes it backward. move; and when moving diagonally,

Spring 2013 newsletter 11 By: Ahmed Ghoneim both wheels and rollers move. The wheelchair is designed to allow users to navigate through tighter spaces more easily. Almost everybody knows that Alfred Nobel, creator of the Nobel The wheelchair is still in its testing phase, but the team working on it Prize, the most prestigious award worldwide in both sciences and wants to make it available in three to five years after they make it lighter, humanities, initiated the prominent award out of guilt over inventing more compact and more cost effective. This wheelchair will allow people with dynamite. Less people might know that Albert Einstein was quoted special needs more freedom in movement. saying “I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter While great wheelchairs are being developed, not everyone who uses to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; them can use their hands to operate them, because some suffer from high- but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would level spinal-cord injuries and therefore rely on a sip-and-puff technology make them”. to operate the wheelchair. This technology requires the user to sip or puff The universal fact is that, ever since the American Civil War, precise amounts of air pressure into a straw, to make the wheelchair move. technology has played a huge role in warfare. Many ideas that were A new gadget is being developed to allow users an easier approach thought up with no particular intention or for peaceful reasons have in operating the wheelchair. A prototype dental retainer developed at the been used to kill people. However, the opposite is also true; the Georgia Institute of Technology was developed in order to allow users to use concept “Swords to Ploughshares” describes converting what was their tongue to maneuver the wheelchair. once harmful, deadly war technology to peaceful civilian technology. The Tongue Drive System is built as a small retainer that fits along the roof of the mouth, and uses sensors to track the movement of a tiny magnet Instant Intelligence on the user’s tongue, thereby allowing the user to issue commands by Before the invention of the telegraph, most long-distance communication pointing his/her tongue in different directions. The magnetic field sensors are techniques were visual, open-air signals subject to visibility limitations and mounted onto the four corners of the retainer, which contains the circuitry, a weather conditions. lithium ion battery and induction coil to charge the battery, and a moisture- Early into electricity research, it was observed that it travelled very fast. resistant cover. In 1746, Jean-Antoine Nollet, a French physicist, gathered about 200 monks To move the wheelchair the device transmits output signals wirelessly in a circle, asked them to hold an iron wire that connected them all, and then from the sensors to an iPhone for example, which has the software that plugged it in a battery. He noticed that all the men reacted at almost the same interprets the tongue commands. The prototype is still being tested on a time, which peculiarly proved to him that electric current flows fast. limited number of users but the researchers hope to move to larger clinical Using this knowledge, an anonymous writer, with initials C.M., wrote a trials soon. letter to Scots Magazine in 1753 suggesting the use of electricity to transmit With new and creative healthcare solutions being developed all the time, messages. His idea was to have a wire for each character to be sent, sending and with devices being tailored to help facilitate lives, providing easier and a signal through them in the desired order. healthier solutions for a wide diversity of medical issues, the future looks At the time, the only form of electricity was static, and the connected promising. wires would be tested by a small metal ball―known as a pith ball in labs― Just the thought of how ideas for such innovative and groundbreaking that deflected as a result of the static electricity. This system and similar solutions are conceived; whether it be shoes that help track Alzheimer’s ones were tested a lot, but were very impractical; it would be a tedious job patients, or dinner-inspired surgical tools; assures us that we would never to employ at least 35 wires at the same time―26 wires for the letters of the run short of ideas to improve and innovate technology that will better the alphabet and 9 more digits. future of humanity. It took a tragedy and a man with the right kind of company to reach the modern telegraph as we know it. While working as a painter in Washington, Samuel Morse Glossary received a letter that told him his wife was dying. By the time the letter had gotten (1) RT-PCR: Reverse Transcription (Real-Time) Polymerase Chain Reaction is a test to him, and the time it took him to return home, she had already been buried. that can identify the presence of influenza viral RNA in respiratory specimens. Devastated by this, and inspired after having met a friend who taught him about (2) Gastroenterologist: A physician specialized in the treatment of the digestive electromagnetism, he came up with the system diseases. idea of a single-wire telegraph. References The idea was to send all signals news.cnet.com through that wire, with the problem www.popsci.com medicmobile.org being how to distinguish each signal www.reuters.com as a certain character. The answer biosystems.stanford.edu/ www.navistargpsshoe.com/ was to send combinations of long and short signals, now known as dots and dashes, where each character would be interpreted as a different combination. This was called the Morse Code.

12 newsletter Spring 2013 Industrial War The Story Behind the Science The Lasting for four years (1861-1865), the American Civil War between North and South was won by the North, largely owing to the technological advancements of the North forces. Two years into the war, their industrial society was in possession of the largest telegraph network in the country, 35,000 km of railroads―as opposed to only 14,000 km in the South―as well as repeating rifles. Those rifles were a major technological advancement in weapons in that, for the first time, they could fire more than one bullet before needing a reload. The Northern forces even used hot air balloons for reconnaissance, creating the Union Army Balloon Corps, who used hydrogen gas generators to fill up the balloons. World War II was the deadliest conflict in the history of mankind. It involved nearly every country in the world. In a frantic desire to win the War, every party invested lots of effort in technological research; scientists and Uranium, the Uranium-235, the atom will split into two atoms and fire even engineers made some of the most important discoveries and inventions more neutrons. The combined mass of the resultant particles will be less during the time of the War. than the original mass of the uranium atom; the mass difference is released Not having many ethical boundaries, doctors in Nazi Germany conducted as energy. cruel experiments on their prisoners; one of these was the freezing Since c2 is a very large number, in the magnitude of 1016 m/s, a very small experiment. Placing the test subject in freezing water until their body amount of mass can produce an enormous amount of energy. What is even temperatures dropped severely, Nazi doctors would perform measurements more interesting is that the extra neutrons fired by the split atom can hit more on various parts of the body and vital signs. This resulted in many deaths, neighboring atoms, causing a chain reaction that goes on. This was the idea their findings were startlingly insightful on the state of humans in hypothermia of the nuclear bomb. and how to revive them efficiently. In fear that Germany was beginning to develop one itself, Einstein On the other hand, jet aircrafts were a marvel in that they were much and Szilard, both refugees of the War, pushed then American President faster than older aircrafts at higher altitudes. Initially conceived by Frenchman Roosevelt to authorize the creation of this bomb. It turned out in the end that Maxime Guillame, the jet engine was mainly a gas turbine―a kind of internal Germany was nowhere near to completing one. What started as a precaution combustion engine that produces high-pressure exhaust―built to propel a that turned out to be unnecessary was used later on to destroy two Japanese plane forward with its exhaust. cities full of civilians. Although the French did not initially pursue the concept further, two men, In his speech “Atoms for Peace”, American President Dwight D. Eisenhower British Frank Whittle and German Hans von Ohain, coincidentally created stated that nuclear power should be used for peaceful purposes. At the same similar designs for a jet plane. Germany was faster to produce von Ohain’s time, he was commissioning the increase of nuclear weapon production by design in 1939, then Britain followed in the early 1940s. By the end of the the United States to overpower the Soviet Union. Even though his peaceful War, they were both using jet fighters. intentions are debatable, he initiated the declassification of nuclear reactor Without jet engines, the planes we fly in today would not exist. The jet technology. engine is also used as a rocket engine, where it is applied to spaceflight, The most useful byproduct of a controlled fission chain reaction―one that satellite launching, and military missiles. More unusual uses for the jet will not explode―is heat; it can then be used in the same manner as burning engine are in ultra-high-speed cars, and as a tool to remove ice from roads fuel to generate electricity. Nuclear power is a clean alternative to fossil fuels; and railroads owing to the high-pressure and temperature of jet exhaust. it does not pollute the air nor contribute to global warming. Nowadays, about Nuclear War 11% of the world’s electricity is nuclear-powered. France―a country that By the start of the 20th century, physics was developing rapidly. famously has no coal, oil or gas―relies on nuclear plants for 80% of its Albert Einstein, a pacifist, published a paper in 1905 that theorized the electricity. following. If a body gives off energy, its mass will decrease proportionally to Even though the initial costs of a nuclear plant are high, the running that energy. The constant of proportionality is the inverse of the speed of light costs are much lower and a lot of the nuclear material used as fuel can squared. This came to be famously known as E=mc2, or the energy-mass be reprocessed and used again. Dealing with radioactive material and their equivalence formula. Later on, the nucleus, the central part of the atom, was waste is very risky, though. If improperly disposed of they could lead to a discovered. multitude of health issues in contaminated areas. There have been three Leo Szilard, Hungarian physicist, theorized the fission chain reaction major nuclear plant disasters to date, the latest of which occurred at the in 1934. He imagined that if a neutron was fired at an atom of a type of Fukushima plant in Japan, 2011.

Spring 2013 newsletter 13 Digital War One would think that something as important and beneficial as the computer must have been in the minds of people for years and been developed with the desire to benefit humanity. The harsh truth is that computers were developed for war purposes. The Colossus, the first digital computer, was a code-cracking machine. It was used in World War II to decipher German messages that were so cleverly ciphered. It only ran the code-cracking program though, and was not reprogrammable. Another project, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), was developed by the US Army also during the War with the purpose of calculating missile trajectories. This was the first fully programmable computer that is theoretically capable of doing anything a computer can do today, albeit much, much slower. The ENIAC is a milestone in computer history. It occupied a full room, even though today it was replicated on a chip of 40mm2 area. It should be noted, however, that a fully-functional computer, the Z3, was developed by the Nazis before the Colossus or the ENIAC, but was not a fully digital computer. Previously, short for Radio Detection and Ranging, a radar is an invention that can detect objects’ speed and position when it is not feasible or possible typical virus and hacking attacks we hear of everyday, the Internet has been to see them. Developed separately and secretly by about a dozen nations used as a weapon between conflicting nations. before, during and after World War II, the radar had numerous wartime One of the most dangerous attacks used in cyberspace is the Distributed applications. The more frequent uses of the radar, however, are peaceful. Denial of Service Attack (DDoS). A hacker uses multiple computers— Aside from being still used in the military, nowadays, radars have sometimes by taking control of them through a virus—to flood a target on applications in civilian air flight, where they could guide an airplane through the Internet with connection requests. This target becomes overwhelmed by fog and storms to a safe landing, in marine and in road transport. It is also the flood of requests from multiple sources that it is crippled. If it is running a an essential tool in weather forecasting. The microwave is also a direct website or some other kind of service, it will fail to provide it. descendant of the radar. In 2007, Russia got into a dispute with Estonia, a previous ally. Estonian Star Wars Government workers relocated a statue of a World War II Soviet soldier, Following World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were the which upset Russia. In response, a Russian hacker orchestrated a massive world’s two superpowers. With a desire to supersede one another without DDoS attack on Estonia’s Internet. Being a country that recognizes Internet resorting to yet another world war, they competed on all fronts except for access as a basic human right and heavily relies on it, it was deeply affected. direct combat, in what came to be known as the Cold War. The result of the The United States and Iran, on the other hand, are most probably technological competition was a multitude of the inventions we use today. involved in a fierce cyber battle that is predicted to evolve into the world’s first The space race started when the Soviet Union launched the first artificial cyber war. After Iran discovered a virus called Stuxnet that spread heavily satellite, Sputnik, into the Earth’s orbit. This led to a panic in the United States; throughout the country, and after it was realized that this virus was designed in response, its Government started the Advanced Research Projects Agency in a very specific manner as to attack the type of computers that exist in (ARPA). Lots of launches from both sides followed, with the first milestone Iran’s nuclear facility yet be inert on other computers, it has—speculatively— being the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet citizen. The final been strongly striking back. Analysts and experts agree, but cannot prove, achievement, which ended the race in favor of the United States, was the that Israel and the US are behind Stuxnet; on the other hand, a rise in strong Apollo 11 mission, when the first human landed on the Moon. DDoS attacks against United States services is being attributed to Iran. Satellites, a direct result of the space race, are an essential part of our modern life; they provide crucial data about the bodies they orbit. War is just a part of life; not a favorable part, but it is there, and it probably Earth-orbiting satellites provide weather information and are used in will never cease to be. Instead of feeling sorry for humanity and its nature, communications, television and navigation. we should try to get the best out of it. Is it not a good kind of irony that the The GPS (Global Positioning System) was also a product of the Cold War as outcome of most recent wars was peace treaties, newfound democracies and a direct result of the United States fearing a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. technological achievement that has taken mankind to its most developed state? They employed satellites, which, using a concept from Einstein’s relativity theory, would help any carrier of a GPS receiver to know their location. The main goal was a military goal, but in the end the US Government opened it References up for civilian use, worldwide. Today GPS is used by people everywhere in www.shmoop.com www.history.com land, air and sea navigation. spreadtoothin.wordpress.com www.sparkmuseum.com Cyber War www.oxfordreference.com In the 1960s, researchers at ARPA were interested to network all of the people.seas.harvard.edu www.valas.fr computers in their research facilities across the United States. They wanted www.thaitechnics.com faster collaboration and sharing of results; they created ARPANET, which www.telovation.com www.dannen.com initially connected four universities across California and Utah. www.anl.gov The network kept expanding, one step at a time; by 1970 it had reached www.pbs.org the US East Coast; and in 1973, it was connected to a Norwegian computer. www.neimagazine.com www.britannica.com Other networks began to spring everywhere, and slowly merged into what is www.upenn.edu now the Internet. sixrevisions.com www.dtic.mil The Internet is probably the most important invention of the Digital Age. It www.trimble.com has changed the way people live quickly and drastically; but everything has computer.howstuffworks.com a downside. The problem with being too connected to everything is that you blogs.techworld.com are exposed to both the good computers and the bad ones. Aside from the

14 newsletter Spring 2013 Projects Agency). Commissioned by DARPA as part of an ongoing project to achieve the smallest-size reconnaissance drone, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have done something that is worthy of a fantastical spy novel. In 2009, they successfully remotely controlled a flying beetle electronically, using a very small battery-powered radio microcontroller. The device, equipped with neural and muscular stimulators, was signaled to order the beetle to go up and down by stimulating the part in its brain that controls wing oscillation. This was through the neural stimulators, and the brain did the rest. To make the Science in Our Life By: Ahmed Ghoneim beetle turn, though, they directly controlled the muscles that moved the beetle left and right through the muscular stimulators. Imagine getting arrested for hacking, even if it was not came with a non-genuine copy of As if the beetle was not small you who did the hacking, but your computer! If you were the Windows operating system enough, DARPA came up with an writing an article that exposes your local government or a bad installed on them. In some cases, even smaller solution. In 2012, employer, are you sure they would not be able to tell every the copies had a Trojan called Nitol they were able to control a moth; key you press? Would you feel safe if your mobile phone’s injected into them. Aside from the this time, they were able to actually camera flash suddenly went off behind your back? What other threats of a Trojan, Nitol could mimic the nerves inside the moths would your reaction be if a housefly suddenly started to act also spy on users’ webcams without by inserting probes coated with too suspicious? them knowing! carbon nanotubes and gold, which A Spy with You Everywhere matched the moth nerves’ electrical Now you must think you have properties. Spying through Walls eavesdropped on. Using a computer heard the worst; you would be The implications of such In 1985, Dutch computer program and a 1-meter-cable acting surprised by the vulnerability of developments are pretty obvious: researcher, Wim Van Eck, as an antenna, they were able to the new kid on the block: the easier spying. What would the next published a paper that detailed record every single key pressed on Smartphone. Every Smartphone step be? Micro-cameras attached how easy electronic devices can a distant keyboard. out there also has a camera; to the insects, perhaps? Scientists be eavesdropped on, even non- Spying in Cyberspace opportunists have not overlooked working on the moth were even reported as asking neurobiologists for communication devices. With the exploding popularity that fact. The fact is that wherever US military experts have advice on trying this out on humans. of the Internet since the mid- As it turns out, our increasingly electricity flows, electromagnetic 1990s, computer hacking became developed an application called radiation mimicking the electric Plaice Raider that quietly spies on high-tech lives have the potential commonplace. A well-known type to be not so private. Spy movies signals is emitted. This radiation of program, the Trojan, was named your phone. The unwitting phone is not intentional, and can be owner could be providing the app we grew up watching and loving, after the famous Greek Trojan horse yet convinced ourselves were only emanated as a by-product of a legend. It can spy on your computer creator with photos so clear that they computer screen showing images or reveal full bank account numbers, fiction, are getting closer and closer through the Internet, meaning it to reality. Modern technology has a USB cable transferring data. With can send what it finds out back to and can be used to construct a 3D the right equipment, any unshielded model of the room the phone is in. successfully blurred the divide a hacker who may be anywhere between science fiction and real life. device can be eavesdropped on. around the world. It can track key The app was designed to be If you are reading this article on smart enough to even discard The only thing we can do now is get presses and viewed pages, and ready to be amazed. your computer in a closed room, even steal or damage files on your pictures it takes that are too blurry someone sitting outside your house computer; it can take complete or dark to be useful. Now the References may be able to read it with you too! upe.acm.jhu.edu control of your computer and use US Military have said that their lasecwww.epfl.ch Van Eck’s shocking paper led it to hack more computers, driving purpose of making this program blogs.technet.com to the birth of radiation intelligence, was demonstrating it as a proof of www.networkworld.com attention away from the original www.forbes.com which uses these emanations to hacker. concept, is it? www.frontiersin.org the advantage of spies. Since most The fact that a Trojan can do Spy Fly www.popsci.com intelligence agencies do not reveal www.techhive.com all this to a computer is very scary. Most of us hate flying insects; www.dailymail.co.uk their secrets, though, we can never Luckily enough, security software with the exception of butterflies, they be sure whether or not this is really can detect and remove a lot of these are disgusting and keep coming happening. threats. What if the Trojan was back. After reading this, you may add Recently, it was revealed by the already on your computer when you fear to your feelings towards them. security and cryptography lab in a bought it, before you even install Our story, much like most Swiss technology institute that all an antivirus? That is what Microsoft stories of strange, yet wondrous types of keyboards—be they wired employees have discovered in some technologies starts at DARPA or wireless—can be very easily laptops sold in China. Those laptops (Defense Advanced Research

Spring 2013 newsletter 15 Science in Our Life 16 prevalent aselectricity. they will be as universal and More better. importantly, theyseemasiftogether the political―to and life― of way private, social,cultural,economic our of aspect every most parthastransformedalmost and simultaneously, whichforthe ofpeopleinstantaneously billions content andadvertisingcanreach medium, and its related technologies, Through this groundbreaking everything, others fear its curse. Internet asanultimatesolutionto each new technological advance breakthroughs. made useofearliertechnological people initially reacted to and then thus beenlighteningtoreviewhow world infundamentalways.Itcould advances thathavechangedthe series of life-altering technological that theInternetislatestina radio and/ortelevision. telegraph, books,newspapers, exclusively bythetelephone, and servicesformerlyprovided handedly combinesfeatures of communication that single- and communityties. further weakeningofneighborhood in depressionandisolation, friends, whichcanultimatelyresult which during they areawayfromtheirfamilyand hours “surfing”; day among userswhospendhourseach criticized of causing addiction Although somewelcomethe T In doingso,we realizethat The truthofthematteris Nevertheless, ithasbeen interactive massmedium he Internetisaunique newsletter nations oftheEarth”. the exchange ofthoughtbetweenall instrument has been created for the should longerexist,whilesuchan old prejudices and hostilities editorial, “Itisimpossiblethat peace. According toone newspaper and thatthiswouldcreateworld wouldbewiredtogether globe proclaimed thatsoontheentire met withincrediblefanfare.Books “the eventofthecentury”andwas transatlantic cable was hailed as America, in1858,throughthe numbering in the thousands operators, an“online” community Internet userswerethetelegraph profound effect onlifeinthe19 Internet aswell. expressed, inourtime,aboutthe raptures andfearshaveoftenbeen an “instrument of subversion”. Similar for example,bannedthetelegraphas citizens. Tsar NicholasIofRussia, communication between individual feared thepotentialofsuchimmediate instead of weeks or months. instead ofweeksormonths. parts oftheworldwithinhoursordays people could learn of events in distant be sentandreceivedinjustminutes, message from London to New York could Thanks to Samuel Morse’s telegraph, a weaken communityties. with concernsaboutitspotentialto Internet―was met at the beginning television, andmostrecentlythe telegraph, radio,motionpictures, telephone, years―the 200 past in communicationsoverthe The connection of Europe and To beginwith,thetelegraphhada The closestparalleltotoday’s On theotherhand,governments th century. of reachingmanypeople to-ship communication. such as for ship-to-shore and ship- valuable where wires could not go, connections, and was especially the restrictionofhard-wired hand, freed communication from friends?” home lifeandthepracticeofvisiting as “Doesthetelephonebreakup of the time featured articles such and isolate people. Magazines harm thefamily, hurtrelationships, to beraisedthatthetelephonewould Nevertheless, concerns continued effect ofstrengtheninglocal ties. person, andthishadtheoverall away tobevisitedeasilyin especially thosewholivedfar friends, and business associates, regular contactbetweenfamily, trained operatorsworkingincode. could use, not only a handful of communication deviceanyone the telegraph into a point-to-point multichannel telegraph,transformed in the1880swhileworkingona accidentally by Alexander Bell romances andevenmarriages. relationships blossomedinto face toface.Manyoftheseworking over thewires,butwhorarelymet communicating witheachother who spenttheirworkinglives dissemination likeneverbefore. distance asafactorinnews living roomandsoeliminated brought the world into everyone’s and revolution”. “fearing thatitwouldinspireviolence officials customs soon ashecrossedtheborder, British, smashed his prototype radio as the to to demonstratehisnewinvention Marconi gotoff theshipinEngland governments ofthetime.When was afrighteningprospectfor However, itsbroadcastcapability The radio, on the other The effect was to increase Later, thetelephone,invented Eventually, however, radio By: SallyGad at once conducted face-to-face but in the Communication (CMC)isnot participation. relationship development and group to haveimportantconsequencesfor rooms ornewsgroups. This turnsout especially whenparticipatinginchat anonymous ontheInternet, research ontheInternet. and human-computerinteraction the focusofmostpsychological two of these differences have been communication mediaandsettings; from previouslyavailable Internet has other critical differences needs andpurposes.However, the current malleable” totheuser’s user makesit“unprecedentedly Internet canservefortheindividual fabulous globallibraryaswell. medium; moreover, it can serve as a television, it can operate as a mass communication; likeradioand be usedforperson-to-person telegraph and telephone, it can communication medium.Likethe ofthese breakthrough features in a single many in history, time first spent withfamilyandfriends. use mightdisplacetimeformerly contemporary worriesthatInternet television has been the basis for the 1950s. This negativeeffect of the introduction of television in in communityinvolvementsince documented thedramaticdecrease the theaterorsocialclub. entertainment insteadofgoingto stay athomefortheirevening individuals and families could impact on community life, because actual, asopposedtofeared, alike. leaders dictators and democratically elected a powerful propaganda tool for Indeed, it did soon prove to be oilgs Robert Putnam Sociologist Second, Computer-Mediated First, itispossibletoberelatively The variety of functions that the The Internetcombines,forthe The televisionhadthegreatest Spring 2013 absence of nonverbal features

of communication such as tone Science in Our Life of voice, facial expressions, and influential interpersonal features such as physical attractiveness, skin color, gender, and so on. The absence of these features affects By: Shahenda Ayman the process and outcome of social interactions. The Internet does not make its users depressed or lonely, and it does not seem to be a threat to community life; quite the opposite, in fact. If anything, the Internet, mainly through e-mail, has facilitated communication and thus close In this age of cutting-edge would begin selling a wireless security ties between family and friends, communication technology, who does system called Digital Life that will especially those too far away to visit not aspire to own a Smartphone? allow people to use tablets or phones in person on a regular basis. population. A step in this direction Our society was introduced to the to monitor and control locks, alarms, The Internet can be fertile called for the technology to monitor Smartphone several years ago; security cameras, lights, thermostats, territory for the information of new the content of Internet traffic to however, over the last couple of and even coffee pots in their homes relationships as well, especially be built into the Internet’s very years, it has become “indispensable”, through a mobile application. those based on shared values infrastructure. in many cases rather “addictive”, Other products, by several and interests, as opposed to In conclusion, people are not to a large portion of the population, other companies, take advantage attractiveness and physical passively affected by technology, including myself. of a Smartphone’s sensors and appearance as is the norm in the but actively shape its use and The Smartphone makes life much connection to the Internet to monitor off-line world. In any event, when influence. The Internet has unique, easier indeed. One no longer has to consumer health. iHealth is a device these Internet-formed relationships even transformational qualities as a sit in front of the computer for hours to that enables people to track their get close enough, people tend to communication channel, including follow up on one’s work, check one’s blood pressure with an application. bring them into their “real world”; relative anonymity and the ability emails and answer them, perform At the Electronics Show, a wireless that is, the traditional face-to-face to easily link with others who have financial transactions, learn the latest glucose meter was introduced, the and telephone interaction sphere. similar interests, values, and beliefs. news, read a book, watch videos, or Smart Glucometer, which allows This means nearly all of the typical Research has found that the relative even play. Now, it is all in our pocket. diabetics to check their blood sugar person’s close friends will be in anonymity aspect encourages As a matter of fact, Smartphones levels. A user puts a blood sample on touch with them in “real life” on self-expression, and the relative can now act as a remote control for a test strip, pops it into an accessory the phone or in person, and not so absence of physical and nonverbal almost every aspect of our lives. To attached to a Smartphone, and an much over the Internet, which is interaction cues facilitates the name a few examples, soon we will application gives a reading of the misleading to the media stereotype information of relationships on no longer have to go to doctors to blood sugar level. of the Internet as drawing people deeper bases. monitor our health, or hire guards to Not Smart Enough? away from their “real life” friends. At the same time, however, protect our homes, among several With high-speed computing and these “limited bandwidth” features Despite all these positive and more applications under development amazing new features and options encryption technology, the Internet of Internet communication also that can make life even much easier. already plays a significant role in tend to leave a lot unsaid and that Smartphones provide us, with the At the International Consumer rapid increase in Smartphone users, crime and terrorism by enabling unspecified, and open to inference Electronics Show*, dozens of private communication across any and interpretation. Not surprisingly, Smartphone addiction is becoming a companies showed off home new worrisome problem. Noticing the distance without being detected. To then, one’s own desires and goals accessories that work with that end, we quite rightly have been regarding the people with whom rapidly increasing number of people Smartphones; many also displayed walking in the streets, sometimes warned that repressive regimes one interacts have been found to wearable devices that can help may harness the Internet and all make a dramatic difference in the even those driving, with their heads people monitor their health through downwards, Smartphone in hand, of the databanks that connect to assumptions and attributions one their phones. Some of these products it to increase their power over the makes within that informational void. and feeling my own inclination to do are provided by large companies, so myself, I decided to write about this such as AT&T, that said in March it bewildering aspect of technology. Spring 2013 newsletter 17 These “addicts”, including myself, glance up occasionally to make sure Warning from By: Shahenda Ayman that they are not going to crash into someone or something, then they return to their phones to continue surfing, texting, chatting with friends, tweeting, or posting on Facebook as they walk. Attached to my Smartphone, frequently and involuntarily checking it, despite I have not been a fan of animation their food through a straw as being part of this scene, it is an alarming movies simply because I am not automation has cancelled their one, simply because it can very easily really into science fiction, fairy tales, need to walk or even reach across lead to dangerous accidents as a result or mythical legends; it was my editor a table for food. of lack of concentration. who advised me to watch “WALL-E”, Back on Earth, the lonely Moreover, although Smartphones assuring me I would be inspired, robot WALL-E spends his time satisfy social communication needs betting me I would change my mind. collecting trash, compressing it to an extent, if you watch a group of At the beginning of the 2008 into cubes and building towers people hanging out together, you will computer-animated romantic science using them. He collects things he notice that there is complete lack of fiction movie, I had the feeling I finds interesting from the trash face-to-face communication; each one would not like it at all because most and keeps them in his home. is looking downwards at their phones, of the first half of the movie is sort One day, EVE—Extraterrestrial not at their company, some of them of a silent movie. After a while, Vegetation Evaluator—a much even chatting or commenting online however, I found myself engrossed more advanced robot arrives with someone sitting right next to them! in an unusual love story embedded on Earth to detect any sign of Nowadays, you can speak Even our family ties are affected. with so many significant messages, life on Earth, which would signal to your car and ask it to park by Family members can be sitting together bringing tears to my eyes. the possibility for the Axiom itself. There are smart televisions in the living room or around a table A cautionary tale that takes passengers to return back. that interact with you and turn off having dinner, and the children would place several hundred years in the Finding company at long last, when you fall asleep. All these have their Smartphones in hand future, “WALL-E” reflects how, if WALL-E “falls in love” with EVE, who technologies seem fabulous, but communicating with their friends, misused, technology can ruin our finds a seedling in WALL-E’s home, if you think for a while you will find playing games, or simply browsing. life instead of improving it. The at which point she completely that they make people dependent When Moms and Dads try to talk to movie features a robot, WALL-E— pauses until she is brought back on them, becoming lazy even to do them, all the answers they get are Waste Allocation Load Lifter- to Axiom. Lovesick and stricken, the smallest things like turning off “Umm”, “Yes”, or “No”; they often do not Earth—created by “Buy-N-Large WALL-E follows her to the the television. listen to what their parents say. Corporation”, which has transferred spaceship. There is no doubt that technology Libraries and bookshops are all human beings from Earth to a Although WALL-E’s only aim takes us to a new phase of life; also losing their visitors because of spaceship called Axiom, leaving on Axiom is to find his beloved however, relying too much on Smartphones, which have built-in WALL-E alone to clean the waste EVE, in his quest to find her, he technology may cause drastic dictionaries and instant access to the and garbage humans left behind. meets various robots, each with consequences to our life and our Internet to search for any meaning, in On the spaceship Axiom, a large their own specific job, all related planet. Technology offers comfort to any language. Books and newspapers army of robots serve the people who to cleaning up. It is apparent that human beings, but that comfort is not are also accessed and downloaded have turned into extremely fat, lazy, human consumption is what has always something good as they might through these phones so there is no and useless creatures. All they do trashed Earth, and is now polluting someday become Axiom habitants! is sit on their hover-chairs, drinking outer space as well. need to go to the library or to a bookstore References to read a book. People are thus losing Despite being tiny and www.independent.co.uk relegated to the dirtiest of the www.guardian.co.uk interest in anything made of paper, and movies.nytimes.com are replacing it with Smartphones and Nevertheless, despite their dirty jobs, WALL-E begins to show www.cinemablend.com tablets. somehow negative impact on our Axiom habitants how to regain In addition to all this, Smartphones life, we cannot deny the fact that what they have lost through sloth are affecting our health. Smartphone these devices bring the world to our and over reliance on technology. users are prone to complaining of fingertips; they are highly beneficial The movie reflects the pain in the arms, shoulders and neck, and time-saving, if they are used for downside of technology. From leading to stiff muscles, which are not the purposes they were intended to. calculators to computers; always ready for this excessive type of Start with yourself: do not be addicted and now laptops, tablets, and work. Moreover, staring at your phone at to it; use your Smartphone smartly. Smartphones, technology can a short distance for a long period of time be a motivator for laziness and may lead to eyestrain and headache. isolation. People spend hours Rather than being a sign of with high-tech equipment rather development, Smartphones are proving Glossary than with other people; they use that we might not be ready yet for this *International Consumer Electronics machines rather than their bodies kind of technology. Although they are Show is a show that began in New and brains to move from one place designed to make our life easier, the York in 1967, and is now put on every to another, to find information, and way we handle these devices can January in Las Vegas by the Consumer even to think. potentially ruin our personal and social Electronics Association. Even children stay home and lives. Too much time is consumed doing References spend a lot of time playing video www.nytimes.com games rather than having a normal nothing other than staring at the phone www.squidoo.com rather than doing something useful, or childhood, spending time playing even having a normal conversation with in parks, coloring, or playing board friends and family. games that stimulate their mental abilities and skills.

18 newsletter Spring 2013 or years, Jurassic Park was just a science fiction Fadventure film based on a novel of the same name. The film featured a park populated with dinosaurs cloned from DNA extracted from insects preserved in prehistoric amber. Now, with the advances in DNA technology, can Jurassic Park become a reality?

By: Lamia Ghoneim Fact or Fiction Fact

Scientists claim that the dream of resurrecting well, but it failed for a mouse that had been frozen However, it seems that this challenge could extinct animals, the likes of the woolly mammoth, for 16 years. The researchers needed to adjust soon be overcome, as recent expeditions in may very likely come true in a few years. Even the protocol once more to be able to successfully Siberian permafrost have uncovered well- though these giant beasts have been extinct for clone mice frozen for extended periods of time. preserved remains of several woolly mammoths, millennia, dozens of their carcasses, preserved Instead of transferring each embryo into a including fur, and bone marrow, with high chances in the frozen Arctic wilderness, have been found mouse’s oviduct, the researchers extracted the of containing the cells needed for the cloning in an extremely good condition. Scientists have inner cell mass from each embryo and generated procedure to be successful. used these remains to discover much about how lines of embryonic stem cells*. The researchers Since the elephant is the closest modern these animals lived and died; they also discovered created 46 such lines, from which they were able relative of the mammoth, the scientists plan to the sequence of their genome. Can they also use to produce 13 mouse pups. Embryonic stem cells replace the nuclei of elephant egg cells with these remains to bring the beast back to life? Will are pluripotent—capable of becoming many other those of a mammoth, producing embryos with the woolly mammoth walk the Earth again? types of cells. The scientists then transferred mammoth DNA. Those embryos will then be the nuclei from these cells into mouse eggs to planted into the wombs of elephants, hoping that Cloning a Frozen Mouse produce the healthy mouse pups. they will eventually give birth to baby mammoths. According to the scientists, finding the right While cloning a mammoth from cells that Even as the scientists admit that the scale samples is the only hurdle, since the technology have been frozen for thousands of years would of the mammoth cloning project is elephantine to extract and clone the nucleus of a cell from a definitely be more difficult than cells which have and the risks yet unknown, they are convinced frozen animal already exists, thanks to a Japanese been frozen for just 16 years, this experiment has that soon, if all goes according to plan, a live mouse cloning experiment back in 2008. proven that it is achievable; we just have to wait mammoth will once again roam the Earth. Using cells from dead mice frozen for 16 years, a for the right sample. team of geneticists in Japan managed to successfully The fact that something is achievable does not create healthy clones of the dead animals. Before Cloning a Woolly Mammoth always mean that we should attempt to achieve then, scientists were not able to clone using cells Tens of thousands of years ago, back when it since the risks of cloning a mammoth or any from a frozen animal because there are no living cells the world was being overrun by glaciers during other extinct animal may outweigh its benefits. available in frozen animals, as ice crystals puncture the last ice age known to mankind; woolly Aside from the controversy of performing a the dead cells and they are no longer intact. mammoths roamed the Earth freely, walking their procedure that may be considered as tampering Since previous cloning methods relied on way through the tundra’s of Asia, Europe, and with Mother Nature, there is the question of the fusion between a cell from the donor and the egg North America. With their huge elephant-like body, possibility of contamination of the frozen remains cell into which the genetic material was inserted, their thick coat of dark dense fur, and their long of such extinct species, which could expose us to the cell membranes needed to be intact and the curved tusks, these ice age mammals must have infectious diseases not known. cells needed to be alive. The Japanese scientists, been a daunting sight to humans who hunted On the other hand, it is only fair to point out that on the other hand, managed to devise a cloning them regularly for their meat and bones. method that does not require intact or live cells Armed with new reproductive biology and the production of a successful mammoth clone could from the animal being cloned. genome engineering technologies, a group of open the door to recreating other extinct animals, Instead of fusing two cells, they took nuclei scientists from Japan, Russia, and South Korea and more importantly saving other endangered out of the frozen cells from the mouse’s brain announced their plans to clone a woolly mammoth species from dying out, thus maintaining Earth’s and injected them directly into an enucleated from its frozen cells. biodiversity and ecological balance. egg—an egg with the nucleus removed. The Unlike dinosaurs, which disappeared around Glossary researchers found that a frozen brain has more 65 million years ago, and whose remains exist *Embryonic stem cells: are stem cells derived from the intact nuclei than other frozen tissues, since it only as fossils, mammoth remains may still retain undifferentiated inner mass cells of a human embryo. Embryonic contains large quantities of glucose known to usable tissue samples. Nevertheless, finding stem cells are pluripotent, meaning they can develop into each of the more than 200 cell types of the adult body as long as they decrease the damaging effects of freezing on well-preserved tissue with an undamaged gene are specified to do so. the cells. has proven to be a real challenge, which is why References Injecting a nucleus from a recently frozen attempts to clone the mammoth have frequently blogs.discovermagazine.com genetics.thetech.org mouse into an enucleated mouse egg worked very failed in the past. www.reuters.com news.nationalgeographic.com newsfeed.time.com www.pnas.org/content

Spring 2013 19 By: Lamia Ghoneim The Inception of “Robota” Ever since the Czech writer Karel Èapek first coined the term “robot” in his play “Rossum’s Universal Robots” in 1921, there has been an expectation that robots would someday relieve us from the labor of hard work. The word, from the Czech “robota” meaning hard labor and servitude, described human-like machines made to replace workers, and used as slaves. Over the decades though, the term robots extended to refer to Readily available in stores now many machines that perform tasks are robots that can vacuum your repeatedly and efficiently, machines carpets, mop your floors, mow your that do not necessarily resemble lawn, clean your pools, wipe your

Science in Our Life humans except in their ability to do windows, clean your gutters and humans’ work. even iron your clothes. iRobot’s While we were still thinking of “Roomba” is one of the most popular robots as something out of the movie domestic robots that has been “Transformers”, and envisioning a around for more than a decade now, future where they are living among selling more than 6 million units us, they have already been slowly worldwide. and steadily invading our lives, A disk-shaped vehicle equipped albeit in a bit different form than the with sensors to avoid it falling down humanoid form we were expecting. stairs or bumping into obstacles, Today, millions of household Roomba can clean your entire house and industrial robots are operating completely unassisted, including worldwide; futurologists are under and around furniture, and predicting their sales to skyrocket along wall edges, all with one touch within the next decade. While the of a button. It can be programmed majority of industrial robots are to start cleaning at a particular time used for tasks that are simply too every day and thus can go about monotonous for humans as in its work even when the owners are automated production lines, some not at home, cleaning all types of are used to perform vital tasks that surfaces and even going back to its require great levels of precision dock to recharge on its own. such as robotic surgeries, or to do Roomba is not alone; there jobs that are hazardous to people, are many other available versions such as exploring shipwrecks, of robotic vacuum cleaners and helping out after disasters, studying mops, in addition to robotic lawn other planets and defusing bombs mowers that are growing more or mines, and other military popular as they are becoming operations. increasingly more efficient. They Yet, despite the usefulness and are now capable of automatically necessity of industrial robots, the maintaining and grooming up to real interest of the public—since 20,000 m2 of lands, are self-docking we first laid eyes on “Rosie”, the and some even contain rain sensors humanoid robotic maid from the if necessary, nearly eliminating all 1960s animated television series need for human interaction. the “Jetsons”—has always been the Although they are impressive, domestic robot. those smart little robots still do not The Invasion of “Roomba” measure up to the domestic robot Despite the longevity of the servants of science fiction—think he Robots are coming. In fact, they are already here; mowing robot concept, robotic butlers that what Andrew from "Bicentennial Tlawns, driving cars, vacuuming floors, and feeding hospital roam our homes and relieve us from Man" can do. Fear not; the closest patients. Scientists say the next decade is expected to see a much more housework still seemed far from version of the domestic robot we advanced creation, one that is much closer to the humanoid robot we reality until very recently. Through a have all been waiting for is finally have all been waiting for since “Robocop” and the “Bicentennial Man”. combination of increased computing here in a fashion. The creation of the “artificial human” has long been the ultimate power and advances made in The Arrival of HERB dream shared by scientists and science fictionists alike; yet, the the field of artificial intelligence, A recent addition to the domestic realization of this dream has always remained about 20 years in the the newly-developed software is robots family is a state-of-the-art future, and that future never seemed to arrive. now smart enough to make robots robotic butler aptly named HERB However, scientists are now promising that things are about to considerably more useful around (Home Exploring Robot Butler). change, and that the technology we have pined for since the 1990s, the house. Developed by the Personal is finally showing signs of making its way into our everyday lives.

20 newsletter Spring 2013 Robotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon open it, recognize a soda, grasp it and fingers independently. These sensors University, HERB was created return. After just a few weeks living in a are combined with object recognition using unbelievably sophisticated new home, HERB can fetch a soda by to pour the contents of the bottle into hardware and operating algorithms, being asked to do so in one sentence. the cup, not the other way around. rendering it a far cry from the home Similarly, HERB can be taught Naturally, ASIMO can keep cleaning robot Roomba, or any of to perform many basic tasks, and himself going all day and night the domestic models previously his knowledge base just keeps with autonomous battery charging, mentioned. on growing. As an example, the seeking the closest electrical charging For starters, “he” is a humanoid researchers “taught” HERB how to outlet. Moreover, if there is more robot on wheels guaranteed to operate a standard microwave oven than one ASIMO robot around, they remind us of Disney’s lovable recently, and now, HERB can heat will constantly share relevant data waste cleaning robot, WALL-E, lunch with just a couple of words in or run on two feet at speeds up to between each other; a survey of which and can, in fact, do many things request, including oven settings. 6 kilometers per hour, climb up and robot is closest to the most pressing that WALL-E can do including HERB is not alone; another down the stairs, and even dance. He task, and what its battery life status is, navigation, command recognition, almost equally impressive domestic can also adjust the length of his steps, allows them to “decide” which one is and performing basic household robot is the Personal Robot 2, or PR2 body position, speed, and the direction best suited to go in and do the job. tasks. to its friends, sold by Willow Garage in which he is stepping. ASIMO has ASIMO is designed to operate in Armed with spinning lasers in Menlo Park, California. PR2 can arms and hands that can do things the real world, where people need that produce 40,000 points per do all sorts of useful stuff around like turn on light switches, open doors, to reach for things, pick things up, second data stream, HERB has the house; he can fold laundry, walk carry objects, and push carts. navigate along floors, sidewalks, a clear three-dimensional view of and pick up after dogs, even cook a Honda engineers created ASIMO and even climb stairs. ASIMO’s the environment. In other words, complete breakfast. with 34 Degrees of Freedom—the ability to run, walk smoothly, climb he can “see” the world around him, So what is stopping us from ability to move right and left, or up and stairs, communicate, and recognize allowing him to smoothly navigate getting our own personal domestic down—that help it walk and perform people’s voices and faces will enable across your home, or any other robotic servant that can fulfill our tasks much like a human. These him to easily function in our world and unpredictable environment, without every whim? Degrees of Freedom act much like to truly assist us humans. bumping into things or crashing any Their price, for one thing is a human joints for optimum movement Unfortunately for us though, objects. major drawback, with PR2 priced and flexibility. Lightweight materials, ASIMO currently retails for HERB rolls around on a at USD 400,000 and sold purely like a magnesium alloy structure, USD 1,000,000, which makes him “Segway” base and can fit through for research, and HERB not yet combined with powerful computers unaffordable for most people, to say standard doorways, and can also marketed but likely to be sold at a and 34 servo motors throughout its the least. However, judging from find his way around by building similar price. Moreover, although body help ASIMO move smoothly. the popularity and the amount of virtual maps stored in memory. these robots are an amazing Advanced mobility is not its only research carried out on humanoid Thus, the longer HERB exists in a advancement, they are still research merit; it can also understand gestures robots, along with the continuous certain environment, the better the robots with many shortcomings. and spoken commands, as well as advances in science and technology, map gets, which means that HERB They require tightly controlled recognize voices and faces, which the production cost is bound to drop in gets better at understanding where conditions and may produce uneven basically enable it to interact with the near future, or so we are hoping. he is in relation to everything else. results; even simple tasks such humans. With a new technology The question remains: Have HERB can understand orders as folding towels can prove to be developed by Honda for advanced scientists finally created the humanoid through speech recognition, which challenging for them. That is besides intelligence, ASIMO can now robot we have all been waiting for? In also gets better the more he gets the fact that they do not have “legs”, simultaneously use visual, auditory, other words, have scientists finally acquainted. When first brought into and cannot walk but rather move and tactile sensory input to assess its caught up with science fiction and a new house for example, orders as a vehicle, which makes actions environment. created a robot that can measure up have to be spelt out clearly so that such as climbing stairs impossible If multiple people are present in to our favorite Sci-fi-movie robots? he can do what you exactly want for them. a room, ASIMO’s voice recognition The answer is still up for debate. him to do. The Rise of ASIMO can parse their voices and identify Until we can afford the robots, For example, to fetch a soda from Away from the robotic butler’s each one. If a person is walking, it the question is likely to remain the fridge, explicit instructions must be arena, there are many stories of will predict where the person will be unanswered. laid out instructing HERB where the successful bipedal and humanoid within the next few seconds, and if it References kitchen is, where the fridge is, how to www.newscientist.com walking robots that can certainly needs to, quickly change its path to discovermagazine.com walk the walk and are much more avoid a collision. Tactile sensors on news.cnet.com advanced than the ones developed ASIMO’s fingers and a force center voices.yahoo.com www.glideidea.com purely for domestic use. in its palm give the hand delicate asimo.honda.com Meet Honda’s ASIMO, likely the feedback that is used to control the world’s most advanced humanoid robot to date. At 130 cm tall and 54 kg, ASIMO is certainly small but can do incredibly big things; his highly advanced capabilities seem straight out of a science fiction movie, and in fact, he already has his own live show in Disneyland! ASIMO—an acronym for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility—was designed to operate in real-world environments, with the ability to walk forward and backward,

Spring 2013 newsletter 21 By: Maissa Azab

ruth be said, nanotechnology is not really a science Tcommunicator’s favorite subject given its seeming scientific complexity. I admit finding the challenge of trying to communicate how extremely important and valuable nanotechnology really is to our life and future quite daunting. However, it is definitely essential to tackle this challenge fearlessly and fiercely because nanotechnology is truly a “magical” science that can transform many, if not all, aspects of our In-Depth Science In-Depth life, dramatically and forever, altering its shape and quality. Knowing that, nanotechnology has always popped up in our issues, starting with the very second installment of the PSC Newsletter published in January 2010. In that issue, my esteemed colleague, Ingy Hafez, discussed the then ongoing debate “Nanotechnology: Friend or Foe?” Evidently, it seems that not so many people still think nanotechnology a potential threat; not unintentionally anyway. It is true what Dr. Mona Bakr, Associate Professor at the National Institute of Laser Enhanced Science (Cairo University), Adjunct Faculty at the Egyptian-Japan University for Science and Technology (E-JUST), and CEO of NanoTech Egypt for Photoelectronic (R&D Company-Bahgat Group), told my colleague at the time. A knife is an Prof. Dawson and his team have proteins, which are important for indispensable tool of everyday life; it can be applied for all sorts of been developing tools to analyze drug development research, both as highly useful purposes, making our lives so much easier in so many the patchwork of molecules that targets and treatments. ways, yet, it can also be used as a weapon. Do we bar knives from our make up the corona under different While scientists have long used lives then? Or do we just use them carefully? experimental circumstances. “Now, microscopes to view objects as Every now and then, we have discussed one aspect or another we know where we are going. It small as bacteria, viruses are much of how nanotechnology is being studied in a widely diverse range is time to see if we can overcome smaller. Even the most sensitive of fields, to be applied in one groundbreaking way or another. So some of the barriers to making electron microscopes, which are what is new with nanotechnology? How can it make our lives so practical advances”. cumbersome, expensive and much different; in a good way that is? Let us have a peak at how Biosensing difficult to operate, cannot guarantee nanotechnology can potentially transform the quality of our life and Breakthrough detection of these tiny particles. wellbeing. In December 2012, having The team’s breakthrough made it possible, for the first time, involved adding a nano-antenna to detect the smallest virus particle, to the light-sensing device to Investigating the Cloak Prof. Dawson and his colleagues a research team at New York enhance the signal. “The idea that Nanoparticles have dimensions have made important insights City College of Technology (City light can ‘sense’ the presence of of less than 100 nanometres. They into what happens when a “bare” Tech) made a breakthrough with nanoparticles and respond to their are of scientific interest because, nanoparticle gets into a new enormous potential significance for arrival was groundbreaking,” said at this scale, materials engage with environment; whether it is a living the treatment of serious diseases, Dr. Vasily Kolchenko, Associate cells and organisms in a completely organism or a milieu such as a river. since even one viral particle can Professor of Biological Sciences. new way, explains Professor They have shown that nanoparticles represent a deadly threat. “Since all the deadliest viruses Kenneth Dawson, Director of the draw down molecules onto their Up until this discovery, no and most interesting biological Center for NanoBioInteractions at surfaces to form a cloak known instrument or methodology had been molecules—proteins and DNA— University College Dublin (UCD). as a “corona”; it is this corona of successful in reliably and accurately belong to the nano world, our “You can cross biological proteins and fats that ultimately detecting a single virus particle, which research proved truly innovative, barriers that you could not normally interacts with the body rather than is in the size range of a nanoparticle; and its promise is almost unlimited cross, and deliver nanoparticles the nanoparticle material itself. about 80,000 nanoparticles side by in terms of detecting pretty much into organs you could not usually “Nanoparticles cloak themselves side would have the same width as everything of interest in life access,” Prof. Dawson elaborates. in quite different ways than previous a human hair. sciences,” he added. “But, for that very same reason, we larger particles or drug molecules, The research will potentially “One of the ultimate goals is also address the safety question meaning they can acquire almost have an immense impact, aiding to develop portable, inexpensive, because particles can accumulate in the full range of biological activities disease detection at its earliest easy to use and highly sensitive high concentrations in tissues where that proteins can,” says Professor stage when fewer pathogens are devices for healthcare and research they would not normally go”. This Dawson. “[And] whatever is present and medical intervention settings,” stated Dr. Kolchenko. understanding will support the safe adsorbed onto the nanoparticle can be most effective. This new “This research opens the door implementation of nanotechnology, becomes its address label; that approach also has possible for highly sensitive detection and as well as its effective application in influences how the nanoparticle will applications in the identification of measurement of biological and other drug delivery and therapeutics. function in the body.” numerous molecules, especially nanoparticles that are essential in

22 newsletter Spring 2013 molecular biology, clinical medicine Maximizing used in solar panels. It can be any Based on structures found in and diagnostics, epidemiology, Solar Power type—silicon, plastic or gallium the natural world that occur within ecology, nanotechnology and other Princeton researchers have arsenide—although Chou’s team mitochondria and chloroplasts, fields”. found a simple and economic way to used an 85-nanometer-thick plastic. nature’s own “fuel cells” and “solar Further research is planned, nearly triple the efficiency of organic The solar cell’s features—the cells”, the new nanostructure is according to Dr. Kolchenko. “Since solar cells; cheap and flexible plastic spacing of the mesh, the thickness formed of a network of tiny wires, single protein molecules are much devices that many scientists believe of the sandwich, the diameter of millionths of a millimeter in size, and smaller than viral particles, their could be the future of solar power. the holes—are all smaller than is created by growing the metal in a detection will be the ultimate test of The researchers, led by the wavelength of the light being template made from a plant molecule. the method,” he says. Electrical Engineer Stephen Chou, collected. This is critical because Dr. Adam Squires Department Catching Cancer Cells were able to increase the efficiency light behaves in very unusual ways of Chemistry at the University of Scientists from the RIKEN 175% by using a nanostructured in sub-wavelength structures. Reading, said: “Making electrodes Advanced Science Institute in “sandwich” of metal and plastic that Chou’s team discovered that using more efficient lies at the heart of Japan and University of California collects and traps light. Chou said these subwavelength structures making our energy production more Los Angeles report a new nanoscale the technology also should increase allowed them to create a trap in sustainable. This novel electrode Velcro-like device that captures the efficiency of conventional which light enters, with almost no coating technique has applications and releases tumor cells that inorganic solar collectors, such as reflection, and does not exit. “It is for fuel cells in the newest generation have broken away from primary standard silicon solar panels. like a black hole for light,” Chou of hybrid cars, photovoltaic cells, tumors and are circulating in the Chou said the research team said, “it traps it”. rechargeable batteries, or battery bloodstream. apploed nanotechnology to The researchers said the solar production for a wide range of green This new nanotechnology could overcome two primary challenges cells can be manufactured cost- technologies”. be used for cancer diagnosis, and that cause solar cells to lose energy: effectively in wallpaper-size sheets; The process works in water give insight into the mechanisms light reflecting from the cell, and the Chou’s lab used “nanoimprint”, a applying a technique known of how cancer spreads throughout inability to fully capture light that low-cost nanofabrication technique as electrochemical deposition, similar to silver-plating, and can the body. The device provides enters the cell. Chou invented 16 years ago, which be applied to any conducting a convenient and non-invasive The sandwich, called a embosses nanostructures over a electrode, creating a low cost, subwavelength plasmonic cavity, large area, like printing a newspaper. alternative to biopsy, the current mass manufacture component. The has an extraordinary ability to Chou said that the development method for diagnosis of metastatic unique 3D nanostructure enables cancer. dampen reflection and trap light. could have a number of applications The new technique allowed Chou’s much better conductivity and is It could enable doctors to detect depending on the type of the ideal shape for a high area tumor cells that circulate in cancer team to create a solar cell that solar collector. In this series of only reflects about 4% of light electrode to create a more effective patients’ blood well before they experiments, Chou worked with solar energy supply. The technique could subsequently colonize as tumors and absorbs as much as 96%. It cells made from plastic, known as demonstrates 52% higher efficiency potentially lead to energy storage in other organs. The device also organic solar cells. Plastic is cheap devices with much greater capacity enables researchers to keep the in converting light to electrical and malleable and the technology energy than a conventional solar than traditional cells. tumor cells alive and subsequently has great promise, but it has been Browsing the Internet for study them. cell. limited in commercial use because That is for direct sunlight; the nanotechnology applications, one Blood is passed through the of organic solar cells’ low efficiency. is bombarded with an assortment structure achieves even more device like a filter that contains In addition to a direct boost of promising endeavors that could efficiency for light that strikes the a molecule capable of adhering to the cells’ efficiency, the new truly change the shape and quality to tumor cells like Velcro and solar cell at large angles, which nanostructured metal film also of our life forever; the same way separating them with efficiency occurs on cloudy days or when the replaces the current Indium-Tin- electricity—one of, if not the most ranging from 40% to 70%. The cell is not directly facing the Sun. Oxide (ITO) electrode that is the life-changing breakthroughs of cancer cells are retained by tiny By capturing these angled rays, the most expensive part of most current human history—did. We are thus temperature-responsive polymer new structure boosts efficiency by organic solar cells. going to keep a close eye on an additional 81%, leading to the brushes inside the device, at 37°C, Green Nano-Energy nanotechnology, which in my humble these polymer brushes stick to the 175% total increase. opinion is still in its embryonic stage, The physics behind the Researchers at the University tumor cells, but when cooled to of Reading have patented a new to witness its birth into our life. 4°C, they release them, allowing innovation is formidably complex; but the device structure, in concept, method of producing electrode References scientists to examine the cells. coatings with a thousand-fold phys.org/news “Until now, most devices have is fairly simple. The top layer, www.sciencedaily.com known as the window layer, of the increase in surface area compared demonstrated the ability to capture with a flat electrode. circulating tumor cells with high new solar cell uses an incredibly fine metal mesh: the metal is This larger surface means efficiency. However, it is equally that conversion of fuel or sunlight important to release these captured 30 nanometers thick, and each hole is 175 nanometers in diameter into electricity can take place in a cells, to preserve and study smaller, more compact cell, making them in order to obtain insightful and 25 nanometers apart. The mesh window layer is placed the cells cheaper to produce. The information about them. This is chemical reaction to create the the big difference with our device,” very close to the bottom layer of the sandwich, the same metal film energy also takes place at room explains Hsiao-hua Yu, who led the temperature allowing the cells to be team that developed the technique used in conventional solar cells. In between the two metal sheets is a fitted to cheap materials, such as to coat the device with polymer plastic, for the first time. brushes. thin strip of semiconducting material

Spring 2013 newsletter 23 I am waiting for my brother to open the door for me. Hey, why are you sitting on the doorstep?

Planetarium I tried to call him on his cell phone, Science Center but there was no answer. 6th year | 3rd edition

SPRING 2013

Editorial Team: Maissa Azab Head, Educational Publications Unit

Shahenda Ayman Sara Khattab Hend Fathy Educational Publications Specialists I tried to call him on the land line, I tried to Skype him, still no answer. but there was no answer. Lamia Ghoneim Jailane Salem Ahmed Ghoneim Oops, I completely Moataz Abdelmegied Is the doorbell forgot about it!!! Sally Gad broken? Illustrations: Faten Mahmoud Write to us at: [email protected]

Visit our website at: www.bibalex.org/psc

For more information and Technology has become an essential part of our daily life.It makes our life easier, faster, and reservation, please contact: so much more accessible, facilitating many aspects of our life such as following up on our work PSC Administrator using smartphones, tablets or laptops, communicating with our friends and family across the world, and numerous other critical aspects. Nevertheless, it also has its many negative effects; [email protected] namely, technology addiction, whichis haunting people nowadays, making them completely TEL:+203 4839999 reliant on it and causing them to forget the simple life before high-tech. EXT: 2350, 2351 Do not be blinded by the magic of technology and remember that old is gold! FAX: +203 4820464

24 newsletter Spring 2013