Can you believe that a company filed for a patent on a living species? The J. Craig Venter Institute created the first form of synthetic or “artificial life,” a bacterium named Mycoplasma laboratorium and filed in the US to own all rights to the life-form.

The bacteria could be released in the upper atmosphere, absorbing carbon dioxide in the battle against global warming. The process could also be used to create cures for life threatening illnesses. You can use your imagination as to the big bucks that would be behind one of those applications.

Yet problems arise when you try to apply patent law that was created during the industrial era. A patent can be filed when something novel or new is introduced to a product or invention. That’s fine and dandy when you have a device like the cordless telephone, but doesn’t apply so well with nuances like man-made microorganisms.

A company could very well file for patents for a range of lifeforms, successfully blocking innovations by future scientists. Imagine, every time someone wants to use one of these bacteria in a lab they’d have to obtain the proper permission. Anything that resulted as a breakthrough could be construed to be owned by the original patent holder.

With the halt to innovation aside, there are also broad moral implications. Today it’s ownership of a bacterial strain, tomorrow it could be a more complex organism. The snowball effect could be shocking. That’s why something needs to be done now to bring these laws into modernity, before it’s too late.

Image via electricsheep.org

Organic light being used to change images and text with paper-thin technology is coming on us fast. Ever dream of changing the wallpaper in your house on a whim to any color or pattern? What about having one piece of paper that constantly updates to any book or newspaper with the convenience of being able to fold it up and put it in your pocket?

Organic light-emitting diode’s (OLED) are made by organic compounds being trapped between a plastic polymer. The flat rows and columns are placed on a flat surface by a “printing” process. The results are a matrix of pixels that can turn diffrent colors on a very thin material that uses significantly less power than other light sources.

OLED’s have been around for a while. In fact, you can buy a Sony TV that was released in 2007 made up of the technology. To give you an idea of price point, the 11′ version goes for $1,700. The big headline isn’t that the technology exists, it’s how its being formatted and how that format will be of interest to your daily life.

GE recently unveiled the first demonstration of “roll-to-roll” processed OLEDs. Manufactured in this way, they could be made for a very low cost and are so thin they can be used as newspaper or even wall paper.

After four years the GE Research Team has a working prototype that they are eager to place on the production line. They affirm that there is a lot of work ahead, but the goal is to get us all grooving and shaking with paper thin devices as soon as is possible.

The next time someone tells you to blow into a tube for ten seconds you may be surprised to learn they won’t be wearing a cop uniform. Your doctor will be in his usual all-whites at your annual checkup. That’s because a group of scientists at the NIST and the University of Colorado have developed a new breath analysis technique.

Your doctor will give you a sample to blow into. Shortly after lasers will pulse through the air sample, identifying normal breath molecules as well as trace elements that could lead to indications of disease. Markers for diseases such as asthma and cancer are apparent in some patients. For example, trace amounts of certain gazes, such as ammonia may indicate retinal failure, or diabetes.

Some potentials of the technology is that it’s inexpensive while maintaining both a non-invasive and fast method to conduct a health screen. It has a lot of work ahead of it, as it needs to prove its worth to the medical community as a valid and testable form of pre-screening for disease.

Have problems fitting in? Too apathetic? Maybe you need a kick start. Get that compassion flowing and fit into those awkward social situations. First, you’ll need a shot of a new hormone called Oxytocin. It’s your golden ticket into the cool group.

A study by Hollander and Bartz suggests that the drugs fist use could be on autistic patients. Their deficiency suggests that a boost in the naturally occurring hormone may help them bond socially. Beyond the world of autism the drug could have a huge effect on people with obsessive compulsive disorder and social phobias. Other effects include eliminating repetitive behaviors and an increased connection to external emotion.

Pregnant women experience a rush of Oxytocin when it produces contractions and stimulates milk production. Links have previously been made to the hormone creating a bond between parent and child. It’s literally a social bonding agent, creating a need to be connected to the outside world.

If you’re looking for a prescription tomorrow you may need to hold off until the hormone has been properly developed into a drug. Yet, after it’s in production we may look back on the days of Prozac and laugh at its ineffectiveness. Get prepared to get emotional.

Unmanned gliders are using only the thermal power of the sea to carry on tasks that last months. Sounds a bit like science fiction, but rest assured, it’s real.

A joint team from the University of the Virgin Islands and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution launched an underwater vehicle in December of 2007. Uninterrupted all this time, it has traversed along the Virgin Island Basin 20 times, sometimes at depths reaching 2.5 miles deep.

Unlike conventional gliders that rely on batteries and pumps, the thermal glider responds to the differentials in ocean temperature. Tubes made of wax expand into mechanical energy, causing the craft to go buoyant. Those tubes later cool at depths, starting the cycle all over again.

The team has a working prototype that will be able to propel itself with unlimited green energy. They plan to use the design for missions that will take upwards of six months. They are agile, unmanned and can be set to do tasks such as gather salinity, topography, monitor biological activity and acoustic readings.

Everyone on the team is eager to launch more of the crafts in the North Atlantic. Data from the region will shed more light on the response the ocean has had to climate change.

You may just want to keep your eye out for one on your next SCUBA trip to Bermuda. Smile and nod, just don’t try to out swim it.

The process being developed is called “electroless etching,” where rough silicon nanowires are synthesized with silver ions on a flat wafer surface. These wafers would be woven into coats and the excess warmth given off by the body would be transformed into energy.

Thermoelectric materials have been around for a long time. Scientists are just beginning to find a way to make them efficient enough to prove practical. That’s because silicon is a poor conductor of heat at room temperature. The lab has found a solution, reduce the size of the nanowires and combine a flat surface with a heat conducting material.

Don’t expect to pick up this coat next week. The lab still needs to find industrial partners to put all this research to use in the commercial world. With a little luck, we might just have a solution for keeping all of our gadgets at full power, even on the go.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could regrow skin as fast as a Chia Pet? If you’ve ever had a serious wound you know that the only way to replace the skin you’ve lost is to take it from another part of your body. Most of the time grafts are taken from the thigh and the result is scaring on both the treated area and the portion of the leg it was taken from.

But why use your own skin when you can just grow it in the lab? That’s what the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology asked.

How is it done? Dr. Andreas Emmendörffer, the director of the project explains: “We pluck a few hairs off the back of the patient’s head and extract adult stem cells from their roots, which we then proliferate in a cell culture for about two weeks. Then we reduce the nutrient solution until it no longer covers the upper sides of the cells, exposing them to the surrounding air. The increased pressure exerted by the oxygen on the surfaces of the cells causes them to differentiate into skin cells.”

The resulting artificial skin grows into the wound. Within 72 days there are no signs of scarring or visible clues that the wound ever existed. That might even be faster than your Chia Homer’s hair grows.

The new technique is called EpiDex and it’s been approved for use in Germany. The team expects to preform the procedure on up to 20 patients every month in 2008.

Ever wish that you didn’t have to sleep some nights? Well, I’m one of those “lucky” people who don’t need as much sleep as the average person. That’s because I’ve had insomnia since the age of 13. Falling asleep has always been a problem.

Anyone that has experienced long bouts of sleep deprivation knows that it’s no picnic. That’s why my ears perked up when I read about a new drug that could eliminate sleepiness. It’s being tested by Darpa-funded scientists now.

A nasal spray filled with a natural brain hormone called orexin A is being tested in labs. Up to this point stimulants have been used to fight against sleep. Yet they are addictive, have terrible side effects and often become less effective over time.

Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, found that a lack of orexin A may cause narcolepsy (excessive daytime sleepiness). So what was the next logical step? Administer a double blind study where sleep deprived and narcoleptic monkeys are given orexin.

Results, although in their early preliminary stages, are amazing. Introducing the hormone has little to no side effect. It literally reverses the side effects of sleepiness without the edge that’s usually associated with stimulants. A scan of their brains revealed that they were awake and refreshed, just like after a nights sleep.

Little is known about long term sleep deprivation and its effects on the body. Although it’s obvious that long bouts without sleep are unnatural. Lets just say I doubt that it’ll ever be prescribed to students to pull all nighters. Yet can’t the same thing be said about caffeine?

Who knows, sometime in the distant future you may be ordering a bump of orexin at the equivalent of your local Starbucks? Then again, maybe not.

Steven LeRoy has shocking dreams. Some may even call them electrifying. He has developed a way to harvest lightening as an alternative power source. But it seems that he isn’t the only one sizzling over his invention. Alternate Energy Holdings is out to attack his research to benefit their bottom line.

After majoring in electrical engineering and mathematics he worked for several Fortune 500 companies as a technician. Later in his career he took up a research and development position. That is, until an epiphany hit him in 2002. An experience led him to believe in lightings’ potential to produce energy. His provisional energy patent was filed in 2003.

JK: How much energy can be produced by a bolt of lightening?

SL: No one really knows the exact figure on how much power lightning can convey into stored energy. Estimates range wildly. I’m sticking middle of the road, estimating a minimum of 10-20 megawatt hours for a weak to average strike. Other aspiring lightning wranglers give much higher estimates.

JK: How many homes will it power and for how long?

SL: The average power draw of most homes is 5 kilowatts continuous or less.

JK: Based on that logic, if a bolt has a 15 megawatt charge it would power 3,000 homes for an entire day. How will that energy be converted and stored?

SL: Storage can be in a number of different ways. I prefer the custom made trailer size capacitors that have been quoted for me by an overseas manufacturer. Originally I intended to use a ring oscillator of 6 35 kilowatt vacuum tubes to convert to phase corrected sinusoidal power. Now I favor solid state UPS on a low voltage block to block basis. Power cables at 230VAC can be very safely buried.

JK: Has anyone every tried to convert the power of lightening into energy before?

SL: To my knowledge, there are no actual lightning plants on line as of yet.

JK: How does your research differ from previous attempts? What makes you think that your method will be successful? Has it been properly field tested?

SL: My research is based on a small scale prototype, and if I had the funds I would first set up a mobile strike facility in a farm field just to take measurements. The lightning would be triggered with a cathode ray device scanning the lower atmosphere with a flood of electrons. The strike towers would be lowerable and short about 20 feet high surrounded by induction coils.

JK: Are capacitors the right answer? How do they vary from other methods of energy storage?

SL: Capacitors are fast charging and there is a way to delay the current surge over the R/C time interval to allow full charging. Voltage regulation would be employed along a voltage divider series. Some suggest superconductors for storage, but this requires cryogenic cooling and is very costly. The heat of adding the power to the superconductor without a delay circuit would boil off the liquid helium I’d guess. But thats just my opinion. Ionized gas tubes should be explored too.

JK: I understand you were applying for a grant in order to further your
research. That was until Alternative Energy Holdings had some negative things to say about your research. Why do you think they attacked your research? Do you think it simply came down to the bottom line?

SL: I have suspended my grant application due to the negative and vengeful PR spin by Alternate Energy Holdings. Everything in R&D on their website was created by me, but they claim it as their own research discovery. Of course it has to do with protecting their bottom line. I currently have an attorney working on this matter.

JK: What was your original motive in the creation of this technology?

SL: My original motive was to provide an experimental source of clean renewable energy. I am also focusing on regenerative superconducting transformers. I see real potential there, too.

JK: How will you proceed from here? What plans, if any, do you have to further research? Do you think you’ll continue in the field of alternative energy or move onto something else?

SL: As far as staying in the field of development, I have a civil matter to settle before I can proceed further. No one would want to be deliberately slandered. I have applied for apx. 20 patents since 1977, starting in energy field in 2002-2003.

JK: Thank you for sitting down with me and discussing your research in detail. Although it is disheartening that your old firm has been working against you, we hope to see the science and technology come to its full fruit at some point in the future. We’re long past due on an energy source that is clean, efficient and natural.

SL: Thank you, Jerad, for giving me an arena where I could speak openly. Just a further note to your readers, I am not accepting further investment funds at this time. Thank you for your generosity.

Armed with a headset that can sense breathing patterns, heart rate, blink rate, temperature and motion, San Fransisco based Emsense says it has your thoughts down to a science.

Their technology centers around an electroencephalography sensor (EEG) on the forehead and an algorithm that has been built upon three years of market research. Metrics are analyzed in real-time while participants watch ads and play video games.

One of the biggest problems with market research is being able to track the visceral responses that consumers will have during an ad campaign. When asked to rehash their experience of any sort of stimuli they often frame it differently from how they emotionally reacted. As Emsense puts it, “consumers do not make decisions in a purely rational, linear fashion. Emotion has a huge and predominant impact. [Our technology] provides a complete second by second mapping of viewer response.”

But if consumers aren’t logical what suggests that a map of responses will yield to a purchase? Sure, you can see the exact moment when a participant is responding positively. Yet is it possible to gather enough data and change the ad to invoke a sale?

Skeptics counter that this approach may not be much better than self-reporting. Even with all those metrics and a great algorithm it may just be another tool to use during the formulation of a campaign. They also complain that this type of technology has not been properly researched and the data needs to be peer-reviewed in journals before it’s taken seriously.

While the naysayers gather, Emsense and its army of MIT graduates soldier on. They have twenty two patents to date and repeat customers. By the time peer-reviewed research is available for scrutiny they may already be deep into profits, but only time will tell.