Top TechTop Tech #30: • Blind rats, automated driving, exoskeleton footwear
Promising products and interesting innovations
Today’s Top Tech:
• Blind rats navigate with brain implants
• First coast-to-coast automated drive completed
• Boot puts a spring in your step
Blind rats navigate with brain implants
No, the implant doesn’t help the rats see — because insteadof artificial eyes or the like, scientists in Japan have in effect stuck acompass in the rat brains… and the rodents are able to use the sensor to navigate with an artificial “allocentric sense.”
The full paper, titled “Visual Cortical Prosthesis with a Geomagnetic Compass Restores Spatial Navigation in Blind Rats” [phew!] is here.
The synopsis says the blind adult rats “were informed of their head directions via geomagnetic prosthetics.” They learned to use head-direction information to solve spatial tasks, and identify their location via the externally provided direction signal.
Science quips that “Blind rodents on the run from knife-wielding farmers’ wives may never need to ask for directions again,” and has more on the experiment here.
First coast-to-coast automated drive completed
An automated car completed the longest “test drive” ever, from San Francisco to New York City.
The coast-to-coast trip covered nearly 3,400 miles, Delphi Automotive says, and “along the way, the vehicle encountered complex driving situations such as traffic circles, construction zones, bridges, tunnels, aggressive drivers and a variety of weather conditions.” The car made the journey with “99 percent of the drive in fully automated mode.” The car is equipped with collision mitigation, integrated radar and camera systems, forward collision, and lane departure warning.
Boot puts a spring in your step
Walking is said to be the best exercise… so hey, why not make it a little less of a work out? A new “boot” fits an exoskeleton over your ankle and calves, to put a literal spring in your step that reduces the overall exertion by 7 percent.
The device requires no external power, running off your muscles’ work while somehow at the same time reducing the amount of work performed… no mean feat of engineering there.
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and North
Carolina State University used ultrasound imaging studies to show how the calf
muscle exerts energy not only when propelling the body forward, but also when
it performs a clutch-like action, holding the Achilles tendon taut. The ankle
exoskeleton offloads some of the clutching muscle forces of the calf, reducing
the overall metabolic rate.
(Maybe this would help me keep up with my
girlfriend when hiking.)
The press release from the National Science Foundation is here.
