Top TechTop Tech #70: Lab-made limbs, Brain passwords, High-speed 3D printing
Promising products and interesting innovations
By Paul Worthington
Today’s Top Tech:
• Lab-made limbs
• Your password is your brain
• High-speed, high-volume 3D printing
Rats! Limbs from the laboratory
Scientists have started synthesizing bio artificial replacement limbs suitable for transplantation.
Massachusetts General Hospital reports investigators there “made the first steps towards development of bio artificial replacement limbs suitable for transplantation. “
So far: rat forelimbs with functioning vascular and muscle tissue. And evidence shows the same approach could be applied to the limbs of primates.
“The composite nature of our limbs makes building a functional biological replacement particularly challenging,” a doctor there adds. “Limbs contain muscles, bone, cartilage, blood vessels, tendons, ligaments and nerves – each of which has to be rebuilt and requires a specific supporting structure called the matrix. We have shown that we can maintain the matrix of all of these tissues in their natural relationships to each other, that we can culture the entire construct over prolonged periods of time, and that we can repopulate the vascular system and musculature.”
They also note: “More than 1.5 million individuals in the U.S. have lost a limb, and although prosthetic technology has greatly advanced, the devices still have many limitations in terms of both function and appearance.”
Your password is your brain
Binghamton University professors are using an EEG to register distinct individual “brain prints.”
The way your brain responds to certain words could be used to replace passwords, according to the researchers.
“Participants’ “event-related potential” signals reacted differently to each acronym, enough that a computer system was able to identify each volunteer with 94 percent accuracy, using only three electrodes,” the university reports. “The results suggest that brainwaves could be used by security systems to verify a person’s identity.”
The researchers add that “brain biometrics are appealing because they are cancellable (can be reset) and cannot be stolen by malicious means, such as copying a fingerprint. If someone’s fingerprint is stolen, that person can’t just grow a new finger to replace the compromised fingerprint — the fingerprint for that person is compromised forever. Fingerprints are ‘non-cancellable.’ Brain prints, on the other hand, are potentially cancellable. So, in the unlikely event that attackers were actually able to steal a brain print from an authorized user, the authorized user could then ‘reset’ their brain print, meaning the user could simply record the EEG pattern associated with another word or phrase.”
High-speed, high-volume 3D printing
A new additive manufacturing machine will build parts up to three times larger and 100 times faster than current comparable 3D printers.
The University of Sheffield says its additive manufacturing machine “can make plastic parts as fast and as cheaply as traditional manufacturing… (and is) capable of challenging conventional injection molding for high volume production.”
The professor behind the project adds that “Additive manufacturing is already being used to make tens of thousands of a product - such as iPhone covers - and ten years ago that volume was unthinkable. This machine will enable serious production of volumes over one million, which is currently inconceivable.”
The new machines are expected on the market in 2017-18.
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