Important Innovations

ECOSTRESS Orbiting Botanical Research With Agricultural Impact A new NASA instrument to measure plant water use in space can help the agricultural community on earth.  ECOSTRESS (ECO systemspaceborn thermal radiometer experiment on space system) was just launched on Space X. Taking a Plant's Temperature in Orbit The instrument measures the temperature of plants in orbit which will enable scientists to determine plant water use.  This, in turn, will allow them to study how draught conditions affect the health of plants here on earth. Land Plants Plants draw in water from the soil.  When heated, plants sweat water out through pores in their leaves.  That cools them off.  When there isn't enough water, plants close their pores and become heated.  If they continue to lack water, they starve, overheat and die. ECOSTRESS -- A Solution to Draught The exciting thing about Ecostress is that it provides insight into plants' health and water use while there is still time

The Harmony - Not Your Average Flying Machine Forget the jetpack.  The future of personal flying machines looks quite different, as in Texas A&M's The Harmony pictured above.  This flying machine is one of ten winners in Boeing's GoFly international competition.  It's cleared for take-off in Phase 2 of the competition. The Texans will be turning the concept into a working prototype. The Harmony's Winning Music The all-electric vehicle was created by Texas A&M engineers.  It's distinctive to say the least.  It's egg-shaped and looks a bit like a lectern. The engineers call it a personal rotorcraft.  The pilot sits above the open coaxial rotors.  The creators say the configuration maximizes hover and forward flight flexibility, pilot safety and reliability.  The Texans says it's practical, safe, green and efficient.  The next step is to take their winning technical specifications and design and build a prototype to fly. Boeing's GoFly 160

Cheetah 3 at MIT It's called Cheetah 3 and it's a standout robot developed by researchers at MIT.  Three key differentiators:  it's blind, fast and extremely dexterous.  It can climb stairs, jump on to a desk, move around 360 and shove.  All thanks to new algorithms the MIT team developed. Taking Over for Humans It's designed to do many things humans can't in a challenging environment. There's a key reason for the robot's "blindness".  Researchers want the robot to rely more on tactile information.  That way it can handle unexpected obstacles while moving fast.  Researchers say if the robot relies mostly on vision to make decisions, its speed slows down.  It's a robotic cheetah designed to move with great speed and agility. Like a Real Cheetah Cheetah 3's physical agility is amazing robotics.  MIT videos show it quickly climbing up stairs, shoving objects, slow trotting and jumping up on a desk.  It has all the moves of a real che

Your Avatar Digital Nurse Cora  Avatar Researchers have developed a simulated digital nurse to show patients how to recognize heart attack symptoms and call 911.  It's appropriately called SAVE app. Out of Australia - SAVE App The Flinders University in Australia team have developed SAVE app. It's an avatar-based app which helps recognize heart attack symptoms.  An avatar is a simulated digital character that can talk and use facial expressions and body language. They are calling the simulated nurse Cora.  Its purpose is to teach people heart attack warning signs and what to do when they occur. Life-Saver Because most deaths occur within a few hours of the warning signs of heart attack, the death rate can be reduced significantly if people get to the hospital quickly.  Delays happen when people don't recognize the warning signs. SAVE App Gets Results SAVE app users were significantly more likely to call an ambulance compared to a control group without the app. 

Experts Say 3D Recognition Systems May Eliminate Need for Personal Passwords Australian researchers have developed a first of its kind 3D facial recognition system.  It's breakthrough tech that improves security measures and may eliminate the need for personal passwords. Experts say this model for scaling 3D facial recognition could transform the biometrics industry. Millions of Pictures Analyzed and Compared The University of Western Australia research team created a unique model that analyzed 3.1 million 3D scans of more than 100,000 people.  The model was trained to learn the identities of a large dataset group of "known" persons and then match "test" faces to those identities. The system worked. Instant 3D Recognition The researchers found the 3D scans are more accurate and robust.  It recognizes individuals in an instant, no matter what the pose, sees through masks and determines if they're legitimate.  This could considerably upgrade secur

Medical Breakthrough - Gene Therapy Repairs Spinal Cord Damage   Spinal Cord Neurons Spinal Cord Injuries The numbers are staggering.  270,000 Americans are paralyzed by spinal cord injuries.  80% of them are male and 16 to 30 years old.  There has been no regenerative treatment to reverse the spinal cord damage.  Now, there's reason for hope.  Researchers at Kings College London have demonstrated that rats with spinal cord injury re-learn skilled hand movement after being treated with gene therapy. Strong Human to Animal Correlation These findings are significant because humans and rats use a similar sequence of movements when reaching and grasping objects.  The hope and expectation is that it will work on human spinal cord victims too.  It's so important because people with spinal cord injury often lose their ability to do everyday functions like writing, holding a fork and brushing their teeth.  The very basic things that we take for granted. Top Priority Regaini

Trillion Sensor World It's called the Internet of Everything (IoE).  Networked connections between people,  data, devices and processes.  A prediction from The Engineer, out of the UK, that within 7 years there will be more than 100 billion devices, each with a dozen sensors collecting data.  That's a trillion+ sensors accelerating at a speed beyond the imagination.  It's also $19 trillion in newly created economic value by 2025. What Kind of World is That? Mega connected.  It's a world of 8 billion hyper connected people.  Global connectivity will be at 1 MB/sec.  That's going to increase the number of connected people from 3 billion to 8 billion, creating for the world economy 5 billion more customers. At the Epicenter - Exponential Information It's called by some a future world of perfect knowledge.  A trillion+ sensors collecting data from satellite systems, autonomous cars, cameras, drones.  The potential is impowering us to know what's goi