Electronic Pills - Collecting Data Inside The Body
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After years of investment and development, wireless devices contained in swallowable capsules are now reaching the market.
Israel-based Given Imaging and the researchers at the University of Buffalo in New York have developed ingestible capsules that record data from inside your body.
These pills contain sensors or tiny cameras that collect information as they travel through the gastrointestinal tract before being excreted from the body a day or two later.
These new electronic inventions transmit information such as acidity, pressure and temperature levels or images of the esophagus and intestine to your doctor's computer for analysis.
Doctors often use invasive methods such as catheters, endoscopic instruments or radioisotopes for collecting information about the digestive tract. So device companies have been developing easier, less intrusive ways, to gather information.
Digestive diseases and disorders can include symptoms such as acid reflux, bloating, heartburn, abdominal pain, constipation, difficulty swallowing or loss of appetite.
new electronic inventions "One of the main challenges is determining just what is happening in the stomach and intestines." says Dr. Anish A. Sheth, Director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Program at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Doctors can inspect the colon and peer into the stomach using endoscopic instruments. But some areas cannot be easily viewed, and finding out how muscles are working can be difficult.
Electronic pills are being used to measure muscle contraction, ease of passage and other factors to reveal information unavailable in the past.
Sources: givenimaging.com; buffalo.edu
Transparent Smartphones
new electronic inventions
Inventors, Jung Won Seo, Jae-Woo Park, Keong Su Lim, Ji-Hwan Yang and Sang Jung Kang, who are scientists at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, have created the world's first transparent computer chip.
The chip, known as (TRRAM) or transparent resistive random access memory, is similar to existing chips known as (CMOS) or metal-oxide semiconductor memory, which we use in new electronics.
The difference is that TRRAM is completely clear and transparent. What is the benefit of having transparency?
"It is a new milestone of transparent electronic systems," says Jung Won Seo. "By integrating TRRAM with other transparent electronic components, we can create a total see-through embedded electronic systems."
The technology could enable the windows or mirrors in your home to be used as computer monitors and television screens.
This technology is expected to be available within 3 to 4 years.
Source: www.kaist.edu Photo: www.yankodesign.com
Hollow Flashlight
image of Ann Makosinski
Ann Makosinski is a 16-year-old student who competed against thousands of other young inventors from around the world to win first prize and a $25,000 scholarship at Google's International Science Fair.
She invented a battery-free flashlight. A free energy device that is powered by the heat in your hand.
While visiting the Philippines, Ann found that many students couldn't study at home because they didn't have electricity for lighting.
Unfortunately, this is a common problem for developing regions where people don't have access to power grids or can't afford the cost of electricity.
Ann recalled reading how the human body had enough energy to power a 100-watt light bulb.
This inspired her to think of how she could convert body heat directly into electricity to power a flashlight. She knew that heated conductive material causes electrons to spread outwards and that cold conductive material causes electrons to condense inwards.
So, if a ceramic tile is heated, and it's pressed against a ceramic tile that is cool, then electrons will move from the hot tile towards the cool tile producing a current.
This phenomena is known as the thermoelectric effect. image of parts of no-battery flashlight
Ann started using ceramic tiles placed on top of each other with a conductive circuit between them (known as Peltier tiles) to create the amount of electricity she needed for her flashlight.
Her idea was to design her flashlight so that when it was gripped in your hand, your palm would come in contact with the topside of the tiles and start heating them.
To ensure the underside of the tiles would be cooler, she had the tiles mounted into a cut-out area of a hollow aluminum tube.
This meant that air in the tube would keep the underside of her tiles cooler than the heated topside of the tiles. This would then generate a current from the hot side to the cold side so that light emitting diodes (LEDS) connected to the tiles would light-up.
image of Ann Makosinski demonstrated her new electronic invention But although the tiles generated the necessary wattage (5.7 milliwatts), Ann discovered that the voltage wasn't enough. So she added a transformer to boost the voltage to 5V, which was more than enough to make her flashlight work.
Ann successfully created the first flashlight that didn't use batteries, toxic chemicals, kinetic or solar energy, and that always works when you picked it up.
She credits her family for encouraging her interest in electronics and derives her inspiration from reading about inventors such as Nikola Tesla and Marie Curie.
She told judges at the Google competition that her first toy was a box of transistors.
Time Magazine listed Ann as one of the 30 people under 30 who are changing the world.
She is working on bringing her flashlight to market and is also developing a headlamp based on the same technology.