What I Learnt This Week 1: "LUKE" Prosthetics, Levitate Me, Resurrecting DNA, Titan Vs Earth, Future's Eavesdropping

Yo! This is my first ever episode in the series of "What I learnt this week", and I would like to appreciate @mobbs for honoring me with this privilege. Yes; I had to take permission from him, in case this idea has his copyright on it :)

Sincerely, I learnt many things over the last week, but I decided to pick out some random five, in no specific order.

I would not bore us with long intro speech; so let's hit straight to the lessons learnt for the week [You can grab a pencil and paper to jot down some points too, because that's what I do when surfing the web].

Monday: Thought-controlled "LUKE" prosthetics

I'm opening up this episode with one of my favorite areas; Robotics :)

It is amazing how the field of robotics has evolved rapidly, even with an incorporation of cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence and Neuro-augmentation. The idea behind controlling prosthetics with the mind is something that has been around for some time, but a major advancement has been heralded in this field with the unveiling of "LUKE"; the prosthetic arm with feelings.

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This feat was achieved by research scientists from University of Utah which has ultimately come to restore the hopes of sensation to people with decapitated arms.

Are you wondering where the scientists figured out the name "LUKE" from? Well, some of us that are into Sci-fi movies may have known already. The arm was named after Star Wars Movie's Luke Skywalker.

According to Professor Jacob George (one of the developers of LUKE), the arm can simulate and replicate 100 distinct touch sensors in the Central Nervous System of the user. In other words; just like the biological arm, LUKE can differentiate between various degrees of touch, pressure, and even changes in the immediate environment.

"Does it feel pain?” you may ask. Literally, it can relay to the brain some variations in degree of touch which could trigger the pain receptor in the brain (i.e. stimulating the pain receptor synthetically).

When scientists predicted that humans will ultimately merge with machines, it looked like a weird fairy tale; but the merger had already begun. LUKE is one of the trail blazers in the quest for human-machine merger.

Have I piqued your interest? You can read more here.

Tuesday: Levitating humans with beams?

Have you ever seen in the sci-fi where humans levitate? At least, a particular one caught my attention some years ago; the X-men movie series. I wondered, "How on earth is this even possible?" Well, answers have finally caught up with the questions, and this Science-fiction has finally turned to Science-fact.

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Researchers at the University of Bristol have finally figured out a way to levitate things using Acoustic tractor beams.

By "Acoustic", I meant sound wave. And it has been proven that it is possible to hold up object which are bigger than the acoustic wavelength using an acoustic beam.

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Before now, the idea of the acoustic tractor beam was for the levitation of relatively small object. This is because, scientists have observed that levitating objects which are larger than the acoustic wavelength generated by the tractor beam machine would result in the instability of the object which would make them to spin. This is owing to the fact that the movement in the sound field would cause the motion to be transferred to the object being levitated, thus making the object to spin faster and get "flown" off from the line-of-sight of the beam.

But what the researcher at the University of Bristol did was to figure out a way of controlling the changes in the flipping motion of the Vortices; this will in turn alter the rate of its rotation and will cause the tractor beam to be stabilized.

One of the experiments they did showed that; at the pitch of 40KHz, they were able to suspend a sphere (size of 2 acoustic wavelength) in mid air. {Here's a quick tip before we continue: Bats can hear pitch of 40KHz, but humans can't}

Having been able to demonstrate the possibility of levitating larger objects, humans are next in line. Since it has been proven that when there's an increase in the pitches, then the levitation of larger object stably would be achieved.

Wanna know the possibility of levitating humans? Click for more info. 

Wednesday: Scientists recreate a dead man's DNA

You may have heard of the resurrection biotechnology and the de-extinction technology, which aims at bringing back animals that have gone extinct. But we're talking about something slightly different; and that is recreating the DNA of a deceased human.

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Before now, the only process of recreating the DNA of a deceased human or animal was to take a sample from the remains of the person and recreate it from the remains. But thanks to advances, a new alternative has emerged.

Hans Jonatan died about 200years ago, but he has become the first deceased person's DNA to be recreated. This mind-blowing feat was done by deCODE Genetics, and was able to recreate his DNA from the DNA samples of 182 of his living relatives. 182 is huge right? Well, it might interest you to know that the systematic review started with 788 of his relatives, after which the sample space got streamlined to 182 finally.

So wassup with Hans Jonathan that scientists are recreating his DNA? If you're familiar with the history of Iceland, you would know him. He was the first inhabitant of Iceland with an African descent. He was also known for his heroic achievement of freeing himself from the shackles of slavery. This happened against all glaring odds. So, I mean, who wouldn't want to recreate this kind of DNA?

Well, the next time they're gonna recreate a DNA, I would call dibs on Michael Jackson's DNA :)

To read up more about DNA recreation, click here.

Thursday: Titan Vs Earth

Yeah, I know; you may have been wondering "wassup with the comparison between Saturn's moon and the earth?"Well, let's find out.

For the uninitiated, I would like to point out that Saturn has 53 moons, but we're focusing on the fascinating Titan, which is also the largest among the 53 (with a distance of about 900,000,000miles from the sun).

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Years after the Cassini mission to Saturn, astro scientists have made a very shocking revelation about the Titan. It has been discovered that the Titan has a close similarity to our dear earth. According to analysis, Titan has a fairly built up atmosphere, also a surface-stable liquid. You would not be wrong to infer that the only place known to have these conditions is the earth. 

Apart from the above fact, there's a recorded presence of seas, and mountain-like features (the highest measuring about 700meters) in Titan. Did I mention that the Titan has a global sea level? Well, you can add that info to your notes too.

You can check out for more details here.

Friday: Eavesdropping into the future (2118)

Oh yeah!! you know I wouldn't end this episode without taking a trip once more into the future. Where are we looking at? Just 100 years from now; the year 2118.

This is based on the systematic reviews of evolutions in technological advancements.

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I am a proponent of futuristic technology; and as humans, our major inclination is drawn toward the things that are in the future. Note: this is not like predicting the future, but drawing inference from the available data to make extrapolations into what occurrences that would greet humankind in the future.

There is no doubt that the world has changed astronomically; but whatever changes we've seen in the last hundred years is nothing compared to what would be seen in the next hundred years. Let's look at what to expect in 2118:

• Brain hack: Yes, you read right. Hacking has always been synonymous with devices, but have you imagined the human brain being hacked? Here's how: The technology of BCI (Brain-computer interface) is becoming so advanced that information can be uploaded directly into the brain, and can also be downloaded directly from the brain. If there is an established connection between the human brain and computer, why do we still doubt the possibility of someone gaining an unauthorized access to your brain and stealing your thoughts? Maybe the future tech will enable humans install antivirus in the brain to ward off hackers :)

• Earth = hotter: Our climate is already changing and becoming hotter. There's a particular survey I would want to draw inference from. It predicts that even Greenland, would experience ice-free summer by the year 2050. Now this has raised concern for people. But this is just one of the many aspects of it. It has also been predicted that the average temperature of the earth would increase by 1.5degrees Celsius by the year 2118.

• ET colony: This has been one of the most debated topics in relation to space science. But would we finally achieve space colony? Well, I would leave you with suspense to pique your interest :) or you can click here for more info. 

For other details, read up here and here.

That's just about the few of the things I learnt. Join me next week for another exciting and amazing journey into the world of science and tech.

Until then, I remain @samminator

Thanks for reading

References for further reading: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6, Ref7, Ref8, Ref9, Ref10