matrix: the news and media magazine of the british science fiction association
Issue 187
March 2008
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FEATURES
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- year of the gamer - 2007
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- marvel vs dc
- just two men...
- seduction of the innocent 9
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- a 'vision' of the future
REVIEWS
- i am legend
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NEWS
- arthur c. clarke r.i.p
- world of science
- what controversy?
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EVENTS
- eastercon: orbital
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- primeval
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- the laughing man
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BOOK RELEASES
- myth-understandings
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- the gutter twins
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ARCHIVE
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NEWS: World of Science

Michael Liebschner

Michael Liebschner
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering

Back in Matrix 169 it was reported that Microsoft were granted a U.S. patent to transmit power and data using the human body. They are still at it. This time by providing a grant to scientists at Rice University, Huston, who are using sound to transmit digital information through the human skeleton. The inventors, who call it OsteoConduct, have been surprised how clearly the signals propagate through 20 or more joints. They also see the potential in current technology mobile telephones because many already have vibrators and sensors that could send and receive signals. Microsoft keep trying so expect something about this in Matrix 205, unless someone stops me or them.

Source: Rice University, Huston

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have managed to energise a 60W light bulb without using wires from seven feet away.

Electromagnetic induction is the usual method of wireless electrical power transmission. Common in transformers and electric motors, it uses two coils of wire to generate and receive magnetic fields caused by electricity flowing in the conductors. This works best over short distances where the magnetic field lines in one coil can interact with the other.

Lead researcher, Dr Marin Soljacic, realised there was another way of transferring energy through the air. Rather than depending on close proximity the transfer uses coupled resonance. An example of mechanical coupled resonance is when a lorry parked outside a building with its engine running causes a window to vibrate. The engine note matches the resonant frequency of the glass thus the window becomes the best receiver of the sound energy.

Soljacic’s idea is that a transmitter pumps out electromagnetic waves and only devices tuned to the same frequency will respond and collect the energy.
Their experiment consisted of two copper coils, each a self-resonant system. One attached to the power source, was the sending unit. It fills the space around it with a non-radiative magnetic field oscillating at MHz frequencies. The resonant nature of the process ensures the strong interaction between the sending unit and the receiving unit, while the interaction with the rest of the environment is weak.

Moffatt, an undergraduate in physics, explains: "The crucial advantage of using the non-radiative field lies in the fact that most of the power not picked up by the receiving coil remains bound to the vicinity of the sending unit, instead of being radiated into the environment and lost."

People would be unaffected saying that magnetic fields interact weakly with living organisms and are unlikely to have any serious side effects.

MIT believe it could remove the need for the tangle of cables littering homes today.

Source: MIT and Annanova.com
Regularly new engines, planes and spacecraft fill this page, what about a new shoe?

A flat driving shoe that converts to a stiletto at the push of a button has been developed. Funded by insurance company Sheilas' Wheels, they claim the footwear concept would make women safer and more comfortable behind the wheel.

A survey, also sponsored by them, showed that 10% of female motorists admitted a car accident or a ‘near-miss’ due to their footwear. The ‘Safe Shoes’ report shows 80% of female drivers wear inappropriate footwear when in control of a car – choosing style over safety.

Jacky Brown, spokesperson for Sheilas’ Wheels, said: “Our Sheila Driving Heel design could provide safety-conscious female motorists with the ultimate driving shoe - allowing women to wear a safe flat shoe whilst driving, and a fashionable heel once they are out of the car.”


Source: www.ilovesheilas.com

The first space hotel gets closer. Bigelow Aerospace has reported the successful launch and deployment of their second inflatable module, Genesis II.

It is designed to test and confirm systems for future manned versions.
It is a follow on from Genesis I that has been in orbit since July 2006 and continues to return data and images.

Both modules are 15 feet (4.4m) in length and inflate to 8 feet (2.54m) in diameter. The skin is made of several layers that include proprietary impact-resistant materials. Testing on the ground has shown that the expandable shells of a Bigelow module are more resistant to space debris than the modules on the International Space Station (ISS).
The way the ISS is going Bigelow's project many be finished first.

Source: Bigelow Aerospace

Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable habitat is part of the rush to space tourism. So far it has been small companies leading the way, but now the big boys are starting to act.

EADS Astrium unveiled their space-plane concept earlier this year. EADS Astrium is a subsidiary of the European Aerospace and Defence giant EADS, who also owns Airbus. EADS Astrium’s programme director Hugues Laporte-Weywada describes it as "a business jet-sized vehicle equipped with a rocket engine."

That's a fair description as they plan to use conventional jet engines to reach 12km then a rocket engine to get to 60km and coast to 100km, the edge of space. Passengers will enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness.

EADS Astrium are confident that with their knowledge of aerospace technologies from both Astrium and Airbus that their vehicle will fly by 2012. An ambitious goal; however, as Alan Bond, the man behind the air-breathing engines of 1980's HOTOL project, says, "We could have been doing this 30 or 40 years ago without too much trouble at all".

Bond is involved in the 'son of HOTOL' Skylon project.


Source: EADS Astrium, Professional Engineering
The ability to focus light has been one of mankind’s greatest advances giving us technology from spectacles to lasers. Light is the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, focusing other parts of it is more difficult; however, the pay off is dramatic.

Scientists at the University of Michigan are proposing a device that could focus other electromagnetic spectrum frequencies.

They envision a plate or a disc etched with a specific pattern. As the waves pass through the ‘lens’, it is sculpted into different sizes and shapes. The lens does not refract or bend the waves as conventional lenses do, but it reshapes them.

As an example of the benefit, the storage on a CD could be increased over 100 times using a terahertz wavelength, even though it is a 1000 times longer than the wavelength currently used, when usually longer wavelengths mean less data storage.

Potential applications include: data storage, non-contact sensing, imaging, and nanolithography.


Source: University of Michigan
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