3-D Over the Web

October 31, 2000, 9:00 pm

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Data Compression

The ability to quickly and reliably transmit 3-D images over the Internet could make everything from shopping for real estate to playing video games a lot more “real.” Imagine clothing companies transmitting 3-D body scans of their customers to a factory where tailored goods are made and shipped directly to the customer. Real estate firms could offer sophisticated virtual tours of homes on the Web, where a potential buyer could “walk” into a house, move furniture around and even tear down walls.

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Where in the World?

December 31, 2000, 9:00 pm

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A new scheme unites the Internet with geography.

The Web can be a world unto itself, but there are many times when it would be nice if you could understand its correspondence to actual geography. Say you want the Web sites of all the museums in Boston within a few miles of your apartment, or directions to the shoe repair store nearest to where you’re standing with your Web-enabled cell phone. Some search engines and online directories can provide the information, but the power and accuracy of your search depend on how many sites that search engine has indexed, or how many businesses have registered their addresses with the directory.

Drug Delivery with Muscle

December 31, 2000, 9:00 pm

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Artificial muscles release medications with precision

Pills and injections serve us well, but for a patient with a chronic illness like diabetes or heart disease, they are less than perfect. Dosages don’t always match the body’s fluctuating needs, and it’s easy to forget to take a pill. But what if doctors could implant a small capsule under your skin that could detect, say, changes in blood sugar levels or some heart disease-related molecule and then release the exact amount of medication needed to keep your illness in check? That’s the idea behind a new generation of “smart” drug-delivery devices being worked on by a number of research labs. One of the challenges in making these devices practical is building valves capable of releasing precise amounts of medications from the device’s reservoir.

Biochips Go Big Time

February 28, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Biotech: Microelectronic and communications firms turn to life sciences.

In the last few years, the biotech industry has set out to establish its own version of Moore’s Law, shrinking the tools of the trade onto postage-stamp-sized “biochips.” The hope is that the smaller/faster/cheaper approach that worked so well for computer-chip manufacturers will be a boon to biotech as well. The success of early biochip startups like Santa Clara, CA-based Affymetrix has helped to establish the field, and now giants from microelectronics and communications are moving in as well.

Seed Spat

April 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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AG Biotech

Over the past two decades, genetically modified plants have graduated from laboratory curiosities to crops planted on millions of hectares. But while major seed firms have struggled with public worries over environmental questions and food safety, they’ve also been locked in a more private fight over a central question: who owns one of the industry’s principal gene-insertion technologies?

Calling All PCs

April 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Biotech: Home computers help to find a cure for disease.

You leave your computer hooked up to the Internet to go make a sandwich, and in your absence your computer engages in a bit of cancer research. Sound absurd? Actually, thousands of home computers today are being tapped to do research, helping biologists process gigabytes of data on genes and proteins. Now anyone with a PC and a modem can take part in solving some of today’s major health problems.

Growth Industry

April 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Tissue engineering promises to repair and even replace damaged body parts.

Tissue engineering is the art of taking a sample of cells and “growing” them under the right conditions to form tissue-even whole organs. Skin, bone, and cartilage products based on the technology are already on the market, and engineered bladders and heart valves are showing promise in the lab (see “The Human Body Shop,” TR April 2001).

The Programmable Pill

April 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Drugs of the near future will be microdevices that search out and destroy germs without the side effects of conventional therapies.

The patient leans back in his chair and closes his eyes, waiting to receive his first chemotherapy treatment for advanced colon cancer. His nurse locates the tiny catheter just beneath the skin of his chest and connects it to an IV tube. A clear fluid containing an anticancer drug travels down the tube, through the catheter and into the man’s blood vessels. The drug travels throughout his body in search of the fast-dividing cells characteristic of cancer-but only a relatively small portion of the drug will reach those cells. Instead, much of it will end up attacking hair follicles, immune system cells and tissues where noncancerous cells are dividing quickly. The treatment lasts an hour as the patient sits there, apprehensive not only about his disease but about side effects. Will he lose his hair? Will he feel nauseous? A few hours later, nausea sets in. By the next treatment, the hair loss he feared has begun.

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Total Recall

May 31, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Materials

Shape memory plastics are about as close as materials scientists get to doing magic. Bend and twist them all you want, but at the right temperature they’ll bounce back to their original shapes. Now, for the first time, researchers have made shape memory polymers that are both compatible with the body and biodegradable-a potential breakthrough in the development of implantable therapeutic devices.

New Markets for Biotech

June 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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AG Biotech: Developing countries turn to genetically modified crops.

Much of the push to commercialize the first generation of genetically engineered crops has come from large companies in the United States and Western Europe. But the next big producers of biotech crops could very well be nations in the developing world. While battles over genetically modified foods have slowed the technology’s progress in Europe and North America, countries such as China and India are now gearing up to commercialize dozens of genetically modified plants in the next few years (see “Eating the Genes,”).

Attractive Shapes

June 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Materials: Magnetically controlled metal could yield better machine parts.

Materials scientists have long played with “shape memory alloys,” metals that shift between one shape and another when heated or cooled to just the right temperature. But so far, real-world applications have been limited, because controlling the alloy’s shape with temperature is often difficult and inefficient. Now, researchers have found a way to accomplish the same shape-memory tricks using magnets rather than temperature-an advance that could make possible efficient, less clunky moving parts for machine components in aircraft, automobiles or even robots.

Handy Rules

June 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Wireless: New standards could ease access to the wireless Web.

ry accessing the wireless Web with your cell phone, pager or handheld computer and you’ll quickly realize the technology does not live up to its promise (see “Mobile Web vs. Reality,” TR June 2001). Most Internet sites are designed for PCs, not the tiny display, limited keyboard, and software specifications of a handheld. This is why you have to scroll side-to-side to see a Web page and why you frequently get error messages telling you to update your browser. However, new Web standards that could be implemented within the next two years will give your device the ability to request any Web page and have it automatically tailored to meet the device’s needs. Leading the way is the Cambridge, MA-based World Wide Web Consortium, a group that represents more than 500 industry organizations and is charged with determining technical guidelines for Web use (see “The Web’s Unelected Government,” TR November/December 1998).

PicoPeta Simputers

August 31, 2001, 9:00 pm

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A simple handheld to bridge India’s digital divide.

Vijay Chandru places his pocketbook-sized computer gently on the table. The computer scientist from the Indian Institute of Science believes this gray box could be the future of personal computing in his country. Costing about the same as a handheld computer, Chandru’s “Simputer” has much of a PC’s functionality. And if he and his colleagues at PicoPeta Simputers are right, that combination of power and affordability will help make information technology far more accessible in the developing world.

Sphere Software

August 31, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Keeping workplace information safe.

As companies from banks to butchers’ shops become dependent on their computer databases-and increasingly vulnerable to hackers and overly curious employees-the ability to control the flow of information in company networks is at a premium. Today’s network software can do part of the job, password-protecting specific files, for example, or blocking outsiders’ access to the corporate network, but it’s usually an all-or-nothing proposition. What if, for ex-ample, a bank teller needs access to a customer’s old address, but that information is restricted because it’s in a document that also contains confidential credit information? Columbia, MD’s Sphere Software is using technology licensed from Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory to build software that will not only keep data secure but will also make sure everybody in the company can get the information they need.

Lithography Unmasked

August 31, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Hardware: Researchers pursue a cheaper way of designing and fabricating computer chips.

As consumers come to expect that everything from cell phones to stuffed animals will pack significant computing power, manufacturers are under pressure to churn out ever faster and cheaper microchips. But making computer chips using photolithography-the standard manufacturing technique-is wildly expensive. A significant part of that cost is the stencil-like “masks” that filter the light beam used to pattern millions of transistors onto a chip. Indeed, making a single silicon chip can require as many as 30 masks costing more than a million dollars-and as the transistors on a chip continue to shrink, the cost of the masks only grows.

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Electronic Medical Records

September 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Medicine: New rules mean doctors must go digital.

Doctors hear it all the time: if they kept patients’ files on computers instead of on paper, it would save time and money-and patients would get better care. Still, less than five percent of U.S. physicians use electronic record systems. But new regulations from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could finally force doctors to enter the digital age.

New Hubs for Nano

November 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Nanotech

Nanotechnology got a big boost last year when the federal government launched its National Nanotechnology Initiative, which will provide almost $520 million in funding in fiscal year 2002. As part of that initiative, the National Science Foundation is now funding six new applications-oriented nanotech centers.

Scrutinizing Human Research

November 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Medicine

New medical treatments can be lifesaving-if they work. But for a volunteer in the experiments necessary to evaluate those hoped-for cures, the new treatments can be risky, even deadly. In the last few years, in fact, a number of research institutions have come under fire for not adequately protecting the health and rights of volunteers. Part of the problem, critics say, is that the federally mandated review boards whose responsibility it is to oversee human research at their respective institutions are often overburdened and lacking in the necessary expertise.

Recognizing the Enemy

November 30, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Creating a central database of photos to identify terrorists through face recognition is a bureaucratic nightmare.

Of all the dramatic images to emerge in the hours and days following the September 11 attacks, one of the most haunting was a frame from a surveillance-camera video capturing the face of suspected hijacker Mohamed Atta as he passed through an airport metal detector in Portland, ME. Even more chilling to many security experts is the fact that, had the right technology been in place, an image like that might have helped avert the attacks. According to experts, face recognition technology that’s already commercially available could have instantly checked the image against photos of suspected terrorists on file with the FBI and other authorities. If a match had been made, the system could have sounded the alarm before the suspect boarded his flight.

Bar-Coding Life

December 31, 2001, 9:00 pm

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Biotech: Tiny tags to decode disease.

Bar codes have revolutionized how everyone from warehouse managers to pharmacists keeps track of items. Mountain View, CA-based SurroMed is using them to help biologists track genes, proteins and other molecules. SurroMed’s microscopic bar codes could eventually be used to identify and quantify thousands of different molecules in a sample of a fluid like blood, making biological and medical tests far more informative.