Posts Tagged ‘university of tokyo’
Researchers Create Ultra-Sensitive Robotic Nose Using Frog Eggs as an Olfactory Sensor
Eggs from the African Clawed Frog have been used in research before to express olfactory receptors, but they had not been integrated into an electronic sniffing system like this. By injecting the eggs with DNA from fruit flies, silk moths, and diamond back moths, the bioengineers were able to coax the immature eggs into producing the olfactory sensors of those insects, which are known for their ability to detect specific gases and pheromones.
The eggs were then fitted between two electrodes, creating a sensor system that measured the current generated when certain molecules came in contact with the detector. Using a robotic mannequin that shakes its head to indicate a positive, the researchers demonstrated the sensors ability to detect moth pheromones with a high-degree of accuracy as well as to differentiate between very similar molecules.
By contrast, the usual quartz rod sensors that vibrate when certain molecules come in contact with them are known for giving false positives and for being unable to differentiate between molecules of similar weight. Such a high-sensitivity detector could find uses in a range of technologies, from bomb-detectors to biomarker sensors.
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Video: Fastest Book Scanner Ever Captures Flipping Pages with High-Speed Camera
The technology blows away the competition by scanning 200 pages a minute
The scanner's camera runs at 500 frames per second, and captures rapidly flipping book pages in two modes. First, a regular line shines on the page to capture text and images. The second mode then manages neat the trick of reconstructing the curved, distorted pages in their original form. A laser device projects lines onto each page that the system can use to recreate the 3-D page model and correct the deformed lines.
Google's own seems to use some sort of infrared camera to capture the 3-D shape of book pages, but the book lies flat and the page-turning mechanism is unclear. Other book scanners boast of capturing about 50 pages per minute, which is four times slower than the new method.
Masatoshi Ishikawa -- the University of Tokyo researcher behind the book-scanning marvel -- previously developed the in the East, so he's probably not too worried about tiring out human hands by flipping book pages.
Miniaturized versions of this technology could eventually find their way into our smartphones for completely legal digitizing delights. Or it might combine with the robot hands to bring Short Circuit's Johnny 5 to life.
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