WORLD'S THINNEST BULB

New technology increases opportunities, make us more efficient and increase our power.

So here is a new step in technology, world thinnest bulb is made from graphene.

Graphene, is a form of carbon famous for being stronger than steel and more conductive than copper, can add another wonder to the list: making light.

You can now forget LED light bulbs in future, your lighting may be made from graphene. Researchers have developed a light-emitting graphene transistor that works in the same way as the filament in a light bulb.

For the first time, scientists say they’ve created a flexible and transparent light source with carbon in its purest form. They say their discovery could also eventually transform computers by using light rather than electronic circuits in semiconductor chips

Now the question is why graphene?

Because graphene has an interesting property: when it heats up, it becomes a poor conductor of heat. Thus, the heat it creates is confined to the filament and doesn't melt the surrounding chip.

Researchers of Columbian university built a light bulb chip that superheats graphene to produce illumination.

When an electric current runs through the filament, it heats 

up enough to emit light.

They actually attached small strips of graphene to metal electrodes, suspended the strips above the substrate, and passed a current through the filaments to cause them to heat up

The graphene filament measures just one atom thick -- this is

 the world's thinnest light bulb, and may be close to being the thinnest possible. It's transparent, too, which could suit it to see-through displays.

Creating light in small structures on the surface of a chip is crucial for developing fully integrated 'photonic' circuits that do with light what is now done with electric currents in semiconductor integrated circuits. Researchers have developed many approaches to do this, but have not yet been able to put the oldest and simplest artificial light source—the incandescent light bulb—onto a chip. This is primarily because light bulb filaments must be extremely hot—thousands of degrees Celsius—in order to glow in the visible range and micro-scale metal wires cannot withstand such temperatures. In addition, heat transfer from the hot filament to its surroundings is extremely efficient at the microscale, making such structures impractical and leading to damage of the surrounding chip.

This was the first time that researchers demonstrated an on chip visible light source using graphene. By measuring the spectrum of the light emitted from the graphene, the team was able to show that the graphene was reaching temperatures of above 2500 degrees Celsius, hot enough to glow brightly. "The visible light from atomically thin graphene is so intense that it is visible even to the naked eye, without any additional magnification," explains Young Duck Kim, first and co-lead author on the paper and postdoctoral research scientist who works in Hone's group at Columbia Engineering

  Later in this year, a graphene-coated LED that lasts longer and uses less energy than a typical LED is expected to enter the marketplace—the result of research at Britain’s University of Manchester. It’s not, though, a pure graphene light bulb.

what’s even more exciting, is that we can use graphene light to develop flexible and transparent smartphones and tablets. Graphene light will transform the chips in our computers and smartphones, so that they can process information with light, which mean it will be faster, in a more compact form, and with less energy consumption. This could happen very soon!

MICROSOFT DRONES :TO CATCH MOSQUITOES

Trap will always be a trap.

This time Microsoft have build a trap for mosquitoes.

Microsoft have now found a new potential use of drones.

We might have never thought of using drones in preventing spread of diseases.

 To prevent epidemics, American tech company Microsoft is developing autonomous drones that collect mosquitoes to look for early signs of potentially harmful viruses being spread by them.

Microsoft has just launched an initiative called project PREMONITION with the aim of detecting viruses before they infect a significant number of people using a fleet of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (or UAVs)

To do this company will send an army of drones which will zoom wildlife and then trap mosquitoes.then the drones will bring trapped mosquitoes back to the laboratory, where  scientist can check their blood samples or any other sample for pathogens in or around the body. Thanks to the latest advancements in molecular biology and genetic sequencing, samples can be processed faster and more cheaply than ever - they can even spot viruses that haven't been classified yet.

Right now, scientists attempt to do this by using traps hung from trees that must be collected by hand. But Microsoft's new plan could greatly speed up this process and make it a lot cheaper, by sending out portable drones that are able to cover far more distance and come back to base with bigger samples.

It is rightly said that PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE.

Team Microsoft is rightly following this..

Getting an early warning against a epidemic would be much

 better, and with natures drones you can collect the

 necessary information and prepare yourself for prevention. "The ability to predict an epidemic would be 

huge," Douglas Norris, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland,told linn

 Their was always a need of an updated mosquito trap,infact many of nets that Norris has used to study mosquitoes haven't had design changes since the 1960s or even the 1950s. Old traps need expensive batteries that need changing a few times a year. In fact, some of the chemicals used are so dangerous that airplane safety regulations ban them from flights..

The older traps use to collect many other bugs aside mosquitoes, so the researchers have to pluck these mosquitoes out which actual eats time.

Researchers have developed a new mosquito trap that uses less energy and relies on lighter weight batteries. It also has a new bait system for luring mosquitoes, a sensor that automatically sorts the mosquitoes from the other bugs and chemicals that can preserve the mosquitoes for lab study.

Drones will fly in a semi-autonomous way as well as being directed by human pilot. All that extra functionality requires more research and programming of course, but the Project Premonition team is optimistic about its chances.

With this project we hope to spot danger early and save lives.

GLOVES :TO FEEL VIRTUAL REALITY

What if you start touching and feeling the virtual objects.

While virtual reality users may be able to see things soon with microsoft’s HoloLens, they will soon be able to feel sensations such as heat rainfall, heat, flitting of a butterfly, shapes (and even weight of an object) when interacting with virtual objects.

Yes thanks to the new pair of gloves from spain based tech 

company neurodigital technologies.

This Spain-based tech company has developed a prototype of the gloves, dubbed Gloveone,which enables users to feel and touch any virtual object that they can see on the screen or in their VR headsets," according to the company.

If a virtual apple is shown on the screen, with Gloveone, you will be able to feel its shape or weight, sense all of its physical features, and even smash it!" says the company on Kickstarter.

Gloveone is a glove made out of fabric that lines 10 haptic actuators along the user’s fingertips and palm in order to create the sensation of touching objects in VR and feeling their shape and weight. 

These vibrate individually and at varied intensities and frequencies, which result in the production of touch sensations that are accurate.

A lipo-battery is fitted to the wrist and motherboard rests on the back of the user’s palm. By putting on a head-mounted display (HMD) like the OCCULUS RIFT and using a hand-tracking sensor such as LEAP MOTION, players can reach out and take control that seems very realistic.

The technology translates touch sensations into vibrations and each pair has 10 sensors placed in the palm and fingertips. Four of those sensors, located in the palm, thumb, index and middle fingers, can detect each other, letting you fire a gun or grab an apple

The gloves will also come with a 9-axis inertial measure unity (IMU) sensor. While typically found in aircrafts where it is used to record velocity and gravitational forces, the sensor in the gloves will help to track your movements within the virtual reality setting.

The company describes the sensation of wearing these gloves as a "realistic perceptual illusion", meaning that you can't feel the weight of a virtual object the same as it is in real life, but you can compare weights within the virtual world.

people can buy the gloves fitted in three sizes. Each "anti-bacterial, sweat-proof" pair features a Bluetooth wireless connection and offers more than four hours of battery life.

Only thing, you will have to wait till 2016 before you enjoy the experience through Gloveone

THYNC :worlds first digital drug

Bored disappointed frustrated angry or whatever be your mood, you can now switch it according to your need with a wearable device.

This new digital device or being called the world first digital drug, can zap your brain to make you feel either energized or calm.

Jamie tyler introduced a product at CES named thync.

Thync is called as a safe digital version of drugs, user can himself connect this device onto their front temple and  second connected pad goes in a spot farther back on your head, with its location varying depending on whether you're using the calming or energizing mode.

This unit is light and comfortable though it would be odd wearing it in public and trying to pop up your brain, so better use this in your home.

Thync has some similarities to TENS units and it uses   

neurosignaling to either calm you down or energise you.

"Neurosignaling uses electronic or ultrasonic waveforms to signal neural pathways in the brain. When specific pathways are stimulated, they trigger a shift in your state of mind or energy level."

This product actually uses "low levels of pulsed electrical energy to signal specific neural pathways, allowing users to dial up or dial down their stress responses and energy levels." In other words, it zaps specific parts of your brain to make you either calm down or get motivated (or both, as these states don't appear to be mutually exclusive)

About 20%of Americans are taking prescription medication 

for psychiatric and mood disorders.

People find electricity being applied to treat depression very bizarre, but they find swallowing a pill to treat depression or anything else very natural

Bur reliance on drugs is more cultural than scientific.

This device thync is wireless,and connects to your smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth (it's iOS only at launch, with an Android app coming by the end of 2015). 

You can control Thync from the official app, where you can choose the length of your session. You can also adjust the strength of the brain-zapping there (each program follows a pattern of greater and lesser intensity, with cycles of peaks and valleys, but you can also manually raise or lower the overall strength).

The electric pulses which are generated didn’t hurt and are 

comfortable in any way.

Minimum time needed for calmimg effect is 5 minutes, which is even feasible for busiest people. so you can now take out atleast 5 minutes to get calm before you leave for office or for any other daily chores. There's also a 10 minute calming option, if you want to crank it up to a Snoop Dogg level of chill.

According to the founder calming effect is more like as the effects of ephedrine.

Thync says the product is perfectly safe. It's being marketed as a lifestyle consumer product, not a medical one, so the FDA isn't regulating it, but it has been independently approved by the Underwriter’s Laboratory (UL), a US-based safety organization specializing in electrical devices.

The company does say that different people respond to it in 

different ways, and some people will feel the effects more 

after doing it a second or third time (another similarity to 

cannabis).

 The device itself (including four packs of sticky strips, with five strips in each pack) rings up for US$299. Replacement sticky strips cost $20 for a pack of five

Exactly how many times you can use each strip is going to be a big cost variable: if it's only a one-off (the official recommendation), then, after running out of the initial supply, using Thync once a day would cost an extra $120 per month. But if you can squeeze even three or four quality uses out of each strip, then that drops down to an extra $30-40 per month for everyday use.

VACCINE: FOR HYPERTENSION

Are you among those people who forget to take their pills because of their busy schedule or a long prescription list?

Or among those who are not able to take their pills themselves?

So here is a news, in your favour

According to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension scientists have developed a new DNA vaccine that may lower blood pressure for up to 6 months.

 According to study co-author Hironori Nakagami, MD PhD, a professor at Osaka University in Japan “This is the first report of a DNA vaccine for hypertension in animal experiments”

This study is done in rats and this vaccine has proven effective in controlling high blood pressure in lab rats for up to six months, according to new research published May 26 in the journal Hypertension.

Researchers have designed a DNA vaccine that targets angiotension II ― a hormone that raises blood pressure by causing blood vessels to constrict. This narrowing can increase your blood pressure and force your heart to work harder.

In the study, researchers immunized hypertensive rats three times at two-week intervals with needleless injections. The vaccine not only lowered blood pressure for up to six months, but also reduced tissue damage to the heart and blood vessels associated with hypertension. There were no signs of damage to other organs such as the kidney or liver.

The DNA vaccine works similar to common ACE inhibitor blood pressure medications which help blood vessels relax and open up, which, in turn, lowers blood pressure. Other types of vaccines have been tested for hypertension (e.g. a peptide vaccine), but didn't have lasting effects and some had undesirable side effects.

Despite of the fact that this study is been done on rats, and such studies involving animals often fail to produce similar results in humans the research group hopes to have a version of the vaccine ready for human clinical trials within two or three years.

The ultimate goal of an anti-hypertensive vaccine is to achieve perfect blood pressure control by improving drug compliance through the vaccine. In addition, in the developing countries like Africa and south Asia, anti-hypertensive drugs such as ARB (angiotensin receptor blockade) are expensive. A DNA vaccine may provide cheaper and effective anti-hypertensive treatments in such countries, researchers said

"The potential of a vaccine for hypertension offers an innovative treatment that could be very effective for the control of noncompliance, which is one of the major problems in the management of hypertensive patients

 Drug compliance describes the degree to which a patient correctly follows medical advice.

Researchers suspect that humans likely would need booster shots once or twice a year to maintain the vaccine's effect,

So it would be a great help to the people on daily doses for hypertension or who need assistance for drug intake.

High blood pressure (BP) is ranked as the third most important risk factor for attributable burden of disease in south Asia. About 33% urban and 25% rural Indians are hypertensive

About 70 million Americans have high blood pressure, which amounts to one in every three adults, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And only about half of them have their condition under control.

Well according to me development of this vaccine would be 

beneficial, but as it would require another 2-3 years then

whether this vaccine would be a great opinion or not would 

be a big question.

 As according to Dr. Ernesto Schiffrin, vice chair of research at McGill University's department of medicine in Montreal, Canada as of now about 85 percent of high blood pressure patients, now can be treated using available medications, which leaves a significant minority that could be helped with this vaccine.

 Nakagami admits that further research is needed to improve longevity of the vaccine’s effect..

Although goal of this research is clear ie to create a single 

shot that will achieve perfect blood pressure control by 

improving medication compliance.

Few questions are still to be answered like how effective the vaccine would be? will their be any side effects? .

APP: PREDICTS GRADES, PASS OR FAIL?

 We all generally get anxious when our exam result is to be disclosed..

Can you imagine a phone with a phone app that predicts your result like whether you will be pass or fail?

Researchers at Dartmouth College and the University of Texas at Austin developed an app smartGPA that automatically predicts college students' grade point average based on their cellphone data that tracks their study, party and other habits.

We all know ways to improve our GPA(grade point 

average).we all know about the amount of time we spend in 

watching a movie or sleeping or any other task, but now our

 smartphones can do the same for us

This Dartmouth new app can track student behavior and predict their GPAs to within a tenth of a point based solely on the info from their smartphones.

This app uses gps and wifi data for all parts of the college and tracks you when you are in class in canteen or library and then using your location data, this app predicts what you are actually doing and tracks your studying, sleeping, socializing, physical activity, class attendance, and even your stress levels, to get a picture of how you're doing.

 It can then predict your classroom performance without knowing anything previously about your talents, your IQ, your grades, your SAT scores, or anything else

The app's data – gathered via monitoring all smartphone use from physical activity to time spent sleeping – is analysed via machine learning algorithms and, once periodic self reporting from users is factored in, is unnervingly accurate in predicting grades.

This shows that it is your behaviour not your talent that will

 predict your academic success. their is no such thing as 

great talent without great willpower.

The app and its supporting research underline that there are certain behavioural patterns that have a direct impact on a student's grade point average – such as stress levels, time devoted to social interaction and sleep cycles – and these behaviours can be quantified via a smartphone, automatically, without need for direct user input. 

.

There may be few people who will not like this app and this includes me too. As I don’t want my smartphone to track my every move. Though it is for my own good, but please there is something called privacy

It isn't hard to say that if we get more sleep, more exercise, go to class, skip the party, and study more that we'll get good grades. he limitation to this going global, of course, is that for now the app is tuned to Hanover. If you took the same app to Cambridge or Palo Alto you'd have to reprogram it for the locations there.

The good news is that if the app recognises behaviour that could negatively impact on the student's average, it can offer alerts and advice on how to turn things around.

NOISE : gives you a pot belly

What type of noise are you exposed ?

To answer this question you need to know what actually is noise?

Noise means any unwanted sound. Sounds, particularly loud ones, that disturb people or make it difficult to hear wanted sounds, are noise.

There is a bad news for people who are regularly exposed to

combination of road, rail 

and plane noise, as 

 according to new Swedish study are at a high risk of developing a pot belly.

Exposure to a combination of road traffic, rail, and aircraft noise may pose the greatest risk of acquiring a spare tyre - otherwise known as central obesity, and thought to be one of the most harmful types of fat deposition around the body, the finding suggests

Noise exposure may be an important physiological stressor and bump up the production of the hormone cortisol, high levels of which are thought to have a role in fat deposition around the middle of the body.

"This may explain why the effects of noise were mainly seen for markers of central obesity, such as waist circumference and waist-hip ratio, rather than for generalised obesity, measured by BMI (Body Mass Index)," the study said

The body mass index (BMI), or Quetelet index, is a value derived from the mass (weight) and height of an individual. The BMI is defined as the body mass divided by the square of the body height

A sound's loudness is measured in decibels (dB). Normal conversation is about 60 dB, a lawn mower is about 90 dB, and a loud rock concert is about 120 dB .

In general, sounds above 85 are harmful, depending on how long and how often you are exposed to them and whether you wear hearing protection, such as earplugs or earmuffs.

The researchers assessed how much road traffic, rail, and aircraft noise 5,075 people living in five suburban and rural areas around Stockholm, Sweden, had been exposed to since 1999.

They did this by using official figures on road and rail traffic noise levels and flow.

Between 2002 and 2006, when they were aged between 43 and 66, they completed a detailed questionnaire covering lifestyle, current state of health, levels of psychological distress, insomnia and job strain.

The researchers found no link between road traffic noise and BMI. But there was an association between road traffic noise and waist size, with a 0.21 cm increase for every additional five decibel (dB) increase in exposure, although this was only significant among women.

Similarly, there was a link to waist:hip ratio, with a change of 0.16cm for every five dB increase in noise exposure to road traffic. This association was stronger in men.

A larger waist was significantly associated with exposure to any of the three sources of noise, but thefor link was strongest  for aircraft noise; a larger waist:hip ratio was associated with road traffic and aircraft noise only.

So residents near a airport area specially men would be seen with a high waist:hip ratio.

There seemed to be a cumulative effect, however: the more sources of noise pollution a person was exposed to at the same time, the greater their risk of central obesity seemed to be.

The heightened risk of a larger waist rose from 25 per cent among those exposed to only one source to almost double for those exposed to all three sources

"Exposure to traffic noise is increasing because of ongoing urbanization and increasing traffic volumes,. "It is important to fully assess the public health consequences of this development."

The findings of this study were not influenced by socioeconomic factors, lifestyle, or exposure to ambient air pollution from local road traffic.

But age was an influential factor, with associations between central obesity and road traffic noise only found for those below the age of 60.

The FAA says that a maximum day-night average sound level of 65 dB is incompatible with residential communities. Noise associated with aircraft does not only affect people on the ground, but also those within the aircraft .Simulated aircraft noise at 65 dB(A) has been shown to negatively affect individuals’ memory and recall of auditory information.

Now if you encounter with few people of a particular society 

or occupation having their mid section raised or a large

 waist:hip ratio you can relate with the above study.

What I personally suggest is that If your workplace or residential area has harmful noise levels, plan ahead and wear hearing protection. Wearing hearing protectors can help prevent damage from both moderate and loud noise.