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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
Robugs, biologically based software, the GeoWeb, transgenic art and other hot frontiers in technological innovation.
Nov 30, 2005 | 
Robugs: Swarms of tiny robotic insects
Tomorrow's robots may look more like spiders or flies than Rosie or Robby. While Japanese engineers wow crowds with expensive, complex humanoid bots like ASIMO and QRIO, groups of engineers are developing tiny mechatronic bots modeled on insects. Robots built in our image appeal to our emotions and might make good caretakers, but small, cheap and simple "robugs" would be better suited for activities like burrowing into the rubble of a collapsed building searching for survivors or, someday, traversing your colon looking for polyps.
In September, Dartmouth researchers demonstrated what they claim is the world's smallest mobile robot. As wide as a human hair and about one-quarter of a millimeter long, the inchworm robot was fabricated out of silicon with processes similar to those used to manufacture computer chips. Eventually, minuscule robots might even inspect and repair integrated circuits, manipulate cells in biotechnology labs, or explore remote planets, thousands of them working in parallel like ant colonies.
Meanwhile, waiting in the wings is University of California at Berkeley professor Ronald Fearing's Micromechanical Flying Insect. The aerodynamics of the 25mm robofly is meant to mimic the rhythmic beating of a real fly's wings. Once it finally gets off the ground, an airborne robug outfitted with a tiny video camera would make a great "fly on the wall" for remote reconnaissance. It's no surprise that the early robofly research was funded by the Department of Defense.
Hacking DNA: Creating life one BioBrick at a time
Biology is the nanotechnology that works. That's the motto of Tom Knight, a computer scientist at MIT who is creating a library of genetic parts called BioBricks that could be snapped together like Tinker Toys. The BioBricks effort is part of an emerging field called synthetic biology that promises to make genetic engineering worthy of its name. Literally, the aim is to build biological systems to specs never found in nature. Imagine microbes that glow red in the presence of TNT and then digest its active ingredient, or custom-built green algae that produces hydrogen from water and sunlight for fuel cell automobiles.
The MIT crew has already hacked together synthetic genetic counters for tracking how many times a cancer cell divides, and logic gates, the building blocks of computer circuits, but in this case based on chemical inputs and outputs instead of zeros and ones.
Across the country, U.C. Berkeley scientist Jay Keasling transformed run-of-the-mill E.coli into a microbial factory that spews the raw ingredients of an anti-malaria drug, potentially cutting the cost of treatments from dollars to dimes. Further alterations to the cellular pathways could enable the bacteria to produce the anti-cancer drug Taxol. Keasling is also heading up another project to engineer a single-cell soil microbe that would swim into a pool of pesticides and mellow the nasty chemicals. Where does it end? Where life begins, it seems.
This year, J. Craig Venter, the biologist who famously led the commercial effort to sequence the Human Genome, launched a company that plans to build an entire synthetic cell from the bottom up. The first step is to determine the bare minimum genes needed for an organism to survive. Then, specific biological capabilities could be added to the minimal genome and the whole thing inserted into a single-cell bacterium stripped of its original genes. Programmed with what Venter calls "biologically based software," this synthetic cell could then get to work producing ethanol, hydrogen, pharmaceuticals or other useful materials cleanly, efficiently and cheaply.
Location, location, location: The GeoWeb
What if you could Google the world? You might stop outside a new Chinese restaurant near the office when the smart phone in your pocket comes alive with digital graffiti posted in the wireless ether by a previous patron: "Stay away. The Thai noodle joint down the street is a better bet." Later, you could pass a cafe where your phone buzzes with a notice that a friend on your "buddy list" is inside. The very fact that you were alerted to his location means that he'd welcome some company. Sightseeing in a new city, your phone becomes a virtual tour guide, providing you with engaging custom-tailored histories of the neighborhoods and landmarks you visit.
This is the vision of a Geospatical Web, or GeoWeb. In GeoWeb terms, cyberspace is no longer a place you go to, but rather an overlay to the physical world. The GeoWeb would link the geographic location of people, places and things with the digital information that lives on the Internet. Like the personalized ads that Tom Cruise was barraged with in "Minority Report," you ask? That's the worst-case scenario. Dodgeball, a location-enabled social networking service created by a New York University student and recently acquired by Google, is a better place to start. Indeed, many of the enabling technologies behind a GeoWeb are becoming common, including GPS-enabled mobile phones and urban wireless networks. And other ways for your mobile device to know where it's at are on the way.
The path to the GeoWeb is rocky, though. Carriers often lock out developers, leading to "walled gardens" of mediocre services. And good geodata is often proprietary and pricey. Meanwhile, a dedicated cabal of independent GeoWeb enthusiasts are hammering out the standards that would guarantee interoperability and moving carefully through the mire of privacy concerns. They're also toiling away on projects like OpenStreetMap, a distributed effort to produce free road maps of the world, and myriad Google Maps mash-ups. While wireless providers tentatively search for business models, geobloggers and map hackers are already laying claim to the future of the GeoWeb.
