TODAY'S TECH ROUNDUP/PLOT BUNNY BONANZA

Exciting news in the world of science and technology today, dear readers! Or, as we SFR authors like to say, “Here be plot bunnies!”

--“Wetware” coming soon.  That is, if the Department of Defense has anything to say about it. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding six teams to create an implant that can record the activity of as many as one million brain cells (neurons) at once and send basic signals back into the brain. This is a fraction of the brain’s power (the average brain contains 80 billion neurons), but it’s a big leap from the few neurons we can monitor currently. Researchers say the tech could one day be used to restore senses, read thoughts or “even create consciousness itself.” (Or, more probably, it will have us all wired to the internet 24/7/365.) Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has also dropped cash on a company working on a brain/computer interface. Can the world SF author William Gibson (Neuromancer) envisioned be far off? (Adam Piore in TechnologyReview.com as reported in The Week, July 28, 2017)

--Talk to the hand. Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have developed an electronic glove that can translate the movements of American Sign Language into text. By “interpreting” the signs in text on a smartphone or computer screen, the innovation makes it possible for the hearing impaired to make themselves easily understood by persons who do not sign. The glove could also be used to manipulate objects in virtual reality sometime in the future. The best news of all—the prototype glove cost only $100 to build. (Avery Thompson in PopularMechanics.com as reported in The Week, July 28, 2017)

--No time for cruises near the Antarctic. In the exciting conclusion to a drama scientists have been watching for years, the Larsen-C Ice Shelf calved an iceberg the size of Delaware last week as a huge rift in the shelf widened and split the berg from the continent. Antarctica is 12 percent smaller because of the loss of the piece of shelf, which scientists calculate weighs one trillion tons. The iceberg had no immediate effect on sea levels, but experts point out that the Larsen-C shelf plays a crucial role in holding back the flow of Antarctica’s glaciers into the sea. The event could trigger a chain reaction, with more ice sliding into the ocean and raising sea levels by as much as four inches. All scientists will say with any certainty is that the future stability of the Larsen-C shelf is at risk. (Reuters.com as reported in The Week, July 28, 2017)

--Like coffee? Drink up! In welcome news to writers, editors and agents everywhere, two new studies show significant health benefits to drinking coffee. In fact, the more you drink, the more you benefit in terms of lower risk of death from heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease. A study of 186,000 adults by Veronica Setiawan of the University of Southern California and her team showed mortality risk dropped 12 percent for those who drank just one cup of coffee per day. The risk dropped 18 percent for those who drank two to three cups per day.  A second, 16-year study conducted on over 500,000 adults in Europe indicated the men who drank the most coffee had a 12 percent lower risk of death. For women, the risk dropped by seven percent. No one knows yet why coffee has such beneficial effects, although it is known that the drink contains strong antioxidants. Both studies agreed caffeine was not the secret ingredient, however. Decaf produced similar benefits. (Science.com as reported in The Week, July 28, 2017)

--But decaf only after 4:00 p.m. A new study shows poor sleep quality may increase the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease. The study asked 101 people who already had genetic risk factors for the disease (but no symptoms) to complete a questionnaire about their sleep habits. Then samples of their spinal fluid were taken. Those who reported sleep problems had more biological markers of the brain disease—buildups and tangles of toxic proteins (such as beta-amyloid and tau), brain-cell damage and inflammation. Researchers admit the link between poor sleep and later Alzheimer’s is not clear. But it is known that the brain uses REM sleep time for “housekeeping”, clearing out harmful toxins and organizing information. Sleep loss could interfere with this process. (New York Times as reported in The Week, July 28, 2017)

Cheers, Donna

TECH WE COULD REALLY USE

Barbara Beskind, a 91-year-old engineer at the firm IDEO, is busy working on an invention I could really use: facial recognition glasses that identify the person approaching you at a gathering and discreetly whisper that person’s name into your ear.* 

I can’t tell you the embarrassment that little invention would save me at conferences. I’m good at faces—I know you!—or at names—oh, Jane Doe, yeah, I’ve met her!—but matching the two things up within the timeframe of a conversation seems to be beyond me. Hurry up, Barbara, I need those glasses. I will pay big money.

Barbara, it seems, is one of a handful of inventors out there working on things we can really use, rather than things that are just fancier versions of what we already have. Phones, for example. I still use a five-year-old flip-phone. All I do is talk and text. Don’t need email, traffic, weather, YouTube, Facebook, movies or anything else on my phone. I have an iPad for that. Or a television, where I can actually see what the heck is going on.

So, all you lovely techies slaving away in some lab—be it a corporate one with test tubes of every size and shape, or your garage where things go BANG! on a regular basis—please give us something we can use.

Need some ideas?

--We all know Google, Apple and several other tech giants are working on the concept of a driverless car. Get in, program your destination and away you go! Take a nap, read a book (on your iPad, of course), watch a movie on the onboard screen, have a drink, even! The car drives itself.

You all are not thinking big enough. How about a car that drives itself to the grocery store to pick up your groceries? Takes your cat to the vet? Picks up the kids at school, takes Johnny to karate, drops off Sue at skate lessons, remembers to pick up the dry cleaning, stops for take-out on the way home and, oh, yeah, fills itself up with gas? All while you are at home doing whatever it is you do when you’re not doing those things. Now that would be an invention.

--And while we’re at it, where are our flying cars???

--No, forget cars. We need a reliable and safe transporter. Or any kind of transporter. Think of the complete transformation of our world this invention would create. No need for the infrastructure we now require to move goods and people across town or around the world. No need for the fossil fuels or the vehicles we use to do those things. No more traffic jams. A dramatic reduction in air pollution. Of course, the world might not survive the transition period, with the massive economic disruption caused by the collapse of the transportation and energy sectors. But what the hell! Halliburton finally gets what it deserves! 

--And while we’re dreaming the impossible dream, faster-than-light propulsion, please. I’m sure we’d find some use for that.

--Back to the mundane, can it really be so hard to come up with a safe and effective pill to fight obesity? We have a morning-after pill to prevent pregnancy. How about a morning-after-I-ate-a-huge-pizza pill to prevent all that from landing on my hips, huh? If I have to swallow someone else’s gut bacteria (in capsule form, preferably), I will do it! (That’s the latest theory, you know. Your gut bacteria are to blame for your metabolism.) But whatever it is, let’s turn up the heat on this research, shall we? I don’t think reaching my ideal weight as a 95-year-old will be quite the same cause for celebration.

--Then, of course, there is the concept of the LIMITLESS pill, a la the movie starring Bradley Cooper (now a television show). Take a pill, have access to all of your brain power, all of your genetic potential. No more grasping for the questions to those dumb trivia answers on JEOPARDY! Your phenomenal brain will spit them out before the last word in the square is even revealed! And if your fellow contestants want to fight about it, you will crush them in seconds by drawing on the full capacity of your muscles and reflexes. 

Not sure what would happen in a world where everyone is taking these pills. Maybe people would finally get the concept of how to maneuver around a traffic circle. And stop watching reality TV.

I have a few other things I could suggest, but I’m sure some of you inventors and scientists are actually working on useful things already. Surely not all of you are busy on the iPhone 7, the next big thing in snack food or yet another way to fragment the television audience. Many of you are seeking a solution to global warming, the cure for cancer, or preventing the next world pandemic. To you I say keep up the good work. May the universe bless you with a fountain of creativity. We really need what you may be discovering or inventing—and soon.

Batten Down the Hatches!

As I write the rain is pelting down here in the mountains of North Carolina, swelling rivers and streams and soaking a soil already saturated by more than a week of wet weather. A low pressure system has stalled out over us and most of the mid-Atlantic states, up into New York and New Jersey. Even without the threat of Hurricane Joaquin, making its way north just off the coast, we are all in for a dangerously drenching weekend. Stay dry and warm, everybody. And those of you out in the dry parts of the country (and the world), send us some dusty thoughts!

Cheers, Donna

*"The Value of Older Workers," by T.R. Reid, AARP BULLETIN, Vol. 56, No.7, September, 2015.