In today’s Bulldog wrapup of science and technology news:
- Scientists have created a part-animal, part-machine stingray
- Scientists didn’t find “God particle”
- Hulu drops its free video feed
- Iran has banned Pokemon Go
The details:
- Cyborg stingray swims toward light, breaks new ground
he idea of taking apart a rat’s heart and transforming it into a tissue-engineered stingray first came to Kevin Kit Parker during a trip to the New England Aquarium with his daughter.
Four years later, a robotic ray that swims toward light has made the cover of Science Magazine and is pushing the limits of what’s possible in the design of machines powered by living cells.
A research team based at Harvard University’s Disease Biophysics Group, which Parker directs, created the translucent, penny-sized ray with a gold skeleton and silicone fins layered with the heart muscle cells of a rat.
It’s remote-controlled, guided by a blinking blue flashlight. Each burst of blue sets off a cascade of signals through the cells, which have been genetically-engineered to respond to light. The contraction of the tissue creates a downward motion on the ray’s body. When the tissue relaxes, the gold skeleton recoils â moving the fin upward again in an undulating cycle that mimics the graceful swimming of a real ray or skate.
Parker, whose research includes cardiac cell biology, launched the project as a method for learning more about the mysteries of the human heart and a step toward the far-off goal of building an artificial one. But the interdisciplinary project is also sparking interest in other fields, from marine biology to robotics.
Parker is not a roboticist. But as an Army veteran who did two tours in Afghanistan, he welcomes any part his stingrays could play in advancing the development of machines able to perform dangerous jobs.
“Bio-hybrid machines â things with synthetic parts and living materials â they’re going to happen,” Parker said. “I’ve spent time getting shot at and seen people getting shot. If I could build a cyborg so my buddy doesn’t have to crawl into that ditch to look for an IED, I’d do that in a heartbeat.”
When he first asked postdoctoral researcher Sung-Jin Park to help him create thestingray four years ago, the bench scientist was doubtful.
“I had this whole idea of a laser-guided, tissue-engineered stingray made out of rat,” Parker said. “He looked at me like a hog staring at a wristwatch. He was like, ‘Have I trusted my career to this yahoo’? I think he thought I was unglued.”
Indeed, the project to build the ray was more difficult and expensive â close to $1 million, according to Parker â than either of them imagined. A mechanical engineer by training, Park had to delve into molecular and cell biology. The team pulled experts from diverse fields, including an ichthyologist â someone who studies fish â to understand and help replicate a ray’s muscle structure and biomechanics. Their work was published in Science last month.
Biologically-inspired robots aren’t new. A precursor to the stingray was a tissue-engineered jellyfish Parker helped create in 2012, also with the aim of understanding the muscular pumping of a heart. But one of the robotic stingray’s most intriguing contributions is the way it shows a glimpse of autonomy, said John Long, a professor of biology and cognitive science who directs Vassar College’s Interdisciplinary Robotics Research Laboratory.
“By putting in the light control they have a way of controlling the cell without a nervous system,” said Long, who was not involved in the stingray research. “We used to control puppets with strings. Now we can do it with light.”
Long says the creation could spark new research into autonomous, part-living machines. He envisions a time when a packet of micro-rays could be unleashed into a busted sewage pipe with simple sensors to measure acidity.
(Watch a video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sw6xRAG8XA )
- Just a burp: Intriguing hints of physics particle evaporate
Eight months after raising hopes that they may have found an intriguing new particle that cannot be explained by the existing main physics theory, disappointed scientists are saying: Never mind.
It was just a statistical burp, not a breakthrough, researchers report.
“Basically we see nothing,” said Tiziano Camporesi, a chief scientific spokesman at the European Center for Nuclear Research .
Early unconfirmed readings of a new particle in December by physicists at the center, called CERN, set the physics world abuzz. Scientists there had discovered the Higgs boson or “God particle” in 2012, and two new readings from the Large Hadron Collider made it seem as though they may had found a revolutionary new particle.
In the months that followed, scientists pored over more data from high-speed atom crashes while theorists tried to figure out what it all means. But the new data ruled out any particle existing at the energy level they had been looking at.
At a Chicago physics conference , Dave Charlton, another CERN chief scientific spokesman, said the additional data showed that what they had seen earlier was just a random “statistical fluke.”
California Institute of Technology physicist Sean Carroll, who wasn’t part of the CERN team, said: “It’s a shame there wasn’t a particle there, but there aren’t any big ideas that would rise or fall on it being there.”
The Large Hadron Collider is operating beyond expectations in its second extended run— which is still going on — and is providing more data than expected, Charlton and Camporesi said. Physicists from CERN presented more than 50 new results, but none of them are breakthrough findings that would change current theory.
“Stay tuned, I don’t think we have lost hope yet,” Camporesi said.
- Hulu dropping free video as it prepares cable TV alternative
Hulu is dropping the free TV episodes that it was initially known for as it works on an online television service to rival cable TV.
Free episodes — typically the most recent four or five episodes from a show’s current season — will be gone from the site within a few weeks. Instead, Hulu is making free episodes available through Yahoo.
While Hulu started as a free site, supported by advertising, free video has become increasingly more difficult to find as Hulu tries to lure viewers into a subscription — $8 a month for a plan with ads, and $12 without.
- Iran bans ‘Pokemon Go’ over security concerns
Iranians are no longer allowed to catch Pikachus after authorities decided to ban the “Pokemon Go” mobile game because of security concerns.
The Monday report by the semi-official ISNA news agency quotes Abolhasan Firouzabadi, the head of Iran’s Supreme Council of Virtual Space as saying that the game is “not appropriate” because of concerns over its use of “location-based virtual reality technology.”
Firouzabadi said that any such game or application would need to get permission from the country’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
Since the game was introduced, it had not been accessible in Iran without using VPNs or proxies. It’s usage among Iranians has also been limited by the country’s low-speed internet service.
