LoughboroughUniversity
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Fingerprint 'developer' used to lift text from letter-containing envelopes
MacGyver and Maxwell Smart had a plethora of tricks up their sleeves (or shoes, as it were), but they never had this. One Paul Kelly and colleagues at Loughborough University have discovered that a disulfur dinitride polymer can not only turn exposed fingerprints brown as it creates a reaction with the nearly undetectable residues, but it can also lift text from departed letters. In an odd twist of fate, it was found that traces of ink jet printer ink can actually initiate the polymer just like print residue can, and the detection limit is so low that details from a letter that was once within an envelope can be seen after adequate exposure to the chemical. And you thought snail-mailing those interoffice love letters was a safe bet.
Rival robots prepping to automate home building
"Your shoes, clothes and car are already made automatically, but your house is built by hand and it doesn't make sense." That's word from Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis, whose team at USC is getting ready to debut a $1.5 million robot designed to build homes with zero help from puny humans. The bot should have its first test run in California this April, where it will build the shell of a two-story house in 24 hours. The operation is akin to a 3D inkjet printer, with the robot moving about in three dimensional space, spraying out the home layer by layer. Part of the simplicity of the process comes from the simplicity of the materials: nearly the whole house is built with concrete and gypsum, obviously leaving a bit of work for the decorators, but allowing for complicated shapes and cheap construction -- about a fifth of current costs. A rival robotic house building being developed at Loughborough University takes a week to build a home, but will include fancier designs, including ducts for water, electrical and ventilation. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait around 5 years for that model to hit the market, and by then we'll all be having so much fun driving around in our flying cars we won't even have time to bother with these "home" things.[Via Slashdot]
Osteoarthritis simulation suit demoed in Britain
While we've seen an assortment of suits, ranging from the HAL cyborg suit to the iPod suit, we haven't yet seen a set of threads that will simulate the effects of a disease for the wearer. In honor of World Arthritis Day (October 12), Loughborough University's Ergonomics and Safety Research Institute has just produced an osteoarthritis suit to give journos, doctors and others an insight into this debilitating disease. The suit, which costs £20,000 (over $37,000), is "designed to constrict movement and inflict topical pain with its 'ouch pouches' – sharp, nobbly, grating or hot packs which press into the wearer during a range of activities," according to the British organization Arthritis Care. Still, we're a bit curious as to whether wearing the Bionicare Hand Device under this suit cancels out the pain.[Via MedGadget]
