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VR out-of-body experience could help assuage the fear of death
A virtual reality experience developed by researchers from the University of Barcelona could help people with a crippling fear of death. Research professor Mel Slater and his colleagues made 32 subjects wear Oculus headsets and black suits. They also attached a bunch of movement trackers and vibrators to their ankles and wrists. With those components in place, the subjects' virtual bodies could match their real movements in the experience. Every time a VR ball hits their wrist or ankle, the vibrators would go off, as well. Both elements helped fool the volunteers' brain into thinking that the virtual body was their own, similar to the rubber hand illusion.
Microscopic wheel will spin straight to your heart, literally
Sure, you've got an iPod Nano in your pocket and a VIA Nano in your custom PC, but we're willing to bet you don't have any nanomachines in your arteries at the moment. Two scientists from the Universities of Sheffield and Barcelona, Ramin Golestanian and Pietro Tierno, hope to change that by turning your bodily fluids into pathways for their tiny devices. The things are comprised of two beads, measuring 1 and 3 micrometers, attached to each other using strands of DNA. A magnetic field gets 'em spinning in the right direction and the increased surface area of the larger bead moves the contraption forward at a blistering 1 micrometer per second (shown in a short but sweet video below). Now, if the good doctors could just build 11 of these things and get them in a 4-3-3 formation we'd finally know where to place our money for next year's nanosoccer RoboCup Open.[Via Scotsman.com]
