Smartphone microscope scans blood for parasitic worms in minutes

A team of researchers at the University of California Berkeley has been refining the CellScope, a mobile phone attachment that re purpose the device as a clinical-grade microscope. The team even recently branched out and launched a commercial product called Oto Home, a cell phone attachment that enables parents to perform ear exams on their children at home.The group's latest offering is dubbed CellScope Loa. It comprises a 3D-printed plastic base fitted out with LED lights, microcontrollers, gears and a USB port. Sliding a smartphone into the base and loading it with a single drop of blood, users can conduct an analysis of the sample in around two minutes. Over Bluetooth, the purpose-built app communicates with the base, running the sample in front of the phone's camera and creating a video. An algorithm then processes the footage, searching for the wriggling worms in action and displaying the total count on screen.

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NASA shows off its fly-by-wire Modular Robotic Vehicle

NASA has unveiled the Modular Robotic Vehicle. NASA's Game Changing Development Program Office  describe the vehicle as "a fully electric vehicle well-suited for busy urban environments." But really, the MRV is much more than that. This is thanks largely to its adapted fly-by-wire driving system and four independent wheels called "e-corners" that allow the MRV to drift like a beauty, drive sideways and rotate with a perfect turn radius of zero degrees. Which I might add is the same technology they use on rovers.The MRV would is design to go on  transportation in an urban environment. The top speed is 43 mph with a range of 62 mi. on a single charge of the battery. All four wheels on the MRv could turn 90 degrees. This allow for easy parallel parking. NASA states that the technologies that went into the MRV are likely to play a role in the continuing development of lunar and Mars rovers, as well as future automobile design here on Earth.

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A Pen for People with Parkinson's Disease

British design group Dopa Solutions has created the ARC pen, a writing implement specifically intended for sufferers of Parkinson's disease who have motor control difficulties that affect their handwriting. The ARC pen uses high-frequency vibration motors to facilitate larger and clearer handwriting, and in an initial trial of 14 people with micrographia it was found to improve writing in 86 percent of cases. The motors inside the ARC stimulate the muscles in the hand, reducing the effort that is required to move the pen across paper.

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Hydro Power Cell Phone Charger 

Freedom is offering a hydro power cell phone charger. Developed in Germany, the Blue Freedom charging kit consists of a 4.7-in diameter micro turbine, a 5W generator and a 5,000 mAh lithium-polymer internal battery. The turbine takes a plunge into a running water body and the unit's base stays ashore, letting you charge devices directly by way of the USB 2A and 1A ports. You can also store energy in the integrated battery for later use. A built-in LED light helps you see at night. The kit is designed to operate in temperatures between 41 and 104 ºF (5 and 40 ºC) and altitudes up to 16,400 feet (5,000 m). This charger is at a kick starter for $219. 

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Flatpack Go-Kart

The PlyFly Go-Kart is a gasoline-powered flat-pack kart that can be assembled in just a few hours, while promising speeds of up to 25 mph (40 km/h).The PlyFly is the work of The FlatWorks, a wooden kit company, and comes in two types: a 2.5-horsepower and a 4-horsepower model. The more powerful of the two is significantly faster at 25 mph (40 km/h) compared to 17 mph (27 km/h), and can run for 2.5 hours from a single tank of gas, compared to an hour for the smaller eThe ngine. Currently PlyFly is on Kickstarter to raise funds in order to bring its prototype Go-Kart into full-scale production. If you want to back the project and hopefully receive a model in mid-2015, the cheapest pledge point remaining is &745 for the 2.5 horsepower engine model, while the 4 horsepower engine will set you back $845.

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NASA Test-Fires Massive Solid Fuel Booster

NASA has successfully completed the first of two tests designed to certify the massive solid fuel boosters which will form a part of NASA's next generation Space Launch System (SLS). Once completed, SLS will represent the most powerful launch vehicle ever constructed and will be responsible for, among other tasks, launching NASA's Orion spacecraft on humanity's first manned mission to Mars.

The booster measures an impressive 177 ft (54 m) in length and carries 25 percent more fuel than those used to service the now defunct US Space Shuttle program.A temperature of 90 ºF was selected for the test based on the temperatures endured by the similar but smaller boosters used to launch space shuttles, which were found to endure between 40 ºF (4 ºC) to 90 ºF of heat over the course of their service.
The rocket successfully ignited and burned for a full two minutes, during which time it produced around 3.6 million pounds of thrust.  Upon completion, SLS will be power two monster as well as four R-25 engines, with the maiden flight scheduled to take place sometime in 2018

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Samsung Dream Doghouse 

The Dream Doghouse was created to promote Samsung's sponsorship of this year's Crufts dog show in the UK, so it isn't going to be hitting the market any time soon. It took a team of 12 designer to come up with the concept. It cost a total of $30,500 to develop .It's split into three areas: a rest and entertainment space, a dining area, and an unsheltered recreation area with turf grass. Much of the technology on display doesn't actually work, but Samsung imagines to put many things such as: treadmill, a hydrotherapy pool, an automatic feeder, etc. The video below shows a little more information on the design.

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Researchers Create World's First 3D-Printed Jet Engines

The people at Deakin University, CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation), and researchers from Australia's Monash University have created the world's first 3D-printed jet engine. Led by Prof. Xinhua Wu, the team using an old gas turbine engine contributed by Microturbo (Safran), they took the engine apart, and scan all the individual components. Using computer models obtained from those scans, a laser was then utilized to selectively melt metal alloy powder, building up two copies of each component in successive layers. When those parts were subsequently assembled, two metal replicas of the original engine were produced. The project took a year to complete, and received funding from multiple groups including the Australian Research Council. 

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SuperDroid Build a Remote Control Snow Plow 

The SuperDroid of Raleigh, North Carolina build a remote-controlled robotic snow plow that allows you to clear the drive while sitting where it’s warm with a cup of cocoa. The robotic snow plow is based on a welded 3/16-in (4.7 mm) aluminum chassis and measures 63.5 in (161 cm) long. Powered by two 12 V batteries, each of the six wheels equipped with tiller tires has an electric IG90 24VDC 127 RPM gear motor with chain-coupled axles for better traction. According to SuperDroid, this arrangement is strong enough to tow a pickup truck. The remote control snow plow cost $8,000.

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A Robot that could Make Drugs

Scientists at the Universities of Cambridge and Manchester have built a robot name Eve, an artificially-intelligent "robot scientist" that was made to shorten development time and increase economy. According to the University of Cambridge, pharmaceutical research is stuck in a terrible bottleneck. It can take 10 years and US $1 billion to create a new drug – time during which many people continue to suffer and that money needs to be recouped somehow. By the short time Eve was out it prove that is not only faster and cheaper than its human counterparts, but has already identified a compound that could be used to fight malaria The research team says that Eve currently does not have the capability to synthesize compounds that it can design based on its tests, but this could be added to future versions.

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Window 10

On January 21, Microsoft unveiled some new features and capabilities coming in Window 10. Some examples are a convergence of the desktop and mobile; the advent of the killer universal app; more power and features for personal digital assistant Cortana, which will be on mobile as well as desktops and laptops; improvements to maps; a new browser, code-named "Project Spartan"; a strong emphasis on gaming; and holographic computing. Windows 10 will be offered as a free upgrade to owners of devices running Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 for one year after it's released, 

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