skin track;turning your skin to a touchscreen.

A lab at Carnegie Mellon University has made a device that turns the wearer's skin to act as a touchscreen. The Future Interfaces Group, part of the university, have created 'SkinTrack', which "enabled continuous tracking on the skin". A ring, worn on the non-watch hand, emits a "high frequency AC signal" that connect to a sensing wristband, much like the strap of a traditional smartwatch, which is fitted with electrodes.When the ring finger touches the watch-wearing hand, a signal is sent to the watch and allows wearers to navigate their device using their skin. A number of commands are also possible - you can sign documents, for example, and tracing particular letters will bring up particular apps, for example ('E' for email or 'F' for Facebook). Users can also drag apps off of their device and onto their skin, creating "spatial shortcuts", as well as play games, using their finger and arm as controls. The team hopes that it could be used in future development of smartwatches because it is "compact, non-invasive, low-cost and low-powered." The team envision the technology being integrated into future smartwatches, supporting rich touch interactions beyond the confines of the small touchscreen. read more at wired.co.uk

SkinTrack: Using the Body as an Electrical Waveguide for Continuous Finger Tracking on the Skin.

SkinTrack is a wearable system that enables continuous touch tracking on the skin. It consists of a ring, which emits a continuous high frequency AC signal, and a sensing wristband with multiple electrodes. Due to the phase delay inherent in a high-frequency AC signal propagating through the body, a phase difference can be observed between pairs of electrodes .SkinTrack measures these phase differences to compute a 2D finger touch coordinate. Our approach can segment touch events at 99% accuracy, and resolve the 2D location of touches with a mean error of 7.6mm

BIOTECH AND MERS VACCINE.

Cows like these could create antibodies that would combat the MERS virus, which currently has no treatment suggests a research in Science Translational Medicine. More than 1,600 people worldwide have been infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome/ MERS, and complications from it have resulted in nearly 600 deaths. In the last three years since scientists identified the disease, they haven’t been able to discover a way to treat or prevent infection. Now a team of international researchers has used genetically modified cows to create antibodies that combat the disease, which could mean that a vaccine might soon be possible. Though infected camels are thought to be the initial source of MERS, most animals, such as cows and mice, aren’t affected by the virus. In earlier studies, scientists have used cows to better understand human immunity, so for this experiment researchers decided to tweak the cows’ genomes slightly so that they carry a human chromosome. That genetic code enabled the cows to create MERS-specific proteins called antibodies that “tag” potentially dangerous cells to be eliminated by the immune system. When the researchers exposed the cows to low doses of the MERS virus, their immune systems created antibodies tailored to the human form of the disease, allowing their bodies to launch a full immune response. The researchers wanted to make sure the antibodies worked, so they conducted this experiment: In a petri dish, the antibodies extracted from the cows’ blood attacked MERS cells. Then, mice that were genetically modified to be affected by MERS were protected from infection as they were given a dose of the antibodies before and after exposure to the virus. Because these antibodies have not yet been tested in humans, the researchers can’t be sure that they will be quite so effective, or that they won’t cause an averse immune reaction in patients. The researchers hope to test them in humans in the near future, but they think the cow antibodies are a promising candidate to vaccinate people at risk against MERS.tibodies tailored to the human form of the disease, allowing their bodies to launch a full immune response. Excerpts from popular science.

BIOTECH KEY TO FOOD SECURITY.

Biotechnology is one of the various ways of using scientific principles and techniques to produce crops that are pure strains and resistant to diseases. Biotechnology,nanotechnology,genetic engineering are all scientific interventions to produce better crops,improve plants,animals and microorganisms to enhance their value. The world today is faced with population explosion; the growth of the population is not at the same rate as food production and processing leaving most developing countries on poverty threshold and food scarcity. The world now is looking at strategies for food security and sustainability to eliminate hunger and eradicate poverty. Biotechnology has actually shown great potential to achieve food security in the agricultural sector where it has been used to develop plant strains that are resistant to pests and diseases. 

Biotechnology has also been employed to improve food processing,nutritional value better flavor and productivity of plants,vegetables and other food crops. Agric biotechnology is the use of scientific techniques to modify and improve crops by selective breeding. Advances in science especially in the field of molecular biology has provided scientist with ability to manipulate food at molecular level referred to as genetic engineering

.The technique employed in genetic engineering is the transfer of DNA from species with specific desired traits into distantly related organisms. Genetic engineering allows the transfer of one or more traits from specific organism,plants,animals and microorganism and introduce them to new strains to come up with genetically modified strains with better productivity. The technology era has brought with it innovation , information , inputs and institutional support to enhance economic growth and development.The use of technology to ensure food security cannot be overemphasized,and so many options are at our fingertips to ensure food sustainability. 

 Food can be cultivated in nutrient media instead of soil, and this is done in a controlled environment this system is referred to as hydroponics /aeroponics depending on the conditions of growth.This system enables farming even in your room or balcony or any small space that can house the system you want to adopt. Technology bringing change in its track; who could have imagined farming without soil or land? can you imagine planting tomatoes or vegetables or even yam in a column -like stand or table? 

Welcome to the world of BIOTECH; feeding the world with ease. Biotech, are you still skeptical?? dont really understand or know the benefits?? 

 A local Hawaiian plant pathologist named Dennis Gonsalves had an idea. He spliced a snippet of the DNA of the virus into the papaya genome — and it worked. It made the papaya resistant to the virus. “His pioneering work is credited with rescuing the papaya industry,” says Ronald. “Twenty years later, no other method is as effective.” 80% of all Hawaiian papaya is now engineered in this way. Next, she brings us to Bangladesh, where a caterpillar pest is ravaging the eggplant crop. “To control this pest, farmers spray insecticides 2 to 3 times a week, sometimes even twice a day,” says Ronald. Of course, this threatens their own health. “It’s estimated that 300,000 people die every year because of exposure and misuse of insecticides.(http://blog.ted.com/why-genetic-engineering-of-plants-is-vital-for-food-security-pamela-ronald-speaks-atgolden rice-ted2015/)

Burbank and biotechnology.

Sir Burbank is famous for his numerous new plant varieties he produced by crossing different strains and specie. He is publicly acclaimed for his spineless cacti varieties. The work of Burbank is based mostly on Darwin's theory that in every plant/animal there are variations.He reasoned that genes are selected randomly during breeding,but that in the DNA of plants/animals there are many variations and combination. Burbank worked on various species and produced numerous new species that were bigger, juicy and very colorful.The work on genes,species is now more advanced now with BIOTECHNOLOGY.. The various techniques applied in biotechnology makes selection of desirable traits very easy and the recombination into another specie to produce a new variant.The use of biotechnology is indeed the key to food security.The production of new variant of plants/animals that are resistant to diseases,pest and harsh environment resulting in better variants.This new variants grows rapidly,are bigger and more juicy.These new variants mature fast thus shortening harvest time and are usually large in size commanding high market value.This indeed is a world of possibilities,creating new strains and breeds to feed the ever increasing population. Biotechnology is vital to food security and sustainability.

Food in a column # biotechnology.

Seeds can be cultivated in nutrient media instead of soil, and this is done in a controlled environment this system is referred to as hydroponics /aeroponics depending on the conditions of growth.This system enables farming even in your room or balcony or any small space that can house the system you want to adopt. Technology bringing change in its track; who could have imagined farming without soil or land? can you imagine planting tomatoes or vegetables or even yam in a column -like stand or table? Welcome to the world of BIOTECH; feeding the world with ease. The world today is faced with population explosion; the growth of the population is not at the same rate as food production and processing leaving most developing countries on poverty threshold and food scarcity. The world now is looking at strategies for food security and sustainability to eliminate hunger and eradicate poverty. Biotechnology has actually shown great potential to achieve food security in the agricultural sector where it has been used to develop plant strains that are resistant to pests and diseases. Biotechnology has also been employed to improve food processing,nutritional value better flavor and productivity of plants,vegetables and other food crops. Agric biotechnology is the use of scientific techniques to modify and improve crops by selective breeding,better species of crops are cultivated that are resistant to various diseases.The biotech method of cultivation enhances production,producing crops that are bigger,better and mature early. In the world today where urban farming is practiced space has always been a constraint, but with the biotech technology, space is not a problem. The nutrient media are used for growth,and the crops are grown in columns, walkways and boxes, making cultivation easy.