Dubbed the most-complex structure in the universe, perhaps nothing is more mysterious, more enduringly elusive, than the human brain.  In the 19th century the ‘new science’ of phrenology promised to unlock the secrets of the human brain by studying the shape of a person’s head. A century later researchers started to look inside the skull for answers; the National Institutes of Health declared the 1990s the “Decade of the Brain” and federal money gushed into research grants, creating a renaissance in neuroscience. The results of that renaissance are just starting to emerge:  today’s brain imaging techniques allow scientists to map the neural circuitry of the human brain to within 50 nanometers; advances in brain-machine interfaces suggest a cyborg-like future may be closer to fact than fiction; and perhaps most importantly, modern paradigms of consciousness and behavior are emerging that suggest new insights into what makes us uniquely human. This week’s Friday Five looks at a small handful of projects and perspectives revealing the future of the brain.

Brainbow

The pictures look like stunning pieces of abstract art: vibrant multi-colored tendrils forming delicate branches of trees and tendrils.  Rather than an impressionist art exhibit, however, these pictures reveal brilliant bouquets of brain cells and are the highest resolution images of the brain available today.  Last year Dr. Jeff Lichtman and his team at the Harvard Brain Center developed transgenic mice with multicolored neurons using a new method that “paints” brain cells with a fluorescent protein, making visible individual neurons and their vast networks of connections.  Pictures of those mouse neurons, what Lichtman calls “Brainbows“, reveal an ethereal combination of technology and nature on the frontier of neuroscience. By color-coding neural circuits, researchers hope to create a complete a “wiring diagram” of the brain that will help identify the cause of neural disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s.  In this NPR interview, Lichtman describes the significance of brainbows for the future of neuroscience; for more eye candy, see this Wired gallery.

Augmented Cognition: DARPA goes Hollywood

DARPA’s Augmented Cognition program (”AugCog”) explores pathways to enhance human cognitive processes, particularly in the areas of attention and memory - a future-critical skill in a world increasingly characterized by information overload.   Most of the studies the agency funds have impenetrable-sounding titles, such as “Experience-Based Narrative Memory”.  But in this case, DARPA turned to Hollywood to bring the potential of augmented cognition technology to life.  The Future of Augmented Cognition is a short film directed by veteran filmmaker Alexander Singer that depicts DARPA’s vision of “AugCog” technologies in 2030.  Set in a command center tasked with monitoring cyberspace activities for anomalies that could threaten the global (and largely digital) economy, the film aims to provide both an entertaining and informative overview of the role AugCog technology could play in everyday life in the future.

Brain-machine interface

In 2001, electrician Jesse Sullivan accidentally touched a live cable, electrocuting him with 7,500 volts of electricity. As a result, both his arms were amputated at the shoulder. In the process of fitting him for artificial limbs surgeons took the severed ends of the nerves that once controlled Sullivan’s arm and rerouted them to the muscles in his chest. Unexpectedly, the nerves grew into the muscles and the procedure made Jesse Sullivan the first person to receive a nerve-muscle graft and use it to control an artificial limb. While there are numerous stories in the news today about the potential of brain-machine interfaces, this video from Pop!Tech 2005 tells one of the most remarkable and inspiring stories in neuroscience.

Promise and Peril: The Future of the Brain

The title says it all.  Most books about the future of the brain tend to be either science-heavy or buried in a deep layer of philosophical theory covering the dualism vs. holism debate.  Scientist and author Steven Rose balances the approach in Promise and Peril: The Future of the Brain, an ethically-aware, pop-sci look at how developments in neuroscience (including smart pills, brain repair and mind-reading devices) will change our understanding of what it means to be human in the future. 

Blue Brain 

The human brain is often described as a biological supercomputer, and the holy grail of computing has long been to make a machine that functions with the speed, accuracy and complexity of a human brain. But can a brain be built from a bunch of circuit boards and microchips?  IBM and Swiss research lab EPFL say yes: they’ve teamed up to create the Blue Brain project, described as the first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain.  Blue Brain, as the supercomputer is called, consists of 2,000 microchips, each of which has been programmed to act like a neuron in a human brain and which together replicate “with shocking precision” the cellular events unfolding inside a mind. This SEED magazine article by science writer Jonah Lehrer offers an in-depth look at road to building Blue Brain, from the eccentric personalities (including project leader Henry Markam) to the technical hurdles (such as an estimated annual $3 billion electric bill).

(note: this post is cross-posted on the Pop!Tech blog) 

At first glance, the Rosetta Disk might be mistaken for a small CD - except for the fact that it’s made of titanium and nickel, of course.  Well, that and the fact that it contains no digital data, but instead has 13,500 pages of text etched onto its 3-inch surface.   

Recently released by the Long Now Foundation, the Rosetta Disk, in all its miniature glory, is aremarkable artifact of human knowledge.  Conceived as a “modern Rosetta stone” the disk contains 1500 different language translations of the book of Genesis: 1 - 3 (just in case you’re wondering, you need a 750-power optical microscope to read it).  Made of non-corroding metals, it has an estimated shelf life of 2,000 years.

Eight years in the making, the Rosetta Disk project was envisioned as a solution to the question of how a society could transmit and store its knowledge over the centuries ( see Kevin Kelly’s post for a full write up on the project).

Just in time for the holidays, there are two remaining First Edition Rosetta Disks, each available for a donation of $25,000.

I’m in DC this week, arguably the command center for the world’s most powerful military, the epicenter of geopolitical power (for now), a city where “war” is just another word for Monday morning. Like it or not, our cultural (some would say human) fascination with war is endless. While the average American would likely be hard pressed to name 10 elements in the periodic table, thanks to the US media and recent election cycle, most could easily tell you that we’re spending $10 billion per month to fund the war in Iraq and that General Petraeus likes oatmeal for breakfast. Now that we’ve elected a new Commander in Chief, what sort of wars will the leader-elect of the free world have to contend with? For better or worse, this week’s Friday Five covers different visions of the future of war.

Mind Wars

War has always been a boom time for science.  Since WWII when the military establishment and academia first got cozy, scientific advancements have flourished in the wake of war.  Government support of science has led to breakthroughs in war technologies (think: sonar and the atomic bomb) but also benevolent ones, such as penicillin and the Internet.  In Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense, Jonathan Moreno explores the military applications of neuroscience, providing a tour through some of the most provocative research that’s making the brain the most popular object of national security attention, including:  wearable robotics, smart drugs, “neural prostheses” and “rapid onset brain-targeted bioweapons.” Moreno covers both near and long-term technologies, painting a broad picture of how future wars may be fought, and importantly gives focused attention to the ethical dilemmas that these new technologies will create.

CyberWars

In May, seven NATO nations backed a new cyber defense center in Estonia, the ex-Soviet state which last year faced weeks of denial of service attacks on its internet infrastructure. The move marks new territory for NATO; as cyber-skirmishes increase, geo-political alliances must write new rules to deal with these emerging forms of conflict.  The playbook is wide open: should cyber-bullets be considered weapons of mass destruction? What constitutes collateral damage online? This New Scientist article takes a look the battleground of the future: cyberspace.  

Non-Lethal Weapons

Is the term “non-lethal weapon” an oxymoron on the battlefield?  Wired.com’s “Danger Room” blog reports on the development of a combination sonic  blaster/laser weapon that when deployed, would blast off a deafening and blinding combination of light and sound, or in military contractor lingo, a “psycho-acoustical event.” A new wave of such non-lethal weapons which ‘distract and disorient’ are on the horizon, touted by military experts as essential tools in peacekeeping missions and civilian-heavy battle zones.  Check out the Danger Room blog for more on ‘what’s next in national security’.  

War of the Nerds

In 2005 the secretary of the Air Force penned a vision statement for the future in which he vowed that the Air Force would “fly and fight in air, space and cyberspace.”  That statement was the force (no pun intended) behind the establishment of the service’s newly-formed Cyber Command, and its chief, Brig. General William Lord, is looking for a few good geeks to recruit. This Wired article (“Welcome to Cyber Country, USA”) offers a behind-the-scenes look at the new command whose mission is to prepare for a future where computers are weapons.  Says Lord: “We have to change the way we think about warriors of the future.  So if they can’t run three miles with a pack on their backs but they can shut down a SCADA system, we need to have a culture where they can fit in.”

Water Wars

India.  China. Pakistan.  Uruguay. Turkey. Iraq. Nevada. This is just a short list of the places that are hotspots for future (and in some cases, current) water conflicts, the threat of which has been heralded by academics and policymakers for years. Blue Gold: World Water Wars takes a different look at the source of these future conflicts. Based on the book, this documentary film looks at the privatization and commoditization of the world’s water sources by both corporations and countries.  Following the fight for water rights around the world, the film asks: is water a commodity or a human right? The answer today, of course, is both.  But by 2025, when more than two billion people are expected to live in water-stressed countries, perhaps the more relevant question is: what will it be in the future?  

Let me start by saying that I’m not a big fan of reblogging. I think there’s a fine line between greedily sucking at the spigot of Googlejuice by lazily link-posting (on the one hand) and hyperlinking into the central nervous system of the blogosphere to share a really cool story (on the other).

This is one of those “on the other hand” times. For the assuredly small minority of FringeHog readers who aren’t already rabid Ethan Zuckerman fans, I bring to your attention a cautionary yet inspirational story about the ravages of war, the boundless ingenuity of humans and the transformation of a commonplace rodent into a hero. See Ethan’s fabulous post Sniffing out the future in Morogoro, Tanzania. Seriously, it will make your day.

(And if you’re looking for a holiday gift, you can’t do much better than adopting a Hero Rat).

Weather maps and search engine queries are the latest tools in the fight against global health threats.

In 2003 a new, highly contagious form of pneumonia began to spread throughout China.  Over the course of nine months over 8,000 cases of “severe acute respiratory syndrome” or SARS were reported in more than 25 countries.  As the disease spread, so did the public panic. Although fewer than 1,000 SARS deaths were reported worldwide, the economic and psychological toll was great. Countries closed their borders and halted trade, and the global economic impact ran into the billions.

Experts warn that such pandemics are on the rise, and as the world becomes more ”hot, flat and crowded“ the global cost of communicable diseases like SARS will also increase. Which makes predicting where the next pandemic will come from all that more urgent.

A step in the right direction occured aarlier this year when researchers released a first-ever map of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) that identifies the world’s “hotspots” for diseases such as SARS, avian flu, Ebola and the West Nile virus. The map shows that most of the emerging pathogens are zoonoses (animal pathogens that infect humans) and that the main “hotspots” are located in developing countries where changes in population density and wildlife diversity have shifted (specifically South Asia and Southeast Asia).  Researchers say that together with “smart surveillance” and monitoring systems the map offers a prediction of where the next new disease could emerge.

 Hmmm… Surveillance.  Monitoring.  Aggregating large amounts of data.  Sounds like a job for the world’s favorite search engine.  Indeed, last week Google.org announced a new tool to predict flu outbreaks in the U.S.  The aptly-named Google Flu Trends analyzes search patterns (i.e., users searching for keywords such as “flu symptoms” or “chest congestion”) to create a map of possible flu outbreaks several weeks ahead of public health agencies such as Center for Disease Control (CDC).  While traditional flu surveillance systems (such as doctors reporting to the CDC) take weeks to collect and release data, Google search queries can be generated automatically, providing daily estimates and an early-warning system for potential outbreaks.  Google Flu Trends is part of an on-going series of “digital detection” public health projects, including Health Map, a global disease alert map (above image).

And finally, an actual use for the weather channel:  researchers are using satellites to predict cholera outbreaks in the developing world. This BBC article reports on research by global infectious diseases expert Dr. Rita Colwell, who discovered that cholera outbreaks follow seasonal increases in sea temperature. It turns out that cholera bacteria live in the sea and are associated with plankton blooms which bring the pathogen into the drinking water supply.  Dr. Colwell’s research found that plankton has a seasonality - spring and fall - and that the development of cholera in developing countries follows the same pattern.  By measuring sea surface temperatures using satellite imagery, researchers can predict when the plankton will bloom and thus provide an early warning system for India and Bangladesh, where cholera epidemics occur regularly.  Eventually, researchers hope to be able to predict cholera outbreaks weeks or even months before they occur by looking out to the sea.

A friend of mine just excitedly alerted me to the fact that the new version of the Swiss Army Knife now comes with a laser pointer and a USB drive. Being a professional futurist, however (not to mention an avid beer and wine drinker) I was already well aware of this fact. Duh.

Anyhow, it led me to think: what will the Swiss Army Knife of the future look like? If the Swiss Army Knife is the epitome of utilitarian technology, a harbinger of social change, what features will it incorporate in 25 or 50 years? What tool(s) could or should it include that will be indispensible in the future? A DNA decoder, perhaps? An identity scanner? Hmmm…

What do you think?

Last year we highlighted five extraordinary women in the Pop!Tech community.  Well, the idea was such a good one we decided to do it again.  This week’s Friday Five looks at some of the amazing women that made Pop!Tech 2008 special.

Photo by Kris Krug

HEATHER FLEMING, Catapult Design

Some speakers use animated graphics to make their point; others rely on high-tech demos (or in the case of Kelly Dobson, repurposed home appliances).  True to her spirit of ingenuity, however, Heather Fleming introduced the Pop!Tech audience to the Hippo Project with the help of a naked Barbie.  Fleming, a 2008 Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow, told the audience that she followed what she thought was a straight-forward career path: she got a degree in engineering, dutifully worked for a design firm creating “stuff”, all the while patiently waiting for Martin Fisher to call and offer her job so she could do work that really mattered to her.  She never received that call, so instead she founded Catapult Design, where she’s using her engineering expertise to solve problems for the developing world such as low-cost wind turbines and innovative cookstoves.

Photo: Sheila Kennedy

SHEILA KENNEDY, Portable Light Project

Sheila Kennedy is an architect and associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She was a speaker Pop!Tech ‘07, where she first introduced the Portable Light Project: a non-profit initiative that’s creating new ways to deliver renewable power and light to the developing world by embedding flexible photovoltaic materials, digital electronics and solid state lighting in textiles, enabling people in the developing world to create and own energy harvesting textile blankets, bags and clothing.  I had a chance to catch up with Sheila, see the latest prototype (shown above) and hear the good news: that the Portable Light project was selected as one of 25 laureates in this year’s Tech Awards sponsored by the Tech Museum of Innovation.  (Side note: another one of my favorite projects, the Solar Electric Light Fund, led by two-time Pop!Tech speaker Bob Freling, is also a nominee).

Photo by Kris Krug

MARIAN BANTJES, Artist

I’m not sure how to describe Marian Bantjes.  She’s a graphic designer, an artist, a typographer, a writer … maybe a better word would be a modern day “graphicographer”.  The definition is fitting for one whose work defies convention, for an artistdesignergraphictypographer who brings letters to life, creating as one person described “thoughtful art and artful thought.”  She left the field of graphic design because she “didn’t want to spend her life making landfill.” That’s bad news for landfills, which will most surely never see the beautiful, inspiring and provocative works she does today.

Photo by Kris Krug

SUZANNE SEGGERMAN, Games for Change

Suzanne Seggerman thinks that digital games and teenagers have a lot in common:  both are just growing up and they are often misunderstood.  While 97% percent of all teenagers play video games, contrary to popular belief the two most popular are puzzle and racing games - not violent games as most would assume.  Seggerman is president and co-founder of Games for Change (G4C), an umbrella organization which supports individuals and organizations using digital games for social change. The website is a virtual encyclopedia of games that tackle social issues such as human rights, poverty, environment, global conflict and politics. Games like Peacemaker which challenges players create a workable solution for peace in the Middle East by becoming one of the leaders in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or Food Force, a game that helps players understand the challenges of dispensing emergency aid in war zones. Seggerman is steadfast in her belief that video games can change the world for the better by creating environments that teach young people to see complex social issues from multiple perspectives. 

Photo by Kris Krug

PRITI RADHAKRISHNAN, I-MAK

Priti Radhakrishnan is looking for a fight.  And not just any fight: the Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow is a patent lawyer who’s taking on some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies and demanding that they make their drugs affordable to developing nations.  Radhakrishnan is the co-director of I-MAK, a non-profit team of lawyers and scientists working to strengthen patent systems and encourage innovation in new medicines by challenging unsound patent systems globally. I-MAK (which stands for Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge) reviews pharmaceutical patents to strengthen patent examination, and selectively exposes unmerited pharmaceutical patents - which drive up the cost of essential drugs and prevent them from ever being accessible in less developed countries for poor patients. Radhaskrishnan’s team is working to create technical analyses of 100 critical medicines and patents, which will help preempt the granting of unmerited patents, increase accountability and ultimately make lifesaving drugs more affordable.

Midway through a west coast red eye last week, I was sleepily browsing through an airport bookstore when I saw something flashing up at me from the stacks.  Was that my imagination or was that magazine blinking?  Indeed it was.

The October edition of Esquire looked like a miniature Times Square billboard, its sleek black cover eclipsed by a flashing message (and a cheeky one at that): “The 21^st Century Begins Now.”  In celebration of its 75^th anniversary, Esquire claims to be the first magazine cover to be printed with electronic ink (also known as “e ink”).

Even if you missed this edition of Esquire, you’ve likely seen eink in action before. It’s used in electronic displays, including in the top ebooks on the market, Amazon’s Kindle and the Sony’s Reader. However, this is reportedly the first time the digital technology has been incorporated into a print page.  Esquire explains the arduous, innovative (and somewhat chilly) path its creation: first, EInk Corporation (creator of the technology) had to design circuitry thin and flexible enough to bend with the cover, as well as small enough to draw a level of energy that would allow the battery to last at least 90 days. The display, electronics and batteries were assembled in Shanghai, then shipped to Mexico (via refrigerated trucks) where each unit was embedded by hand.

How does it work? Our friends at Wikipedia say: the principal components of electronic ink are millions of tiny microcapsules, about the diameter of a human hair…each microcapsule contains positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles suspended in a clear fluid. When a negative electric field is applied, the white particles move to the top of the microcapsule to become visible to the reader.

This makes the surface appear white at that spot.

At the same time, an opposite electric field pulls the black particles to the bottom of the microcapsules where they are hidden. By reversing this process, the black particles appear at the top of the capsule, which now makes the surface appear dark at that spot. 

The long road to the future

So, what’s the future of eink?  While it’s been heralded as a “game changing” technology for nearly a decade, it’s just now coming into its own - a tad longer lead time than its inventors (and its investors) anticipated. But like most game changers, the road between getting in the game and actually changing it is often paved with hype.

E Ink cofounder Joseph Jacobson, a professor at the MIT Media Lab, was working on the discovery which led to the development of eink technology in 1997.  The company launched that year with $100 million in funding and predictions of an $80 billion market opportunity. Three years later the first working prototype of electronic paper was unveiled. While it got rave reviews, what it didn’t get were a lot of customers. According to this Forbes article, by 2003 E Ink was out of money, having run through its initial funding without delivering a product to market. But the company was resurrected the following year when the CEO was replaced and it nailed a contract to provide the displays for Sony’s ebook Reader. In 2007 it landed the Amazon Kindle contract. Last year reportedly more than half of the company’s $15 million in revenue came from companies that sell ebook gadgets.

The vision of E Ink isthe next-gen RadioPaper, a lightweight, flexible display similar to organic paper that could be used to create an electronic book or newspaper “with real pages that can be leafed through, thumbed over and read on the beach.” Ultimately electronic ink could transform almost any surface to into a dynamic display: clothing, buildings, everyday objects, turning the whole world into an information (or perhaps advertising?) mecca.

Note: this is cross-posted on the Pop!Tech blog. If you don’t read Pop!Tech, stop by and have a look around. It features a cadre of stellar bloggers and is chock-full of interesting ideas.

(Photo credit: Chosun Ilbo) 

I have a new addition to my ever-growing list of favorite robots (including those that play the violin, teach science and comfort the elderly): a robotic plant. Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper is reporting that the robot research laboratory at Chonnam National University has developed a robotic plant that has humidifying, oxygen-producing, aroma-emitting, and kinetic functions. As someone who has been directly responsible for the slow (albeit involuntary) death of scores of houseplants over the years, this is - literally - music to my ears.

In fact, that’s part of the point. In addition to several real-plant characteristics (such as emitting oxygen, moisture and aroma), the four-foot-tall robotic plant also responds to external stimuli including people, music and light. According to the article “when a person comes within a 40 cm radius of the flower, its supersonic sensor perceives the approach, the stem bends towards the person, and the buds come into full bloom. When the person leaves, the plant returns to its original state. If a person’s voice becomes louder than a certain level, the flower buds will come into bloom, and the stem shakes slightly to suggest a greeting. When the room lights up, the buds open and close, and when music is played, the plant dances.” Users could build a “robot garden” of several robots embedded with a ubiquitous networking system or use them for indoor interior decoration.

Finally, plants with a purpose! No more composting, weeding or watering. Come springtime, stop by my robot garden and smell the circuitry.

Earlier today, legendary science fiction writer and future visionary Sir Arthur C. Clarke passed away at the age of ninety in his home in Sri Lanka.  This Washington Post obituary fittingly refers to him as the “unofficial poet laureate of the space age.”

A few months ago he recorded what ultimately turned out to be his final message in this YouTube video “90^th Birthday Reflections” (see this post).  In it, he reflected on his diverse career as a writer, undersea explorer, space promoter and science popularizer.  Of these, he said he hoped to be remembered most as “a writer, one who entertained readers and hopefully stretched their imaginations as well.”

In a testament to the power of social media, a virtual memorial is quickly amassing on YouTube.  The crowd-sourced eulogies range from the personal and profound to the poetic and offer a wide angle view to Clarke’s enduring ability to inspire.