Sniffing Out Danger

Sniffing Out Danger Sniffing Out Danger Sniffing Out DangerBoth the federal government and the private sector are always looking for better, safer ways to inspect dangerous or challenging terrain, or to look for hidden explosives. One area that engineers and scientists turn to for inspiration is the highly developed sense of smell in animals. Currently, the canine olfactory system is the state-of-the-art sensing system for many engineering applications, including homeland security and medical diagnosis. However, it takes considerable time and resources to train and condition these animals, and field deployment can be challenging.Now, a team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has turned to insects to develop a mora sensitive detection system, specifically, locusts.Baranidharan Raman, associate professor of biomedical engineering, is working with the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Arlington, VA, to use the highly sensitive locust olfactory system as the basis for dev eloping a bio-hybrid nose. Raman has been studying the insect sense of smell for over a decade. The sense of smell, he notes, being a primitive sense, is highly conserved across different species. There are striking similaritiesboth anatomical and functionalbetween insects and other higher species. It is also one of the hardest systems to replicate.If you ever want to humble an engineer, ask him/her to build an electronic nose that has the same capabilities as the insects, says Raman. This is one of the main projects that I have been working on since my graduate student days, and it is a humbling experience for sure.A small chip connects to the brain of the locust. Image Washington UniversityResearch ApproachRaman has been studying how sensory signals are received and processed in the relatively simple brains of locusts. He and his team discovered that odors prompt dynamic neural activity in the brain that allow the locust to correctly identify a particular odor, even with other odo rs present. Locusts trained to recognize certain odors can do so even when the trained odor was presented in complex situations, such as overlapping with other scents or in different background conditions.We hope to take advantage of a biological solution, Raman says. Even state-of-the-art miniaturized chemical sensing devices have a handful of sensors. On the other hand, if you look at the insect antenna, where their chemical sensors are located, there are several hundreds of thousands of sensors, and a variety of types.To convert locusts into biorobotic chemical sensing machines, three integrated components are requiredA minimally invasive surgical procedure to implant arrays of electrodes into the insect brain (particularly a region called antennal lobe, which is one relay downstream to the sensory neurons on their antenna). This allows the research team to interface with the locusts sophisticated olfactory system and read out signals for odorants in their environment.A low-weigh t backpack to which the electrode arrays are connected. This will allow us to monitor, log, and transmit neural data in an online fashion, says Raman. In addition, we will develop an algorithm that interprets neural activity to determine if a target chemical is present or not.A plasmonic ttowierung made of biocompatible silk applied to the locusts wings will generate mild heat and help steer locusts toward particular locations by remote control. The tattoo will be studded with nanorods to rapidly convert light at a specific wavelength to heat. It will also be used for collecting samples from the region of interest, which can then be analyzed by researchers using more conventional methods to determine chemical composition.PotentialThere is a growing need for safer, cost-effective, non-invasive chemical sensors for biomedical and homeland security applications. Raman fully expects to develop and demonstrate a proof-of-concept, hybrid locust-based, chemical-sensing approach for explosi ve detection. He continues to be surprised and impressed by the elegant, yet sophisticated, approaches nature uses to deal with the many practical challenges in smelling.Think about the smell of a chocolate chip cookie, he says. It is the same whether you smell it in the coffee shop or grocery shop different background odorants, whether you smell it in winter or summer different new age temperatures, on a rainy day or on a sunny day humidity is a killer for chemical sensors, or a windy day or not-so-windy day the temporal plume structure will change. Each of these tasks is by no means an easy feat of engineering, Raman adds. Yet, this is resolved easily by the first few neural circuits in the insect olfactory system. Most engineering problems have already been encountered and solved by biology, although, to be fair, biology does have a lead of a few million years over us.Mark Crawford is an independent writer. For Further Discussion If you ever want to humble an engineer, ask him/he r to build an electronic nose that has the same capabilities as the insects.Prof. Baranidharan Raman, Washington University

The science-backed way to plan the perfect vacation

The science-backed way to plan the perfect vacationThe science-backed way to plan the perfect vacationOh sure, we can plan a vacation - book some flights, a place to stay, a plan on where to eat and drink - but lets admit were all winging it. What does science say about the best way to truly plan a vacation?With a nod to the great minds at TED Ideas, here are scientific ways to make sure your time off is as rejuvenating as can be.Start visualizingyour relaxing trip beforehandThe best part of your vacation may not be anything you do, but the anticipation you feel beforehand while youre planning it. So, while picking flights and imagining yourself in different gasthaus rooms, savor the preparations for a trip.An article in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life explains why. The researchers studied how vacations and happiness are related. They asked 1,530 Dutch people, 974 of whom went on vacation during the study. The researchers asked the travellers questions on how they f elt beforehand and following the trip).This study demonstrates that vacationers are happier, compared to non-vacationers, the researchers found, unsurprisingly.But, they added, the happiness did not come from the trip itself, usually, unless the trip was extremely relaxing.A holiday trip does not add much to their happiness. Generally, there were no differences between vacationers and non-vacationers post-trip happiness. Only vacationers on a very relaxed holiday trip benefit in terms of post-trip happiness. The pre-trip happiness difference between vacationers and non-vacationers could be an indication of vacationers looking forward to their holiday, the authors wrote.So how do you get happy and extremely relaxed? Read on.Stay entirely detached from workThe American Psychological Association reported in 2013 that according to a survey released by the organization, 49% of respondents ages 18-34 reported looking at work messages at a minimum of once per day during vacation. Thirty-ei ght percent of those 55 and up said they did the same thing.This is a bad idea. Research shows that answering email for longer than an hour while youre on vacation wipes out nearly all your good memories of the trip.Thats why its important to platzdeckchen boundaries.Alex Soojung-Kim Pang writes about detachment in an article on TEDs Ideas website.In referring to research unnamed in the text, Pang writes, detachment also requires being able to escape work-related interruptions. Employees who carry their work smartphones or other devices during non-work hours or who must keep in touch with the office while on vacation show higher levels of stress and work-family conflict.The article wasexcerpted and adapted this information from the book Rest Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (also the author of the article), with permission from the book.Cant fully disconnect? Theres a way to handle messages in a limited way.Martha C. White features advice from Rusty Lindquist, vice president of insights and human capital management strategy at recruiting software company BambooHR, in a 2015 article on TIMEs Money website.If you absolutely have to check emails while youre gone, give yourself a short time period and stick with it, Lindquist says. The key is to keep it quick, and the key to that is being ruthless. If it doesnt say urgent, it goes in the trash folder, White writes.Take more than one vacation a yearVacations refresh our minds and bodies, making us more open to creativity and attuned to the world around us.That cannot happen in only one week a year.Its beneficial for employers to work ample vacation time into employees schedules and to encourage time off. The alternative employee burnout and frustration.The authors of a 2013 article in the journal Organizational Dynamics write about this concept.They write that because the positive effects of vacation often fade out quickly, encouraging employees to take a few days (or more) off more than once a year will help maintain employee well-being in the long term. Furthermore, providing employees with a transition day before and after vacation would allow them to phase in and out of their work responsibilities gradually.Go big before getting homeWhile anticipation before a trip makes you happy, and shutting off work during a trip boosts your relaxation, your memories of the trip will depend on how you end it.A2015 article in The Wall Street Journal explained the concept behind positive time offStudies show people often reflect on an experience, including a vacation, based largely on how it ends, adding that psychiatrist Dr. Samantha Boardman told the publication,do your best to make things end well. If youre going to splurge and fly business class, dont do it on the way there, do it on the way home, Boardman said.The next time you dream about your ultimate trip from the confines of your desk, consider putting these tips into action, ask your boss well in advance andpre pare to go for it.

The scientific secret to performing under pressure

The scientific secret to performing under pressureThe scientific secret to performing under pressureAmelia Boonewas standing in a wetsuit, clutching her knees, the wind whipping against her face on a frigid Chicago winter morning. She was running on Lake Shore Drive, while dunking herself in and out of the icy waters of Lake Michigan. Observers decked out in layers of warm winter clothing assumed that these were the delirious actions of a madwoman. But no, the Queen of Pain - as Boone has come to be known - was getting ready for the Worlds Toughest Mudder.The Worlds Toughest Mudder makes a marathon look like a casual stroll. The race is run for 24 hours non-stop. Participants must fight off sleep while conquering roughly twenty of thebiggest, baddest, most insane obstacles scattered across a 5-mile course. Its survival of the fittest Whoever completes the most amount of laps wins.Some of the obstacles are in water, which can drop down to freezing temperatures. To prevent hypothermi a, all participants run in wetsuits. While on land, the wetsuit helps preserve the bodys warmth since body heat tends to dissipate over the course of the grueling 24 hours.Boone is a corporate attorney at Apple by day. When she first started training, she couldnt do a single pull-up. Shes now a four-time world champion and among the best obstacle racers in the world.Her secret is to subject her body to the same intense conditions that shell experience during the race. You dont race on a treadmill with Netflix in front of you,Boone says, so you shouldnt be doing your training like that.The rain, the snow, the dark, the cold, the wetsuit - they all beckon Boone. By the time the race rolls around, she has been desensitized to the conditions awaiting her. She greets them with a smile that binnenseems to say,Nice to see you again. Lets dance.Theres a name in rocket science for how Boone trains test as you fly, fly as you test. According to the test as you fly rule, tests on Earth must m imic, to the greatest extent possible, the same conditions in flight. Rocket scientists test the spacecraft as the spacecraft will fly. If the test is successful, the flight must take place under conditions identical to the test. In a machine as complex as a rocket, any significant deviance between the test and the flight can result in catastrophe.The same principle applies to the training of astronauts. The day-to-day reality of an astronauts life is vastly different than the glamour you see in Hollywood movies. Astronauts are workhorses, not space cowboys. They dont fly in space for a living. They train and prepare for a living. Ive been an astronaut for six years,writes Chris Hadfield, Ive been in space for eight days.The remainder of their career is spent on preparation. By the time astronauts fly on their mission, theyve flown the route countless times on simulators. These simulators generate crises on Earth, which prepare astronauts for actual crises in space. Astronauts pract ice computer crashes, engine troubles, and explosions, while constantly asking themselves, Whats the next thing that can kill me?Most of us ignore the test as you fly rule. In our personal and professional lives, most practices are superficial dress rehearsals that double as exercises in self-deception. We practice in conditions that are disconnected from reality. We do mock job interviews in our sweatpants with a friend using a predetermined set of questions. We practice a major speech in the comfort of our home, when were fully rested and awake. As a result, on gameday, we are blindsided and we choke.If we applied the test as you fly rule, we would practice our speech in an unfamiliar setting, after downing a few espressos to give us the jitters. We would do mock interviews while wearing an uncomfortable suit and with a stranger ready to throw curveballs at us.Whether its a rocket launch, athletic training, or a job interview, the underlying principle is the same Test as you fly - subject yourself to the same conditions youll experience during the flight - and you will soon begin to soar.Ozan Varol is a rocket scientist turned law professor and bestselling author.Click hereto download a free copy of his e-book, The Contrarian Handbook 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, youll get the Weekly Contrarian - a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only).Thisarticlefirst appeared onOzanVarol.com.