engineering professor Ying Diao was working with
a molecule that was studied as a cancer treatment by
inserting itself into DNA to prevent replication.
After it failed in the test phase as an effective
cancer treatment, Diao – who happened to be
working in the disparate fields of pharmaceutical
engineering and printable electronics – noticed that
“their molecular structures looked much like the
organic semiconductors we were working with in
the rest of my group... This convergence of my two
research areas was totally unexpected”.
Composed of stacked columns of electrically
conductive rings connected with hydrogen, the
molecules can pass charges across the columns,
forming a bridge that behaves like a semiconductor.
They interact with biological material using veryspecific markers and measures, which makes them
ideal biosensors. Better yet, they can be produced
from a printer, so they’re able to be affixed to flexible
substrates.It’s bedtime. You’ve elected to spend your last
minutes of consciousness old-school, catching up
on the day’s events through news sites on your
phone. And then – darn.
The report bings in on your day’s stats:
an analysed combination of RCP, SmartHeart,
SmartCaps, Sodi-Kit and several others. The
recommendations for tomorrow include an extra
10 minutes of exercise, a fair bit less coffee and
a delectable array of legumes for dinner. Plus a
reminder to confirm your appointment with the doc
about the warfarin.
Sensing both trouble and the need to head it off
at the pass, your phone automatically offers your
favourite musical soporific: an endless loop of the
humming bit from “Don’t Worry Be Happy”.INFORMATION OVERLOAD
IN TODAY’S DATA-DRIVEN WORLD,is it possible to
make too much information? In 2017, IT platform
provider Domo.com released research that estimated
we collectively produced 2.5 quintillion bytes of data
every day That’s 2,500,000,000,000,000,000 bytes –
or two-and-a-half million terabytes.
Late in 2019, market intelligence provider IDC
said IoT data would continue to balloon, reaching
79.4 zettabytes (79,400,000,000,000,000,000,000
bytes), a jump of over 31,000 times.
Now imagine what happens if we factor in
communications between every sock, jogging shoe,
bucket of fried chicken, bottle of soft drink and
headache pill. “Big” won’t come close to doing justice
to such a deluge.
The possibilities for learning are just as vast. As
data scientist and machine learning engineer Luciano
Strika points out, studies like whether apples make
you live longer, or a vegan diet protects against heart
attack, are based on “30 to 150 people – usually
young white male university students”.
“Imagine conducting those same studies with
a population of a thousand or a million,” he says.
“And it’s a more random set with people of many
ethnicities, age groups, etc. Suddenly you’ll find
more granular results – maybe apples plus oranges
plus being female helps prevent a certain type of heart
disease.”
Strika also thinks it will prompt a new breed of
intelligence. “What may really amaze us is emergentIf you know any diabetics, you’re familiar with the disposable strips that read
the glucose in a blood sample. Blood deposited on the strip prompts a chemical
reaction which sends a specific electrical current to the meter depending on the
mix. The salt (sodium) content of blood is also important – particularly in relation
to fitness – so similar technology could be embedded into a small strip of tape and
applied to your skin, albeit with a smaller, less permanent reader than an everyday
glucose monitor. Biodegradable electrochemical sensors already exist that use the
salt content in the body to provide power through electrolytes, so your Sodi-Kit
can read your salt content and draw power from it at the same time.Time (s)SweatGlucose[K*] [Na][Lactate] T(*C)300006 SODI-KIT
CircuitGlucose converterSample chamberIssue 86 COSMOS – 63TECHNOLOGY