science in our daily lives
TRANSCRIPT
Research and Innovation
in our daily lives
Science
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General for Research and InnovationDirectorate A – Policy Development and CoordinationUnit A.1 – Internal and external communication
Contact: [email protected]
European CommissionB-1049 Brussels
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General for Research and Innovation2014
in our daily lives
Science
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Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2014
ISBN 978-92-79-40054-4doi 10.2777/88802
© European Union, 2014Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.
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Table of Contents
Foreword ........................................................................................................................................................................4
1. Let there be light! .................................................................................................................................6
2. Brushing up ...............................................................................................................................................8
3. Keeping fit ...............................................................................................................................................10
4. Digital life ................................................................................................................................................12
5. Getting about ........................................................................................................................................14
6. Cleaner and greener ........................................................................................................................16
7. Life through a lens ............................................................................................................................18
8. Flying high ..............................................................................................................................................20
9. Healthy lifestyle ..................................................................................................................................22
10. Home comforts ................................................................................................................................24
11. Let’s play a game ...........................................................................................................................26
12. Sleep well .............................................................................................................................................28
Sources ........................................................................................................................................................................30
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ForewordWhen the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland smashed particles together at nearly the speed of light, it captured the world’s imagination. Experiments like these are designed to answer big, fundamental questions about our existence: what are the building blocks of all matter and the scale of the universe around us?
So science helps us understand our surroundings, from the bottom of the oceans to the far reaches of the universe. But science also helps us explain our daily lives, and is everywhere in our daily lives. When we switch on the lights or stream a video on our smartphone, science (and technology) is a big part of that. Science helps us travel safer and faster, live healthier and longer.
The examples chosen for this brochure are just that – examples. Science affects our daily lives in many and varied ways. So what I do hope is that these examples will encourage you to look for the science in your own daily life, and share it with others. The internet – which we also have thanks to science – is a great tool for this.
Maybe you have a blog where you could write about it, or you could post a story to social media. What do you think science contributes most to our lives? What are the big issues that science should be addressing? How can we improve on the examples in this brochure? If you want to tell us, we’re on Twitter at @innovationunion and on Facebook at facebook.com/innovation.union.
A big part of EU research funding is helping Europe meet the many challenges we face in the years to come – from securing our energy and food supplies, to protecting the environment and coping with ageing populations. This is why the brochure also highlights how some EU-funded research projects are contributing to further breakthroughs that could transform how we live.
Nowhere has the depth and breadth of science struck me more than at the annual EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS). Contestants come from all corners of Europe, indeed from all over the world, with all kinds of backgrounds and all kinds of projects. What they have in common is a burning curiosity and the ingenuity to find new knowledge or new solutions to everyday problems.
So I want to take this opportunity to send a special message to young scientists and those who want to be scientists: we need you! We need you to push the boundaries of our knowledge, and make the science in our daily lives even better.
Máire Geoghegan-Quinn European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science
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Let there be light!
Every morning of every day, in bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms and kitchens, we tap into the energy grid from the moment we get up. Coffee makers, computers, radios and televisions get the world buzzing, but it all starts with light.
Chances are, when your lights go on, the bulbs in your sockets are compact fluorescent light bulbs. The incandescent bulb is disappearing in favour of more energy-efficient lighting, including those fluorescent bulbs.
Science lights the wayCompact fluorescent bulbs are based on the results of research going back over a century. The lamps consist of a tube filled with gas, along with necessary electronic elements in the base of the lamp. Inside the tube, an electric current excites mercury vapour which produces short-wave ultraviolet light. This, in turn, causes a phosphor coating on the inside of the tube to fluoresce, producing visible light.
In the early 1980s, the first commercially successful fluorescent screw-in replacement for an incandescent lamp was developed. More recently, advanced electronic elements have eliminated the flicker and slow start of older-model fluorescent tubes, making them virtually indistinguishable in terms of performance from their predecessors.
While fluorescent lamps cost more to buy, they use only one-fith to one-quarter the electric power compared to old-style light bulbs and last 6 to 10 times longer.
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LED-ing lights
Compact fluorescents offer energy and cost savings, but many people are troubled by the mercury vapour contained inside fluorescent tubes. In response to these concerns, researchers delivered new alternatives. These include light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), which you can now find easily in shops and which do not contain mercury. LEDs and OLEDs still offer the many advantages over incandescent light sources including lower energy consumption, longer lifetime, and smaller size.
Instead of emitting light from a heated filament (as in an incandescent bulb) or a gas (as in a compact fluorescent bulb), LEDs emit light when electrons are made to move around within a piece of solid matter such as a semiconductor. LEDs are now used in applications as diverse as aviation lighting and automotive headlamps.
OLEDs are made of a film of organic compound (instead of a semiconductor), which emits light in response to an electric current. OLEDs are lighter and more flexible than LEDs, and consume less power, making them more useful for displays.
EU-funded projects developing new types of lighting include Light.Touch.Matters, which is developing a new generation of smart materials that combine touch sensitivity with luminosity.
Sources
▶ ‘Energy-saving lightbulbs’, European Commission.
▶ ‘Green paper: Lighting the future accelerating the deployment of innovative lighting technologies’, European Commission.
▶ Light.Touch.Matters
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Brushing upNow that you’re awake, it’s time to freshen up. Step into the bathroom, turn on the tap, grab your toothbrush and a bit of chemistry in a tube – that is to say, your toothpaste.
The key substance in toothpaste is fluoride, which helps prevent tooth decay by making your enamel more resistant to acid erosion. It also reduces plaque bacteria’s ability to produce acid, which is the cause of tooth decay. Toothpaste can also contain chemical particles that help remove plaque.
But even the water we use in our homes has come a long way since the Romans started funnelling water along aqueducts to public baths, fountains and some privileged homes around 2,300 years ago. Above all, the water is a lot cleaner!
Water treatment plants mostly use screens and filters to remove everything from large debris to sediments, algae, plankton and some smaller particles. Aluminium and ferric salts may be added to make remaining particles clump together so they become big enough to remove easily. Chemicals or aeration can be used to remove dissolved iron and manganese.
The water may then be passed through tanks full of increasingly finer beds of sand, gravel and charcoal to remove even finer particles. Suppliers then use small amounts of chlorine or ozone gas to kill any remaining organisms or bacteria in the water.
Keep it cleanScientists are looking at new ways to improve oral health. Work on the NUTRIDENT project has isolated teeth-protecting elements occurring naturally in foods and drinks. Companies are now working to develop new products such as chewing gums, mouthwashes and even food products that are enriched with these substances, as a means to improve oral health. Still – you shouldn’t stop brushing your teeth just yet!
Why it’s good to live in modern times
Anthropologists tell us ancient civilisations used everything from pumice to crushed bone to ground oyster shells (and worse) to clean their teeth, usually with questionable results.
It wasn’t until 1824, when a dentist named Peabody started adding soap to his concoction, that modern toothpaste was born. Chalk was added in the 1850s. In 1873 soap-based toothpaste in jars appeared in the shops.
The first ‘tube’ of toothpaste appeared when Dr Washington Sheffield introduced his Crème Dentifrice in 1892. Fluoride, widely seen as the most significant anticavity ingredient to date, became a common feature after a company added it to toothpaste in 1956.
Fresh water is a precious resource:
• 70% of the Earth is covered by water.• 2.5% of it is fresh – the rest is salty and in oceans.• 1% of freshwater is easily accessible – the rest is trapped in glaciers and snowfields.
Sources
▶ ‘Fluoride’. National Health Service. ▶ ‘First dental school’, The Ohio Academy of
Science.
▶ ‘Potable water treatment’, The Open University. ▶ Nutrident
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Keeping fitYou might decide to go for a run this morning, or pack some things to go for a swim or play sports later in the day. Today, sportspeople have access to some of the best available technologies. For instance, shoes are lighter and have been engineered to better support the foot’s structure.
Shoe chemistryMany shoe soles are made through a process called vulcanisation. The process, invented in 1839, uses sulphur or other chemical curatives or accelerators to convert natural rubber obtained from trees into more durable, flexible materials. These additives modify the natural polymer by forming crosslinks (bridges) between individual polymer chains.
Good ball or out?Staying in the world of tennis, technology has changed officiating with the introduction of the Hawk-Eye system. The system uses 2D vision processing sotware to identify the centre of the ball within each frame of a number of different cameras. The system then triangulates the information to provide the 3D position of the ball. A flight trajectory is calculated and the exact area of the ball’s contact with the court is shown quickly and clearly using virtual reality sotware – almost as quickly as you can shout “out”.
Future wearThough not yet widespread, so-called ‘smart’ fabrics are now being used to create clothing that allows wearers, including athletes, to monitor various bodily functions such as heart rate and temperature. Some of these technologies are already available in armbands and other devices.
We can expect more smart and green garments and shoes that can be customised for individual use. They might let a diabetic know when they need to take their medication or send a message to a carer when an older person has suffered a fall. EU-funded projects working in this area include MyWear. Another is the Biotex project, which has developed miniaturised biosensors in a textile patch. The patch can analyse body fluids, even a tiny drop of sweat, and provide an in-depth assessment of one’s physiological state.
Sources
▶ ‘Nanotechnology’, European Commission. ▶ ‘Nanotechnology’, Science Museum. ▶ MyWear
The strangeness of the very small
Today, nanotechnology is at the forefront of virtually every scientific or engineering activity, from medicine to spacecraft design to microelectronics and building construction, and, of course, sports. The term refers to the manipulation of materials at the nano scale (1–100 nanometres; one nanometre is a billionth of a metre).
Some unique and often very strange phenomena become pronounced as size decreases. The ‘quantum size effect’, for example, involves alterations in the electronic properties of solids when size is greatly reduced. Roger Federer won Wimbledon while using a racket reinforced with nano-sized silicon-dioxide crystals incorporated into its frame.
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Digital lifeBefore you leave for work or school, you might want to look at the weather forecast, read the latest news headlines, or buy a digital book to read on the train. So you pick up your tablet or smartphone.
New mobile technologies and the ongoing switch from copper wire to optical fibre have boosted access speeds considerably compared to the internet’s early days.
An optical fibre is made of high-quality extruded glass or plastic, slightly thicker than a human hair, that transmits data bits in the form of pulses of light. This allows fibre to transmit much more data per second than copper wire of the same diameter.
Light going in at one end of an optical fibre is repeatedly reflected inside the fibre until it emerges at the other end, and is then transformed into a digital electric code that can be interpreted by a computer and translated into information we can understand.
Still, sending data-intensive media such as high-definition video or music files over the internet eats up a lot of space. One solution is to compress the media into a smaller package using a computer algorithm. The algorithms reduce the size by systematically removing some nonessential information. The files are restored close to the original state when received.
What’s next? – 5GCurrent third-generation (3G) mobile networks provide on-the-go access to the internet – and launched the age of the smartphone. But 3G technologies are reaching their capacity as more people demand data-hungry services, such as live TV and video streaming, through their portable devices. In response, 4G was launched in 2012 to provide download speeds about 5 times faster than 3G. Researchers are now working on the technologies needed for even faster 5G networks. They expect 5G to be available by 2020 and offer speeds of up to 100 times faster than 4G. This challenge is currently keeping EU-funded researchers busy, in projects such as Metis or iJOIN.
With this kind of speed, people will be able to access online services, for example allowing them to monitor, protect, and control their home environments, to monitor and maintain their health, and to stay safe in their cars.
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Secret communications system
The ‘secret’ that makes wireless communications work in mobile phones is known as the ‘spread spectrum’. Hedy Lamarr, an Austrian film star, was the co-inventor. She and American composer George Antheil patented the idea for a ‘Secret Communications System’ in 1941.
The invention works by manipulating radio frequencies at irregular intervals, forming an unbreakable code to prevent other people from intercepting messages. The systems’ advantages were not realised until 1962, when the military started using it to encrypt messages.
Their patent also led to the use of a spread spectrum technique. This is an efficient way of using multiple radio frequencies at the same time while avoiding interference with each other (and making it harder to intercept or jam them). The technique is one of the building blocks in current and next-generation wireless systems.
Sources
▶ ‘Optical fibres’, BBC GCSE Bitesize. ▶ HEVC Hybrid Broadcast Broadband Video
Services. H2B2VS project. ▶ Metis
▶ Famous women inventors, InventHelp ▶ ‘Towards 5G’, European Commission. ▶ iJoin
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Getting aboutIt’s time to go to work or school. Getting there is now easier and safer. Satellites orbiting the Earth provide uniform, reliable and quickly updated signals across large geographical areas. The signals keep road vehicles, ships, aircraft and even people on the right track and deliver many current and new services.
In-car navigation systems taking their location from satellites make it easy to get from A to B – if your map is up to date! Satellites (and local mobile phone networks) can also be used to deliver real-time traffic and safety services. For example, an application can automatically call for help when an accident happens.
For those who take public transport, new developments are just as impressive. More advanced electric trams, trains and buses, and intelligent traffic management systems help get you to your destination on time. Solar-powered information panels and smart phone apps are able to tell you in real time when the next bus or tram will arrive at your stop.
What’s next?
Look, no hands! Well, that could be one way to cope with the hassle of traffic congestion. EU researchers are looking at ways to introduce autonomous or driverless cars as a solution. The self-driving vehicles would use radar, satellite navigation, computer vision and other developing technologies to navigate safely through traffic. You can then catch up on work, or just relax and watch the world go by.
Other researchers have been working to develop more efficient freight delivery in cities. For example, the CityMove and CityLog projects have teamed up to develop a range of modular delivery vehicles better-suited to narrow city streets. They have also developed communications technologies to help companies deliver goods more efficiently as a way to reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.
Sources
▶ ‘How does GPS work?’, Institute of Physics.
▶ ‘A question of timing’, Institute of Physics.
▶ CityMove ▶ CityLog
38 microseconds to getting lost
Albert Einstein got it right with his general and special theories of relativity, as shown by the atomic clocks on board navigation satellites.
Navigation satellites send out signals indicating their positions and the time their signals were sent. A navigation device on Earth receives the signals and calculates the satellite’s distance (using the speed of light and the time the signal was sent). With the distance and position of at least three satellites, the device uses geometric calculations to determine its location on Earth.
But we would still end up getting lost if the highly precise clocks on the satellites were not adjusted to account for relativity.
Einstein’s special theory says that relative to Earth, a clock traveling very fast will appear to run slowly from the perspective of someone standing still. As navigation satellites orbit the Earth at about 14,000 kilometres an hour, their atomic clocks would seem to run 7 microseconds slower each day (1 microsecond = 1 millionth of a second).
Meanwhile, general relativity predicts that clocks closer to a massive object will seem slower than those located further away. From our position on Earth, the atomic clocks would seem to speed up by 45 microseconds a day. The combination of both relativistic effects amount to 38 microseconds a day and would lead to errors in location amounting to more than 10 kilometres a day.
Without Albert, we would all be lost!
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Cleanerand greener
Now that you’re outside in the real world look up at the sky and take a deep breath. If you live in a city, chances are the air quality is better today than it was 20 years ago, and that’s down to research and technological advances.
For instance, road vehicles are now much cleaner, thanks to inventions like the catalytic converter. It was invented by Eugene Houdry, a French mechanical engineer, and ater advances made by other developers it was first used in vehicles in 1975.
This ingenious device oxidises carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons in vehicle exhaust emissions to produce carbon dioxide (CO2) and water, and also reduces nitrogen oxides to nitrogen and oxygen.
The challenge of clean energy
How we generate energy – finding new and more environmentally friendly energy sources as we seek to prevent climate change – is a fundamental challenge today.
Promising sources include tidal, solar and wind energy. Research is under way on how to deliver energy from these sources more efficiently to local users.
One replacement for traditional oil-based fuels is biofuels, produced from plant matter. However, questions over the sustainability of some biofuels have led to the search for alternative sources – such as waste agricultural materials and algae.
One more sustainable alternative – cellulosic ethanol – is produced from the non-edible parts of plants. Cellulose makes up cell walls of all green plants. Ethanol is produced by turning the sugars contained in cellulose into alcohol. This can be made from waste — such as the wood chips, grasses, leaves and stalks letover from harvesting crops.
Making biofuels in this way would avoid putting energy production in competition with food production for land and scarce fresh water, as has happened with first generation biofuels. It also turns agricultural and forestry waste into a valuable resource.
What’s next?
EU-funded projects carrying out research and development on alternative energy include Nacir and Digespo, which are developing more efficient solar energy capture technologies. The Babethanol project is working on more efficient ways to produce ethanol from sustainable sources, such as agricultural waste. Meanwhile, the Biofat project seeks to demonstrate a sustainable way to turn microalgae into biofuel.
Solar energy from space?
Looking further ahead, the concept of space-based solar power is being examined by countries such as the US, Japan and India. Under this scheme, satellites comprising large arrays of solar cells are assembled in orbit. These then use low-power radio waves or lasers to transmit solar power to large receiving antennas back on Earth. The main obstacle has been economics – how to develop a scheme that can be cost-competitive with other energy sources.
The algae alternative
Another alternative is seaweed and other forms of algae. Researchers envision a world in which such sources could be harvested from cultivated sea ‘forests’ or ‘farms’ to produce biofuels.
In 2012, researchers produced genetically modified bacteria that can feed on the sugars found in brown seaweed and transform them into ethanol. Other researchers are studying microalgae, which naturally convert sunlight or sugar into oil within their cells.
Sources
▶ ‘The science of catalysts and catalytic converters’, Dr Emma Schofield, Johnson Matthey, The Naked Scientists, University of Cambridge.
▶ Nacir
▶ Digespo ▶ Babethanol ▶ ‘Algal Biofuel Developments in the EU’, Biofat
project.
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Life through a lens
See something interesting? Pull out your smartphone and take a photograph. That tiny lens and the sensor used to transform light into a digital image is a marvel of miniaturisation.
The ability to create images and video relies on one of the oldest of human technologies – the lens.
The task of a photographic lens is to focus an image as clearly and accurately as possible on film or a digital sensor. It’s not easy, because the geometry of a lens invariably prevents light rays from converging perfectly to a single point. This leads to what are called aberrations, or different types of blurring. One technique of lens design used since the 19th century is called ray tracing. This makes it possible to determine the likely aberrations generated by a particular lens design.
Today, computerised ray tracing allows lens performance to be modelled quickly, so design concepts can be rapidly developed and refined to reduce aberrations.
Lenses serving science
Better lenses have in turn led to a lot of discoveries. These span the full range of scientific fields, from the microscopic to deep space.
The first compound optical microscope appeared in the Netherlands in the late 1500s, probably an invention of eyeglass makers. This fundamental instrument has been responsible for numerous discoveries underlying today’s medicine, biology, geology and anthropology. Without the invention of the microscope, living cells would not have been discovered.
We can turn our attention to the cosmos thanks to optical telescopes, also an invention of Dutch eyeglass makers.
Galileo built his own telescope in 1609, greatly improving on the design. Important discoveries due to the telescope include the heliocentric solar system (with the Sun – not the Earth – at its centre), the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus and the existence of the Milky Way and much beyond it.
What’s next?
In the near future, you may be able to read your e-mail and text messages superimposed on the world around you – right in front of your eyes on your contact lenses.
Researchers are working to create a contact lens that is comfortable to wear with a display that does not obstruct the user’s vision. Initial tests involve a plastic contact lens with a tiny LED embedded in the centre.
EU-funded research includes the Metachem and Nanogold projects. Both projects focused on nanochemistry. The research could eventually lead to the development of new and more energy-efficient types of optical tools and displays for lighting, information processing, lasers and consumer devices.
Films and rainbows
Many people have noticed the strange and beautiful patterns of colours (sometimes forming rainbows) generated when light interacts with an oily substance, as when light is reflected on a soap bubble or on an oily patch of pavement. This happens because the thin film of the oil filters out certain frequencies (colours) of light due to the effect of interference. This phenomenon has many optical applications where light needs to be filtered, for example in your sunglasses, lenses for binoculars or cameras, and even visors for astronauts.
Sources
▶ ‘Optical Instruments’, University of Reading. ▶ ‘Early microscopes’, The College of
Optometrists. ▶ ‘The Origins of the Telescope’, edited by Albert
Van Helden, Sven Dupré, Rob van Gent, Huib Zuidervaart. Knaw Press, Amsterdam, 2010.
▶ Metachem ▶ Nanogold
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Flying highIt’s lunchtime and you’re thinking about getting out for something to eat. You look out of your window and see an airplane flying into the distance. You wonder where it might be going – New York, Cape Town, maybe Beijing?
Few activities can better illustrate the ways in which science and technology have transformed our lives than air transport. And it starts with how an airplane flies.
The force of ‘lit’ is created when air flows more quickly over the top of an object than below, causing a lowering of pressure over the top surface. This is achieved by the familiar airplane wing design – in cross-section the lower surface is flat while the upper surface is curved, a design that forces air to flow more quickly over the top than it does underneath.
Towards cleaner skiesIn recent years, concerns have been raised about the impact of modern air transport on the environment.
This has led to Europe’s Clean Sky initiative. The mission of this ambitious aeronautical research programme is to develop breakthrough technologies to dramatically slash an aircrat’s output of carbon dioxide, noise and oxides of nitrogen (NOx).
The research includes developing cutting-edge engine components and improving wing aerodynamics. Researchers are also working on lighter composite structures, smarter flight trajectories and more efficient on-board energy systems.
What’s next?Greener, more sustainable sources for jet fuel are on the horizon. For example, the EU-funded Solar-Jet project has resulted in the world’s first “solar” jet fuel. This is synthetic kerosene obtained directly from water and CO2. The process uses concentrated sunlight to power a solar reactor.
The breakthrough could mean that, in the future, any liquid hydrocarbon fuel such as kerosene could be produced from just CO2 and water. It would leave us less dependent on fossil fuels and turn CO2 – one of the main greenhouse gases responsible for global warming – into a useful resource.
Breakthrough!
One is tempted to imagine that the Wright brothers simply stumbled upon the design of their flying machine. After all, it was way back in the primitive 1900s, and they were uneducated bicycle makers. Well, not exactly.
They didn’t finish secondary school, but they had worked for years with printing presses, motors, and other machinery. They had also built their own wind tunnel, which helped them to design wings and propellers.
But it was their work with bicycles that led them to believe that an unstable vehicle like a flying machine could be controlled and balanced with practice. Their fundamental breakthrough was ‘three-axis control’, which allowed a pilot to steer the aircraft and maintain its equilibrium. This method became the standard for all fixed-wing aircraft and it remains so to this day.
Sources
▶ ‘The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age’, Smithsonian Institution.
▶ Clean Sky ▶ Solar-Jet
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Healthy lifestyle
It’s afternoon – time for a break from your desk and a brisk walk outside. You take the stairs rather than the lift. Before you get back to work you call your doctor to set a date for your annual check-up.
Like you, more and more people are taking greater responsibility for their own health and science is helping. Chemical reactions are behind most self-diagnostic kits, for instance to keep track of conditions such as diabetes and high cholesterol levels.
Many kits for diabetics use glucose oxidase, an enzyme. Diabetics used to test themselves by pricking a finger to get a blood droplet and putting it on a test strip containing the enzyme. The strength of the chemical reaction depends on the concentration of sugar (glucose) in the blood.
This whole process is now quicker and easier, with most diabetics using a handheld electronic glucometer to accurately measure this reaction. Within seconds, diabetics can know whether they need some insulin or a quick snack.
What’s next?One of the major changes in recent years is the development of tailored, personalised treatments – based on more accurate assessments of an individual’s risk of getting a particular disease, such as cancer or a heart condition. The complete mapping in 2003 of the human genome – around 20,500 genes that form a human being – was a big step in this direction.
For example, the EU-funded APO-Decide project is using computational approaches to understand the complexity of gene and protein interactions in cancer patients. The project aims to help doctors adjust treatments for colon cancer to the specific needs of individual patients.
Meanwhile, TREAT-OA extended knowledge of the genetic aspects influencing osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis. This has helped to refine an existing test used to predict whether individual patients are likely to develop a severe form of the disease.
A look inside
Medical treatment improved dramatically with the discovery of the X-ray in 1895. X-rays are a type of radiation, similar to rays of light. But while light is absorbed by skin, X-rays can pass through the human body. Bones and organs look lighter or darker in the resulting image as they absorb X-rays at different rates depending on their density. The image allows doctors to tell whether a bone is broken or an organ is diseased.
A computerised (axial) tomography scanner – also called a CT or CAT scan – combines a series of X-ray views taken from many different angles. Powerful computers process them to create cross-sectional, 3D images of the body.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners use strong magnetic fields and radio waves to obtain an inside look. MRI scans do not expose the body to X-ray radiation. This means vulnerable people, such as pregnant women and babies, can use MRI.
An ultrasound machine transmits high-frequency sound pulses into the body to get an image. The machine records the echoes as the sound waves bounce back. It calculates the distances and intensities of the reflected sound waves to form a two-dimensional image. As no radiation is involved, ultrasound is commonly used to check on a baby’s health while it is in the womb. Surgeons can also use ultrasound for operations that require high precision.
Surgeons can also use a laparoscope. This is a small tube with a light source and a video camera, which is put through a tiny incision in a patient and sends live images to a monitor.
Sources
▶ ‘A history of blood glucose meters and their role in self-monitoring of diabetes mellitus’, British Journal of Biomedical Science, 6 March 2012.
▶ ‘Keeping a lid on pressure’, British Heart Foundation.
▶ Human Genome Project information archive. ▶ ‘History of radiology’, British Institute of
Radiology. ▶ APO-Decide ▶ TREAT-OA
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Home comforts Your work day is over and you get home, looking forward to dinner.
Pull out a frying pan. What’s that non-stick coating called? Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). You might know it by its brand name Teflon, discovered in 1938 by scientist Roy Plunkett. In 1954 French engineer Marc Grégoire first coated a cooking pan with PTFE, under the brand name Tefal.
He had been using it on his fishing rod’s reel to try and make it run more smoothly. His wife Collete urged him to try the material on her cooking pans to make cooking and cleaning easer.
PTFE, made of carbon and fluorine, is very non-reactive with other substances. This makes the compound highly useful as a coating for containers and pipes that carry reactive and corrosive chemicals. It is also used as a lubricant for machinery and as a grat material in medical surgery.
Get cookingNow put your pan on the ceramic hob and turn it on. Some of the more advanced ‘vitroceramic’ hobs heat by induction. Energy is transferred electromagnetically to your cooking pan, efficiently heating the iron base of the pan which then cooks the food.
This is a much safer way to cook, as the temperature of the glass hob remains low, reducing the chance of an accidental burn. And when the pan is removed from the hob, heat transmission is immediately interrupted, saving energy.
Wash those clothesHigh-tech cooking systems aren’t the only way to save energy. Take a washing machine created by a University of Leeds spin-out company. It uses small reusable polymer chips or pellets and just a cup of water to clean clothes. The pellets can be used for up to 100 wash cycles.
The university says the system uses less than 2% of the water and energy of a conventional washing machine.
What’s next?
Self-cleaning plastics could cut costs and help the environment by reducing the need for cleaning products. The EU-funded project Nanoclean took its inspiration from the leaves surrounding the lotus flower. Their surfaces have waxy, water-resistant nanostructures – known as micropillars – that ensure rainwater washes away dirt without leaving any traces. Nanoclean’s scientists synthetically engineered these nanostructures and applied them to plastics used for cars. Now, several companies are working on bringing the innovation to the market.
It’s enzymazing Many washing powders use enzymes. These are molecules that catalyse or speed up chemical reactions. A single enzyme will typically catalyse around 10,000 chemical reactions per second. This means that tiny amounts have a huge effect.
A range of enzymes are used. Proteases, for example, break down proteins, like blood, egg and gravy. Amylases break down starches, and lipases break down fats and grease. Washing powders can contain one, two or all three types of enzyme.
Using enzymes means being able to wash laundry at a lower temperature while getting the same results – clean clothes! You save energy and help the environment. Enzymes can help cut washing temperatures from 60 °C to as low as 20 °C – reducing energy.
Sources
▶ ‘Enzyme Technology’, Martin Chaplin and Christopher Bucke.
▶ Nanoclean
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Let’s playa game
Now that you’re home for the evening, how about a game? Today’s computerised gaming consoles are complex, innovative and exciting, supporting high-resolution graphics and video that really put you in the middle of the action.
Handheld gaming devices have swept through the industry, and now people play games on the internet, using many types of devices including smartphones.
Make it fastCentral to computing is the central processing unit (CPU), a complete computation engine that can now be manufactured on a single integrated circuit or “chip”.
The CPU’s form, design and capacity have changed over time, and computational speed has increased dramatically. High-powered microprocessors also keep getting better.
The rise of the microprocessorThe first microprocessor was the Intel 4004, introduced in 1971. It was not very powerful, but it did manage to run one of the first portable electronic calculators.
The first microprocessor to make it into a home computer was the Intel 8080. The subsequent versions and the Pentium microprocessors were improvements on the same basic design with increasing speeds.
The future of gaming is nowOnline gaming devices can already tap into Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G and 4G connections, and together with wireless controllers, they allow gamers to engage in mobile gaming. It is a growing business.
Make it real – physics engines A physics engine is a computer program that simulates the physical behaviour of objects. The simulations are based on scientific knowledge about the real-life behaviour (or dynamics) of materials, whether rigid, soft or a fluid. Sometimes used by scientists in laboratories, physics engines are also incorporated into video games.
Complex mathematical models take into account whether virtual objects are soft or rigid and how they behave when two or more touch or collide. The models also calculate the forces that affect the objects, such as mass, speed, direction, gravity and friction.
In most computer games, the rate of game play is more important than the absolute accuracy of a simulation. That’s why these so-called real-time physics engines typically produce ‘perceptually correct’ but simplified simulations. Some game engines however, go all the way, simulating physical behaviour extremely accurately, allowing for very realistic action sequences.
With an integrated two-way satellite navigation receiver/transmitter, today’s handheld devices allow players to play location-based games with other people in real environments – a street, a building, and an entire city. Geocaching is one such example. In this popular real-world treasure hunt, people use satellite navigation and coordinates provided online to find objects hidden by other players.
Next-generation games will allow gamers to feel more a part of a virtual world. Developers are working on providing an immersive experience. Gamers would be attached to equipment and sensors that allow them to walk, run, jump and do other movements. They would see these actions mimicked in the virtual world via their 3D headsets.
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Sleep wellWell, it’s been a long day. Time to lie down, turn out the lights and drift off to dreamland. Human beings spend about a third of their lives asleep. We know we need to sleep, but most of us don’t know why. In fact, no one does, but scientists have spent many sleepless nights trying to explain it.
The stages of sleepScientist Alfred Lee Loomis and his colleagues first described the stages of sleep in 1937. Using electroencephalography (EEG) to study brain activity, they divided sleep into five levels (A to E), representing a spectrum from wakefulness to deep sleep.
In 1953, scientists realised that deep sleep (when rapid and random movement – REM – of the eyes occur) was really very different. They reclassified sleep into four non-rapid eye movement’ (NREM) stages and rapid eye movement (REM).
As we know them today, the stages of sleep are:
• NREM stage 1: Between sleep and wakefulness, the muscles are active; the eyes roll, lazily opening and closing.
• NREM stage 2: It gradually becomes harder to awaken the sleeper.
• NREM stage 3 & 4: ‘Slow-wave sleep’ or ‘deep sleep’; many outside stimuli, such as noises, no longer produce any reactions.
• REM: The sleeper displays REM, while most muscles are completely immobilised.
Sleep features cycles of NREM and REM, usually four or five of them per night. There is more deep sleep earlier in the night, with REM increasing just before natural awakening.
Sources
▶ ‘Sleep matters: the impact of sleep on health and wellbeing’, Mental Health Foundation. 2011.
▶ ‘Natural patterns of sleep’, Harvard Medical School.
To sleep, perchance… We all know what dreaming is, but did you know that it is mostly associated with the REM phase of sleep?
REM sleep is also referred to as “paradoxical sleep”, because the sleeper shows EEG activity similar to a waking state. However it is harder to wake a sleeper than at any other stage. Vital signs indicating arousal and oxigen consumption by the brain are higher than when the sleeper is awake.
The function of REM sleep is still uncertain, but many studies have shown that a lack of it will impair normal functioning.
What’s next?Scientists at the Textile Research Institute in Spain have uncovered a range of variables that can affect your nightly slumber, including the texture of sleeping clothes, temperature and even odours.
So, in the near future, you may be able to buy and wear soter-than-ever sleepwear that is more comfortable and better for your skin. Your future mattress may be able to automatically adjust to ambient temperature changes and release suitable sleep-enhancing scents.
Now there’s something you can sleep on!
Science around youAs you can see, there is a lot of science behind everyday things – the ones we use now and the ones we will use in the future. You can learn more about the astonishing science around you by asking questions and then seeking the answers, either on the internet or at your local library.
Start with something you use regularly. How did it come to be the way it is now? How does it work? How could it be made better to meet our changing needs? You might come up with some new ideas yourself!
You just have to be curious. Ater all, that’s how many scientists took their first steps towards understanding the world around us. One might even be able to catch a glimpse of a “world in a grain of sand”, as William Blake put it.
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Sources1. Let there be light!‘Energy-saving lightbulbs’, European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/energy/lumen/index_en.htm
‘Green paper: Lighting the future accelerating the deployment of innovative lighting technologies’, European Commission. http : / /eur- lex .europa.eu/ legal-content /EN/
TXT/?uri=CELEX:52011DC0889
Light.Touch.Matterswww.light-touch-matters-project.eu
2. Brushing up‘Fluoride’. National Health Service.http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/fluoride/Pages/
Introduction.aspx
‘First dental school’, The Ohio Academy of Science.http://www.heartlandscience.org/medhs/pdf/dental.pdf
‘Potable water treatment’, The Open University. http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-
technology/engineering-and-technology/technology/
potable-water-treatment/content-section-4.2
Nutrident http://www.ucl.ac.uk/eastman/x/nutrident/funding.php
3. Keeping fit‘Nanotechnology’, European Commission.http://ec.europa.eu/research/industrial_technologies/
policy_en.html
‘Nanotechnology’, Science Museum.http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/nano/
lifestyle/114.asp
MyWearhttp://www.mywearproject.info/
4. Digital life‘Optical fibres’, BBC GCSE Bitesize.http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/
aqa_pre_2011/radiation/sendingrev1.shtml
HEVC Hybrid Broadcast Broadband Video Services. H2B2VS project.http://h2b2vs.epfl.ch
Famous women inventors, InventHelphttp://www.women-inventors.com/Hedy-Lammar.asp
‘Towards 5G’, European Commission.http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/towards-5g
Metis https://www.metis2020.com/
iJoinhttp://www.ict-ijoin.eu/
5. Getting about‘How does GPS work?’, Institute of Physics.http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=55
‘A question of timing’, Institute of Physics.http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=77
CityMovehttp://www.citymoveproject.eu/
CityLoghttp://www.city-log.eu/
6. Cleaner and greener‘The science of catalysts and catalytic converters’, Dr Emma Schofield, Johnson Matthey, The Naked Scientists, University of Cambridge. http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/
interviews/interview/569/
Nacirhttp://www.ies.upm.es/index.php?id=549
Digespohttp://www.digespo.eu
Babethanolhttp://babethanol.com/
‘Algal Biofuel Developments in the EU’, Biofat project.http://www.biofatproject.eu/Background/
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p6_4t.pdf
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museyeum/online_exhibitions/microscopy/early.cfm
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‘The Origins of the Telescope’, edited by Albert Van Helden, Sven Dupré, Rob van Gent, Huib Zuidervaart. Knaw Press, Amsterdam, 2010.http://www.dwc.knaw.nl/wp-content/HSSN/2011-12-
Origins.pdf
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Nanogoldhttp://archiveweb.epfl.ch/nanogold.epfl.ch/
8. Flying high‘The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age’, Smithsonian Institution.http://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/wright-brothers/
online/who/
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Solar-Jethttp://www.solar-jet.aero/
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BJBS69%282%29.pdf
‘Keeping a lid on pressure’, British Heart Foundation. http://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/conditions/high-
blood-pressure/blood-pressure-research.aspx
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10. Home comforts ‘Enzyme Technology’, Martin Chaplin and Christopher Bucke.http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/enztech/index.html
Nanocleanhttp://www.nanoclean-project.eu/
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MHF_Sleep_Matters_Report.pdf
‘Natural patterns of sleep’, Harvard Medical School.http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/science/
what/sleep-patterns-rem-nrem
How to obtain EU publicationsFree publications:
• one copy: via EU Bookshop (http://bookshop.europa.eu);
• more than one copy or posters/maps: from the European Union’s representations (http://ec.europa.eu/represent_en.htm); from the delegations in non-EU countries (http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/index_en.htm); by contacting the Europe Direct service (http://europa.eu/europedirect/index_en.htm) or calling 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 (freephone number from anywhere in the EU) (*). (*) The information given is free, as are most calls (though some operators, phone boxes or hotels
may charge you).
Priced publications:• via EU Bookshop (http://bookshop.europa.eu);
Priced subscriptions:• via one of the sales agents of the Publications Office of the European Union
(http://publications.europa.eu/others/agents/index_en.htm).
Have you ever wondered what’s in your washing powder, or how the tiny lens in your smartphone can take such good photos? Do you know what satellite navigation has to do with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?
Science, technology and innovation are never far away — find out how they are making our everyday lives healthier, happier and more fun.
You’ll even discover how nanotechnology can help win Wimbledon!
KI-01-14-760-EN-N
ISBN 978-92-79-40054-4 doi:10.2777/88802