Gizmorama - October 1, 2014

Good Morning,

We have drones in the sky, now we might have drones patrolling the seas. Underwater robots, around the size of the football, are being developed to keep America's ports safe and secure. Next there will be robots with cameras in intersections... oh, right.

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Football-size underwater robot could protect American ports --*
BOSTON (UPI) - MIT researchers have developed a football-size underwater robot that they say could soon help protect America's ports. Drones have quickly become a much-used eye in the sky for law enforcement. And now, underwater robots have the potential to do the same for those patrolling the nation's waterways.

MIT scientists originally designed the robot to search for cracks in the water tanks of nuclear reactors using ultrasound scanning technology. Now, researchers suggest the same robot -- which they unveiled last week at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems -- could be used to covertly inspect ships entering port, keeping a lookout for the false hulls and hollow propeller shafts smugglers use to sneak contraband past customs and onto U.S. shores.

The stealthy underwater robot was designed by Sampriti Bhattacharyy, a graduate student in mechanical engineering. Her work was aided and supervised by Ford Professor of Engineering Harry Asada. Battacharyya created the bulk of the design using a 3-D printer.

"It's very expensive for port security to use traditional robots for every small boat coming into the port," Bhattacharyya said in a press release, "If this is cheap enough -- if I can get this out for $600, say - why not just have 20 of them doing collaborative inspection? And if it breaks, it's not a big deal. It's very easy to make."

The small robot leaves almost no wake as it travels through the water, so it's hard to spot. A fleet of the robots could potentially hide in underwater grasses, algae or seaweed and emerge clandestinely to scan hulls without notice, preventing ships from abandoning their illicit cargo in fear of detection.

Engineers are developing a workaround for the robot's scanning capabilities. Current ultrasound technologies require direct contact with the object, which could prove difficult to maintain. Still, port protectors are intrigued.

"I have a great deal of interest in seeing if this type of technology can have a substantive impact on a number of missions or roles which I might be charged with in the future," said Nathan Betcher, a special-tactics officer in the U.S. Air Force. "I am particularly interested to see if this type of technology could find use in domestic maritime operations ranging from the detection of smuggled nuclear, biological, or chemical agents to drug interdiction, discovery of stress fractures in submerged structures and hulls, or even faster processing and routing of maritime traffic."


*-- New study explains the brain of multitaskers --*
LONDON (UPI) - Americans are becoming more and more comfortable with multitasking, and a new study from the University of Sussex might have an explanation for its relation to the brain. Kep Kee Loh and fellow researchers studied 75 adults and asked them how much they multitask by engaging in more than one form of media at a time. Checking your Facebook while also watching a TV show would be the kind of multitasking they're looking for. Participants were put in an MRI to see how their brains differed. Those who answered positively to heavy media multitasking were shown to have less anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) grey matter in their brains.

"Reduced ACC gray matter volumes and activations have been implicated in several socio-emotional disorders such as depression, OCD [and] addictive disorders," Loh told the Huffington Post. He also said general "cognitive abilities" might be less for people in this category. The ACC is known for many uses in the brain. It is said to control things ranging from blood pressure to decision-making. If media multitasking is causing this phenomena, it could represent a serious problem for modern adults and children.

The only problem with the study is that of causality. The researchers were not able to establish if that low concentration of grey matter was what caused the affinity for multitasking or if multitasking caused that part of the brain to lessen.

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