World's First Mind Controlled Drone Race and Other Science Tech

Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s edition of science and technology news. Here’s today’s mashup.

World’s First Mind Controlled Drone Race

If you were surprised upon seeing drones designed to trap other drones, wait till you hear our next science story. Just recently on April 22, a unique competition was held at the University of Florida – the world’s first-ever mind-controlled drone race.

16 drone pilots geared up for the challenge. In the race, pilots wear a headset called Brain Computer Interface (BCI) that measures electrical signals from the brain to control the drone. BCIs have been used in the past in the medical industry for patients who are paralyzed, helping them regain body movement.

“With events like this, we’re popularizing the use of BCI instead of being stuck in the research lab. BCI was a technology that was geared specifically for medical purposes and in order to expand this to the general public, we actually have to embrace these consumer brand devices and push them to the limit,” says Chris Crawford, a PhD student.

Scientists Uncover New State of Water Molecules

Researchers at the Spallation Neutron Source and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) have observed a new state of water molecules that is neither solid, liquid nor gas. After confining water molecules in a very confined space such as nanoscale channels in the mineral beryl, the molecules take on an ‘unusual double top-like shape’.

“This means that the oxygen and hydrogen atoms of the water molecule are delocalized and therefore simultaneously present in all six symmetrically equivalent positions in the channel at the same time. It’s one of those phenomena that only occur in quantum mechanics and has no parallel in our everyday experience,” said Alexander Kolesnikov, researcher at the Chemical and Engineering Materials Division at ORNL.

Universal Treatment to Cure Allergies

Although allergies are rarely ever fatal and mostly cause a nuisance, they are a hindrance nonetheless. Researchers have come up with a way to treat allergies by introducing a biodegradable nanoparticle that functions essentially like a Trojan horse, misguiding the immune system by labelling the allergen as harmless to the body.

“It’s a universal treatment. Depending on what allergy you want to eliminate, you can load up the nanoparticle with ragweed pollen or a peanut protein,” said Stephen Miller, Research Professor of Microbiology-Immunology at Northwestern University.

“The findings represent a novel, safe and effective long-term way to treat and potentially ‘cure’ patients with life-threatening respiratory and food allergies. This may eliminate the need for life-long use of medications to treat lung allergy,” he added.

Read more at www.bit.ly/q3newsblog. Q3 Technologies is a large diversified technology company which develops custom software products for the healthcare industry including cloud applications, enterprise applications across all platforms and Rich Internet Applications (RIA).