Edible electronics: A joke or cure?

Ready to Digest?

Implantable and ingestible (edible) electronic devices that stay inside your body pose unique engineering challenges. These should not only use the best processor but also be minimal in size, bio-compatible, safe and extremely reliable. Reliability is all the more important as it often turns out to be a case of life or death!

Despite so many risks and challenges, is awesome to see how implants have developed since the days of the first pacemaker in 1958. From cardiac pacemakers to cochlear implants, from brain interfaces to retinal implants, there are numerous implantable medical electronic devices available today. Even more exciting is the emerging field of edibles-tiny, capsule-sized electronic devices that consumed orally for diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Some edibles are designed to remain inside the body for some time, while others do their job and get disposed of within minutes.

Today, we have reached a state where inventions like these no longer surprise us because our minds have become tuned to a sci-fi future, and we have started expecting such developments. so lets put wow factor, and instead look; at the current and future state of implants and edibles.

Painless diabetes testing, drug delivery and more

With improvements in quality and reliability, there is now a reasonably good demand for cochlear, retinal and cardiovascular implants. Cardiovascular implants have evolved much in recent years, and have overcome past constraints regarding compatibility with imaging systems such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRN). Interestingly the rise in lifestyle diseases like diabetes as also led to an increased demand for implantable devices like implantable continuous glucose monitoring and implantable infusion pumps. There are also implantable devices for phrenic nerve stimulation to restore breathing function in patients, and sacral nerve stimulation for patients with bladder disorders. Implantable neuro-stimulators, on the hand help those with neurological disorders like Parkinson's disease.

With the availability of better bio compatible materials that minimize the possibility of infections, there is greater faith in implants. Researchers at Graem Clark Institute have developed an implant that is fitted under the scalp to diagnose and treat epilepsy.

Cochlear implants are used when hearing aids don’t work well- that is, when the patient has severe sensor neural hearing loss due to absent or reduced cochlear hair cell function.The implant basically carries out the function of cochlea or inner ear, stimulating the auditory nerve directly.

Retinal implants are giving vision to the impaired around the world. Going one step further, the Monash Vision Group is developing Gennaris – a bionic vision system that bypasses damage to the eye and optic nerve to restore functional vision for people who have injured both these or lost sight due to glaucoma and acquired retinal disease. This system interfaces directly with the brain, bypassing the retina and optic nerve.

Elsewhere, researchers are also exploring bio-compatible, implantable photonic devices that can improve health monitoring, diagnostics and light-activated therapies. Consider the possibility of bio-compatible and Wireless-powered light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and miniature lasers implanted inside the body. Advances in biotechnology, such as optogenetics, will enable these photonic implants to be integrated tightly with neurological or physiological circuits.

A good interface between implanted devices and the brain can help in great  ways the amputees and people paralyzed due to stroke or spinal cord injury.

A minimally invasive electrode called the Stentrode developed at the University of of Melbourne might be a step in this direction. Implanted into a blood vessel adjoining the area of the brain that controls movement, it may help control an exoskeleton, enabling crippled or paralyzed people to move. The implant can apparently be installed without opening the skull, which is what makes it attractive!

Neuralink, a company funded by Elon Musk, is also working on implantable brain-computer interfaces. They are developing syringe-injectable, flexible, sub-micron-thickness substrates that can be used in implantable electronics. The substrate is soft enough to sit harmlessly in the brain, and has electrical properties that enable only the  part at the brain to receive the electrical stimulus.

Brain computer interface is the future of implantable systems. It can help people with degenerative brain diseases and neurological disorders. However, it must be handled with care because an electrode implanted in the brain can be used both for good bad purposes!

Rise of edibles for diagnostics and drug delivery

When the electronic device needs to stay inside the body forever or for a reasonably long time, it is worth operating on a patient to implant the device. However, if you just want it to stay inside for a few minutes, hours or even days, for the purpose of monitoring a health condition or temporarily dispensing some medicines, operating on the patient doesn’t make sense. This requirement led to the development of ingestible, or edible electronics, which industry-watchers expect to create huge waves like wearables did.

The electronics that you swallow, encapsulate in a pill, will sit in your gastrointestinal tract for a short time, before being ejected from your body like regular food waste. During this time it can capture videos, release drugs, monitor heart rate and respiration, and perform other such tasks.

Proteus Digital Health was one of the pioneers in ingestible tech, And their technology is now used commercially by close to ten health systems. Their solution comprises a pill, a patch that is attached outside to the side of the stomach, and a mobile app/desktop portal. The pill is made of whatever drugs are required, and fitted with a sensor made of natural, ingestible materials like copper, magnesium and silicon. When a patient swallows the pill, it dissolves like a normal pill in the stomach but leaves behind a sensor, which is activated by fluids in the body. This sensor sends a signal to the patch, which also measures heart rate, body position and time of medication. This information is sent to the patient’s or doctor’s mobile phone. Regular drug intake is very important for those undergoing complex medical treatments such as organ transplants. This pill could be very useful for such patients. Proteus has teamed up with Tokyo-based firm Otsuka to embed Proteus’ sensors into Abilify-—a drug used for serious mental illnesses.

Another forerunner in the space is Israel-based Given Imaging. Their PillCam series comprises pills with ingestible cameras, which can help doctors to view different parts of the patient’s digestive system like the oesophagus or colon. It is a painless alternative to tests like endoscopy and colonoscopy. The PillCam Colon, for instance, uses a battery-powered camera to take high-speed photos as it slowly goes down the intestinal tract over a time period of eight hours. The images are transmitted to a recording device worn around the patient’s waist and later reviewed by a doctor. Although the images are not as sharp as those obtained through normal colonoscopy, it is a viable alternative for those who cannot bear the pain or feel embarrassed by the procedure. Other versions of PillCam help doctors to see the small intestine and oesophagus. The company has also developed Smart Pill - ingestible capsule that measures pressure, pH and as it travels through  gastrointestinal path. This helps doctors to assess Gl motility.

Bravo pH is another capsule-based test that helps to test for acid reflux. The miniature pH capsule attaches to the oesophagus and sends pH data  wirelessly to a small recorder worn on a shoulder strap or waistband. Information is collected over multiple days, enabling doctors to study the frequency and duration of acid flowing back up into the oesophagus. This helps confirm the presence of gastroe sophageal reflux disease (GERD). This is a totally catheter free solution, so the patients can go about normal activities and have a normal diet while the pill unobtrusively monitors their acid reflux“ They can remove the receiver to take a shower. This type of monitoring under a normal routine gives better results than keeping the patient under observation.

Parts of Ingestible electronics- overview

Powering

Main challenge: sustained powering bio-compatibility

Status: Limited to short and one time use. Large batteries are main cause of size consists of ingestible electronics

Outlook: Enegy harvesting concepts, novel materials for batteries and remote powering.

Communication

Main challenge: in-body path loss of RF signals, translating in high energy consumption and space requirements.

Status: transmitted signals are collected using body-worn receivers and systems are equipped with spatially demanding antennae and powering elements

Outlook: non-RF approaches, different antennae designs and materials, and alternative transmission approaches.

Interaction and steering

Main challenge: Localization

Status: Various concepts including biopsy drug delivery, steering and insufflation, have been demonstrated in capsule form but have not reached clinic

Outlook: Different capsule design to meet current standard of care.

Sensing

Main challenge: sensor fouling and limited versatility.

Status: Concepts are limited to systems that can withstand the caustic environment in the GI tract

Outlook: Downsizing of sensing concepts with adaption to special requirements of the GI tract.

Safety

Main challenge: Obstruction of GI tract

Status: Size limitations known from retrospective data on drug delivery system (Pill-shaped geometry)

Outlook: different geometries and self-disassembling or edible systems.

Eat your robot

We have bio compatible materials as well as transistors, sensors, batteries, electrodes and capacitors made using such materials. So you might think, why not a robot, too? But, what sets a robot apart from other computing systems is its ability to move-a robot needs an actuator, and attempts at making an edible one have been unpalatable all along!

Switzerland-based research organization EPFL has made some headway recently. At a conference held this year, researchers led by Dario Floreano presented the prototype of a completely edible, soft, pneumatic actuator made of gelatin glycerin and water. The design and performance of this new gelatin actuator is comparable to standard pneumatic actuators. Its structure causes it to bend when inflated and straighten out again when pressure is reduced. The main benefits are that it is edible, biodegradable, bio-compatible and environmentally sustainable. Since gelatin is melty, the actuator also turns out to be self-healing!

The researchers explain several exciting applications for this actuator. The components of such edible robots could be mixed with nutrients or pharmaceutical components to improve healing, digestion and metabolism. These can be used as disposable robots to explore, study the behavior of wild animals, cure sick animals or train protected animals to hunt. These can also be used in relief measures. In search-and-rescue operations, the robot can be sent without a payload to stranded people as the robot itself is food!

But we pay the bills?

A recent Frost & Sullivan report noted that the fastest growing segment amongst the my types of implants is implantable neuro-stimulators, which help treat neurological disorders such as epilepsy, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson's disease and dystonia. It is also likely that in the future, these implantable electronics will be digitally connected to improve the scope of remote drug delivery, testing and diagnostics.

The cost of researching and developing implants continues to be high due to the criticality and complications involved-and often this cost reflects in the end price points. In the report, Frost & Sullivan industry analyst Bhargav Rajan noted that the constant stream of innovations has attracted substantial private funding to the implantable electronics market, while public funding is expected to improve in the future. He also suggested that technology developers can lower development costs by collaborating with early-stage start-ups and small- and medium-sized enterprises. This will allow them access to cross-industry expertise and cutting-edge innovations, which, in turn, will help lower the price points. 

A majority of the population seeking implants belongs to low- and middle-income groups. Taking note of this factor, the report also stressed that the growth of this sector depends not entirely on technological development but also the availability of insurance coverage and reimbursements for such devices.

Laser tattooing

Scientists transform the surface of common materials into a nontoxic base for electronics and this enables scientists to put electronic sensors on everyday items.

Yieu Chyan is a chemist at Rice University in Houston, Texas. His team uses lasers to convert carbon in the very topmost layer of different items into an incredibly useful material called graphene(GRAA-feen). It’s a single-atom-thick layer of carbon. The researchers are perfecting their tattooing technique for use on common carbon-containing materials. These include paper, cork, wood, cardboard, cloth — even foods such as potatoes and toast!

The way that carbon atoms are arranged makes graphene appear black, so tattoos created with the laser can look like drawings. But the researchers don’t add ink or anything else to the surface. The graphene forms from carbon atoms that were already part of the material.

Graphene has a honeycomb-shaped structure and is arranged in sheets just one atom thick. As a laser passes over some material’s surface, its intense energy locks together those carbon atoms on the surface, turning them into graphene. Sometimes, the laser instead jumbles up the carbon atoms. This creates a foam, which has no structure. When this happens, the researchers pass the laser over the surface again. Its second pass converts the carbon foam into graphene. Scientists call the carbon treated in this way as laser-induced graphene, or LIG.

SUBMITTED BY:

Nirmal Mathew

Nithya K Nair

Poojashree V Rai

Prajna P S

Pramitha A

1st M.Sc. {1st Semester} 

SUBMITTED ON: 3^rd April 2019

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HIGGS BOSON

 HIGGS BOSON

Introduction:

‘Higgs boson’ is an elementary particle in standard model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field one of the field in particle physics theory. It is named after the physicist Peter Higgs, who in 1984 along with other scientists proposed the mechanism which suggested the existence of such a particle. The existence was confirmed in 2012 by the ATLAS & CMS collaboration based on collisions in the LHC at CERN.

The Brout -Englert –Higgs mechanism:

In the 1970s, physicists realized that there are very close ties between two of the found fundamental forces – the weak force & the electromagnetic force.  The two forces can be described within the same theory, which forms the basis of the Standard Model. This ‘unification ’implies that electricity are all manifestation of a single underlying force known as the electroweak force.

The basic equations of the unified theory correctly describes the electroweak force & its associated force carrying particles, namely the photon & the W & Z bosons, except for major glitch. All of these particles emerge without a mass. While this is true for the photon, we know that the W & Z have mass, nearly 100 times that of a proton. Fortunately, theorists Robert Brout, Francois Englert & Higgs made a proposal that was to solve this problem. What we now call the Brout-Englert –Higgs mechanism gives a mass to the W & Z when they interact with an invisible field, now called the ‘HIGGS FIELD’, which pervades the universe.

At CERN on 4 July, the ATLAS & CMS collaborations present evidence in the LHC data for a particle consistent with a Higgs boson, the particle linked to the mechanism proposed in the 1960s to give mass to the W,Z & other particles.

Just after the big bang, the Higgs field was zero but as the universe cooled and the temperature fell below a critical value the field grew spontaneously so that any particle interacting with it acquired a mass.The more a particles interact with the field, the heavier it is. Particles like the photon that do not interact with it are left with no mass at all. Like all fundamental fields, the Higgs field has an associated particle the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is the visible manifestation of the Higgs field, rather like a wave at the surface of the sea.

The Elusive Particle:

A problem for the many years has been that no experiment has observed the Higgs boson to confirm the theory. On 4 July 2012, the ATLAS  and CMS experiments at CERN’S Large Hadron collider announced they had each observed a new particle in the mass region around 125 Gev. This particle is consistent with the Higgs boson but it will take further work to determine whether or not it is the Higgs boson, as proposed within the standard model, is the simplest manifestation of the Brout –Englert –Higgs mechanism.

On 8 october 2013 the Nobel prize in physics was awarded jointly to Francois Englert & Peter Higgs for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of origin of mass confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS & CMS experiments at CERN’S Large collider.”

SUBMITTED BY:

Likhitha B

Malavika Ajith

Meghana RV

Mithuna P
Namitha D
I M Sc Physics

SUBMITTED DATE:  25-03-2019

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Evolution of a Star

INTRODUCTION:

Stellar evolution is the process by which a star changes over the course of a time. Depending on the mass of the star, its lifetime can range from a few million years for the most massive to trillions of years to least massive which are considerably longer than the age of the universe. All stars are born from collapsing clouds of gas and dust, often called Nebulae or molecular clouds. Over the course of millions of years, these protostars settle down into a state of equilibrium, becoming what is known as a main sequence star. Depending on their mass, they reach the end of their evolution as whitedwarf, neutron star or black hole.

                         

NEBULA:

—  Nebula is a cloud of hydrogen gas and dust. It is a birthplace of stars. A protostar is a very young star that is still gathering mass from its parent molecular cloud. The protostellar phase is the earliest one in the process of the stellar evolution. For a low mass star, it lasts about 500000 years. Protostars are usually surrounded by dust, which blocks the light they emit, so they are difficult to observe in the visible spectrum.

                                                    

AVERAGE STAR:

—  After a part of nebula gains sufficient mass, it begins to collapse under its own gravity. As a result, the increased pressure in the core triggers nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium. This stops further gravitational collapse and the star is officially born. The size of the star at this point will set the course for the rest of its life. The star with the mass between 0.5 to 8 times the mass of our sun is considered as an ‘average star’.

                                                

RED GIANT:

—  A Red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass in a late phase of stellar evolution. The most common red giant is stars on the red giant branch that are still fusing hydrogen into helium core.

PLANETARY NEBULA:

—   All planetary nebulae form at the end of intermediate massed star's lifetimes. They are a relatively short-lived phenomenon, lasting perhaps a few tens of thousands of years, compared to a considerably longer phases of stellar evolution. Once all of the red giant's atmosphere has been dissipated energetic ultraviolet radiation from the exposed hot luminous core, called a planetary nebula nucleus (PNN), ionizes the ejected material. Absorbed ultraviolet light then energises the shell of nebulous gas around the central star, causing it to appear as a brightly coloured planetary nebula.

                                 

WHITE DWARF:

—  A white dwarf is a very dense star that is the end stage of average star life. After the star runs out of helium, the star will try to combine carbon, which the star can’t combine. So the gas spreads apart from the star leaving behind a carbon dense white dwarf. When the white dwarf runs out of its remaining energy it loses its brightness and becomes a brown dwarf.

                           

MASSIVE STARS:

—  Massive stars are born, just like average stars out of clouds of dust called nebula. When a nebula collects enough mass it begins to collapse under its own gravity. The internal pressure created by this collapse is enough to trigger fusion of hydrogen deep in its core. When nuclear fusion begins a star is born. When a star is considered massive if it is at least 8 times more massive than our sun.

RED SUPERGIANT:

—  They are the largest stars in the universe in terms of volume, although they are not the most massive or luminous. Betelgeuse and Antares are the brightest and best known red super giants, indeed the only first magnitude red supergiant stars. They are much cooler than the sun and are observed to rotate slowly or very slowly.

SUPERNOVA:

—  A supernova is an event that occurs upon the death of certain type of stars. A supernova is the explosion of a star. It is the largest explosion that takes place in space. The most recent directly observed supernova in the milky way was Kepler’s supernova in 1604.

NEUTRON STARS:

—  Neutron stars are created when giant stars die in supernovas and their cores collapse, with the proton and electrons essentially melting into each other to form neutrons. Neutron stars rotate extremely rapidly after their formation due to the conservation of angular momentum.

BLACK HOLES:

—  Black holes are incredibly massive but cover only smaller region. Virtually noting can escape from them. Under classical physics even light is trapped by a blackhole. A black hole can be formed by death of a massive star. A black hole is a region of a space-time exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing can escape from it.

HR DIAGRAM:

The Hertzprung-Russell diagram is a graphical tool that astronomers use to classify stars according to their luminosity, special type, color, temperature and evolutionary stage.

Stars are stable phase of hydrogen burning lie along the main sequence  according to their mass. After a star uses up all the hydrogen in its core, it leaves the main sequence and moves towards the red giant branch. The most massive stars may also become red supergiants, in the upper right corner of the diagram.

The lower left corner is reserved for the white dwarfs.

Submitted by:

Ezitha Monteiro

Delvita Veigas

Divyashree

Keerthana

I M Sc Physics

Reference

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From the southern sky - Phoenix

The southern sky

Phoenix

Phoenix constellation lies in the southern sky. It was named after the phoenix, the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes.

The constellation was originally introduced by the Dutch astronomer and cartographer Petrus Plancius from the observations of the Dutch navigators Frederick Houtman and Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser in the late 16th century. It is a relatively small constellation, but it is the largest among the 12 constellations created and named by Plancius. It was first depicted on his globe in 1598 and later appeared in Johann Bayer’s atlas Uranometria in 1603.

Phoenix constellation is easy to see for anyone in Australia and South Africa during southern hemisphere summer, but generally can’t be observed by anyone living north of the 40th parallel, and lies pretty low in the sky for observers north of the equator.

Phoenix contains several notable deep sky objects, among them the Phoenix Cluster of galaxies, the black hole candidate HLX-1, and Robert’s Quartet, a compact galaxy group.

Phoenix is the 37th constellation in size, occupying an area of 469 square degrees. It is located in the first quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ1) and can be seen at latitudes between +32° and -80°. The neighboring constellations are Eridanus, Grus, Fornax, Hydrus, Sculptor and Tucana.

Phoenix belongs to the Johann Bayer family of constellations, along with Apus, Chamaeleon, Dorado, Grus, Hydrus, Indus, Musca, Pavo, Tucana and Volans.

Phoenix contains five stars with known planets and does not have any Messier objects. The brightest star in the constellation is Ankaa (Alpha Phoenicis) with an apparent magnitude of 2.40. There is one meteor shower associated with the constellation -the Phoenicids-which occurs around December 5 every year

French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louise de Lacatle charted and designated 27 starts with the Bayer designation Alpha through to omega in 1756, of these he labelled two stars close together lambda and assigned omicron, psi and omega to three stars.

MAJOR STARS IN PHOENIX

1. Ankaa – α Phoenicis (Alpha Phoenicis)

2. β Phoenicis (Beta Phoenicis)

3. γ Phoenicis (Gamma Phoenicis)

4. κ Phoenicis (Kappa Phoenicis)

5. ζ Phoenicis (Zeta Phoenicis)

6. ν Phoenicis (Nu Phoenicis)

7. SX Phoenicis

Brightest star - Ankaa or Alpha Phoenicis

Ankaa is the brightest star in the constellation. Its name comes from the Arabic al- ‘anqā’, which means “the phoenix.” It is also sometimes known as Nair al- Zaurak, or “the bright star of the skiff” (an-na’ir az-zawraq in Arabic).

Alpha Phoenicis is a spectroscopic binary star approximately 85 light years distant. The system has the combined stellar classification K0.5 IIIband a combined apparent magnitude of 2.377. The two components in the system orbit each other with a period of 3848.8 days (or 10.5 years). The primary star, as the spectral class indicates, is an orange giant.

Water on Mars

Water on Mars

Introduction

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second smallest planet in the Solar system after Mercury. Have you heard the big news!?

NASA has reported there is water on Mars. Let’s travel to the Mars now..

Using an imaging spectrometer on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter(MRO), researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet.

These dark, narrow 100 meter-long streaks called ‘recurring slope lineae’(RSL) flowing downhill are inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water. Recently, planetary scientists detected hydrated salts on these slopes at Hale crater, corroborating their original hypothesis that the streaks are indeed formed by liquid water.

Another view of ‘recurring slope lineae’ or RLSs, flowing out of a mountainside on Mars.

Almost all water on Mars today exists in small quantities as vapour in the atmosphere and occasionally as low volume liquid brines in shallow Martian soil. The only plane where water ice is visible at the surface is at the north polar ice cap.

Scientists have also travelled deep underground into mines and found microorganisms related to ancient species that once lived in watery environments much close to the surface. Such migrations raise the possibility of the same thing happening on Mars- as the water retreated, life moved deeper underground.

However, while the find is tantalizing for astrobiologists eager to find alien life, it is also a bit of tease. It will be decades before astronauts can visit the surface of Mars and likely much longer before we can drill a mile beneath the dusty surface. So we may not see any expeditions in our lifetime.

Observations of the Red planet indicate that rivers and oceans may have been prominent features in its early history. Billions of years ago, Mars was warm and wet world that could have supported microbial life in small regions. But the planet is smaller than Earth, with thinner atmosphere. Over the time, as liquid water evaporated, more and more of it escaped into space, allowing less to fall back to the surface of the planet.

More than five million cubic kilometres of ice has been identified at or near to cover the whole planet to a depth of 35 meters.

Although there are some extremophile organisms that survive in hostile condition on Earth, including stimulations that approximate Mars, plants and animals generally cannot survive the ambient conditions present on the surface of Mars. Surface gravity of Mars is 38% of Earth. Researches are going on this area.

Submitted by

Students

1^st M.Sc. Physics

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