‘Electronic skin’ equipped with memory

This is merely the beginning — nano-technology razor thin wearable and/or implantable sensors coupled with computer on a chips wearing highly accurate medical devices that track everything will become the norm as these devices will become printable or otherwise available for mass production. Forget about those bulky android watches, this is the real future to come.

From : Nature News & Comment
Researchers have created a wearable device that is as thin as a temporary tattoo and can store and transmit data about a person’s movements, receive diagnostic information and release drugs into skin.Similar efforts to develop ‘electronic skin’ abound, but the device is the first that can store information and also deliver medicine — combining patient treatment and monitoring. Its creators, who report their findings today in Nature Nanotechnology1, say that the technology could one day aid patients with movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease or epilepsy.The researchers constructed the device by layering a package of stretchable nanomaterials — sensors that detect temperature and motion, resistive RAM for data storage, microheaters and drugs — onto a material that mimics the softness and flexibility of the skin. The result was a sticky patch containing a device roughly 4 centimetres long, 2 cm wide and 0.003 millimetres thick, says study co-author Nanshu Lu, a mechanical engineer at the University of Texas in Austin.

via ‘Electronic skin' equipped with memory : Nature News & Comment.

What’s In A Name?: Okla. Judge Who Denied Transgender Name Changes On Biblical Grounds Gets Overruled

From Simon Brown at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State:

An Oklahoma judge who used the Bible as the basis for denying name-change requests by women who had gender-reassignment surgery has been overruled by a higher court.

On two separate occasions, one in 2011 and another in 2012, Oklahoma County District Judge Bill Graves refused to permit two people who were born male to change their names to ones that are traditionally female because doing so “is fraudulent.”

In a baffling ruling in which Graves claimed that it is impossible for anyone to change their gender, he used the Book of Genesis to support his conclusion.

“To grant name change in this case would be to assist that which is fraudulent,” Graves wrote in his 2012 decision denying James Dean Ingram’s request to become Angela Renee Ingram. “It is notable that Genesis 1:27-28 states: ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them.’ The DNA code shows God meant for them to stay male and female.”   

Graves made the same argument in 2011, when he refused to permit Steven Charles Harvey to become Christie Ann Harvey.

Fortunately a higher court has mopped up Graves’ messes — twice. Last week, the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals unanimously voted to grant Ingram’s request. The court had previously undone Graves’ misdeed on behalf of Harvey as well.

Graves, who was once a Republican member of the state legislature, said the appeals court’s action is “very disappointing.”

via What’s In A Name?: Okla. Judge Who Denied Transgender Name Changes On Biblical Grounds Gets Overruled | Americans United.

Volvo Road Magnets Tell Autonomous Cars Where to Go | EE Times

An interesting direction from the world of autonomous cars.

Carmakers have been stuffing intelligence and instrumentation into cars since at least 1980 in an effort to get them to drive themselves, safely.

Autonomous-car designs almost all depend on stuffing enough intelligence into a car to allow it to drive. Volvo is experimenting ways to make the road do some of the work as well.

The Swedish carmaker launched an EU-funded SARTRE Project, whose goal is to get cars to gather into cooperative "road trains" travelling at a consistent speed in a single lane to save gas and reduce lane-change-induced chaos.

via Volvo Road Magnets Tell Autonomous Cars Where to Go | EE Times.