While awaiting nanomotor-delivered nanomedicines, patients will just have to
get by on such relatively gross therapies as an electric nerve/muscle stimulator
small enough to be precisely implanted almost anywhere with minimal surgical
invasion. It has a tiny battery with more than double
the 3-5 year life of existing, much larger, implant batteries.

In other news:

• A smaller, less expensive electronic nose for sniffing
  out explosives has come to market;
• Making a hologram — which once took tons of money,
  an industrial-strength laser, and a massively heavy table to eliminate vibration
  — could be as simple and cheap as slipping a CD into your PC;
• In fewer than a handful of holiday seasons, you could be printing out
  holiday gifts on your desktop fabricator. Fabricators
  that print three-dimensional objects are already being used in industrial
  production; and
• The U.S. Defense Department has a new policy mandating the use of RFID tags for goods tracking and inventory. The benefits of
  RFID are probably not lost on health industry suppliers and hospitals, also.

Honda has unveiled a smaller, cheaper, more efficient fuel cell stack with
improved cold-weather capability. It apparently uses only about half the
components of a conventional stack and more than doubles output density to 86 kW
compared with its first-generation stack. It uses newly developed “aromatic”
electrolyte membranes offering greater durability and power generation at
temperatures as low as -20�C, compared to conventional and more expensive
fluorine membranes that don’t work at subzero temperatures.

Here is more evidence of the acceleration of hydrogen power as a replacement
for fossil fuels in hospital power plants and vehicle fleets.

Reference: Roush, Matt (2003). “Honda Develops
Low-Temperature, Low-Cost Fuel Cell.” Great Lakes IT Review, October 14 (email
clipping service available at http://www.wwj.com/technology.asp.)

Residential Fuel Cell Generator

We reiterate the imminence of hydrogen power, not just to confute the critics
who, against all evidence, maintain it’s a decade away, but because it will have
such an impact on healthcare (as in all other spheres) when it arrives.

Honda is about to test a washer and dryer-sized hydrogen reformer and fuel
cell system for homes. The company has already demonstrated that the unit can
export electricity to the power grid and fuel Honda’s FCX fuel cell vehicle. It
can produce enough hydrogen to refuel one vehicle per day and generate
electricity, heat, and hot water for a house. The hydrogen is obtained from
natural gas accessed from existing pipelines, and the unit’s 6,000 psi tank can
store 105 gallons of hydrogen. Refueling the unit takes just a few minutes.

Reference: Roush, Matt (2003). “More From
Autotech: Honda Tests Home Hydrogen System.” Great Lakes IT Review, October 6
(email clipping service available at
http://www.wwj.com/technology.asp.)

Nanomotors for Molecular Medicine

In another decade or so, nanomotor arrays could be sorting, mixing, and
transporting molecules for medicine, biology, and bioengineering applications. A
French-German team has worked out the theoretical effects of membrane-embedded
rotary motors made from natural molecules powered by the ATP molecule that
drives biological processes.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Embedded Rotors
Mix Fluids.” Technology Research News, October 16.

Nanomotors

Last month we reported again on a drop of water
containing trillions of computers. UC Berkeley researchers have made
electric motors of similar nanoscale dimensions; so small that one hundred
million of them would fit on the end of the proverbial pin. The motors were
built using a nanoprobe to manipulate individual atoms and carbon nanotubes. The
motor has the standard components — an axle, a rotor, and stators (electrodes
that drive the rotor using static electricity.)

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Nanomotors
realise visionary’s dream.” BBC News, October 30.

Batteries for Bionic Neurons

Experimental “bionic neurons” — miniature cylindrical implant devices that
emit electrical micropulses to stimulate damaged nerves and muscles — are
powered by a tiny, built-in battery expected to last up to ten years before
needing to be physically replaced. Wireless recharging is achieved through an
external pad that emits an electrical field.

The device’s small size minimizes the surgical invasion during implant, and
enables it to be placed at or near the impaired muscle. Repeat surgery for
battery replacement is also minimized, because battery life is more than double
that of existing, and much larger, battery-powered implants.

The device emits electrical pulses that mimic neural pulses sent from the
brain, and causes paralyzed muscle to contract. It could be used to control
muscle tremors in Parkinson’s sufferers, to stimulate stroke victims’ muscles to
prevent atrophy, and to provide deep-brain stimulation for the treatment of
migraines. U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of the battery is
anticipated within a year.

Reference: Knapp, Louise (2003). “AAA Battery Gets a
Mini-Me.” Wired News, October 8.

E-nose

A miniature device has been developed that can “smell” the vapor given off by
TNT. Conventional sensors, like those in airports, are big, costly, and less
effective than dogs. The new devices are small and inexpensive enough to be
deployed on a large scale in airports, office buildings, and restaurants.

The devices could (like dust
motes) communicate with each other and with a central monitoring station.
The devices currently only work for TNT, but could be modified to detect other
explosive molecules. They could be commercially available in three to five
years.

Reference: Lovgren, Stefan (2003). “Robo-Nose:
Hi-Tech Bomb Sniffer Smells Like a Dog.” National Geographic News, October
1.

Holograms Made Simple

An ordinary CD writer can be used to “burn” two-dimensional holograms onto
CDs. The technique could be used to watermark a disk during recording and make
it difficult to reproduce. The modifications to an ordinary CD writer can be
done at almost no cost, the hologram quality is similar to pressed holograms,
the method is very fast, and it could be implemented using ordinary CD writers
within a year.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “CD Writer
Generates Holograms.” Technology Research News, October 7.

The Replicator Has Arrived

Printing three-dimensional objects, from cell phones through replacement bone
to human whole organs, is neither a scientific nor a science fictional concept
any more. It is a reality. The growing frequency of its mention in Health
Futures Digest (see the links in “See also,” below) is enough to make it a
safe bet that it will receive increasing coverage, in this and other
publications and media. Evidently seeing the same paradigm-popping potential in
this technology as we do, Ivan Amato has compiled a fascinating review of the
state of the art, starting with its increasing industrial application.

“Fabricators” (or “replicators” as Star Trek calls them, “3-D
printers” as we have called them, or “direct manufacturing” machines as Amato
calls them) are a fact, producing hearing aid shells at Siemens, parts for
fighter jets at Boeing, electrical boxes for race cars, filters used in making
soy sauce, pharmaceutical pills, medical devices, and replacement human bones.

“On Demand Manufacturing,” as someone else calls both the method and a
company doing it, already prints plastic and metallic parts and has developed
superalloy powders that can be printed then baked into complex, superstrong
turbine parts for use in rockets. (The nanopowders reported in “Nanomaterials in
Production” in this section will likely prove very useful in achieving even
finer control of the device-printing process.)

The U.S. Army is developing mobile fabricators to make replacement vehicle
and other equipment parts on the battlefield. UC Berkeley scientists are
experimenting with ink-jet fabricators using organic semiconductors,
electroactive materials, and shape-changing technology (all mentioned in
previous issues of Health Futures Digest) to print smart components that
change shape on demand. For example, they are thinking about printing a
lightweight, all-polymer custom robot that could change shape in order to get
into awkward spaces to make repairs.

In May this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of
printed artificial bone. Not only does the technique enable replacement bones to
be very precisely custom-tailored for fit, but also the bone is fabricated with
pores just 50 micrometers wide, in which real bone cells can take hold and
develop, at first strengthening and finally supplanting the biodegradable
hydroxyapatite material from which the artificial bone is made. Another company
developing a similar bone printer expects the method to be commonplace in three
to five years.

One expert envisions a Kinko’s-like chain of stores stuffed with self-serve
fabricators. Classic car enthusiasts could take in a broken door handle for
scanning and replication; a cell phone customer could walk in for a highly
customized version of the latest cell phone, fabricated directly from a CAD-CAM*
file downloaded from the Internet.

It seems obvious and inevitable that this technology will eventually find its
way into the home. Hewlett-Packard guardedly admits it is “looking at”
production of an under US$1,000 3-D printer. Industrial machines currently start
at $30,000, but that is a fraction of their cost just a few years ago. When
fabricators do become standard household equipment, they could devastate both
the manufacturing and the retail industries as we know them today.

* CAD-CAM: Computer-Aided Design – Computer-Aided
Manufacturing.

Reference: Amato, Ivan (2003). “Instant
Manufacturing.” Technology Review, November.

See also “Replicator
mark I“; an earlier “3-D Printer
Update“; and the latest “3-D Printer
Update“; “The Thigh
Bone’s Connected to the USB Port“; “Plastics, 3-D
Printer, Transparent Displays.”

RFID and Inventory

The U.S. Defense Department has adopted a policy mandating the use of Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) tags to facilitate “just-in-time” logistics, by
tagging cargo that can be scanned at various points while in transit and the
information recorded in a database. This will enable logistics officers to track
inventory worldwide in near real time. Pharmaceutical and medical
device/supplies manufacturers and distributors take note.

Reference: French, Matthew (2003). “Military
releases RFID policy.” Federal Computer Week, October 24.