Science and Technology micro-summaries for June 18, 2019

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Authored by @remlaps

Grand challenges for protein design; IEEE Spectrum's weekly selection of awesome robot videos; New thoughts on a spinal condition in archaeological dog remains; Safety issue with touchscreens in cars; A Steem science article about polymer materials...

Straight from my RSS feed:
Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.

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pixabay license: source.

  1. 5 challenges we could solve by designing new proteins - Biochemist and computational biologist, David Baker gives a TED talk to disuss the possible benefits of protein design. Some specific examples include: improved vaccines, proteins that break down gluten for people who suffer from celiac disease, and new ways to fight cancer. Baker says he wants to build a "Bell Laboratories" for protein design, and pursue 5 grand challenges: A universal flu vaccine; therapeutic candidates for chronic pain; advanced delivery vehicles for medication targeting; smart therapeutics that can do calculations within the body; and new materials to address energy and ecology issues. Baker points out that anyone can contribute to these efforts by connecting our home computing devices to foldit or Rosetta@home (he doesn't mention it, but we can also collect GRC tokens by contributing to Rosetta@home).

  2. Video Friday: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Tries Dexterous Robot Hands - Last week's videos include videos of Jeff Bezos test-driving a pair of robot hands; A humanoid robot that maintains its balance on one or two legs while being loaded down with heavy objects, or even pushed; A robotic arm that is designed for use in decommissioning the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant; a robot that will perform sample collection on the moon for the European Space Agency; a quadruped that does a barrel role; a robot that flies with flapping wings; and more...

    Here is Jeff Bezos with the remote controlled hands


  • This diseased spine may hold clues to early dog-human relationship - Science interviews Katherine Latham after her recently published article. Until this work, Spondylosis deformans in dog remains was taken to indicate that the dog was likely a working dog that pulled heavy loads. Latham's work, however, shows empirically that the condition is no more common in working dogs than non-working dogs. Latham adds, however, that a dog must be advanced in age to develop the condition, and that wild dogs are less likely to have sufficiently long lives, so when archaeologists find the condition, it may indicate that the dog was cared for by a human. h/t archaeology.org

  • The Touchscreen Infotainment Systems in New Cars Are a Distracting Mess - Automotive journalist, Ezra Dyer argues that most touchscreen systems in modern cars violate the simple design rule: "Make it so it doesn’t cause you to crash the car", because they force the driver's eyes away from the road and traffic. He suggests that knobs, buttons, and levers are often preferable, because they can all be adjusted without looking at them. h/t OS news

  • STEEM THE WORLD OF POLYMERS #3 - In this article, @empresssteemah discusses thermosetting polymers, those that cannot be heated and re-molded because they degrade before melting when heated. One such polymer is Bakelite, which was first produced in 1910 and was the first synthetic polymer. A second one is Kevlar, which is as strong as steel at 1/5 the weight. Natural polymers include starch, and cellulose. The article goes on to note that polymers pose environmental issues that can partially mitigated by recycling, burning the polymers for energy, or by producing degradable plastics. Each mitigation technique brings its own challenges, however. (5% of the rewards from this post will go to @empressteemah)

    • In order to help make Steem the go to place for timely information on diverse topics, I invite you to discuss any of these links in the comments and/or your own response post.

    For example, feel free to comment on any or all of these discussion topics:

    • Do you contribute your idle computing time to Baker's "Bell Labs for protein design" or any other grid computing project? If not, do you think you might start doing so after viewing the TED talk?

    • Which of the IEEE Spectrum's weekly robot videos got your attention? Why?

    • Do you agree with Dyer's safety concerns about touchscreen design in your own automobile(s)?

    About this series
    Note: Sharing a link does not imply endorsement or agreement, and I receive no incentives for sharing from any of the content producers.

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