신기술소개 두가지 :: Silicon-Silk Electronics:: HEMI

Silicon-Silk Electronics Could Improve Neural Interfaces.

Technology Review (11/3, Bourzac) reports, "By building thin, flexible silicon electronics on silk substrates, researchers have made electronics that almost completely dissolve inside the body." The researchers are "developing silk-silicon LEDs that might act as photonic tattoos that can show blood-sugar readings, as well as arrays of conformable electrodes that might interface with the nervous system." In order "to make the devices, silicon transistors about one millimeter long and 250 nanometers thick are collected on a stamp and then transferred to the surface of a thin film of silk," which "holds each device in place, even after the array is implanted in an animal and wetted with saline, causing it to conform to the tissue surface." According to the researchers, there are "no adverse effects" stemming from the implantation, "and the performance of the transistors on silk inside the body doesn't suffer."

 

 Pentagon's Long-Range Taser Device Raises Some Concerns.

New Scientist (11/2, Hambling) reported on "a Pentagon project, now in its final stages, to perfect a projectile capable of delivering an electric shock to incapacitate a person tens of metres away. It will be fired from a standard 40-millimetre grenade launcher." The project, called the Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation (HEMI) device, is "being developed by Taser International under a $2.5 million contract." According to "Wes Burgei, a project engineer at the US Department of Defense's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD)...the self-contained cartridges should be able to hit targets 60 metres away - more than three times the range of the existing XREP shotgun cartridge." In addition to potential damage caused by impact, "the duration of the shock which the HEMI will deliver to its target," around three minutes according to a JNLWD document, has "raised some concerns."