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46

Natural Science / 'Quantum Cheshire Cat' becomes reality

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:21:59 PM »

Scientists have for the first time separated a particle from one of its physical properties - creating a "quantum Cheshire Cat".

The phenomenon is named after the curious feline in Alice in Wonderland, who vanishes leaving only its grin.

Researchers took a beam of neutrons and separated them from their magnetic moment, like passengers and their baggage at airport security.

They describe their feat in Nature Communications.

The same separation trick could in principle be performed with any property of any quantum object, say researchers from Vienna University of Technology.

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Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin, but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!”

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Their technique could have a useful application in metrology - helping to filter out disturbances during high-precision measurements of quantum systems.

Schrodinger's paradox
In Lewis Carroll's classic children's story, the Cheshire Cat gradually disappears, leaving only its mischievous grin.

This prompts Alice to exclaim: "Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin, but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!"

In the world familiar to us, an object and its properties are always bound together. A rotating ball, for instance, cannot become separated from its spin.

Cheshire Cat
The cat (the neutron) goes via the upper beam path, while its grin (the magnetic moment) goes via the lower
But quantum theory predicts that a particle (such as a photon or neutron) can become physically separated from one of its properties - such as its polarisation or its magnetic moment (the strength of its coupling to an external magnetic field).

"We find the cat in one place, and its grin in another," as the researchers once put it.

The feline analogy is a nod to Schrodinger's Cat - the infamous thought experiment in which a cat in a box is both alive and dead simultaneously - illustrating a quantum phenomenon known as superposition.

To prove that the Cheshire Cat is not just a cute theory, the researchers used an experimental set-up known as an interferometer, at the Institute Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France.

A neutron beam was passed through a silicon crystal, sending it down two different paths - like passengers and their luggage at airport security.

By applying filters and a technique known as "post-selection", they were able to detect the physical separation of the neutrons from their magnetic moment - as measured by the direction of their spin.

"The system behaves as if the neutrons go through one beam path, while their magnetic moment travels along the other," the researchers reported.

ILL reactor
The high flux neutron source at the ILL made the weak signal of the 'Cheshire Cat' detectable
Glimpsing this Cheshire Cat requires what quantum physicists call "weak measurement," whereby you interact with a system so gently that you avoid collapsing it from a quantum state to a classical one.

Their delicate apparatus could have useful applications in high-precision metrology, the researchers say.

"For example, one could imagine a situation in which the magnetic moment of a particle overshadows another of the particle's properties which one wants to measure very precisely.

"The Cheshire Cat effect might lead to a technology which allows one to separate the unwanted magnetic moment to a region where it causes no disturbance to the high-precision measurement of the other property."

47

Natural Science / Hummingbirds' wings 'shape-shift'

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:21:32 PM »

Footage shot with high-speed cameras has revealed how hummingbird wings bend and flex, to keep the birds in the air.

Masateru Maeda, a PhD student at Chiba University in Japan, captured the footage.

The ultimate aim of his measurements of the movements of the wings is to copy their function in the design of flying robots.

The scientist presented his findings at the Society for Experimental Biology's annual meeting in Valencia, Spain.

The researchers captured their footage at Tama Zoological park in Tokyo.

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Flapping and flying

Moth in flight (c) SPL
As birds and insects move through the air, their wings are held at a slight angle, which deflects the air downward.

This deflection means the air flows faster over the wing than underneath, causing air pressure to build up beneath the wings, while the pressure above the wings is reduced. It is this difference in pressure that produces lift.

Flapping creates an additional forward and upward force known as thrust, which counteracts the insect's weight and the "drag" of air resistance.

The downstroke or the flap is also called the "power stroke", as it provides the majority of the thrust. During this, the wing is angled downwards even more steeply.

You can imagine this stroke as a very brief downward dive through the air - it momentarily uses the animal's own weight in order to move forwards. But because the wings continue to generate lift, the creature remains airborne.

In each upstroke, the wing is slightly folded inwards to reduce resistance.

Springwatch: Thermal cameras expose secrets of insect flight
Watch hummingbird wings in slow motion
The team chose hummingbirds as their "wing model" because they can be studied so easily; they hover quite still as they feed on nectar.

"And they're very small," added Mr Maeda. "Larger birds that cannot hover have to be studied in wind tunnels."

But to get his footage, Mr Maeda had to work in the glasshouse of the zoo, which is kept at 35C for the birds and butterflies that live there.

He trained his high-speed camera on a nectar feeder in order to capture shots of hummingbirds as they hovered.

"We are curious about the precise wing shape," Mr Maeda told BBC News. "The feathers [move and] change the wing area as they are flapping."

This movement of the primary flight feathers, the researchers found, changes the shape and size of the wing in such a way as to very precisely control the lift they generate.

Flapping robots
The eventual aim is to design wings for miniature flying robots that would be able to perform in a similar way.

Mr Maeda and his colleagues have already started a collaboration with engineers at Chiba University to design a flexible, bird-inspired wing.

The team also hopes to learn more about the hummingbirds' impressive hovering capabilities.

Mr Maeda said that the birds must have a very acute sense of their wings' shape in order to remain so still in the air.

"If the wing shape isn't optimised," he explained, "it will fail to produce lift and the bird will start to sink.

"So it must be able to sense this and correct the shape of its wings."

Tama Zoological Park glass house
Researcher Masateru Maeda had to spend hours capturing footage in the zoo's glass house

48

Natural Science / Hummingbirds edge out helicopters in hover contest

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:21:02 PM »

When it comes to flight, nature just has the edge on engineers.

This is according to a study comparing hummingbirds with one of the world's most advanced micro-helicopters.

Researchers found that - in terms of the power they require to lift their weight - the best hummingbird was over 20% more efficient than the helicopter.

The "average Joe" hummingbird, however, was on par with the helicopter, showing "how far flight engineering has come".

The findings are published in the Royal Society journal Interface.

Lead researcher Prof David Lentink, from Stanford University in California, explained that the flight performance of a hummingbird - the only bird capable of sustained hovering - was extremely difficult to measure.

"Imagine a 4g bird," he said. "The forces they generate are tiny.

Continue reading the main story
Flapping and flying

Moth in flight (c) SPL
As birds and insects move through the air, their wings are held at a slight angle, which deflects the air downward.

This deflection means the air flows faster over the wing than underneath, causing air pressure to build up beneath the wings, while the pressure above the wings is reduced. It is this difference in pressure that produces lift.

Flapping creates an additional forward and upward force known as thrust, which counteracts the insect's weight and the "drag" of air resistance.

The downstroke or the flap is also called the "power stroke", as it provides the majority of the thrust. During this, the wing is angled downwards even more steeply.

You can imagine this stroke as a very brief downward dive through the air - it momentarily uses the creature's own weight in order to move forwards. But because the wings continue to generate lift, the creature remains airborne.

In each upstroke, the wing is slightly folded inwards to reduce resistance.

Springwatch: Thermal cameras expose secrets of insect flight
Watch hummingbird wings in slow motion
"As a result the drag of a hummingbird wing has never been measured accurately."

Drag is the force opposing the upward force of lift that birds' wings generate by flapping.

Prof Lentink and his team wanted to understand if feathered hummingbird wings were more efficient - using less power to overcome drag - than the engineered blades of a helicopter of a similarly tiny scale.

He and his colleagues compared the birds' performance to an advanced micro-drone called the Black Hornet - a 16g helicopter used for surveillance by British troops in Afghanistan.

To make the laboratory measurements, they used wings from hummingbird specimens kept in museums.

By putting these detached wings into an apparatus called a wing spinner, the team was able to measure exactly how much flapping power was required to lift the bird's weight.

Prof Lentink's colleagues at the University of British Columbia in Canada also made recordings of wild hummingbirds in flight, to measure the exact movement of their wings - which beat up to 80 times per second.

"By combining the wings' motion with the drag [that we measured in the lab], we were able to calculate the aerodynamic power hummingbird muscles need to provide to sustain hover," explained Prof Lentink.

One species - the Anna's hummingbird - was champion hoverer, performing much more efficiently than the helicopter.

But on average, the birds hovering performance was "on par with the helicopter".

"This shows that if we design the wings well, we can build drones that hover as efficiently, if not more efficiently, as hummingbirds," said Prof Lentink.

"Clearly we are not even close to hummingbirds in many other design metrics, such as wind gust tolerance, visual flight control through clutter, to name a few.

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Dr Mirko Kovac from Imperial College explains how drones whose design is inspired by nature are set to become part of our everyday lives
"But if we focus on aerodynamic efficiency, we are closer than we perhaps ever imagined possible."

Dr Mirko Kovac from the aerial robotics lab at Imperial College London said the study was a great example of research at the interface of biology and engineering.

"Studying hummingbird wing shapes can not only give insights into the biomechanics of animals," he told BBC News, "but the gained insights can also be used to build the next generation of flying micro robots."

49

Natural Science / Scientists use stem cells to regenerate human corneas

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:20:29 PM »

Scientists have developed a new technique to regrow human corneas.

Using key tracer molecules, researchers have been able to hunt down elusive cells in the eye capable of regeneration and repair.

They transplanted these regenerative stem cells into mice - creating fully functioning corneas.

Writing in the journal Nature, they say this method may one day help restore the sight of victims of burns and chemical injuries.

Limbal stem cells (LSC) are crucial for healthy eyesight - these cells work to maintain, repair and completely renew our corneas every few weeks.

Without them the cornea - the transparent outermost layer of the eye - would become cloudy and our vision disrupted.

A deficiency of these cells due to disease or damage through injury to the eye are among the commonest reasons behind blindness worldwide.

But the cells have so far been extremely difficult to identify, buried in a matrix of other structures in the limbal part of the eye - the junction between the cornea and the white of the eye (the sclera).

'Fluorescent flags'
Now scientists from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital and the VA Boston Healthcare System have identified a key tracer molecule - known as ABCB5 - naturally present on the surface of limbal stem cells.

Though ABCB5 has been known about for some time in other parts of the body, this is the first time it has been spotted on LSCs, helping to single out these elusive cells.

Researchers have been able to tag these cells with fluorescent molecular flags.

In their study, the scientists used this tagging technique to instantly identify a pool of LSCs on donated human corneas.

After being transplanted to mice, these cells were able to generate fully functioning human corneas.

Prof Markus Frank, of Boston Children's Hospital, a lead author in the research, told the BBC: " The main significance for human disease is we have established a molecularly defined population of cells that we can extract from donor tissue.

"And these cells have the remarkable ability to self-regenerate. We hope to drive this research forward so this can be used as a therapy."

Harminder Dua, professor of ophthalmology at the University of Nottingham, who was not involved in this study, said: "This paper represents a very comprehensive and well conducted piece of work that takes use closer to the precise identification of stem cells.

"Applying this knowledge to a clinical setting could help improve the outcomes for patients who need corneal reconstruction."

50

Natural Science / Display screen technology could correct vision problems

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:20:03 PM »

Engineers have developed a prototype tablet display that compensates for an individuals' vision problems.

The system uses software to alter the light from each individual pixel on the screen, based on the person's glasses prescription.

The researchers also added a thin plastic pin hole filter to enhance the sharpness of the image.

The team say the technology could help millions who need corrective lenses to use their digital devices.

Around one person in three in the UK suffers from short-sightedness or myopia. In the US, around 40% while in Asia it is more than half the population.

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Instead of relying on optics to correct your vision, we use computation”

Fu-Chung Huang,
University of California
In recent years there have been a number of projects that have attempted to use computing screens to correct vision problems.

The authors of this latest study say their prototype offers "significantly higher contrast and resolution compared to previous solutions".

Follow the light
The team from the University of California, Berkeley, working with colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), developed an algorithm that adjusts the intensity of each direction of light that emanates from a single pixel in an image, based on the user's specific visual impairment.

Their prototype used an iPod, with a printed pinhole mask attached to the screen. To check the images, the researchers used a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera which was set up to simulate a person who was farsighted.

blur
On the right is a computer simulation of the best picture quality possible using the new prototype display
The altered images from the iPod appeared sharp and clear to the camera, showing that the prototype was effective in correcting this sight issue.

"The significance of this project is that, instead of relying on optics to correct your vision, we use computation," said lead author Fu-Chung Huang. "This is a very different class of correction, and it is non-intrusive."

The research team believe that their idea, when refined further, could be of benefit to people who suffer from more difficult-to-treat vision issues.

"We now live in a world where displays are ubiquitous, and being able to interact with displays is taken for granted," said Prof Brian Barsky, from UC Berkeley, the project leader.

"People with higher order aberrations often have irregularities in the shape of the cornea, and this irregular shape makes it very difficult to have a contact lens that will fit.

"In some cases, this can be a barrier to holding certain jobs because many workers need to look at a screen as part of their work. This research could transform their lives."

Battery question
It should be stressed that while the research is at a very early stage, the engineers behind it the approach believe it has great potential, in the field of visual correction and beyond.

They envisage displays that users with different visual problems can view at the same time and see a sharp image.

"In the long run we believe that flexible display architectures will allow for multiple different modes, such as glass free 3D image display, vision corrected 2D image display and combinations of vision corrected and 3D image displays," the authors write.

No consideration has been given, at this stage, to the impact such a system might have on the battery life of digital devices. This could also be an important factor going forward.

The research will be presented at an international conference on computer graphics called SIGGRAPH, in Vancouver in August.bbc

51

Natural Science / DNA fingerprinting pioneer honoured by Royal Society

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:19:31 PM »

The inventor of genetic fingerprinting has been awarded the world's oldest science prize, the Royal Society's Copley Medal.

In 1984, Prof Sir Alec Jeffreys stumbled on a method for distinguishing individuals based on their DNA.

It was a discovery that went on to transform forensic science and resolve questions of identity and kinship.

He receives the medal "for his pioneering work on variation and mutation in the human genome".

Prof Jeffreys said he was "thrilled" by the honour.

"I am particularly delighted that the award recognises our work extending over three decades into exploring DNA diversity and the processes that generate this variation, and not just our accidental foray into forensic DNA."

That accidental foray came about almost exactly 30 years ago, when he was comparing the X-ray images that resulted from processing the DNA of one of his lab technicians, alongside her mother and father.

"My first reaction to the results was 'this is too complicated', and then the penny dropped and I realised we had genetic fingerprinting," Prof Jeffreys has said of the original finding.

In 1985, the method was used to settle an immigration dispute, which was followed by a paternity case and numerous others. Before the technique was commercialised in 1987, all tests were run in Prof Jeffreys' own lab at the University of Leicester.

He and his team developed an improved technique specifically for forensic applications, which has since been developed even further.

In subsequent years, Prof Jeffreys made numerous discoveries relating to the way our DNA mutates and rearranges.

DNA autoradiograms
Methods of genetic fingerprinting have improved since 1984 but Prof Jeffreys pioneered its use in court
Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society, said the award to Prof Jeffreys was "great news".

"Since discovering genetic fingerprinting back in 1984, Sir Alec's work has transformed our understanding of human genetics."

The Copley Medal was first awarded in 1731 and its 273 previous recipients include Albert Einstein, Francis Crick and Stephen Hawking. It alternates between physical science in odd years and biological science in even years.

In 2013 it was awarded to the Nobel-winning physicist Prof Sir Andre Geim, one of the pioneers of research into graphene.

Dorothy Hodgkin received the medal in 1976 and remains its only female winner.BBC

52

Natural Science / European forests near 'carbon saturation point'

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:19:02 PM »

European forests are showing signs of reaching a saturation point as carbon sinks, a study has suggested.

Since 2005, the amount of atmospheric CO2 absorbed by the continent's trees has been slowing, researchers reported.

Writing in Nature Climate Change, they said this was a result of a declining volume of trees, deforestation and the impact of natural disturbances.

Carbon sinks play a key role in the global carbon cycle and are promoted as a way to offset rising emissions.

Acer autumn leaves (Image: BBC)
Many of Europe's forests are reaching an age where growth, and carbon uptake, slows down
Writing in their paper, the scientists said the continent's forests had been recovering in recent times after centuries of stock decline and deforestation.

The growth had also provided a "persistent carbon sink", which was projected to continue for decades.

However, the team's study observed three warnings that the carbon sink provided by Europe's tree stands was nearing a saturation point.

"First, the stem volume increment rate (of individual trees) is decreasing and thus the sink is curbing after decades of increase," they wrote.

"Second, land use is intensifying, thereby leading to deforestation and associated carbon losses.

"Third, natural disturbances (eg wildfires) are increasing and, as a consequence, so are the emissions of CO2."

Co-author Gert-Jan Nabuurs from Wageningen University and Research Centre, Netherlands, said: "All of this together means that the increase in the size of the sink is stopping; it is even declining a little.

"We see this as the first signs of a saturating sink," he told BBC News.

Sinking feeling

The carbon cycle is the process by which carbon - essential for life on the planet - is transferred between land (geosphere and terrestrial biosphere), sea (hydrosphere) and the atmosphere.

Carbon sinks refers to the capacity of key components in the cycle - such as the soil, oceans, rock and fossil fuels - to store carbon, preventing it from being recycled, eg between the land and the atmosphere.

Avenue of coppiced trees (Image: BBC)
Management techniques, such as coppicing, will help rejuvenate Europe's forests, the study suggests
Since the Industrial Revolution, human activity has modified the cycle as a result of burning fossil fuels and land-use change.

Burning fossil fuels has resulted in vast amounts of carbon previously locked in the geosphere being released into the atmosphere.

Land-use change - such as urbanisation and deforestation - has reduced the size of the biosphere, which removes carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

Dr Nabuurs explained that saturation referred to the point where the natural carbon sinks were unable to keep pace and absorb the additional atmospheric carbon being released by human activities.

He said emissions had risen a lot over the past decade, primarily through the rise of emerging economies in countries such as China, India and Brazil.

The researcher's conclusions offered a more detailed analysis on headline data that forest cover in Europe was continuing to increase. But the paper added that the rate of growth had been slowing in recent years.

The 2011 State of Europe's Forests report, considered to be the most comprehensive study of its kind, showed that trees covered almost half of Europe's land area and absorbed about 10% of Europe's annual greenhouse gas emissions.

However, it added, the rate of growth in the continent's forests ability to sequester carbon was also slowing.

Dr Nabuurs said that the rate of afforestation was slowing because a sizeable proportion of forests were mature stands of trees that were mainly planted in the early part of the 20th Century or in the post-World War II period.

Forest, Finland (Image: BBC)
Forests absorb about 10% of the EU's annual greenhouse gas emissions
"These forests have now reached 70-80 years old and are starting a phase in the life of a tree where the growth rate starts to come down," he explained.

"So you have large areas of old forest and even if you add these relatively small areas of new forest, this does not compensate for the loss of growth rate in the old forests."

However, mature woodlands have been recognised as a key habitat for supporting and conserving biodiversity.

Will this lead to policymakers making a choice between forests' ecological value and their effectiveness at sequestering CO2?

"That is indeed a large challenge," said Dr Nabuurs.

"Old forests in Europe are necessary and we certainly need those forests.

"I think policymakers at a national level and within the EU have to be clear that in certain regions, within valuable habitats, that the focus is on old forests and biodiversity.

"But in other regions, maybe it is time to concentrate more on continuous wood production again and rejuvenate forests again, so then you have growing forests and a continuous flow of wood products.

"This seems to be the optimal way to address both the need for wood products and maintaining a carbon sink in growing forests."

'Real problem'

The study's findings could have implications for EU and member state's climate mitigation efforts to reduce emissions.

"Most European nations, as part of their emissions reduction commitments, can also use forest carbon sinks," Dr Nabuurs observed.

"Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries were voluntarily choosing to take that sink into account.

"But in the next commitment period, forest management will be an obligatory part of reaching the emissions reduction targets.

"For some countries, the sink is a very large part of their emissions reduction commitment so the saturation is a real problem, requiring them to take additional measures, for example in the electricity generation or transport sectors."

As a sizeable proportion of Europe's forest areas are owned by smallholders, the process of changing the age-profile of the continent's tree cover could prove challenging with some owners resisting the idea of increasing wood production and tree harvesting.

Firefighter tackling a wildfire in Spain (Image: AP)
Changes to the climate and the lack of management are reducing forests' resilience to natural disturbances
One potential solution is a pan-European, legally binding agreement on forest management that would look to balance the ecological value of forests against the trees' commercial and climate mitigation value.

Delegates from more than 40 nations have been working on such a framework since 2011.

However, talks stalled in June when negotiators were unable to reach agreement on a number of technicalities.

"This is a very important process where all the European states are working towards a legally binding agreement," Dr Nabuurs commented.

"It is a very important framework in which the member states can devise their own national policies.

"It is obvious that within nations, forest policy is often quite weak. To strengthen this, this agreement is certainly necessary."

Talks are set to resume in the autumn, with the aim of having a draft agreement in place by mid-November for EU forestry ministers to consider.

53

Natural Science / Climate 'key driver' in European forest disturbances

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:18:23 PM »

Europe's forests have experienced increased disturbances throughout the 20th Century from wind, bark beetles and wildfires, a study has shown.

A team of European-based scientists identified climatic changes as a "key driver behind this increase".

However, they added, how the expected continuation of climate change would affect Europe's forests in the future remained unresolved.

The findings have been published online by the journal Nature Climate Change.

The researchers wrote: "Natural disturbances, that is, large pulses of tree mortality from agents such as wildfire, insect outbreaks or strong winds, are integral drivers of forest dynamics and contribute to the diversity and adaptive capacity of ecosystems."

But co-author Rupert Seidl from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna observed: "These disturbances have intensified considerably in recent decades, which increasingly challenges the sustainable management of forest ecosystems."

The authors said the frequency and severity of large wildfires had increased around the globe over the past decade.

They added: "In addition, recent bark beetle outbreaks, for example, in North America and Central Europe, have reached unprecedented levels."

'Severe impacts'

They suggested that an intensification of the disturbances were "thus expected to be among the most severe impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems".

Tree cover forms one of the main planks of the terrestrial carbon sink and is one of the main mitigation measures (planting trees) in the effort to reduce the impact of emissions from human activities.

"A further increase in disturbance damage in the future might thus pose a major risk for Europe's climate change mitigation efforts, as it could counteract the efforts to offset anthropogenic climate change through enhanced [carbon] storage in forest ecosystems," the team warned.

fire
Locals attempt to fight a forest fire in central Portugal in 2013
"Yet, consistent continental-scale assessments of potential changes in the forest disturbance regime under climate change are still missing so far."

The researchers also added that the potential impact would be felt more widely by society as other important ecosystem services came under threat.

For example, timber prices could fall as the product was damaged as a result of wind or fungal infections. Greater disturbances would result in higher management costs.

"Also, the provisioning of drinking water could be negatively affected... as water filtering and retention strongly rely on the maintenance of a continuous forest canopy."

They concluded: "As intensifying disturbance regimes have the potential to strongly interfere with management objectives, consideration of disturbance risk and resilience will require a more central role in Europe's forest policy and management to sustain ecosystem function and services in the future."BBC

54

Natural Science / Horses' mobile ears are 'communication tool'

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:17:57 PM »

Very mobile ears help many animals direct their attention to the rustle of a possible predator.

But a study in horses suggests they also pay close attention to the direction another's ears are pointing in order to work out what they are thinking.

Researchers from the University of Sussex say these swivelling ears have become a useful communication tool.

Their findings are published in the journal Current Biology.

The research team studies animal behaviour to build up a picture of how communication and social skills evolved.

"We're interested in how [they] communicate," said lead researcher Jennifer Wathan.

"And being sensitive to what another individual is thinking is a fundamental skill from which other [more complex] skills develop."

Ms Wathan and her colleague Prof Karen McComb set up a behavioural experiment where 72 individual horses had to use visual cues from another horse in order to choose where to feed.

They led each horse to a point where it had to select one of two buckets. On a wall behind this decision-making spot was a life-sized photograph of a horse's head facing either to left or right.

In some of the trials, the horses ears or eyes were covered.

Horse images used in a study of horse communication
The ears have it: Horses in the test followed the gaze of another horse, and the direction its ears pointed
If the ears and eyes of the horse in the picture were visible, the horses being tested would choose the bucket towards which its gaze - and its ears - were directed.

If the horse in the picture had either its eyes or its ears covered, the horse being tested would just choose a feed bucket at random.

Like many mammals that are hunted by predators, horses can rotate their ears through almost 180 degrees - but Ms Wathan said that in our "human-centric" view of the world, we had overlooked the importance of these very mobile ears in animal communication.

Jump media playerMedia player helpOut of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.
Lead researcher Jennifer Wathan explains how the team tested each horse's decision-making
"It seems there's something in the visual cues - from both the eyes and the ears - that are really important," she told BBC News.

"Horses have quite rich social lives and relationships with other horses, so they're a good species to look at this in.

"And the more we look at communication across different species, the more we can consider what might have promoted the evolution of sophisticated communication and social skills."BBC

55

Latest Technology / 'Killer robots': Are they really inevitable?

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:15:52 PM »

The robot tank is moving rapidly through the scrub on its caterpillar tracks. It comes to a sudden halt and its machine gun opens fire with devastating accuracy.

It may seem like science fiction but is actually a scene from a video featuring a robot being tested by the US Army.

It is just one example of how yesterday's sci-fi has become today's battlefield fact.

This miniature tank, only one metre long and made by Qinetiq North America, is one of a host of unmanned air, sea and land vehicles that are being used by militaries across the globe.

More than 90 countries now operate such systems, and it is an industry which will be worth $98bn (£58bn) between 2014-23, says research company IHS.

"The USA remains the prime market and a main driver," says IHS's Derrick Maple.

"But many countries are building up their indigenous unmanned system capabilities."

Qinetiq's roaming robots are designed to aid soldiers in reconnaissance or surveillance, or to go into heavily booby-trapped areas where it might be too risky to send in troops.

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An enemy tank and a friendly tank might look pretty similar to a machine”

Paul Scharre
Centre for a New American Security
Kitted out with either a grenade launcher or a machine gun, the firm's latest version MAARS - Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System - is certainly lethal, but independent it is not.

It relies on a soldier controlling it remotely, and only operates up to distances of about 800m (2,600ft).

However, many critics worry that marrying advances like these in robotics and miniaturisation, with developments in artificial intelligence (AI) could lead, if not to the Terminator, then perhaps to its crude precursor.

Others argue that such AI developments would take many decades, and that for the foreseeable future there will need to be a "human in the loop", overseeing such systems.

'Fire and forget'
Yet already, a few autonomous weapons are in use which themselves decide whether or not to attack a target.

Take Israel's Harpy drone, for instance.

Harpy drone
IAI's Harpy drone makes it own decisions whether to attack an enemy radar
This is what its manufacturers, IAI, call a "fire and forget" autonomous weapon - or a "loitering munition" in military jargon.

Once launched from a vehicle behind the battle zone, Harpy - effectively a guided missile with wings - loiters over an area until it finds a suitable target, in this case enemy radars.

Crucially, once a radar is detected it is the drone itself that decides whether or not to attack.

True, Harpy is only launched if its operators suspect there will be enemy radars to be attacked, but automation like this is likely to become more common.

Yet the real obstacle to the more widespread use of what some call "killer robots" is getting them to tell friend from foe.

"A tank doesn't look that much like a pick-up truck", says defence expert Paul Scharre, from the Centre for a New American Security.

"But an enemy tank and a friendly tank might look pretty similar to a machine.

"Militaries are not going to want to deploy something on the battlefield that might accidentally go against their own forces."

It is a point echoed by General Larry James, the US Air Force's deputy chief of staff for intelligence.

"We are years and years away, if not decades, from having confidence in an artificial intelligence system that can do discrimination and make those decisions."

Unmanned air vehicles spending 2014-23
It is the United States which dominates the market for Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) - over the next decade it is forecast to spend more than three times as much on UAVs as China - the next biggest spender.

UAVs also account for the bulk of spending on unmanned systems as a whole - budgets for land or sea-based systems are small by comparison.

Unmanned systems spending, 2014-2023
Despite the difficulties in developing this technology, the US defence department's own 25-year plan published last year, says that "unmanned systems continue to hold much promise for the war-fighting tasks ahead".

It concludes by saying that once technical challenges are overcome, "advances in capability can be readily achieved... well beyond what is achievable today".

A US air force picture of an MQ-1 Predator drone in Iraq in 2004
US drones have now dropped more bombs than Nato planes did in Kosovo in 1999
Image from a MQ-9 Reaper during a training mission at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. US
Drone's eye view of a target on a training mission
'You can't disinvent it'
One of those at the forefront of this research is Sanjiv Singh, robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon University and chief executive of Near Earth Autonomy.

Working for the US military and Darpa, the US defence research agency, his team has successfully demonstrated an unmanned autonomous helicopter.

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We have to take action now in order to stop it”

Stephen Goose
Human Rights Watch
Using remote-sensing lasers the aircraft builds terrain maps, works out safe approaches and selects its own landing sites - all without a pilot or operator.

They are now working on developing autonomous helicopters for the military which could carry cargo or evacuate casualties.

This will be a huge step away from traditional drones which, he says, "are driven by GPS-derived data".

"If you make a mistake in the flight plan, then they'll drive happily into a mountain if it's in the way."

With all the money being put into this sector, autonomous weapons systems will eventually be developed, says independent defence analyst Paul Beaver.

"It's just like nuclear weapons, you can't disinvent it," he told the BBC World Service's Business Daily programme.

Alarmingly, it is not rogue states that he is most worried about.

"I think we're about a decade away from organised crime having these sorts of systems and selling them to terrorist groups."

Demonstrators in Pakistan protest against a US drone attack, December 2103
Opponents say 2,500 people have been killed by US drones in Pakistan alone since 2004
A robot with a slogan calling for a ban on fully autonomous weapons in in London, April 2013
Campaigners want fully autonomous weapons, or "killer robots", banned now
'Take action now'
Earlier this month delegates from 117 countries met at the UN in Geneva to discuss a ban on such lethal autonomous weapons systems.

Even though the technology for "killer robots" does not yet properly exist, campaigners say the world needs to act now.

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It is possible something may get out of our control”

Sean O'Heigeartaigh
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
"There are so many people who see these as inevitable and even desirable, we have to take action now in order to stop it," says Stephen Goose of Human Rights Watch.

"There's an urgency, even though we're talking about future weapons."

Yet in focusing on military uses of autonomous drones, we might be missing the bigger threat that increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence may pose.

"The difficulty is that we're developing something that can operate quite quickly and we can't always predict the outcome," says Sean O'Heigeartaigh, of Cambridge University's Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.

In 2010, for instance, computer trading algorithms contributed to the "flash crash" that briefly wiped $1 trillion off stock market valuations.

"It illustrates it's very hard to halt these decision-making processes, because these systems operate a lot quicker than human beings can," he says.

A full-scale figure of a terminator robot 'T-800', used in the 'Terminator 2' film at an exhibition in Tokyo in 2009
A robot like this is unlikely to be on a battlefield any time soon
Killer computers, not killer robots?
Paradoxically, it is the civilian and not the military use of AI that could be the most threatening, he warns.

"As it's not military there won't be the same kinds of focus on safety and ethics," says Dr O'Heigeartaigh.

"It is possible something may get out of our control, especially if you get an algorithm that is capable of self-improvement and re-writing its own code."

In other words, maybe it is not killer robots we have to worry about, but killer computers.BBC

56

Latest Technology / Robot 'learns to keep going with broken leg'

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:15:17 PM »

Engineers have taken a step towards having machines that can operate when damaged by developing a robot that can teach itself to walk, even with a broken leg.

Using "intelligent trial and error", their six-legged robot learned how to walk again in less than 2 minutes.

"This new technique will enable more robust, effective, autonomous robots," the engineers behind the robot said.

They said the aim was to mimic the behaviour of injured animals.

The trial-and-error methodology could have ramifications for robots used in the workplace and for military purposes. A robot that can keep attacking - no matter how damaged - brings to mind the relentless android from the Terminator films.

Terminator
The Terminator - though fictional - could figure out how to keep going when injured
According to one expert, adaptive robotics is the cutting edge of the field. Most robots currently sit in factories and perform very specific functions. Scientists want to get robots to understand new and changing situations.

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There are lots of applications beyond the military... such as robots on the Moon and Mars”

Dr Fumiya Iida
University of Cambridge
"The real challenge we are pursuing in robotics is robots that can adapt to uncertain and unstructured environments," Dr Fumiya Iida, of the Machine Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, told the BBC.

The scientists - Antoine Cully and and Jean-Baptiste Mouret of the Sorbonne in Paris and Jeff Clune of the University of Wyoming - published a research paper on their robot on Arxiv, a platform to release early versions of academic research that is overseen by Cornell University's library.

Locomotion 'a challenge'
"When animals lose a limb, they learn to hobble remarkably quickly," Arxiv said in a blog post on the research. "And yet when robots damage a leg, they become completely incapacitated."

The scientists' robot has solved this by trying to mimic animals - by discovering which leg is broken and then then using trial and error to figure out the best way to continue walking.

"Locomotion is a major challenge," Dr Iida said. "It's an issue of energy efficiency. Robots are unusually very inefficient compared to animals."

Other companies are also trying to mimic animals, such as Boston Dynamics, which is now owned by Google. It makes a variety of robots, including the internet sensation Big Dog, which can attain locomotion on a variety of different and difficult terrains.

Big Dog was funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and Boston Dynamics contracts for the US military - which is an area where the trial-and-error algorithms could be applied, especially to machines injured in warfare.

But Dr Iida said that military use was only one aspect of better adaptive robots.

Big Dog
Big Dog is one of the most advanced adaptive robots
"There are lots of applications beyond the military," he said. "You can think of robots in extreme environments, so not only in warfare, but in space such as robots on the Moon and Mars, and in nuclear power plants. Think of Fukushima, for example, where humans can't go."

While these engineers are focused on self-learning robots, others are developing robots and materials that can "heal themselves" when they are damaged.

BAE Systems said recently that in the future, it could build drones that contained a lightweight fluid that would allow jets to heal themselves from damage sustained in flight, as well as on-board 3D printers that can make new parts, while a new plastic that can fix itself has been developed by engineers at the University of Illinois.BBC

57

Latest Technology / Tor attack may have unmasked dark net users

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:14:32 PM »

Developers of software used to access Tor - an otherwise hard-to-reach part of the internet - have disclosed that an attack on the network may have unmasked users for five months.

The Tor Project said that it believed the assault was designed to de-anonymise the net addresses of people operating or visiting hidden sites.

However, it said it was not sure exactly how users had been "affected".

The project added that it believed it had halted the attack on 4 July.

Tor allows people to visit webpages without being tracked and to publish sites whose contents does not show up in search engines.

The Tor Project said it believed that the infiltration had been carried out by two university researchers, who claimed at the start of July to have exploited "fundamental flaws" in Tor's design that allowed them to unmask the so-called dark net's users.

The two security experts, Alexander Volynkin and Michael McCord, had been due to give a talk at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas next week. However, the presentation was cancelled at the insistence of lawyers working for their employer, Carnegie Mellon University.

Tor web page
The Tor Project offers web browser software that can access the hidden sites on the Tor network
"We spent several months trying to extract information from the researchers who were going to give the Black Hat talk, and eventually we did get some hints from them... which is how we started looking for the attacks in the wild," wrote Roger Dingledine, one of the network's co-creators, on the Tor Project's blog.

"They haven't answered our emails lately, so we don't know for sure, but it seems likely that the answer to [whether they were responsible] is yes.

"In fact, we hope they were the ones doing the attacks, since otherwise it means somebody else was."

A spokesman from Carnegie Mellon University declined to comment.

Illegal activity
Tor attempts to hide a person's location and identity by sending data across the internet via a very circuitous route involving several "nodes" - which, in this context, means using volunteers' PCs and computer servers as connection points.

Encryption applied at each hop along this route makes it very hard to connect a person to any particular activity.

To the website that ultimately receives the request, it appears as if the data traffic comes from the last computer in the chain - known as an "exit relay" - rather than the person responsible.

Tor graphic
Tor hides a user's identity by routing their traffic through a series of other computers
Tor's users include the military, law enforcement officers and journalists - who use it as a way of communicating with whistle-blowers - as well as members of the public who wish to keep their browser activity secret.

But it has also been associated with illegal activity, allowing people to visit sites offering illegal drugs for sale and access to child abuse images, which do not show up in normal search engine results and would not be available to those who did not know where to look.

Two-pronged attack
The Tor Project suggests the perpetrator compromised the network via a "traffic confirmation attack".

This involves the attacker controlling both the first part of the circuit of nodes involved - known as the "entry relay" - as well as the exit relay.

By matching the volumes and timings of the data sent at one end of the circuit to those received at the other end, it becomes possible to reveal the Tor user's identity because the computer used as an entry relay will have logged their internet protocol (IP) address.

The project believes the attacker used this to reveal hidden-site visitors by adding a signal to the data sent back from such sites that included the encoded name of the hidden service.

Because the sequence of nodes in a Tor network is random, the infiltrator would not be able to track every visit to a dark net site.

Onion
Tor can be likened to an onion because of the many layers through which it sends data
Tor also has a way of protecting itself against such a danger: rather than use a single entry relay, the software involved uses a few relays chosen at random - what are known as "entry guards".

So, even if someone has control of a single entry and exit relay, they should only see a fraction of the user's traffic, making it hard to identify them.

However, the Tor Project believes the perpetrator countered this safeguard by using a second technique known as a "Sybil attack".

This involved adding about 115 subverted computer servers to Tor and ensuring they became used as entry guards. As a result, the servers accounted for more than 6% of the network's guard capacity.

Black Hat
Two researchers had planned to reveal a way to unmask Tor users at the Black Hat conference
This was still not enough to monitor every communication, but was potentially enough to link some users to specific hidden sites.

"We don't know how much data the attackers kept, and due to the way the attack was deployed, their... modifications might have aided other attackers in de-anonymising users too," warned Mr Dingledine.

Several government agencies are interested in having a way to unmask Tor's users.

Russia's interior ministry is currently offering a 3.9m roubles ($110,000; £65,000) prize to anyone who cracks such identities. It says it wants to protect the country's "defence and security".

A report by the German broadcaster ARD suggests US cyberspies working for the NSA have also made efforts to overcome Tor's system, despite the fact the Tor Project is partly funded by other US government departments.

And leaked documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden also indicate the UK's GCHQ has attempted to track Tor users.BBC

58

Latest Technology / Israeli Iron Dome firms 'infiltrated by Chinese hackers'

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:13:36 PM »

The BBC has seen evidence that appears to confirm hackers stole several secret military documents from two government-owned Israeli companies that developed the Iron Dome missile defence system.

The breaches were first publicised by security blogger Brian Krebs on Monday.

The companies denied their classified networks had been infiltrated.

However, the team that discovered the incidents has given the BBC access to an intelligence report, which indicates hundreds of files were indeed copied.

The documents, which were stolen over a period of many months, relate to:

Arrow III missiles
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones
ballistic rockets
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The data collected makes strong indications that the actors behind this attack originated from China”

CyberESI report
Cyber Engineering Services (CyberESI) tracked the activities of the hackers over eight months between 2011 and 2012.

It said the data taken by the hackers suggested they had been after intelligence relating to Iron Dome.

Iron Dome is a complex anti-missile defence system, which can intercept and destroy rockets and shells.

The technology has been widely credited with preventing the deaths of many Israeli civilians during the ongoing conflict with militants from Gaza.

CyberESI's report, compiled in 2013, also indicates the attacks were made using highly sophisticated tools resembling those used by Chinese hackers to infiltrate US defence firms - an attack in which the Chinese government denies any involvement.

Rafael Missile
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert stands next to a Rafael missile
"The data collected makes strong indications that the actors behind this attack originated from China," it says.

"This assertion is based on the activity during the past year that Cyber Engineering Services has observed on compromised networks, as well as the geo-location of the IP [internet protocol] addresses retrieving the exfiltrated data."

"The nature of exfiltrated data and the industry that these companies are involved in suggests that the Chinese hackers were after information related to Israel's all-weather air defence system called Iron Dome."

Gigabytes stolen
CyberESI, which operates out of Maryland in the US, monitored data being stolen from two leading Israeli defence contractors:

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), a government-owned company that develops missiles and aircraft
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, a government-owned company established in 1948, which develops surface-to-air missiles
A spokeswoman for IAI initially confirmed to Mr Krebs the attack had taken place and been "reported to the appropriate authorities".

However IAI subsequently said the "information reported regarding the leakage of sensitive information is incorrect" and only its "civilian non-classified" network had been hacked.

A spokesman for Rafael said the company did "not recall such an incident".

The hackers took documents related to the Arrow missile
The hackers allegedly took documents related to the Arrow missile
But the report seen by the BBC suggests sensitive data was taken from IAI and that Rafael's network was compromised, with hackers able to deactivate security software and harvest authentication data, including passwords.

In total, the report says, gigabytes of data were stolen from the Israeli companies, including:

word documents
power point presentations
spreadsheets
PDFs
executable (.exe) files
Some of the stolen technical documents are said by CyberESI to have contained intellectual property data and were marked as being controlled by US government International Traffic in Arms (ITAR) regulations.

US connections
Both IAI and Rafael were heavily involved in developing the Iron Dome missile defence system, which allows Israel to intercept rockets fired by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

The US, which already collaborates with Israeli firms over Arrow III - jointly designed by IAI and Boeing, now wants to invest in future versions of Iron Dome technologies.

In May 2013, the Pentagon accused China of carrying out a sophisticated cyber-spying campaign on US diplomatic, economic and defence organisations.

The raid on the Israeli companies bore similar characteristics, experts at CyberESI told the BBC, using tools that were "known to originate from" China.

The attacks were part of an advanced persistent threat (APT) - a form of highly organised and targeted hacking.

APTs have been used for industrial espionage in the past and tend to use sophisticated methods not easily available to the vast majority of cyber-thieves.

Iron Dome
The US wants to invest in future versions of Iron Dome technologies
Executive emails stolen
CyberESI's report also featured a third Israeli company, Elisra, originally a US company and now a leading supplier to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Elisra, which is not involved in Iron Dome, appears to have been comprehensively infiltrated by the hackers, who stole data from folders named "Military Spacs" and "UAV" and infiltrated the email accounts belonging to the chief executive and several senior managers.

The attackers also stole passwords and sign-in details, allowing them to roam around the networks undetected.

Elisra did not respond to a BBC request for comment.

In January 2014, another security company reported that 15 Israeli defence computers had been compromised via a malicious email attachment.BBC

59

Latest Technology / MIT scientists develop sensor-operated robotic fingers

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:13:12 PM »

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come up with a robotic extension to the human hand they said could help with everyday tasks.

Researches said the extension - essentially, two extra "fingers" - could be used to grasp, leaving the hand free to do other tasks.

Worn around the wrist, it mimics the movement of the wearer's hand.

The next step, they said, will be a less bulky version.

The extra fingers developed by the team at MIT work using sensors attached to the human hand to measure the position of the wearer's fingers. An algorithm controls the output from the sensors to the robotic fingers, moving them in sync.

"Every day, we use various tools, say a knife and fork and we drive a car and, if we use these tools for a long time, you see that those tools are just an extension of your body," said Harry Asada, the Ford Prof of Engineering in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering.

"That is exactly what we would like to do with robotics, you have extra fingers and extra arms. If you have control and can communicate with them very well, you feel that they are just an extension of your body," he added in a video posted on YouTube.

Robotic hand holding coffee cup
The device could leave the human hand free to perform other tasks, like stirring coffee, the researchers said.
The robotic fingers are at either side of the the hand - one outside the thumb, and the other outside the little finger.

"This is a completely intuitive and natural way to move your robotic fingers. You do not need to command the robot, but simply move your fingers naturally. Then the robotic fingers react and assist your fingers," said Prof Asada.

The developers said their work up until this point was focused on perfecting the posture and movement of the robotic fingers.

"But it's not the whole story," said graduate student Faye Wu, who presented a paper on the fingers this week at the Robotics: Science and Systems conference in California.

She said: "There are other things that make a good, stable grasp. With an object that looks small but is heavy, or is slippery, the posture would be the same, but the force would be different, so how would it adapt to that? That's the next thing we'll look at."

'Specialists'
One independent expert said that the device was most likely to appeal to specialists, rather than the mass market.

"Clearly, the military is interested in robotics, they are interested in building machines, like exoskeletons that allow people to run very fast for a long time," said David Bourne, principal systems scientist at the robotics institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

"But those things are inherently very expensive," he said, adding that devices need to have a "killer application" to work in the mass market.

However, Mr Bourne said that, after a lull, he has seen a resurgence in interest in robotics in recent years because of advances in the technology.

"You have better control and less awkward communication with the devices now," he said.

MIT Professor Harry Asada
Professor Harry Asada said his team was working on making the device smaller and foldable
Prof Asada acknowledged the project had only yielded a prototype at this stage, but said he was optimistic about the possibilities it offers.

"We can shrink it down to one-third its size, and make it foldable," he said.

"We could make this into a watch or a bracelet where the fingers pop up, and when the job is done, they come back into the watch.

"Wearable robots are a way to bring the robot closer to our daily life."BBC

60

Latest Technology / Tele-tech and mobile revolutionising global healthcare

« on: August 05, 2014, 06:12:47 PM »

There is a pressing need for more sustainable healthcare systems around the world.

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Technology of Business
Special Report: The Technology of Business
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The costs of providing health services to ageing populations in developed economies are spiralling out of control, while resource depletion in developing economies is threatening the health of millions.

The global healthcare bill is now thought to top $6.5 trillion (£3.9tn) a year.

A key to more sustainable healthcare is encouraging people to take more control of their own health through the use of mobile and telehealth technologies, many experts and technology companies believe.

Consultancy PwC says the European Union (EU) alone could save 99bn euros (£80bn; $135bn) by 2017 if it adopted more mobile health - or "m-health" - solutions.

Efficiency gains from the better use of technology could allow 24 million more patients to be treated with the same number of doctors and healthcare facilities, the report concludes.

And about 93bn euros could be added to the EU's economic output if 18 million people with - or at risk from - chronic disease were helped to extend their working lives, it says.

Self health
Steven Dodsworth
D Health's Steven Dodsworth believes mobile is key to sustainable healthcare
The popularity of smartphones, wearable gadgets and apps that can measure and record exercise levels, heart rate and calories burned, proves that many people are prepared to pay for technology that may benefit their health, says Steven Dodsworth, chief executive of digital healthcare consultancy D Health.

"Rather than producing expensive devices that are used in hospitals, we need technology products that people want, value and can afford," he says.

"They should be sold in consumer electronics shops, High Street pharmacies and supermarkets."

Samsung recently announced its latest wearable prototype health monitor - the Simband - as well as plans to develop a health data sharing platform, and many other technology companies are expanding into this lucrative space.

Informed is forearmed
Mobile gives people access to information they could not easily get before, with all the preventative potential that offers.

For example, in Cameroon, West Africa, half the population lives in rural areas and there is only one doctor for every 5,000 inhabitants.

But when it comes to mobile phones, half the population owns one.

So network operator Orange Cameroon has recently set up a text message based teleconsulting service called My Healthline together with the country's Ministry of Health.

This allows phone users to text anonymous questions about health issues, including HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and contraception, to Cameroonian doctors and nurses, and to receive a confidential response within an hour.

Banner for My Healthline
Information service My Healthline launched in Cameroon earlier this month
There are plenty of other similar m-health examples in developing economies around the world.

Doctor in the booth
Such relatively low-tech solutions can also be complemented by more sophisticated technologies.

For instance, Ohio-based start-up HealthSpot has developed self-contained teleconsulting booths that can be installed in office buildings and shopping centres, reducing the need to travel to doctors' surgeries for minor ailments.

HealthSpot's booths are equipped with high definition cameras, microphones and video screens so that patient and doctor can see and talk to each other.

HealthSpot booth
HealthSpot booths are portable and can be installed in community centres, offices or shopping malls
Woman using otoscope
Walk-in patients can use various devices, including an otoscope for examining ears
They also include a range of medical devices such as stethoscopes, thermometers and blood pressure cuffs. Patients can use these devices on themselves by following a doctor's instructions, and data from the devices is streamed to the doctor online.

Prescriptions can be generated and sent electronically to the pharmacy, and the data is integrated securely with local health records.

While the company is primarily rolling out the booths in the US - it recently announced a partnership with Cleveland Clinic - it envisages them being installed in communities around the world where local medical services are not available.

Distance healing
One of the main problems with existing health systems is that they were set up to deal with acute cases primarily, yet many people - particularly in ageing populations - suffer from chronic conditions that need more frequent care.

This puts greater stress on GP and hospital resources and leads to many unnecessary visits, with all the associated carbon emissions that entails.

Teleconsultations make obvious sense, therefore.

A study by the Academic Health Science Center in Canada found that 840 teleconsultations held over a six-month period resulted in a reduction of 185 tonnes of greenhouse gases, and that took into account the emissions associated with video conferencing energy consumption.

Elderly woman doing exercise
People with chronic conditions can interact with clinicians via a TV equipped with a Microsoft Kinect box
Airedale NHS Foundation Trust in Yorkshire employs a teleconsultation system that uses standard video conferencing equipment to provide health services to 14,500 prison inmates.

The system was originally intended to reduce the costs of escorting prisoners to medical appointments, but it is now used to provide 24-hour consultative care remotely to inmates in 20 prisons.

This system has now been extended to care for chronically ill patients in their own homes or in nursing and residential care homes.

As well as reducing the amount of journeys GPs have to make, it has also led to a 45% drop in hospital admissions from care homes using the system.

Home help
In another example, technology services company Accenture helped set up a telehealth system called Teki in Spain's Basque region.

Patients with chronic diseases, such as arthritis and diabetes, use a Microsoft Xbox game console to see and talk to their doctors and medical staff via their television screens.

Aimee Chapple, Accenture
Accenture's Aimie Chapple says giving people care at home is valuable
Patients can follow specific exercise regimes by copying animated avatars on the TV screen. As the Kinect tracks movement, the software can assess whether or not the patient is performing the exercise correctly and give a thumbs up or thumbs down.

Patients can also send real-time diagnostic data using monitoring gadgets that slip easily on to an index finger. The data is encrypted and stored securely at the other end to ensure confidentiality.

"There is something valuable in giving people care in their own homes and avoiding hospitals, especially if their immune system is low," says Aimie Chapple, Accenture's health practice leader.

The implementation of Teki has already saved the region's health authorities more than 40m euros (£33m) as a result of reduced hospital stays, says Accenture.

And by delivering healthcare to chronically ill patients in their own homes this way, the NHS could save up to £7bn a year, the company believes.

"There is certainly evidence of both health and financial benefits," she says.

'Promoting wellbeing'
Health is closely related to wellbeing, and technology can play a part here, too, believes D Health's Steven Dodsworth.

"Housing associations could offer an app that allows isolated people to press a button when they need their grass cutting or their shopping bringing in," he says.

"That could connect to people looking for work, and you then build a community around an isolated person. That promotes wellbeing, allows them to stay in their home longer, and delivers a social benefit, with simple technology as the enabler."

He says that state-funded providers are being far too slow to adopt new technologies, making it hard to prove the benefits on a large scale.

A sustainable health revolution is only likely to happen if technology companies start targeting their products directly at us, the end users, rather than the service providers, he argues.BBC