R&D INSIGHT
USEFIL SEED REVIEW
http://www.seedresearchlibrary.com/ ict-research-projects/201/usefil-smart- environments-
Former potash mine to help find life on Mars
Mars could support life. Twenty scientists from the new
A T
he USEFIL project addresses the gap between technological research advances and the practical needs of elderly people. The project will develop
advanced but affordable in-home unobtrusive monitoring and web communication solutions. More specifically, USEFIL uses low cost “off-the-shelf” technology to develop immediately applicable services that assist the elderly in maintaining their independence. The user-friendly interfaces created by the project
are accessible via Web TV or Slate Tablet PC, or even through a smart phone. These enable elderly people to identify their mental and health evolution and give them access to their measured parameters. The project exploits everyday consumer electronics and the web to provide a closed loop approach that involves elderly people, friends, family members, medical professionals and carers in the same flow. The applications, services and systems created by
the project will substantially reduce costs while lessening the need for hospitalisation through improved health management and treatment. The services will be able to provide a precise assessment of health status and enable independent
in their residencies. Furthermore,
elderly people to stay the
project provides guidelines for developers and a platform to generate applications for the ageing population, thus reducing the cost governments spend on generating ICT services for the ageing community. The USEFIL project will have a wide impact at
European level by fostering the development of a European
Strategy for integrated independent living solutions.
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12 care and
European Space exploration programme MASE
(Mars Analogues for Space
Exploration) will use the Boulby mine and underground laboratory as a test bed to investigate how life adapts to Mars- life environments. At 1.3 kilometres deep, Boulby mimics
the deep subsurface environments found on Mars and will be used by MASE scientists to test instruments that might be able to detect living or long-dead Martian microbial life hidden underground. Professor Charles Cockell, scientific co-ordinator of the project, said, “if we want to successfully explore Mars, we need to go to Mars-like places on Earth. The deep, dark environment of
former potash mine on the edge of the North York Moors national park is to be used to find out if the planet
Boulby mine is the ideal place to understand underground life and test space technologies for the exploration of Mars. In the process, we hope to aid the transfer of high technology from space exploration to safe, effective mining.” Currently, assessing the habitability of Mars is difficult as there is little known about the combined effects of stresses like salt and low temperatures that would have been relevant to early Mars. MASE is a collaborative research
project supported for four years (2014- 2017) by FP7. The UK centre scientifically
coordinates programme for astrobiology.
You can find out more about MASE at
http://mase.esf.org/
Self-healing plastic takes inspiration from blood
Scott White at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his colleagues have developed a new polymer that ‘heals itself’. Inspired by the way that animals and plants heal wounds, the polymer contains a network of capillaries that deliver healing chemicals to damaged areas. In 2001 White’s team developed one of the first versions of this material but it could only heal microscopic cracks. Now the polymer automatically patches holes 3cm wide – 100 times bigger than before. The first applications of this
technology would be objects in remote locations that are currently difficult to repair such as spacecraft or drilling equipment at the bottom of deep wells. The polymer could also be used by the military to create self- healing shields. Eventually the very same technology could become the mainstream and be used to fix everything from cracked pipes to car bonnets, from broken electronic chips in laptops to tennis rackets. In the future there may well be a commercially available smartphone that fixes its own screen. The possibilities are endless.
Insight Publishers | Projects the
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