MicroTweezer Specifications

MEMS Precision Instruments

MicroTweezers could work as stand alone, or as part of the Robotic System.
The range of engineering specs that are available is shown below.

(Exact data for each design will be added as it becomes avaliable.)
Tip opening displacement: between 0 to 100 microns.
Applied Force: between 10 pico Newton to 1 Milli Newton depending on the Tip Design.
Actuator Voltage: between 0 to 18V, Atuator current: between 0 to 100 MA.
Time for Tip to Open is 0.5 Sec, Time for Tip to close is 0.5 Sec.

[MEMS 2008] Micro Air Flow Sensor Mounted on Dragonfly Wing

Tech-on! tech news straight from Asia

"A research group at Graduate School of Information Science and Technology of Tokyo University developed a micro air flow sensor unit that can be attached on a wing of insects such as dragonfly to analyze the motions of the wing...

"The micro air flow sensor unit developed by the group is about 3mm-square with a thickness of about 1mm. Because two sensors are mounted on the 3mm-square chip, each sensor measures about 1.5 x 3mm...

"The sensor has a structure in which a cantilever piezoresistor, measuring about 0.5mm in length and less than 1μm in thickness, is formed on an SOI substrate with an electrode. The piezoresistor is a Si-based semiconductor."

Hmmm. How about cameras and transmitters on butterflies? Maybe a little airborne relay station to pass on the broadcasts---and also fire off some pherenome "bombs"in the right direction to keep the butterflies on track. Not promising, really.

But perhaps parts of insects could be incorporated into little UAVs.

Hmmmm. Complicated. Keeping part of an insect alive. More likely, its the whole insect, but the brain is brought under control by an implant. Gruesome and sci-fi, but workable.

"When the cantilever is bent by the wind, the resultant strain varies the electric resistance to indicate the degree of bending, hence the wind force. The cantilever only weighs 0.1μg."

MEMS companies advance rapidly

A new report by market research firm Yole Developpement ranks the top MEMS manufacturers of 2007. "Nine companies are above $200 million sales, compared to only four companies two years ago," said Jean Christophe Eloy, Yole's founder....

First third-degree, transcendental L-function Is Discovered

Glimpses of a new (mathematical) world

"A new mathematical object was revealed yesterday during a lecture at the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM). Two researchers from the University of Bristol exhibited the first example of a third degree transcendental L-function. These L-functions encode deep underlying connections between many different areas of mathematics.

"The news caused excitement at the AIM workshop attended by 25 of the world's leading analytic number theorists. The work is a joint project between Ce Bian and his adviser, Andrew Booker. Booker commented that, "This work was made possible by a combination of theoretical advances and the power of modern computers." During his lecture, Bian reported that it took approximately 10,000 hours of computer time to produce his initial results.

"'This breakthrough opens a door to the study of higher degree L-functions,' said Dennis Hejhal, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota and Uppsala University...

"There are two types of L-functions: algebraic and transcendental, and these are classified according to their degree. The Riemann zeta-function is the grand-daddy of all L-functions. It holds the secret to how the prime numbers are distributed, and is a first-degree algebraic L-function."


L-functions and modular forms


"L-functions and modular forms underlie much of twentieth century number theory
and are connected to the practical applications of number theory in cryptography. The
fundamental importance of these functions in mathematics is supported by the fact that two
of the seven Clay Mathematics Million Dollar Millennium Problems deal with properties
of these functions, namely the Riemann Hypothesis and the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer
conjecture. The Riemann Hypothesis concerns the distribution of prime numbers. The
correctness of the best algorithms for constructing large prime numbers, which are used by
the public-key cryptosystems that everybody who uses the Internet relies on daily, depends
on the truth of a generalized version of this 150-year-old unsolved problem."



from Advanced Analytic Number Theory: L-Functions by Carlos J. Moreno


"The delicate behavior of L-functions on vertical strips will be studied by using a refined version of the Phragmen Lindelof Theory due to Rademacher. This theory is based on the harmonic properties of the absolute value of the gamma function. The explicit estimates obtained for L-functions on vertical strips are useful in applications in which numerical results are desired."


Apparently, these "vertical strips" are similar to or the same thing as the vertical strips they divide a shape up into in integration to measure the area under the curve.

New twist on life's power source

New twist on life's power source

http://www.physorg.com/news124463490.html

During normal photosynthesis, light energy splits water molecules. This releases oxygen and provides electrons which are then used to “fix” carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and manufacture energy-rich molecules, such as sugars. In the newly discovered process, a large proportion of these electrons are not used to fix carbon dioxide, but instead go to putting the water molecules back together, which results in much less net oxygen production.

“It might seem like the cells are just doing a futile light-driven water-to-water cycle,” says Bailey. “But this is not really true since this novel cycle is also a way of using sunlight to produce energy, while protecting the photosynthetic apparatus from damage that can be caused by the absorption of light.”

The article did not actually explain how this works at all.

Researchers engineer new polymers to change their stiffness, strength when exposed to liquids

Sea cucumbers inspired the design of chemo-responsive nanocomposite with adaptive mechanical properties.


"'"We can engineer these new polymers to change their mechanical properties -- in particular stiffness and strength -- in a programmed fashion when exposed to a specific chemical," says Weder, one of the senior authors of the paper.

"'"The materials on which we reported in Science were designed to change from a hard plastic -- think of a CD case -- to a soft rubber when brought in contact with water," adds Rowan, who has been Weder's partner on the project for almost six years...

"'"These creatures [sea cucumbers] can reversibly and quickly change the stiffness of their skin. Normally it is very soft, but, for example, in response to a threat, the animal can activate its 'body armor' by hardening its skin," explains Capadona, who has a sea cucumber in his aquarium. Marine biologists have shown in earlier studies that the switching effect in the biological tissue is derived from a distinct nanocomposite structure in which highly rigid collagen nanofibers are embedded in a soft connective tissue. The stiffness is mediated by specific chemicals that are secreted by the animal's nervous system and which control the interactions among the collagen nanofibers. When connected, the nanofibers form a reinforcing network which increases the overall stiffness of the material considerably, when compared to the disconnected (soft) state...

"'A problem observed in experimental studies [that researchers hope to solve with this type of material] is that the quality of the brain signals recorded by such microelectrodes usually degrades within a few months after implantation, making chronic applications challenging. One hypothesis for this failure is that the high stiffness of these electrodes, which is required for their insertion, causes damage to the surrounding, very soft brain tissue over time."'

New Technique for Estimates Relating to Massive Quantities of Data

Brown mathematicians prove new way to build a better estimate

phys.org


Brown University mathematician Charles “Chip” Lawrence and graduate student Luis Carvalho have proved a new way to build a better estimate to answer the question, "How do you sift through hundreds of billions of bits of information and make accurate inferences from such gargantuan sets of data?"


"For more than 80 years, one of the most common methods of statistical prediction has been maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). This method is used to find the single most probable solution, or estimate, from a set of data.

"But new technologies that capture enormous amounts of data – human genome sequencing, "Internet transaction tracking, instruments that beam high-resolution images from outer space – have opened opportunities to predict discrete “high dimensional” or “high-D” unknowns. The huge number of combinations of these “high-D” unknowns produces enormous statistical uncertainty. Data has outgrown data analysis.

"This discrepancy creates a paradox. Instead of producing more precise predictions about gene activity, shopping habits or the presence of faraway stars, these large data sets are producing more unreliable predictions, given current procedures. That’s because maximum likelihood estimators use data to identify the single most probable solution. But because any one data point swims in an increasingly immense sea, it’s not likely to be representative...

"Lawrence and Carvahlo used statistical decision theory to understand the limitations of the old procedure when faced with new “high-D” problems. They also used statistical decision-making theory to find an estimation procedure that applies to a broad range of statistical problems. These “centroid” estimators identify not the single most probable solution, but the solution that is most representative of all the data in a set."