Aussie Federal Govt backs mind control startup? #tech #mind control

There I am digesting this Forbes article (with annoying adverts) on mind control gadgets when I read that "As imperfect as both companies' technologies may be, they've each found real venture funding. Neurosky says it's received a total of $7.7 million in investments but wouldn't reveal the investors. Emotiv has taken $15 million in funding from Technology Venture Partners, Epicure Capital Partners, Stillwater Capital and the Australian federal government".

Whilst I can see the applications - now and in the future - will find enormous markets (after all, who doesn't want telekinetic powers?) I was a bit surprised to see Kevin Rudd's government backing Emotiv. The company's website says that one backer is Aussie investor TVP. Whilst I can't yet see the link with any Aussie government investment I imagine (read guess) that it's of the tax concession variety. But I could be wrong.

One application that I imagined straight away was using mind control to drive a car, thinking that was probably a stretch (and likely to be a bit dangerous in the 'real world' of drug-fueled road-rage and distracted cell phone users). But of course they've already done it. 

Self healing coatings based on shrimp shell extract #innovation

Finding new uses for existing things is innovation, at least in my book. So creating a self-healing polymer by taking polyurethane and adding a raw ingredient from crustacean shells meets my criteria for interest and innovation.  To accomplish the self-healing, just add UV light. 

Whilst self-healing of scratches has been achieved to some extent already with heat-sensitive resins, this is new in that it could form a paint-like surface on just about anything that's exposed - or could be deliberately exposed - to sunlight. In a small way it's similar to the process of hardening or bonding of dental fillings using light or heat, where either the natural temperature of your mouth or the deliberate use of a special wavelength of light causes a change from 'malleable' to 'hard'. OK, it's different but there's a link there somewhere. I wonder if a variant of this self-healing polymer could put a friction and bacterially-resistant coating on teeth?

I'm sure that if we think about it long enough we can find other uses. 

Biotech nano-materials - the next big thing?

It's not a new idea, but it's a fairly important one. Adapting pre-existing biological processes to make the things that we want, be they nano-scale batteries, solar cells or neural nets, may herald the next wave of miniaturization and open up new possibilities for large-scale manufacturing of the seemingly miraculous.

Belcher and two MIT colleagues, chemical engineering professor Paula Hammond and ceramics professor Yet-Ming Chiang, are coaxing viruses to assemble micro-batteries which are the size of a human cell. They could one day be used to power tiny devices like sensors or medical diagnostic tools.