What I Learned Today

I had no idea what a broad range of topics the field of “radio science” covers. I recently attended the National Radio Science Meeting in Boulder, CO, to talk with other researchers about the latest advances in radio astronomy data analysis (e.g., hunting for pulsars). Other topics in the multiple parallel sessions included lightning detection, antenna design, remote sensing of rain, “biophotonics”, “metamaterials”, space plasmas, and “telemetry for monitoring and biosensing”. Intrigued by some of the talk titles, I attended one of the latter sessions.

One goal of this field is to develop and test low-power, efficient radio communications for implantable medical devices (IMD). One envisioned application is for people in very rural areas who don’t have regular access to a doctor. Internal sensors could monitor blood pressure and various nutrient levels, then report them to an external base station they could visually check. As one presenter imagined, “Low potassium? Push a button and find out what you should eat for the next week!”

The devices are still under development, and in the initial work they’re focusing on the ability to monitor blood pressure. They aren’t yet up to human trials. Researchers from Texas A&M and Mississippi State University described how they’d started with rats. They showed pictures of the rat surgeries needed to implant the tiny antennas and then described the experiments, which aimed to evaluate whether the simulated response from the antennas was the same as what was observed when it propagated through rat muscle, fat, and skin. Unfortunately, the presenter noted, they’d been forced to euthanize all of the rats after the tests, because they hadn’t coated the antennas with a “biocompatible material” and therefore by animal testing rules they could not let the animals live. (It seems odd to me that this oversight would not have been caught during the protocol review process!) At any rate, the results showed a not very good match between the simulated response and what they actually got, which they attributed to differences between human skin (in the simulation) and rat skin (in reality).

As a side note, I kept wondering if these tests really qualified for the “in vivo” term the presenters applied, since the rats went to sleep for the surgery and (presumably) never woke up. The point at which they were euthanized was never specified. I started wondering whether live fat/muscle/skin tissue has different dielectric properties than dead tissue, which I assume it must, since circulating blood probably affects any signal propagation. This particular experiment seemed perfectly designed to test both cases. But I wasn’t quite up to asking this question after the talk.

The next presenter (from the same group) continued on to describe their subsequent experiments with larger animals (pigs). Pig skin apparently is a much better match to human skin (insert obligatory “white meat” joke here), and they got an excellent match with their simulation. In this case, they used a proper coating and the pigs were permitted to live. The presenter also commented on how very expensive these particular bred-for-experimentation pigs are (about $10,000 each), although I had to wonder whether one must purchase an entire pig to do a radio antenna transmission test, or whether one can give it back afterwards to be used for other experiments, or possibly time-share with other researchers. But again I wasn’t actually able to ask a question, being more sort of transfixed in a rather distasteful fascination and slightly nauseated by all of the graphic surgery images!

These talks didn’t spend much time on other important IMD constraints, like where power for the wireless transmitter comes from and how to dissipate the excess heat generated without cooking the animal (or human) internally. They noted that the devices had a 25 day lifetime if in continuous use, or 1.7 months if only transmitting periodically, so I’m guessing that limit was based on some nonrenewable power source being exhausted.

Overall, the envisioned future of such devices is certainly promising—and I was kind of disappointed to see how premature such investigations apparently are (if this represents the state of the art). I would also have liked to hear more about the kind of technology used for the sensors that collect the data to be sent by the antennas!

Could it make sense to take a one-way trip to Mars? This notion has been floating around for years, but it got some recent press when Drs. Schulze-Makuch and Davies published a paper titled “To Boldly Go: A One-Way Human Mission to Mars.” Their thesis is that this might be the solution to several of the barriers to a crewed mission, providing among other benefits a major reduction in mission cost (up to 80% reduction, which is pretty dramatic!). This can only be accomplished by shifting our perspective on what such a mission is: not a there-and-back-again jaunt like a trip to the Moon, but the establishment of a sustained presence on Mars, paving the way for future colonists and expeditions. Schulze-Makuch and Davies declare that:

“… to attain it would require not only major international cooperation, but a return to the exploration spirit and risk-taking ethos of the great period of Earth exploration, from Columbus to Amundsen, but which has nowadays been replaced with a culture of safety and political correctness.”

The initial reaction to a one-way trip concept is often one that assumes that the humans involved would immediately expire at the end of their mission. “One-way” sounds like “suicide”. But it’s not more of a “suicide” than inhabiting Earth, which is just as much of an ultimate death sentence — we just don’t think of it that way. Well supplied and informed, an expedition to Mars could survive for a long time, albeit in a harsh and demanding environment. They might not live as long as they would on Earth — or they might live longer; no one’s going to get hit by a car on Mars! And just think of the amazing accomplishments this group of 21st-century pioneers would attain, in technology and in science, and also in poetry and psychology: making Mars a human location, not just a light in the sky.

This short paper is definitely worth reading to see how Schulze-Makush and Davies set out the arguments for, and the conceptual design of, such a one-way mission. I was heartened to see their clear statement that “No base on the Moon is needed to launch a one-way human mission to Mars.” This is true of any mission to Mars, but has become somewhat lost in the various Constellation program discussions.

If there really were an opportunity to volunteer for a one-way mission to Mars, where you’d live out your days in a “cave-centered biosphere”, exploring and discovering and serving as a pathfinder for future advances — I’d sign up in a heartbeat. It’s difficult to think of any more important and meaningful goal to which I could devote my life here on Earth. (I know some, or all, of you will disagree with me on this, which neither offends nor dissuades me in the least. :) )

“Supercilious” is probably a word you’ve heard (meaning “showing haughty disdain”), but do you know its origin? I didn’t until now! It comes from “super” (above) and “cilium” (eyelid), which together become “eyebrow”, and refers to the act of arching an eyebrow in disdain. Coined in the 1520s, I infer that the habit of using the eyebrow in this way must go way, way back. Today in the 2010s, we instead could use an emoticon that can express the same feeling in eyebrow-less email and other online communications. Any suggestions?

Vanity license plates can be an interesting form of constrained art, like the sonnet or haiku, but much, much shorter. In California, they can contain up to 7 characters, which are letters, numbers, and a few special symbols (like ♥ and a handprint). To while away the tedium of my commute to work, I enjoy spotting new and interesting plates. This being California, I always have plenty of plates to consider.

On July 28, I started recording the vanity plates I’d seen. As of today, I’ve collected 167 distinct plates. It surprises me that I’m able to find at least one new one practically every day I drive to work. There must be just enough variability in my (or everyone else’s) travel time that I get a slightly different sample of cars each day.

Some of the plates are funny, some are clever, and some are cryptic (probably in-jokes that don’t make sense unless you know the person). Here are some of my favorites:

• 1 HOBBIT
• BK WERM
• BMRNATR (on a BMW)
• C ATROX: a good puzzle — hint (rot13): fanxr
• CAKE 4 U: it’s not a lie?
• DTH STR
• ESC2PCH: local reference
• FTDHTR: really?
• GODZLLA
• HAUNT3D
• HTLIKME
• HYR N U (on a jacked-up SUV)
• IDIG K9Z
• IFYTE4U (the vehicle was emblazoned with lawyer ads)
• KNEADY (the vehicle had massage therapist ads)
• KRPT2NT
• LYSDXIC
• MI♥ZTKN
• MJSSAYN
• RMAGETN
• SASSIQT
• TUF CKY
• UKARYOT: go science!
• ULIV1NS
• WB OUIVR: a French geek?

Another cool one, which I didn’t spot but a friend did, is “TWS BRLG”.

Some are just a bit weird, or too obscure for me to “get” them:

• 1MADHUN
• 7THSONN
• AE6KO: ham radio call sign?
• BYE BTZ
• EOEOEO
• IOWE GOD
• KHAL8
• LMN DROP
• MY2CATZ
• MY MUZIK
• NOR DO I
• OWL BAIT
• YYYYYY2
• Z DAWGZ

What’s your favorite vanity plate?

I think we’ve all had the frustrating experience of struggling to open a banana in which the peel won’t split near the stem, which obnoxiously manages to be the strongest part of the fruit — so you pull out a knife to get it started, or just end up mashing the top of the banana in your attempt to get it open. And yet somehow it never occurred to to me to try peeling it… from the other end!

Known as the “monkey method” of peeling a banana, this approach is trivially easy to achieve. You simply pinch or twist at the bottom end of the banana, and it obligingly splits open. I’m astonished that it never even occurred to me to explore better ways to do this. Wow! (Thanks for the tip, Evan!)

Standard	Monkey

Beyond that, there are apparently many strategies for peeling a banana that differ from the “standard” (and apparently suboptimal) approach. I’ve already employed the “thumbnail method” in the past, when a knife was lacking and I was still ineffectually wrangling with the stem end. Now I’m eager to try the “throwing method.” And do read to the bottom of that link to learn about the “pro method.”