Building Tomorrow's Soldier Today

FleaPlus writes "Wired reports on a glove developed by Stanford researchers Dennis Grahn and Craig Heller which combines a cooling system with a vacuum in order to chill blood vessels and drastically reduce fatigue. Besides the obvious military and athletics applications, the technology is also potentially useful for firefighters, stroke victims, and people with multiple sclerosis. The Wired article also describes a number of other human enhancement projects intended to advance battlefield technology. Examples include military exoskeletons, projects designed to increase cognition or decrease the need for sleep, and studies that may one day allow single soldiers to operate multiple aerial drones. Many of these were opposed by the President's Council on Bioethics."

Comments

Solider?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Building Tomorrow's Solider Today

Yes, let's build it, so I can see what it looks like.

Re:Solider?

[bommai]

May be tomorrow solider can be soldered if broken.

Re:Solider?

[Red Flayer]

No, solider implies that it cannot be soldered. It is solider than solid.

On a state-of-matter scale of 1 to 10 (1 being gaseous, 10 being completely solid) this one goes up to 11.

Re:Solider?

[Larus]

Science and technology aside, this will sooner or later find commercial markets.

And why not? Human beings have made themselves to be more unhuman in every passing year. We have professional athletes whose exercise programs would be considered abnormal and pointless, (not including shaving eyebrows to achieve an iota of improvement in swim speed.) We have anti-aging pharmaceutical food and beverage offerings that cater to the Baby Boomers who felt entitled to look like 40-yos instead of 60. We have daily caffeine to boost our brains in the morning, no-dose to boost productivity in the evenings, Prozac to lift us when we're low, and even psychadelic drugs to boost creativity when we're dull. We design ergonomic chairs and keyboards while we sit in front of computers and in our cars for longer hours. We alter hormones and apply suntan lotions. We use AC's and heaters so that our habitats can include the most uncomfortable places on Earth. We give our children Baby Einstein so that they will be superkids and outcompete others when they grow up.

I'm not saying it's pointless for soldiers on the frontline to receive these booster-packs. They have a job to accomplish, and so do we. Maybe we're all trying to become Homo sapiens cyberneticus too. Maybe our environment self-selects.

Re:Solider?

[FleaPlus]

For those who come after me, there was originally a typo in the headline.

The funny thing is, my original submission had a completely different headline, so the typo was added by the editors. Here's my original:

Cooling Vacuum Glove Fights Fatigue

Wired reports on a glove developed by Stanford researchers Dennis Grahn and Craig Heller which combines a cooling system with a vacuum in order to chill blood vessels and drastically reduce fatigue. Besides the obvious military and athletics applications, the technology is also potentially useful for firefighters, stroke victims, and people with multiple sclerosis. The Wired article also describes a number of other human enhancement projects, many of which were opposed by the President's Council on Bioethics.

Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[Marxist Hacker 42]

But what will we do with the overtrained soldiers after the war is over?

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[GundamFan]

This is an excellent example of why we as a society need fiction (especially science fiction).

We have to explore or ethics as a culture very carefully before making leaps such as these, and fiction lets us do that.

Now to get more people to read worthwhile books...

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[TubeSteak]

This is an excellent example of why we as a society need fiction (especially science fiction).

We have to explore or ethics as a culture very carefully before making leaps such as these, and fiction lets us do that.

I don't see what fiction has anything to do with the matter.

It was a forseeable consequence that soldiers dealing with combat violence would eventually become conditioned to using an armed response as their only response. The problem is nobody in the military was willing to study it and throw money at the problem to solve it.

Hell, the army didn't do anything serious about reintegrating soldiers until after the first Gulf War. They finally setup a program when the reports of soldiers suiciding and beating/killing their wives began to spike.

10+ years later, they extended that program overseas when soldiers in Iraq started suiciding in unusually large numbers during Gulf War 2. Then they had to overhaul it from top to bottom when the GW2 soldiers started coming home and beating their wives, abusing drugs/alcohol and killing themselves.

Historicaly, the military has done shit for soldiers.
The Walter Reed scandal has a chance of changing that.
Mostly because what's happened at Walter Reed isn't fiction.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[couchslug]

"Mostly because what's happened at Walter Reed isn't fiction."

Neither was the poor treatment of Nam vets (like that chronicled in Ron Kovic's autobiography).

Those lessons are conveniently forgotten every few years by an Army establishment that considers grunts expendable, and lacks the balls to confront their incompetent civilian leadership when funding is inadequate. Deity forbid they'd actually do an old-fashioned walk-through inspection!

Google "David Hackworth" for the last senior officer we had with a backbone. The rest daren't jeopardize their lucrative futures as corporate sock puppets.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[KDR_11k]

You just start another war. Has the USA ever been without an enemy to unite the nation?

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[GundamFan]

What fiction lets us do is take these lessons out of the controversial context of history. Sometimes allegory is a useful tool to explore the ramifications of certain hypothetical or historical events or to ask ourselves "what if".

While it is true that fiction is simply someone else's perspective on history (in a way all human thought is just a perspective on history) being able to understand another persons perspective (or that there are other perspectives) is a very important skill that many people lack. Fiction is a way to see the world through someone else's eyes.

I admit there is a massive amount of crap out there in the category of fiction but to throw the good out with the bad is just foolish.

I don't have the presumption to think that I have an unbiased or complete view of human history but no one does. The best I can do is to try to share the experiences of others who have bee3n kind enough to write it all down

let's build those soliders

[roman_mir]

Soliders are what we all need, not the emptiers or the hollowers, but the soliders, they shall be hard and dimensional, dependible and reliable, continuous and complete rather than divided, broken, incomplete, hollow, interrupted, intermittent, tenuous, untrustworthy, vulnerable, fluid, gaseous, unsubstantial, liquid, soft or vaporous.

While we are at it, let's build a better responsible useful /. editor and an intelligent moderator.

I believe there's a name for them

[Billosaur]

Terminators.

Re:What the hell is a Solider?

[stratjakt]

Spellcheck won't help. Solider is a word, a bad one (more solid), but a word.

No, you need editors with some sort of cognitive functions, an ability to proofread, and some semblance of pride in their work.

From what I see on TV

[cliffski]

That money would be better spent on teaching soldiers some arabic. Seriously.
Modern war isnt about tanks and pitch battles between rival fleets of helicopter gunships. Modern warfare is fought in a city, in amongst a civilian population, who may or may not be hostile to US troops.
teaching some basic arabic for beginners to soldiers so they can understand what the locals are saying is going to save more lives, and lead to a better outcome, than any l33t new nano-engineered hi tech gubbins that will most likely fail the moment it gets exposed to heat and sand.

Re:From what I see on TV

[drooling-dog]

Someone mod this up, please.

The problem, if there is one, is not that soldiers aren't physically up to the demands that will be made of them. The problem is with the politicians who send them unprepared on ill-advised and ill-defined (but profitable, for them) missions, often for dubious reasons that are unrelated to our national security.

If that could actually happen, I mean.

Re:From what I see on TV

[SirWhoopass]

"Interesting"? That's the most idiotic thing I've heard. That it is completely false. In no way does the US military discourage personnel from learning Arabic. In fact, the US Army is offering $20,000 bonuses for Arabic speakers who enlist.

Re:From what I see on TV

[fredrated]

"But as it stands, the public didn't expect casualty rates to rise after heavy combat operations ceased."

Did "Mission Accomplished" have anything to do with that?

Re:From what I see on TV

[amper]

As an aside, I've come across your posts many times now, and I've been wondering why you chose your sig. I'm willing to concede that Kerry may have actually said such a thing. I'm also willing to bet that as a highly decorated veteran officer who actually served in Vietnam, that John Kerry knows quite a bit more about warfighting than George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, or you and I.

Is your sig an attempt to mock John Kerry, or President Bush?

I happen to agree with Kerry's quote. We *do* need more troops in Iraq, if we have any intention of actually accomplishing anything positive there. Unfortunately, not only is this a rather unpopular stance, it's also true that a "surge" of only 21,000 or so more troops isn't going to do the job. What we need is to go back to the original recommendations of people like Gen. Eric Shinseki, and send an additional 500,000 or more troops. Not that this will ensure success, but it's the only chance we have to make this all work out, unless we're going to take the standpoint that the situation is unsalvageable, and try to work it out by paying reparations.

We may have had no moral authority to invade Iraq, but we sure as Hell have a moral responsibility now to clean up after our mistake, no matter the cost to the United States of America. The only real question is, do we even have the ability to do it anymore?

Re:From what I see on TV

[timeOday]

Let's not go over-generalizing from Iraq and re-build our military around occupation and nation building. It's a pointless and unjustified mission. The solution is not to do that in the first place.

The idea of a smaller, hi-tech military is a very good one - for national defense, e.g. repelling an armed invasion of us or an ally. "But that kind of military is irrelevant for combatting terrorism!!" That's right, basically. The idea of stemming terrorism through massive invasions is fundamentally invalid. A "war" on terror is a false premise. Anti-terrorism is really about intelligence and police work, executed in conjunction with other nations around the world. Ocassionally we'll need a few highly trained and equipped special forces to eliminate terrorist cells when we find them. This whole approach of killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer has proven so destructive and costly, not to mention ineffective.

Re:From what I see on TV

[ArcherB]

As an aside, I've come across your posts many times now, and I've been wondering why you chose your sig.

I'm glad someone finally asked! The point of the sig was to show that Democrats oppose whatever the President does, even if it something they have been screaming about for years. At the time I created that Sig, Kerry and everyone else on the left side of the aisle were screaming about Bush's plan for a troop surge in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling it a bad idea and coming up with plans to prevent it. Until Bush presented his plan for the troop surge, Democrats were critical of the President for not sending enough troops. I made the sig to show that Kerry and other Democrats take whatever side opposite of the President on every issue, regardless of what that issue is.

School vouchers, where the government gives money to poor children who want a better education so they can go to the private schools that only the rich white kids could have gone to before was opposed by Democrats. Ted Kennedy, who helped write the education bill even opposed it.

A similar example of hypocrisy would be William Jefferson vs Tom Delay. Ronnie Earle went through three grand juries before he found one that would indict Tom Delay. Even though Delay has not been found guilty of anything, he was forced to resign his leadership and was all but thrown out of Congress. William Jefferson (D-LA) was video taped taking $100,000 worth of bribes, $90,000 of which was recovered. Jefferson was placed on the Homeland Security Committee by Pelosi, who was elected by saying she would "Clean up the culture of corruption in Washington."

I'm not just blaming Democrats. It's just that they are the opposition party right now and they are doing their job of opposing anything the other side tries to accomplish. The Republicans are only mildly better. They opposed nearly everything Clinton proposed when Clinton was probably the most conservative Democrat in office this century! Although they did at least support the mission in Bosnia.

I guess I'm just tired of seeing the Prez get a bad wrap about everything. On his inauguration day, his limo was pelted with snowballs as it drove by blocks and blocks of protesters. What could Bush have possibly done 1 hr before even taking office to cause such rage among the left? I understand the election of 2000 was kind of rough, but I don't think Gore would have had to drive through snow-ball armed protesters had he gotten an inauguration. I'm just tired of the whole sore loser mentality and wish people would grow up.

We may have had no moral authority to invade Iraq
I only agree in that the whole world should have invaded Iraq, just as the whole would should have invaded Rwanda and now Darfur. We had no business going in without wider world-wide support. Unfortunately, the much of the world just doesn't give a damn. The US can not be world's policeman. If the UN won't prevent millions of men, women and children die due to political and tyrannical bullshit, we shouldn't have do it for them. ...but we sure as Hell have a moral responsibility now to clean up after our mistake, no matter the cost to the United States of America.
I whole heartedly agree. The debate to go into Iraq is over. We have to finish the job.

The only real question is, do we even have the ability to do it anymore?
We do if people like Rosie Odonnell shut the hell up and stop trying to take down the Prez even if it takes down the entire country with him. We do if the left can put down their snowballs long enough to offer something other than blind opposition. We do if the right can try to be more open to the members of congress when it comes to things that can not be released to the public.

The Glove

[daigu]

Even they were astounded at how well it seemed to work. Vinh Cao, their squat, barrel-chested lab technician, used to do almost 100 pull-ups every time he worked out. Then one day he cooled himself off between sets with an early prototype. The next round of pull-ups -- his 11th -- was as strong as his first. Within six weeks, Cao was doing 180 pull-ups a session. Six weeks after that, he went from 180 to more than 600...In trying to figure out why the Glove worked so well, its inventors ended up challenging conventional scientific wisdom on fatigue. Muscles don't wear out because they use up stored sugars, the researchers said. Instead, muscles tire because they get too hot, and sweating is just a backup cooling system for the lattices of blood vessels in the hands and feet. The Glove, in other words, overclocks the heat exchange system. "It's like giving a Honda the radiator of a Mack truck," Heller says. After four months of using it himself, Heller did 1,000 push-ups on his 60th birthday in April 2003.

Any suggestions on how to test this using common household items? Would a simple cooler of ice work?

Re:The Glove

[fredNonesuch]

The slight vacuum has to do with two things - getting the hand tissue to fill any air gaps between the heat exchanging glove so that you get maximum contact for heat transfer (better conduction). The second purpose is that blood vessels will also expand slightly thus increasing the rate of flow of blood through the tissue (convection). Both are important to heat transfer.

The problem that they found is that the temperature at which maximum effectiveness of heat transfer occurs varies by individual. If the hand gets too cold, blood vessels constrict and greatly reduce the effectiveness - as in the huskies feet.

That means that there needs to be some means of regulating the temperature of the water going into the glove and some means of measuring the temperature (and thus effective heat transfer) of the water coming out of the glove. Calibration means lowering the temperature slowly until you see a significant drop in water temperature change across the glove. A degree or so above that would max out heat transfer.

The description of using ice chips for a portable unit means one of two things - either the most effective water temp for heat transfer is close to freezing or it was the most efficient way to provide a heat sink was that rather than a heat pump or thermocouple. I suspect the latter given that you already have to have a water pump circulating the water.

The simplest arrangement I can think of requires throwing away portability. You'd need to have two buckets - one with mostly ice and some water in it and one with just water in it. The ice bucket sits at a somewhat higher level than the water bucket with a siphon tube leading down into the second bucket.

The second bucket is full of water and has a fully submersible aquarium heater in it that's pretty precise and fairly high powered - say 150 watts. It also has a submersible pump (power head) that has two outlets. The first just circulates water rapidly inside the bucket to maintain temperature uniformity. The other has a second tube attached that feeds back into the ice filled bucket.

Ideally, you want a second thermostat opening and closing a valve in this second tube. In reality, it's probably cheaper to use an adjustable clamp. This means the aquarium heater works harder when they are sitting there in the rest state and a lot slower when you're swishing your hands around in it.

Calibration in this case is a matter of lowering the thermostat on the aquarium heater bit by bit between sets until the recovery effect drops dramatically. Given that the environment is typically around 70 degrees, I'd say start at 65 degrees and go down from there.

Possible civilian use

[Lurker2288]

So, this is a glove that reduces hand fatigue, huh? Yeah, so, uh, have they tested it to see the effects of getting baby oil or hand lotion on it? And are the palms abrasive at all? I mean, just out of curiosity. Because I like science, and stuff.

Re:Possible civilian use

[Stormcrow309]

Actually, it reduces muscle fatigue by 'supercharging' the body's coolant system, also know as blood. You can do the same effect with much less efficiency by running cold water over the hands. We have been playing with the concept at work. I went from 15 pushups in 10 pushup sets to 55 pushups in 10 pushup sets with 2 minutes of hand cooling between sets. Yes, I am out of shape.

Re:Possible civilian use

[Reziac]

Same thing as dumping cold water over your head, or wearing a wet T-shirt while doing hard work in a hot climate. Gives the body a bigger radiator system, cools you down, keeps you from wearing out so fast.

Is this a regular crappy Wired article or a user..

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Is this a regular crappy Wired article or a user-generated crappy Wired article? I'm just dying to know...

too much sleep?

[rasputin465]

projects designed to increase cognition or decrease the need for sleep

Yeah, it's called 'meth', and Nazi soldiers used it while conducting Blitzkrieg. Not a new development.

Re:too much sleep?

[DrVomact]

Yeah, it's called 'meth', and Nazi soldiers used it while conducting Blitzkrieg. Not a new development.

My, that is a novel suggestion as to how the techniques of "Blitzkrieg" came into being. I suppose it should have been obvious me--it's well known that their soldiers are "fanatic" or "drug-crazed", while ours are "higly motivated".

Seriously, there's nothing new here. For example, benzedrine and other stimulants were routinely issued to U.S. Air Force pilots to keep them awake during WW II. In fact, the U.S. Air Force still issues amphetamines to its pilots and pressure them to take these "go pills". (For example, take a look at http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id= 1425252002 or http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/a pj/apj97/spr97/cornum.html or http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,57434,00. htmlhere.

It might be interesting to ask whether the pilots who were involved in the disturbingly frequent "friendly fire" incidents during our recent ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq were flying high in more than one sense. But nobody will.

This is not what we need.

[amper]

Why is it that it never seems to occur to the people in a position to actually do anything about that what we need is not more high technology for our soldiers, but more good, old-fashioned, well-trained human brain power and muscle power on the ground? Don't get me wrong, there is a place for technology on the battlefield, but it's the people that make it all work.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot

[PowerEdge]

The only mindless zombies I see on a regular basis are the ones that assume everything Bush does is somehow inherently evil, destroying the constitution, causing global warming, etc. Those are the people I find who lack logic and reason and possess an inability to think beyond some handed down meme they read somewhere or heard somewhere and get patted on the backend by their circle of yes men. Conformity through anti-conformity or what have you. Leftists (I can't call them Liberals because that would mean free thinking people) are some of the most close minded, anti-freespeech people I have ever had an occasion to converse with.

May be solving the wrong problem

[Animats]

True. That may be solving the wrong problem.

The problem they're working on with this isn't one the US has. The "superhuman abilities" thing is useful when assaulting hard, heavily defended, hard to access targets. But the US military is very good at assaulting hard targets.

What the US military is lousy at is fighting guerrilla and insurgent movements. Those are about intelligence, not firepower. The opposition tries to avoid offering any hard targets. They don't fight pitched battles. It's classic Maoist doctrine: "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue." The US couldn't deal with that in Vietnam, and it can't deal with it in Iraq.

Re:May be solving the wrong problem

[amper]

No, it's not the US military that's lousy at that kind of warfare. It's the civilian US politicians and bureaucrats that are lousy at it. The US military has known how to fight that kind of war all the way back to the Revolution and before.

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot as well

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

Let's be rational for a little bit.
World Population: 6,525,170,264
I, personally, could give a rats hairy ass about abortion one way or the other. However, overpopulation is as big an issue as bioethics.

And before you say, "Well, what if your mother had aborted you?"
Well, then I wouldn't be here to care, now would I?

Damn kneejerk activists...

Er...

[vivin]

I say this as a soldier. I also say this as one who went there and came back.

Not everyone is cut out to learn Arabic (which is why "Assalam alaikum", essentially "How are you doing?" in Arabic, turns into "Licka-me-salami". Admittedly, juvenile soldier humour) That's why we have translators and language specialists in the Army. The Army does have people who are skilled in Arabic, though not enough.

They do teach us basic Arabic phrases before we head out there. In fact, we carry a "language card" with us that has some common phrases.

To be brutally honest, it's not Arabic that will save us when we are there. It's Tactics and Procedures and it's technology. This is what we spent the bulk of our time on before we headed out there. In addition to some basic language and culture classes, to better understand the Iraqis. Who's going to survive longer in a firefight? A soldier who is well-trained on his weapon and whatever gadget he carries? Or a Soldier yelling out "Assalam Alaikum!" while bullets fly around him? Who's going to survive an IED? A soldier who has been trained how to react to such an event, or one who knows really good Arabic?

I honestly hate hearing these armchairs strategists who have absolutely no idea of the ground reality over there.

Do you honestly think that the Army doesn't field test any of these good gadgets? Do you think soldiers just blindly take their gadgets out to the field? If we have a gadget that's a piece of shit, we don't use it. We also have this thing called PMCS (Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services) where we check every piece of equipment before we head out and after we come back to base, for malfunctions and potential malfunctions. Your average Army Gadget is not like your pretty little iPod or Motorola Razr. It's pretty hardy and can take a pounding. Our GPS units are called PLGRS (Pluggers) and you beat the shit out of those and they still work. We have night-vision scopes and goggles that work extremely well in the heat and the sand.

The chilled glove sounds like a really cool idea, and even better if they can extend it to a body suit. Temperatures are insane over there. It's easily 100 to 110+ outside and when you have your body armour and other gear on, your temperature is probably 5-10 degrees more than that.

Modern warfare relies on better equipped soldiers in addition to language skills or cultural knowledge or whatever. So please, before you knock on these new ideas, consider what soldiers actually think.

Not so sure

[HangingChad]

Besides the obvious military and athletics applications, the technology is also potentially useful for firefighters, stroke victims, and people with multiple sclerosis.

As a volunteer firefighter I have my doubts. Generally the ability to sense heat is a good thing fighting a fire. I remember the days before nomex hoods were common. Our ears functioned as heat detectors. People would think we were listening at the door but we were actually checking to see if it was hot. Now with nomex hoods you have to take your glove off or pull your jacket sleeve up to figure out if the room is hot or feel a door. I can tell you firefighters hate checking for hot doors with their hands. We have thermal cameras but not enough for every entry team. Besides, that's just one more piece of crap we have to carry. Not to mention we also have to carry it back out, sometimes also toting some fat ass (it's always the fat, ugly ones passing out, never thin, attractive people). We carry enough crap now.

Now wildland firefighters or approach teams, who spend longer amounts of time in hot areas, might find it useful...if they feel like packing it around, but not us truckies. Put the wet stuff on the hot stuff and go home.

Re:Not so sure

[drinkypoo]

As a volunteer firefighter I have my doubts. Generally the ability to sense heat is a good thing fighting a fire.

The device doesn't prevent you from sensing heat. It cools your insides before it cools your outsides, because it works by cooling the blood that flows through your hand.

With that said, it's probably not going to be much use in a fire. It's going to be something that, for the forseeable future, has to be carried around by a vehicle (or the military's exoskeleton) because heat pumps require significant surface area for heat exchange with the atmosphere, and quite a bit of energy to run.

Re:The Glove - Based on an old technique

[SixFactor]

About 20 years ago, during one of my summer stints at Washington Park Zoo in Portland, OR, we were told by our supervisors to wash our wrists in cold water to stave off the effects of heat exhaustion (yes, it did get hot and dry in Oregon). I can attest to its effectiveness, having been relegated to trash pick-up and trash liner replacement duty (it was a rotational assignment) several times during the summer. It definitely has an envigorating effect...try it between workout sets.

Started with fire.

[iceperson]

been going downhill ever since...

Re:Okay, this is a cheap shot

[c6gunner]

Conformity through anti-conformity or what have you. Leftists (I can't call them Liberals because that would mean free thinking people) are some of the most close minded, anti-freespeech people I have ever had an occasion to converse with.

And in a burst of irony, 2 out of 3 responders, and several mods, decide to prove you right. Ah well. I'm still with you. There's plenty of intolerance on the right, too, but it doesn't hold a candle to the sheer mindless hatred on the left.

Possible *profitable* civilian use

[Atario]

All seriousness aside...

I heard of this some time ago, in the context of increasing stamina of athletes (and it wasn't a glove then, but a mini-chamber). But it occurred to me -- as someone who has trouble losing fat -- that this energy-remover might be worn for extended periods to remove a lot of calories from one's core, thus prompting the body to produce more heat, thus using more energy reserves, which is to say, fat.

Sell this on the open market as "the fat-burning pod" or something at $125 a pop and watch the cash roll in...