Short Takes – 6-10-24

This AI-powered “black box” could make surgery safer. TechnologyReview.com article. Pull quote: “It’s taken many years, but Grantcharov, now a professor of surgery at Stanford, believes he’s finally developed the technology to make this dream possible: the operating room equivalent of an airplane’s black box. It records everything in the OR via panoramic cameras, microphones, and anesthesia monitors before using artificial intelligence to help surgeons make sense of the data.”

Logistics: Corruption Defeats China. StrategyPage.com article. Interesting contrarian view of conflict with China. Pull quote: “The Chinese government’s 2023 discovery of the disastrous degree to which corruption crippled China’s military capability may have led it to abandon its objective of conquering Taiwan. The government is acutely aware that its imminent disastrous demographic collapse allows it only a relatively short window of opportunity to conquer Taiwan and achieve great power status. Abandonment of the Taiwan conquest objective might have also entailed a more realistic assessment of other matters, notably blockade by the US Navy.”

Recyclable Epoxy-Anhydride Polymer. ORNL.gov technology transfer article. Pull quote: “The disclosed technology is a novel polymer composition that combines epoxy-anhydride crosslinked polymers with hydroxy-containing solid fillers to create a material that behaves as a reinforced thermoset at temperatures below a specific threshold (typically 100°C to 200°C), and transitions to a thermoplastic behavior at higher temperatures. This transition is facilitated through dynamic covalent bonds that enable the polymer to be reprocessed, reshaped, and recycled without significant loss of mechanical integrity or performance.”

Renewable route to rapid manufacturing. Newswise.com article. Pull quote: ““We developed a ‘smart’ polymer using 100% bio-based feedstocks in a solvent-free reactive process,” said Sargun Rohewal, a graduate student at the University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute’s Bredesen Center who works with Amit Naskar, leader of ORNL’s Carbon and Composites group. “Unlike nonrecyclable conventional elastomers, ORNL’s material – when heated above 250 degrees Fahrenheit – swiftly transitions to a reformable material that can be injected into molds or 3D printed.””

Once called Nantucket fever, this nasty tick-borne illness is on the rise. NPR.org article. Pull quote: “Most younger people who get infected after a tick bite have only mild illness. “A fever that can take a couple of days to a week or two to go away,” says Linden Hu, an infectious disease doctor at Tufts University. Some people have no symptoms. But some people over 50 as well as those with compromised immune systems can become very ill and end up in the hospital.”