The 1st Question - 3 Jun 2012 - Questions

1) When I have a headache, I take an aspirin and keep it to myself. Even if the entire virtual world is a stage, nothing says real drama like the operating theatre. Early last month, a brain tumor resection surgery was performed and live tweeted, reaching an estimated audience of 14.5 million people. A specialist was even on hand to answer people’s questions and explain each step. Is this the next step in medical drama and where do they run the commercials? All the content included live photos and video, went to social media – This is your brain on Pinterest…. While the audience came to the live surgery via the hospital’s website. Where in the world did, they perform this brain surgery for a huge turnout?

2) Magnets are the force of the 21st century from Nano to mega- We discussed the mag lev train and have covered the magnetically levitated bed , now we go inside the bloodstream (Muahahahahh!) A drug delivery design built around a mechanism called a Lorentz-force actuator can deliver different amounts of medicine to different depths inside the body. Including a magnetic waveform to breach the skin and deliver the drugs through the ampoule’s nozzle — an opening as wide as a mosquito’s proboscis. On Star Trek it was known as Hypospray – from what University is this superior jet-injection system originating?

3) Though there were no 2011 reported deaths from Tedium, the fear of boring repetitive tasks has driven scores of inventors to automation. Recently at Cambridge University the study of artificial bone needed endless dipping into calcium and protein, rinsing and repeating. Endless repetitive equals boring task! These hours long procedure creates the right environment for bone to be calcified onto the initial sample. But someone get me a robot for this! How to automate? Use your imagination? The latter won out and the high tech robotic arms developed used what children’s toy?

4) Kickstarter is great – I wish there was an algorithm to show the top 25 projects as a clue to the Zeitgeist we live in - MIT Media Lab’s Silver and Rosenbaum had the idea to turn almost anything into a keypad. Pencil lead, potatoes, Play-Doh or water included. The Banana keypad is worth the price of admission alone! Their invention kit allows that all you have to do is plug the circuit board into a computer or laptop, attach the alligator clips to whatever you want, and you are ready to go! What is the name of this project which demolished the initial fundraising goal of $25,000? A pledge of 35USD gets you one too!

5) While I don’t envision a show called TalkBact with Bacteria and our host Strepecoccus Nightfire, Bacteria do in fact communicate with each other using a chemical 'language'. They can even coordinate their defenses and mount attacks. It turns out that all bacterial "languages" share the same root "words Humanoid robots are being taught to synchronize their movements by MIT researchers using bacteria and insects as a guide. What is this key behavior called which allows bacteria and insects to sense each other in both proximity and number? The biological phenomenon is known as what?

6) Some months we never mention MIT – and tonight we can’t stop! - Somewhere in the state of critical Massachusetts, researchers have been held up in a lab thinking about .... your dinner. Wasted ketchup and the small amount of substance leftover in both ketchup and mayonnaise bottles makes up about one million tons of food that is discarded annually. The bottling industry for sauces alone is a $17 Billion market- What if a super slippery coating made up of nontoxic materials could really clean that bottle out? There is.... now! Rigid like a solid, but lubricated like a liquid it’s here just in time for BBQ and cookouts – what is it called?

---tiebreaker---

7) We’ve all been amazed by our bodies at one time or another, hopefully before you hit puberty. The amazing stickiness of our body’s fluids, like what comes out of our noses, well bio-inspired superglue has finally arrived from Oxford, this is unprecedented in its stickiness and size, bio and Nano tech. For those who want to stick enzymes together, like Legos, this glue is for you. The binding bacteria was found from something most of us carry in our throats and usually causes no problem, even though it can lead to infections and even flesh-eating disease. It has a hella protein which the bacteria use to bind and invade our bodies. And it staples together anything attached to it. The original protein has been tagged SpyCatcher. Boiling and detergent won’t even separate its fragments. From what pretty common bacteria is SpyCatcher found?

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