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DENA HEADLEE: Today, one in 88 children is being diagnosed
with autism spectrum disorder or ASD. For them, mastering simple
social skills that come naturally to most proves
difficult. At Vanderbilt University, engineers and autism
experts have teamed up to help. The NSF-funded team designed an
interactive room including a very special robot that is
helping ASD children, like 3-year-old Aiden. To develop,
these children need to learn to focus their attention and
master new skills. The study found that autistic children
spent far more time looking at the robot than a typically
developed child did and that humanoid robots can be almost as
effective as human therapists in drilling young children with ASD
in simple social skills that they have trouble mastering.
ROBOT: Aiden, look.
AIDEN: It's crazy!
ROBOT: Good job.
NILANJAN SARKAR: We demonstrated that if the children were
really more interested towards the robot than human therapists
then the robot might be able to use this engagement to some
beneficial activities.
DENA HEADLEE: Capturing attention is critical for early
intervention treatment for young children with ASD. The team
hopes that Aiden's little robot buddy, Nao, will become an
important new tool for therapists to utilize. Their
findings have been published in the IEEE Transactions on Neural
Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.
Researchers at the University of Michigan have found a way to
bring x-ray technology into the 21st century by harnessing
low-energy terahertz radiation. This technology could
potentially enable doctors to see deep into tissues without
the damaging effects of x-rays. The NSF-funded team developed a
laser-powered terahertz source and detector system that
transmits 50 times more power and receives 30 times more
sensitivity than existing technologies. The team believes
the system's ability to provide 1500 times more detailed imaging
and sensing, will result in safer, more efficient medical
screenings as well as airport security and other applications.
Researchers at Rice University have discovered that rocks in
the earth's mantle beneath the ocean floor melt much deeper
than previously thought. Happening as deep as 250
kilometers, the team says this process of deep melting magma
helps shed light about life on earth. Lead researcher
Rajdeep Dasgupta explains.
RAJDEEP DASGUPTA: What we are interested in is this
process called partial melting in the mantle. This is the
process by which magma in the interior of our planet forms and
it is this key ingredient that eventually percolates upward to
the surface of our planet bringing water, bringing carbon
dioxide to the near surface environment. So if we
understand how this magmas form in the interior, we understand
how our life and other mineral resources come into being on the
surface of our planet.
DENA HEADLEE: Using high-powered hydraulic presses,
the team reproduces high pressures and temperatures
similar to what they believe is happening in the mantle, and
subject small amounts of rock samples to these conditions to
see what happens. Powerful hydraulic presses squeeze and
melt the rocks, producing magma. The NSF-ARRA funded team
believes the production and extent of this deep magma could
affect geophysical and geochemical properties of the
planet as a whole. It's official, Blue Waters, one of
the world's most powerful supercomputers is now available
for use nationwide at the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois,
Urbana Champaign. Its unparalleled processing power
enables researchers to perform large-scale scientific
applications at the cutting edge of computational science.
THOMAS DUNNING: It's really a very balanced computing system.
It's a computing system that could provide scientists and
engineers with the computing resources that they need right
now. Whether it's compute intensive, whether it's memory
intensive, whether it's data intensive, Blue Waters can
handle all of that type of computing requirements. It also
has, however, new computing technologies built into it that
will allow the scientists and engineers to prepare
for the future.
DENA HEADLEE: From tracking disease to tornadoes to climate
change, Blue Waters is already providing unprecedented
insights into our planet and our universe.
For more information about these stories, visit us at NSF.gov.
This is NSF Science Now, I'm Dena Headlee.
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