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DENA HEADLEE: Mom really does know best. A National Science
Foundation-funded University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
study finds that teens behind the wheel are less likely to
take the risk of running a yellow light, when mom is
in the car. 14-year-old subjects completed a simulated driving
task while researchers tracked blood flow in their brains. In
one trial, the teen driver was alone; in another, the teen's
mother was present and watching. The team observed that teens
driving alone found risky decisions rewarding. Blood flow
to the ventral striatum, a "reward center" in the brain,
increased significantly when teen drivers chose to ignore a
yellow stoplight and proceeded through the intersection. A
mother's presence killed the thrill of running the light,
resulting in more responsible behavior. The teens on average
across the sample went from about 55 percent risky choices
when alone to about 45 percent when mom is watching.
The team says the study shows that a parent's presence is
actually changing the way the teen reasons and thinks about
risk, ultimately increasing safe behavior.
This is HARMONY, a first-of-its-kind, two-armed,
robotic rehabilitation exoskeleton, developed by
researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering at
The University of Texas at Austin.
ASHISH DESHPANDE: This robot is designed to deliver physical
therapy to those suffering from a neurological disorder such as
a stroke or spinal cord injury.
DENA HEADLEE: The National Science Foundation-funded team
designed HARMONY to deliver full upper-body therapy by moving
patients' through their full range of natural motion. The
team believes the exoskeleton could reduce a patient's
recovery time and can be customized to the individual's
therapy needs. HARMONY's sensors and software give therapists and
doctors the ability to deliver precise therapy while tracking
and analyzing data. With HARMONY now complete,
the team continues to develop the software and prepare
for upcoming trials.
Researchers at Oregon State University have invented a new
technology that can increase Wi-Fi bandwidth tenfold,
reducing bandwidth problems in crowded airports, offices and
coffee shops. The prototype called WiFO uses LED lights to
create an invisible cone of light in which data can be
received. The National Science Foundation-funded team created a
hybrid system that can switch between several LED transmitters
installed on a ceiling, and an existing Wi-Fi system.
THINH NGUYEN: If a user is in that particular light cone you
will receive the information. When the user moves out of the
light cone, the Wi-Fi system will automatically take over.
When the user moves into another light cone, the system will
automatically know that the user is in that light cone and will
transmit the right information to that user.
DENA HEADLEE: The system can potentially send data at up to
100 megabits per second to each individual user, unlike current
Wi-Fi systems that divide the bandwidth between users. The
team feels this new approach successfully eliminates
streaming stalls and allows WIFO to be cheaply and easily
integrated into current Wi-Fi systems.
Sleep apnea is a disease that affects more than 25 million
Americans, left untreated, can lead to high blood pressure,
stroke, heart problems and diabetes. Current testing for
the disease requires a person to wear a tangle of wires, can be
costly and often requires sleeping overnight in a strange
hospital bed. That's why researchers at the
University of Washington have developed ApneaApp,
a smartphone app that wirelessly tracks changes in a person's
breathing movements. To detect the tell-tale pauses in
breathing, the smartphone's speaker sends out an inaudible
sound wave, which bounce off a sleeping person's body and are
picked back up by the phone's microphone.
NATHANIEL F. WATSON: The thing about is that most people that
have it don't know that they have it. ApneaApp is something
a person can use on their phone, in their home sleeping
environment, that can give them an indication to whether or not
they may be stopping breathing during their sleep.
DENA HEADLEE: The team tested the app on 37 patients
undergoing sleep apnea studies at a hospital sleep clinic.
Researchers put a Samsung Galaxy S4 on a corner of the bed.
During nearly 300 hours of testing, the app tracked
respiratory events including central apnea, obstructive apnea
and hypoapnea with 95-99 percent accuracy. Tests in a home
bedroom showed ApneaApp works efficiently at distances of up
to 3 feet, in any sleeping position, even when a person
is under blankets. By providing a convenient, wireless,
noninvasive way for the average person to test at home over the
course of several nights or weeks, the team feels the
ApneaApp could provide a more complete picture of real-life
sleeping patterns and lead to treatment.
NATHANIEL F. WATSON: ApneaApp is still in the developmental
stages at the moment but we do believe that ApneaApp has a lot
of potential. We feel that a very simple way for people to
indicate whether or not they have sleep apnea in their home
sleeping environment has tremendous potential to help
people live happier, healthier lives.
DENA HEADLEE: For more information about these stories,
visit us at NSF.gov.
This is NSF Science Now, I'm Dena Headlee.
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