Technology - Corpus

‘Emulsion’ is one of the many terms that I learned from a food chemistry paper in my undergraduate study. Back then I was not aware that emulsion is the basis of many food products which influence our daily life. Food emulsions are used to deliver nutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. In daily life we don’t often use the word ’emulsion’ but we do often consume emulsifiers, in food like milk, vinaigrettes, mayonnaise, whipped cream, ice cream, butter and margarine. Emulsion technology development is all about enhancing nutritional value, as well as improving taste and flavour in foods and beverages.

My interest in emulsion started when I worked as a product developer on edible oil products. I was astonished by the physics and chemistry on the formation of an emulsion. For examples, the mixing procedure can have almost no impact in some emulsions while in another instance, the emulsion can separate into oil and water within minutes. Emulsifiers, a minor component in the emulsion, can significantly influence the formation of emulsion and its appearance. However, the role and function of emulsifiers are often vague and dependent on the type of emulsifier. Even after spending a few years creating emulsifiers and using them to make emulsions, I still didn’t understand how emulsifiers work. About three years ago, I felt that I needed to take a break from work and do a PhD to obtain a deeper and more fundamental understanding about what happens during the formation of emulsions.

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Robot counsellors: how do you feel about that?

20 August 2018 Leave a Comment

Julia Wells

Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere. Google maps. Amazon recommendations. Netflix’s top picks for you. Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant. Uber arrival time recommendations. However you feel about AI, most of us rely on it these days for something, whether it is picking our movies, helping us find where we want to go, or communicating with our smartphones via voice commands. But would you get therapy from a robot?

Counselling by AI sounds like something out of science fiction, but it’s closer than you might think.

“Bad Blood”

6 August 2018 1 Comment

Cushla McKinney

In 2014-15, one of the most highly fêted names in biomedical circles was Elizabeth Holmes. 31 year-old Holmes had founded a company called Theranos, to manufacture a small, easy-to-use device – the Edison– that was capable of running multiple analyses on a single drop of blood. Although the Edison was not yet commercially available, the company was testing blood samples from Palo Alto patients on their in-house machines, and had signed agreements with the Cleveland Clinic, Capital BlueCross and AmeriHealth Caritas.

Holmes predicted that Thaneros technology would slash the cost of blood tests, spare patients the stress and pain of repeated blood draws and allow everyday people to monitor their own health on a daily basis, just as a diabetic checks their blood sugar levels. What investors and consumers did not know, however, was that beneath its elegant housing the Edison consisted of little more than a pipette robotic arm, only able to carry out one of the three types of tests Theranos offered, and that with very poor reproducibility. Other tests were carried out on standard equipment but on such dilute samples that their results were also unreliable, and doctors using the company’s services were frequently having to reorder tests from other providers.

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Taonga for learning: the Otago Medical School Anatomy Museum

28 May 2018 Leave a Comment

Louisa Baillie

The W. D. Trotter Anatomy Museum at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, contains a collection that is truly a confluence of science and the humanities. The museum houses over 3,000 catalogued anatomy specimens and models in an elegant space whose warm aesthetics include diffuse natural lighting, wooden framed glass cabinets and rimu stairs leading to a mezzanine floor.

The models themselves are works of art as well as teachers of science. They include wax models by the Ziegler and Tramond studios, 77 authentic painted plaster models by the Leipzig firm of Steger, clastique papier-mache´models by Louis Auzoux’s factory, as well as many in-house wet and plastinated specimens, and models made of fibreglass, wax and even hand-carved wood.

Futuristic vision: robot surgeons

28 August 2017 3 Comments

Annabelle Payne

Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.” – Steve Jobs

I am in my final year of high school and studying photography. This year, I am exploring the growing use of technology, especially in the ever-evolving world of surgery. I want to explore technological developments in the medical world, where robots have begun to take over the tasks of humans. Advanced surgical robots have already begun helping doctors, and there is a high chance that, at least for simple, repetitive procedures, robots will soon be able to perform the whole procedure.

In my work, I have used a hooded character to represent technology. The hooded, faceless ‘hacker’ plans to take over the surgical field with their new technology, and slowly make human surgeons obsolete. This character is found lurking in the back of the surgical theatre while a human surgeon is performing. The distance between them slowly decreases, until the ‘hacker’ and their technology has taken over the tasks of the surgeon.

Concerning anxiety: art meets neuroscience

5 December 2016 Leave a Comment

Brian Hyland in conversation with artist (& occasional poet) Mike O’Kane

In the corner of my office, I have a sculpture on loan from artist Mike O’Kane. It confronts me every day with a wonderful juxtaposition of the themes of my work in neuroscience: how the brain works, and the personal experience of conditions that strike to the sense of self and the equilibrium of mood and emotion. An extremely prevalent example is anxiety disorder. Many of us have either personally experienced this, or know of someone who has.

Mike built the sculptural piece in response to a family member’s experience of anxiety with panic attacks, to explore the possibility of achieving a therapeutic in(ter)vention through art. [Read more…] about Concerning anxiety: art meets neuroscience