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TechnologyQuarterly
March 12th 2011
Contents
On the cover
Feeding strands of DNA
through tiny holes, called
nanopores, and reading o
the genetic letters one at a
time could make the process
of genomic sequencing much
quicker and cheaper. This
would have momentous
implications for genetic
analysis and medical
Rocks on the menu
treatment: page 9
Monitor
1 Rock-eating bugs, robots that
rescue soldiers, anti-theft tags,
beaming power by laser, more
elegant pylons, the erosion of Biotechnology: High commodity prices have encouraged the use of
online anonymity, a camera mineral-munching bugs to extract metals from waste or low-grade ore
that sees round corners, an
exoskeleton for paraplegics,
the internet-addiction debate,
and an invitation to nominate
E VEN the sleekest gadget depends on the
mucky business of digging stu
out of
the ground. Mobile phones and comput-
ores and mining wastes with low metal
concentrations. It is also generally cleaner.
Material containing poisonous elements
innovators for our awards ers use copper for their wiring and rely on such as arsenic is unsuitable for smelting
cobalt, germanium, lithium, nickel, plati- because of the risk of pollution.
Di
erence engine num and tantalum for other components. For many years bioleaching has been
Electric motors need magnets made of used to recover gold from ores that are
8 Renumbering the net rare earth elements such as neodymi- hard to break down using heat treatment
We’ve run out of internet um. But rising metal prices and China’s (known as roasting). The bacteria are set
addresses. What happens now? tightening grip on supplies of rare-earth to work in huge stirred tanks, called bio-
elements (it accounts for 97% of produc- reactors, containing ground-up rocks and
Nanopore sequencing tion), have heightened the appeal of nd- dilute sulphuric acid. The bacteria change
9 The hole story ing other sources of supply. The result is one form of iron found within the ore
Towards the 15-minute genome growing interest in the use of rock-eating (ferrous iron) to another (ferric iron) and
bacteria to extract metals from low-grade tap the energy released. In acidic solutions
Stretchable electronics ores, mining waste or industrial euent. ferric iron is a powerful oxidising agent. It
11 Flexible strategies Rock-eating bacteria such as Acidithio- breaks down sulphide minerals and re-
Making circuits stretch and bend bacillus and Leptospirillum are naturally leases any associated metals.
occurring organisms that thrive in nasty, In the past it has been hard to recover
Inside story acidic environments. They obtain energy metals other than gold protably in this
13 Exploiting bioluminescence from chemical reactions with sulphides, way. But high commodity prices mean
Living light has many uses in and can thus accelerate the breakdown of that bioleaching of a variety of metals has
medicine, warfare and even food minerals. Base metals such as iron, copper, become an attractive prospect in recent
zinc and cobalt occur widely as sulphides, years. In 2008, for example, a new venture
GPS jamming and more valuable metals such as gold started operating in Talvivaara, Finland. It
and uranium are also present in the same was set up as the result of a European
16 Don’t block my satnav bodies of ore. With a little help from the research project called BioShale, which
How to keep jammers at bay mineral-munchers, these metals can be showed that bacteria could recover nickel,
released in a process called bioleaching. copper, lead, silver, zinc, cobalt, rhenium,
Brain scan This approach has its pros and cons. To selenium, tin, gold, platinum, palladium
18 Betting on green recover large quantities of metals quickly and uranium from Europe’s extensive but
A prole of Vinod Khosla, who is from ores with a high metal content, underexploited black shale deposits.
taking a risky clean-tech gamble smelting remains the most protable Last year the Talvivaara Mining Company
route. Bioleaching is slower, but it is also produced over 10,000 tonnes of nickel
cheaper, making it well-suited for treating and 25,000 tonnes of zinc from local 1
2 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly March 12th 2011
2 struck a photovoltaic panel on the robot, to the poles. The resulting arrangement,
generating electricity that turned a set of though hardly invisible, is reasonably
wheels gripping the cable. elegant. As much to the point, though, it
Conventional photovoltaic cells, made has technological advantages. Although
of silicon, are designed to collect energy they have not been found to cause any
from sunlight. LaserMotive uses special harm, the cables on conventional pylons,
cells made with arsenic and gallium, which transmit a three-phase alternating
which are better able to capture the near- current, generate a strong electric eld and
infra-red wavelengths of its laser beam. a continuous buzz of low-frequency radio
The panel on the climbing robot, about the waves. Some people who live near them
size of a co
ee tray, harvested enough fear this might be bad for their health.
power to run a small lawnmower. One of TenneT’s pylons should help allay that
LaserMotive’s founders, Jordin Kare, fear. Carrying all the cables in a stack
reckons that a similar laser could deliver between the poles, rather than hanging
about as much energy 20km up if the them separately on outward-facing arms,
panel were only a few times larger. allows them to be arranged in a way that
One reason NASA supports power causes the individual elds generated by
beaming is that it hopes the technology each cable to cancel each other out, weak-
could be used to help run a space elevator. ening the overall eld around the pylons.
This is a machine, familiar from science The result is far less low-frequency radia-
ction, which some engineers think could tion. The combination of being less of an
be made science fact. In essence, it would eyesore and producing less electrical smog
be a giant cable reaching tens of thou- should, TenneT hopes, soften objections
sands of kilometres into space to an orbit- to the construction of new overhead
ing satellite. Cable-climbing robots, pow- power lines.
ered by laser beams shot upward from the That is important for two reasons. First,
ground, or downward from space, would the alternativeburying high-tension
take payloads to orbit. Rockets would thus linesis expensive and largely futile. The
become redundant. Indeed, Andy Petro of cost of putting a cable underground is
NASA’s technology oce in Washington, between four and ten times as much as
DC, says power beaming might change the that of carrying it on a pylon. On top of
economics of space exploration complete- that, the eld generated by an alternating
ly. Lasers beamed from landing craft could,
he says, power rovers in sunless areas of Towering current interacts with the ground more
strongly than it does with the air. This
the moon or Mars, such as craters where creates losses 40 times higher in a buried
water might be found.
Power beaming is also becoming more
beauty? cable than in an aerial one. Unless the
long-distance-transmission system were
ecient. A few years ago lasers typically converted to direct current (which reduces
converted less than 40% of the electrical Energy: A rather more elegant way to transmission losses, but brings problems
energy used to run them into beam power. convey electrical cables across the of its own), burial of transmission lines is
The gure is now about 60%, and costs countryside may be coming soon not a serious option.
have droppedthe result of e
orts to The second reason TenneT’s pylons
develop better laser printers, CD burners
to a eld near you may be important is that despite these
and even hair-removal devices. Moreover,
engineers have worked out how to make
laser beams more intense by using short
A PYLON is supposed to be a beautiful
thing. In ancient Egypt, pairs of taper-
ing stone towers called pylons marked the
problems, a lot of new long-distance-
transmission lines are going to have to be
constructed, and soon. Wind power from
lengths of optical bre to narrow the entrances of temples. Christian architects the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean will
beam. Such intense lasers are better suited borrowed the idea for the twin towers require that. So, more speculatively, will
to power-beaming because the cells that above the façades of many Gothic cathe- the idea of generating solar power in
collect the laser light can be smaller. drals. Whoever thought of appropriating north Africa and transmitting it to Europe.
The Pelican’s successful ight probably the word for the ugly metal-lattice struc- In the Netherlands alone, TenneT says,
means that the rst big application for tures that carry high-tension power lines more than 400km (250 miles) of new lines
power beaming will be supplying energy across the countryside was therefore are needed. In Germany the state-owned
to drones. At the moment, most small guilty of both a public-relations triumph energy agency, DENA, reckons the gure is
drones rely on battery power, so their and an act of etymological vandalism. more than 3,500km. At a recent meeting of
ights are short. LaserMotive reports that The latter, however, may soon be re- the European Council, on February 4th,
American army ocials, including some deemed. The latest generation of electric- the leaders of the European Union’s mem-
responsible for special-forces kit, have ity pylons are, in the eyes of some, at least, ber states acknowledged that Europe
expressed an interest in power-beaming things of beauty in their own right. needs a completely new power grid, a
systems for drones. DARPA, the American The pylons in question have been project they reckon will cost about ¤200
Defence Department’s technology agency, designed by engineers at TenneT, the rm billion ($270 billion). The overhead power
is also sponsoring research into power that runs the Netherlands’ national elec- problem is thus going to have to be solved
beaming. British readers of a certain age tricity grid, in collaboration with KEMA, a one way or another.
may remember that the spaceships own Dutch research company. Instead of a In truth, of course, no pylon is ever
by Dan Dare, Britain’s answer to Buck single lattice tower, the cables are sup- going to be a more attractive feature of the
Rogers, were powered by impulse ported by two elegant steel poles up to 65 countryside than no pylon at all. But if
waves, beamed from Earth. That piece of metres high. There are no arms. The six pylons have to be builtwhich they do
science ction, too, may prove not to have cables that pass from one pylon to another then something elegant and ecient is the
been quite so wide of the mark. 7 are each borne by two insulators attached least bad way of doing it. 7
The Economist Technology Quarterly March 12th 2011 Monitor 5
The internet: Just as car number plates and telephone dialling codes need to be updated every so often to allow for
growth, so does the internet’s addressing system. But it should not need updating again any time soon
2 intact. Instead an enzyme, called an exonu- lots of nanopores to work in parallel, says IBM’s Stanislav Polonsky, co-inventor of
clease, is attached to the top of the AHL. It Dr Bayley, with each sequencing di
erent the technology. In order to get a strong
cleaves individual base pairs from the sections of a genome simultaneously. enough signal to read the bases it is only
DNA strand and feeds them through the An alternative approach, which has necessary to trap each one for around a
pore to be detected one at a time. been gaining ground in the past couple of millisecond, he says. Most of this work has
Dr Sanghera says Oxford Nanopore has years, is to dispense with proteins and been carried out in computer simulation,
developed an electronic cartridge system create articial nanopores in solid-state but the ratcheting mechanism has been
called GridION, based on lab on a chip materials. IBM and 454 Life Sciences, a di- demonstrated in the laboratory. Moreover,
technology, for exonuclease sequencing. vision of Roche, a drugs giant, have been it can move the DNA in both directions,
Each cartridge contains multiple nano- working together to this end, using an elec- which would have the huge benet of al-
pores (though the rm will not say how tron microscope to punch three-nano- lowing error correction to be carried out,
many) and all the microuidics and elec- metre holes in membranes that are ten na- says Stephen Rossnagel of IBM. If solid-
tronics to carry out the preparation, detec- nometres thick. These membranes are state nanopores can be made to work, ex-
tion and analysis. These are plugged into a made of three layers of a conducting mate- isting chipmaking technology could then
rack-like device that resembles a computer rial, titanium nitride, separated by insulat- be used to create massively parallel de-
server. And, like servers, the racks can be ing layers of silica. When a voltage is ap- vices for well below $100 a chip, he says.
combined in vast cabinets to carry out plied across the membrane, a strand of Others are also looking at solid-state
large-scale analysis, sequencing DNA or DNA is drawn into the pore. As it enters, a nanopores, including Jene Golovchenko at
simply detecting small molecules or pro- separate electric eld is applied across the Harvard University, with whom Oxford
teins. Dr Sanghera says this system is al- metal layers of the membrane, trapping Nanopore is also collaborating, and Nab-
most ready for commercial launch. the rst base pair. By ipping this eld’s po- Sys, a spin-out from Brown University in
Even so, the ultimate goal is to perfect larity the DNA strand can be ratcheted Rhode Island. A variation of this approach
single-strand DNA sequencing, threading along, one base pair at a time. uses nanopores in graphene, a sheet-like
large sequences of DNA through nano- This can be done very quickly, says form of carbon that is one atom thick. Be-
pores and reading them as they pass cause such membranes are so thin, only a
through. This would be faster than exonu- single base will be present within the pore
clease sequencing. It would also be more at any one time, making detection easier.
accurate: because the bases are still at- According to preliminary experiments
tached to one another, there is no chance by one group, headed by Joshua Edel at
that they will pass through the nanopore Imperial College London, this approach
in the wrong order. One of the reasons sin- should be able to sequence an entire ge-
gle-strand sequencing is so dicult, how- nome in just a few minutes. Another
ever, is that the combined thickness of the group, led by Marija Drndic at the Univer-
protein and bilayer means that as many as sity of Pennsylvania, has found that add-
15 bases may be inside the nanopore at any ing a layer of titanium oxide a few mole-
one time. In addition, the speed at which cules thick to the graphene membrane lets
the strand passes through must be careful- the DNA pass through more easily and re-
ly controlled to allow enough time to de- duces the noise level when measuring the
tect each of the bases. current, which should improve accuracy.
Dr Bayley is looking into solid-state pores
The ratchet e
ect too, and is also exploring a hybrid ap-
In late 2010 Dr Bayley found a way to ad- proach that combines protein-channel na-
dress the rst of these problems, and Mark nopores with solid-state membranes.
Akeson at the University of California, There is a clear sense that the eld of na-
Santa Cruz, found a way to tackle the sec- nopore sequencing is gaining momentum,
ond. By modifying the AHL protein to with new developments occurring almost
create a constriction within the nanopore, every month. Dr Sanghera believes that
Dr Bayley showed that it is possible to en- the $1,000 genome will be possible with-
sure that the variation in current is deter- in three to ve years. The benets could
mined by a single base, which can then be be vast, he says. Cheap and rapid whole-
identied. Dr Akeson, meanwhile, created genome sequencing will, for example,
a clever ratchet arrangement by attaching a make it possible to sequence the entire ge-
polymerase enzyme to the AHL protein. nomes of cancerous and healthy cells in in-
This can ensure that the strand passes dividual patients to see what has changed.
through the pore at a rate of one base every It should become easier to determine
20 milliseconds, which should be slow which drugs will work best in a particular
enough to detect each one. patient, and why. It will also be possible to
Yet even a nanopore reading 50 bases construct a ne-grained picture of human
per second would take about two years to evolution, and of how and when human-
sequence a whole genome, which con- ity spread around the world. Nanopores
tains around 3 billion genetic letters. So it are tiny, but if they can be harnessed, the
will also be necessary to nd ways to get consequences could be momentous. 7
The Economist Technology Quarterly March 12th 2011 Stretchable electronics 11
2 to publish a paper on a thin articial mem- moved, it forms a ripply surface, and the
brane that could allow exible sensor cir- spacing of the ripples a
ects the colour of
cuitry to be transferred onto a patient’s the laser light, which varies as the material
skin, for example to produce an electrocar- is stretched. Analysing the change in col-
diograph. He likens the membrane to a our could thus be used to measure strain in
temporary tattoo. He is also working on a buildings and bridges, Dr Wagner suggests.
thin, conformable sheet of electrodes to Whether they are based on tiny slivers
monitor electrical activity in a patient’s of silicon, organic circuitry or a combina-
brain during neurosurgery. This could be tion of the two, stretchable devices will re-
used to track seizures or map motor and quire power to operate. Stretchable elec-
speech centres. We can do lots of things, tronics will need stretchable batteries, says
says Dr Rogers, and we’re pursuing as Siegfried Bauer, professor of soft-matter
many opportunities as we can handle. physics at the Johannes Kepler University
in Linz, Austria. Last year his group an-
Going organic nounced a new type of battery, based on
Although high-quality single-crystal sili- standard zinc-carbon chemistry, that is ca-
con may be the best-known material for pable of stretching. It pulls o
this trick by
making electronic components, it isn’t the using stretchy polymers, called elasto-
only oneand it’s not the only one being mers, in conjunction with conductive gels,
teased into di
erent shapes. Stéphanie to transport charged particles between the
Lacour, a researcher at the École Polytech- battery’s terminals.
nique Fédérale de Lausanne, is using or- Dr Bauer is also working on a stretch-
ganic transistors as pressure sensors on able battery that is rechargeable. And his
exible materials, including silicone rub- team is looking for ways to exploit stretch-
ber, that can function as stretchable elec- able materials so that energy used to de-
tronic skin. Organic transistors, as their form the material can be captured and con-
name suggests, are made of carefully lay- verted to electrical energyan idea known
ered organic materials rather than being as energy harvesting. This might allow
etched into a rigid crystal of silicon. Al- devices to be powered by shoes or clothing
though they are exible, they are not as that harvest energy from the wearer’s
small or fast as silicon transistors. But for movement, for example.
sensing there is no need for extremely fast It may also be possible to make solar
switching, says Dr Lacour. cells in a exible, stretchable form. Dr Rog-
The idea is that this exible material ers and his colleagues are exploring a type
could be wrapped around a prosthetic of semiconductor material called gallium
limb, with electrical signals from the sen- arsenide, which is usually inexible, for
sors connected to an amputee’s nerves to Ultra-thin circuits on pre-stretched rubber just this purpose. He proposes dividing a
convey sensations. Dr Lacour has already (top and bottom); silicon islands with rubber substrate into squares separated by
made a prototype sensor with Nokia, a exible links (centre, and previous page) trenches, and transferring tiny islands of
mobile-phone giant, consisting of a thin, rigid gallium arsenide onto those squares
stretchable, touch-sensitive lm. This when the rubber is stretched. These tiny
could be applied to the outside of a curved deformed. The backing material must be solar collectors would be connected with
phone in place of a keyboard, or used to as smooth as possible, and the circuitry wires that form bridges over the trenches
control a device in the form of a exible sealed beneath a layer composed of a po- between the squares, and which buckle
wrist-band. Dr Lacour’s stretchable elec- lymer-metal-polymer sandwich. This acts when the rubber is relaxed. This protects
tronic skin can be made using the same as a barrier to oxygen and moisture to keep the rigid gallium arsenide components
processes used to produce organic light- the device working. These tricks, they re- from strain, but the system as a whole is
emitting diode (OLED) displays, which are port, allow a exible circuit to be bent with exible and stretchable.
found in many mobile phones. a radius of curvature of less than 0.1 milli- It is, in short, possible to see how logic
Takao Someya of the University of To- metresin other words, folded like paper circuits, input sensors, output displays and
kyo, who is one of the pioneers of electron- without breaking. power supplies can all be made in exible
ic skin, has also built stretchable circuits us- At Princeton University, meanwhile, form. Traditional electronics are cheap and
ing organic transistors on a rubber backing. Sigurd Wagner has also developed organic widespread today because they are made
He hopes to equip robots with sensitive optical devices, including an organic laser in huge quantities in extremely ecient
skin to make them more aware of their en- on a stretchable rubber surface. Organic la- factories. Stretchable electronics are not
vironment. In addition, he has demon- sers are not as powerful as traditional la- there yet. It is likely to be some time before
strated a working OLED display on a sers made with gallium or indium com- you are o
ered a mobile phone in the form
stretchable surface. In a paper recently pounds, but they can be easily printed or of a exible rubber bracelet, a smart tattoo
published in Nature Materials, he and his deposited directly on any type of surface. attached to your skin, or even an implant
colleague Tsuyoshi Sekitani described In Dr Wagner’s laser, the organic layer that that exes along with your body. But re-
some tricks to ensure that organic circuits produces laser light is deposited onto pre- searchers have already taken the rst steps
continue to work even when drastically strained rubber. When the strain is re- towards such exotic devices. 7
The Economist Technology Quarterly March 12th 2011 Inside story 13
How illuminating
Biotechnology: Scientists have uncovered the biochemical mechanisms used generating cell in its body. When exposed
by living organisms to produce light, known as bioluminescenceand are to the blue light from the bioluminescent
reaction, this protein, called green uores-
putting those tricks to a dazzling range of uses
cent protein (GFP), glows bright green.
Having worked out the basics of biolu-
2 luciferin and ATP. In most environments ters further, not all lab animals respond to
ATP is not freely available, but because it is infections in the same way. Even two
the main mechanism by which cells tran- sibling mice may respond to a herpes
sport energy, it is present in living organ- infection very di
erently.
isms. Researchers realised that adding So David Leib of Dartmouth Medical
luciferase and luciferin to a sample of School decided to try a di
erent approach.
water or food could be used to detect ATP, He added the gene responsible for the
and thus determine whether the sample formation of luciferase to the genome of
contained bacteria or other pathogens. herpes simplex virus type 1 and injected
In 1992 Dr Prasher also cloned GFP, so the modied virus into mice. The mice
that it no longer had to be harvested from were also regularly injected with luciferin,
living creatures. This expanded the pos- so that the luciferase would have the fuel
sibilities for exploiting bioluminescence it needed to glow.
dramatically, because it meant that GFP Because resulting light was so dim, Dr
did not have to be injected into tissue. Leib worked with Gary Luker and David
Instead, the gene sequence for GFP could Piwnica-Worms at Washington Universi-
be added to the genome of a living organ- Aequorea victoria lit the way ty, St Louis, to place the animals in a dark
ism, making possible new ways to track box and photograph them using a special
the behaviour of its cells. tissues, and allowed the team to see how camera. The images collected by this
Initially the technique was tested on the di
erent types of cells behaved during camera showed the virus progressing
bacteria such as E. coli to make them glow the regeneration process. through a single mouse at frequent in-
green when illuminated by blue light. The researchers found that some tis- tervals. Suddenly we had the opportuni-
Similar tactics have since been used to sues, like the dermis, could become other ty to track interactions between the virus
create much larger creatures that glow tissue types, like cartilage, but that others, and the immune system in real time and
when exposed to deep blue light. One of such as muscle, were much less exible use far fewer mice, says Dr Leib.
the most intriguing is Ruppy, the ruby and remained muscle throughout the Part of the reason luciferase can be
coloured puppya dog that glows bright process. Although the ndings do not seen by the camera, even through the
red under ultraviolet light because it has reveal how to regenerate a severed human tissues of the bodies of the mice, is that
genes in its body from a sea-anemone limb, they do provide valuable infor- luciferase generates some red light in
protein that functions very much like GFP, mation about how cells can be expected to addition to the characteristic yellow-green
but uoresces bright red instead of green. behave as researchers move closer and light associated with reies. The yellows
This might seem pointless, but it per- closer towards that ultimate goal. What and greens cannot penetrate the mouse
mits exploration of animal processes that uorescent proteins are providing, in the tissue but red light, being of lower fre-
have long been mysterious. The rainbow axolotl experiment and so many others, is quency, can. Norman Maitland of the
of uorescent proteins now available to a new way of seeing, says Dr Zimmer. Yorkshire Cancer Research Laboratory at
modern researchers is allowing questions Like the invention of the microscope, the University of York, together with a
that have vexed us for years to be nally they are allowing us to watch what could team of colleagues based at 14 labs within
answered, says Marc Zimmer, a computa- never have been watched before. the European Union, used this idea to
tional chemist at Connecticut College. develop a series of viruses that carry a
One such question, that of how dam- Making disease glow away gene for GFP which has been modied to
aged tissues regenerate, is being studied in Bioluminescence can also be used to tag glow red, and are specially designed to
salamanders by Elly Tanaka and a team of virusesa technique that is proving in- nd and grow inside prostate-cancer cells.
colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in valuable for studying diseases. To un- When these viruses are exposed in the
Dresden. The salamander species that the derstand how infections progress, re- lab to tissue cultures which contain cancer
scientists are working with, Ambystoma searchers have traditionally had to kill cells, they infect those cells and splice the
mexicanum, is more commonly called the infected laboratory animals on a daily gene for the red glowing protein into the
Mexican axolotl and is well known for basis. A lot can potentially be learned by gene sequences of the cancer cells, making
being able to regrow severed parts of its comparing the tissues of an animal that them glow. In addition, the gene for the
body, such as its limbs and jaws. has been infected with a herpes virus for glowing protein is passed on by the cancer
To shed more light on the process, the only one day, say, with an animal that has cells as they replicate, so that their progeny
research team used genetic engineering to been infected for several days. Through glow too. Dr Maitland has to use special-
make axolotls that produce GFP through- such comparisons, researchers can work ised camera equipment to see the glowing
out their bodies. The researchers took out where the virus is travelling and, if the red cancer cells inside the human body.
pieces of limb tissuesuch as dermis, lab animal has been treated with a drug But he has already been able to demon-
cartilage and musclefrom these trans- intended to counter the disease, how it is strate that infecting cancer cells with a red
genic animals and transplanted them into responding to the treatment. glow can help reveal prostate tumours.
the limbs of ordinary axolotls. Once the The trouble with this technique is that And in future, tracking the glow may help
tissues were safely in place, the recipients studying the tissues of animals killed on a reveal how cancer cells behave when a
of the transplanted tissue had limbs am- daily schedule is like taking a still image tumour starts spreading cancer around the
putated. The severing of the limb activat- from a lm every ten minutes and trying body. Christopher Rose, chief technology
ed the tissues at the point of amputation, to work out what is going on; it provides ocer at Vantage Oncology, a provider of
including the transplanted uorescing only part of the story. To complicate mat- cancer treatments in California, says the 1
The Economist Technology Quarterly March 12th 2011 Inside story 15
2 use of bioluminescence is a terric way James Case at the University of California, cal spills or oil leaks are suspected. A
to better understand tumour behaviour. Santa Barbara, she devised a device that sample of water can be exposed to the
It also has applications in surgery. A measures marine bioluminescence by bacteria, and the light generated allows a
team led by Quyen Nguyen, a surgeon at pumping water through a grid that excites quick analysis to be made without the
the University of California, San Diego, bioluminescent organisms and measures need for the usual high-end equipment,
has devised a way to illuminate nerves so how brightly they glow. A network of he says. The bacteria could be housed in
that they are less likely to be cut acciden- such devices could reveal where vessels sampling buoys in watery environments,
tally, causing lasting damage. The re- can operate undetected, or where special with readings regularly reported to a
searchers created a molecule that binds operations forces can come ashore with- central monitoring station.
preferentially to nerve cells, and labelled it out being given away. The rst system The potential ecological benets of
with a uorescent tag. When it is injected cost $500,000 and was the size of a motor- bioluminescence do not end with detect-
into a mouse, it spreads around the ani- cycle, says Dr Widder. Newer versions ing pollution. In November 2010 a team of
mal’s body, so that all its nerves (though are the size of waste bins and cost $10,000. undergraduates at the University of Cam-
not its brain or spinal cord) become uo- Bioluminescence monitoring has other bridge took the rst steps towards engi-
rescent within two hours. The e
ect wears uses too, such as detecting pollution. Dr neering bioluminescent trees that could
o
a few hours later. The technique has Widder is working with a bioluminescent replace streetlights, thus reducing electric-
also been shown to work in human tissue, bacterium species called Vibrio scheri ity consumption and related carbon-
though it has yet to enter formal trials. that is sensitive to a wide variety of pollut- dioxide emissions. They took genes from
ants. Its ability to bioluminesce is linked to reies and bioluminescent marine bacte-
In a di
erent light its respiration, and its respiration is almost ria and modied them to produce a genet-
Bioluminescence clearly has great poten- always depressed when it is struggling ic package that can be easily added to
tial in medicine. But it also has a role in with pollution. Measuring the brightness other organisms to make them glow. The
war. For reasons that are not entirely of the bacteria thus provides a simple way package includes genetic modications to
understood, many marine organisms to determine pollution levels. We know enable organisms to recycle oxyluciferin,
bioluminesce only when disturbed. Scuba things are really bad when the light goes the by-product of the reaction that pro-
divers swimming at night will often nd out, says Dr Widder. duces light. To demonstrate their approach
that just waving their arms around creates Jan van der Meer at the University of they added the genes to a bacterium, and
a dazzling green glow. Large animals, like Lausanne in Switzerland is taking the idea found that a ask of the bacterial culture
passing whales and dolphins, can also of using bioluminescent bacteria as pollu- produced enough light to read a book by.
create enough disruption to produce a tion monitors a step further, by tinkering Another potential use for glowing
glow, as will passing boats. with their genetics. It is neater, he says, to plants is to indicate the health of crops.
The US navy has long had an interest have organisms that glow brighter, rather You can put luciferase into plants and
in bioluminescenceit started during the than becoming fainter, as the environment tether it to plant stress genes to make sure
cold war because of submarine detec- becomes more toxic. Unfortunately there crops are healthy, says Laurence Tisi, a
tion, explains Edith Widder, a senior are no organisms that do this naturally. But bioluminescence researcher at Lumora, a
molecular-diagnostics company based in
Britain. A eld would glow in areas where
insects were attacking the crops, allowing
insecticides to be deployed appropriately.
Plants could also glow when they need
water, to keep irrigation to a minimum.
Researchers at the University of Edin-
burgh, in Scotland, have already devel-
oped potatoes that do just this.
Even so, Dr Tisi is sceptical. I am un-
certain that any crops that glow in the dark
Monitoring the regrowth of salamander limbs (above) and a glowing mouse (top) are going to be of much interest to con-
sumers, he says. Glowing things make
scientist at Ocean Research & Conserva- using genetic engineering Dr van der Meer people wary. Yet BioLume, a privately
tion Association, a conservation group. and his colleagues have coupled the light- held biotechnology company based in
Indeed, one of the last German subma- generating reactions in bacteria to meta- North Carolina, believes such concerns
rines to be sunk during the rst world war bolic processes associated with handling can be overcome. It is developing biolumi-
had disturbed enough bioluminescent pollution. Linking light-generating re- nescent proteins for use in the food in-
organisms in the Mediterranean to pro- actions with these reactions, rather than dustry, and hopes to incorporate them
duce a glow that could be seen from above respiration, makes the organisms glow into a range of products, from glowing
the surface. This light was used to track the brighter as the pollution level increases. icing on cakes to glowing lollipops and
submarine and destroy it. And because di
erent bacterial species chewing gum. BioLume could be onto
Specically, America’s navy wants to are sensitive to di
erent pollutants, di
er- something. Glowing food was, after all,
be able to forecast whether a vessel in a ent coloured glows can indicate the pres- highly fashionable in Roman timesand
particular location might cause a biolumi- ence of specic chemicals. Dr van der perhaps, given the dramatic progress that
nescent glow that would give away its Meer imagines his genetically modied is now being made in the exploitation of
position, says Dr Widder. So, together with bacteria being used at sites where chemi- bioluminescence, it will be once again. 7
16 GPS jamming The Economist Technology Quarterly March 12th 2011
2 nals with its internal clock, each probe can tively determine the jammer’s location lite-based alternative which has many
detect interference and determine wheth- and report it. It is a clever idea, but it would cheerleaders. It is an enhanced version of
er it is natural or man-made. take years to implement. Loran-C, which is itself an improved ver-
The ability to detect man-made inter- Navsys may have found a way to speed sion of the original Loran (long-range
ference is not much use unless the source up the process, however. It says it has re- navigation) system developed in the
can be located, however. That is where ceived encouraging feedback from Ameri- 1940s. Once widely used in America, Japan
SENTINEL comes in. It is a new research ca’s Defence Advanced Research Projects and parts of Europe, Loran fell out of fa-
project announced in December by Chro- Agency (DARPA) in response to a recent vour with the emergence of satellite-based
nos Technology, the British rm that leads proposal to develop an app that would systems. But its proponents have contin-
the GAARDIAN consortium. The idea is to turn smartphones running Google’s An- ued to develop the technology, and eLoran
use probes similar to those used in GAAR- droid software into JLOC sensors. Mem- is now accurate to within 10 metres or so,
DIAN, but interconnected in such a way bers of the emergency services, or even which is comparable to GPS. It is terrestri-
that the position of a jamming device can members of the public, would then be al as opposed to spaced-based, uses very
be determined by triangulation. If there is asked to download the app and leave it high-powered signals rather than low-
a power loss on one probe, and weaker running on their phones. This could pro- powered ones and it’s very low frequency
power losses in other probes, that could vide the high-density detection network instead of high, says Sally Basker, presi-
help us pinpoint the source of the pro- necessary to locate small jammers. dent of the International Loran Associa-
blem, says Andy Proctor of Chronos. tion. All of which means its failure mech-
In America there is already a military A down-to-earth alternative anisms are di
erent to GPS and other
system to spot GPS interference: the GPS Another way to cope with jammers is to satellite-navigation systems.
Jammer Detection and Location (JLOC) deploy backup systems that do not de- Enthusiasm for eLoran is strongest in
system run by the National Geospatial In- pend on satellite signals, but rely on terres- Britain, where the government awarded a
telligence Agency. According to Navsys, the trial signals instead. In America radio-navi- 15-year contract in 2007 to develop eLoran
company that developed JLOC, it involves gation and air-trac-control systems for use by shipping in western Europe. A
a network of GPS receivers capable of de- based on terrestrial beacons, which pre- ministerial decision to move from the de-
tecting regions of higher than normal sig- date GPS, were supposed to be phased out velopment to the operational phase is ex-
nal levels and low signal-to-noise ratios, ei- by 2018 in favour of satellite-based alterna- pected shortly. In the United States and
ther of which can indicate interference. tives, under a modernisation programme Canada, however, Loran-C transmitters
But it is unknown how many sensors there called NextGen, overseen by the Federal were switched o
last year. After a long de-
are in the JLOC system, or how accurately Aviation Administration (FAA). Switching bate about the merits of keeping the sys-
it can determine the location of a jammer. to satellite-based air-trac control would, tem going, Barack Obama declared it out-
Some experts in the eld are sceptical for example, allow more direct routes and dated. The House of Representatives has
that it will be possible to develop cost-ef- save fuel, because aircraft would no longer given the Department of Homeland Secu-
fective systems to locate low-power, short- have to follow a wiggly route from one rity until April to decide whether a single,
range jammers around civilian infrastruc- ground-based beacon to another. national GPS backup system is required.
ture. It would require a very dense net- In a paper presented at the NAV10 con- Which technology would be used to build
work of sensors, says Dr Last. I suspect we ference in London in December, Mitch such a system remains to be seen.
have reached the stage where close to any Narins, chief systems engineer at the FAA, In a way, GPS has become a victim of its
major highway you cannot expect to oper- and colleagues described the Newark jam- own success. Because it is used for such a
ate a high-availability GPS system without ming incident as a valuable lesson be- wide range of civilian purposes, when
it failing from time to time, he says. cause it highlighted the risks of becoming somebody wishes to disable one GPS-
At a GNSS conference in Portland, Ore- too dependent on satellite-based systems based system, their actions can also dis-
gon, last September, Phil Ward, president that were vulnerable to disruption. Mr Na- rupt other, unrelated systems. The benets
of Navward GPS Consulting in Dallas, Tex- rins and his team are now investigating of satellite positioning are undeniable, and
as, proposed an elegant solution. Even whether the old-style terrestrial systems they are only likely to increase in future.
low-power jammers could be detected, he can be modernised and extended to pro- But it is now clear that fully realising those
suggested, if legislation was passed requir- vide a backup that could take over in the benets depends on putting systems in
ing smartphones, many of which now event of GPS failures. They expect to make place to mitigate against deliberate and ac-
contain GPS receivers, to look out for jam- their recommendations in 2013 or 2014, in cidental interference, and to provide an in-
mers and warn other phones nearby if one time for implementation to begin in 2016. dependent backup that does not rely on
is detected. The phones would then collec- Elsewhere, eLoran is another non-satel- the delicate trilling of distant satellites. 7
18 Brain scan The Economist Technology Quarterly March 12th 2011
Betting on green
says Mr Khosla. Within just a few years,
the internet boom had netted Kleiner
Vinod Khosla thinks most venture Perkins a $7 billion return on its Juniper
capitalists are being too cautious investment. Now Mr Khosla is gambling
with their green investments. But is that venture capital can work similar
his own approach too risky? magic in the eld of clean technology. His
approach is that of a pragmatic business-
2 not own a refrigerator. When it failed he solution to our energy problems is almost of Netscape, whose IPO kicked o
the
moved to America to study biomedical the exact opposite of what Khosla says, internet boom, thinks Silicon Valley in-
engineering and business. In 1982 he declares Joseph Romm, who is the editor vestors will prefer to stick to information
co-founded Sun Microsystems, a maker of of Climate Progress, an inuential climate technology. He has even promised that his
powerful workstation computers. After blog, and a senior fellow at the Centre for latest venture-capital fund will avoid
the company’s initial public o
ering (IPO) American Progress Action Fund, a think- clean, green, energy and electric cars. He
in 1986, Mr Khosla left to become a venture tank. Technology breakthroughs are argues that clean-tech is a very di
erent
capitalist. At Kleiner Perkins, Mr Khosla unlikely to be the answer. Accelerated eld. Moving from IT ventures to green
was involved in the early nancing of deployment of existing technologies will technologies is nearly impossible, except
Nexgen, an innovative chipmaker, and get you down the cost curve much more for rare and extraordinary individuals like
Excite, a search engine. He also had some rapidly than a breakthrough. Vinod, he says. He has put years into
high-prole ops, including Dynabook, a But Mr Khosla is standing behind his becoming a master of the eld, but it’s not
company that designed a tablet computer black swans. We fool ourselves into the entire Valley deciding to move into
20 years before the Apple iPad but proved thinking that if 5% of San Franciscans or clean-tech. Mr Khosla’s mentor at Kleiner
unable to bring it to market. rich Germans can a
ord a technology, Perkins, John Doerr, has expressed con-
I’ve had many more failures than then it’s getting market traction. But only cern over his own company’s green in-
successes in my life, admits Mr Khosla. when an electric car can compete with a vestments and Peter Thiel, co-founder of
My willingness to fail gives me the ability Tata Nano will you achieve scale, and that PayPal and a partner at the Founders
to succeed. His next move was character- requires radical innovations in battery Fund, has said that clean-tech companies
istically unpredictable: he temporarily technology, he says, referring to the for a variety of reasons don’t work.
moved his family to India. I wanted to see world’s cheapest production car. Accord- Facing both industry scepticism and
if I could have a social impact, he says. I ingly, Khosla Ventures is funding several the ire of environmentalists, Mr Khosla
quickly realised that any non-prot activi- energy-storage systems, including high- decided to engage Tony Blair, a former
ty I could do would be no more than a eciency solid-state batteries that side- British prime minister, who joined Khosla
drop in the ocean. Most non-prot organi- step the safety problems with today’s Ventures last year as a senior adviser. The
sations are completely ine
ective. That’s lithium-ion cells. idea is that Mr Blair can provide a more
when I decided that I needed to look for It’s all about diversication, says Mr diplomatic public face for the company,
scalable solutions, which meant self- Khosla: We’ll try half a dozen batteries. If and he also brings global clout.
propagating solutions, which meant capi- other people try 30 more, only one has to Mr Khosla, who clearly likes to see
talist solutions. Proving the capitalist tool work to completely change society. himself as a green iconoclast and nancial
as a solution for poverty is high on my Whether other investors will be prepared maverick, is either very foolish or very
priority list. to take similar gambles on blue-sky tech- clever. But at this point it is dicult to say
Mr Khosla put several million dollars nologies remains to be seen. which. I try a lot of new things, he says.
into SKS, a for-prot micronance com- It’s fun to play the game and fun to play
pany. Although India’s booming micro- Going it alone the oddsand long odds win a lot of fun.
nance industry has since attracted criti- Although Khosla Ventures’ two funds are Mr Khosla’s cold-blooded view of the
cism (and even government action) for its fully subscribed, and have invested about economics of environmentalism has
high interest rates and aggressive debt- $1.3 billion in over 40 companies, billions certainly rued some feathers. But if he
collection practices, Mr Khosla is adamant more dollars and many more start-ups turns out to be right, his quest for clean-
that its benets outweigh any ills. Mil- will be needed to hatch a ock of black tech black swans could be exactly what
lions of people now have access to - swans. Mr Khosla estimates that the the planet needs. 7
nancial services, he says. That’s more amount of investment required to replace
social than any non-prot thing I could all the petrol consumed in America with
O
er to readers
have done. And guess what? In the pro- renewable fuels will run into the hun- Reprints of Technology Quarterly are available
cess, I made $100m. You never know dreds of billions of dollars. But other from the Rights and Syndication Department.
when something you’re trying to be rad- high-tech venture capitalists seem to be A minimum order of ve copies is required.
ical on will make you money. steering clear of risky green investments.
If Mr Khosla is unapologetic about I would love to say that Vinod is start- Corporate o
er
making money while helping some of the ing a trend, says Steve Westly, another Customisation options on corporate orders of
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mental movement in the West. Wind courage to do that. Even here in Silicon reports, reprints or any queries you may have
projects are a waste of time. And the reali- Valley, people nd it hard to understand please contact:
ty is that electric cars today are coal-pow- that if you think big, you’re going to have
ered cars, because the USA and much of some failures. Mr Khosla thinks other The Rights and Syndication Department
Europe have mostly coal-based electric- investors will come round to his way of The Economist
26 Red Lion Square
ity, he says. Environmentalists use arti- thinking eventually. The climate will
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cial rates of return, buried assumptions change as soon as we have a Netscape Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8148
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This sort of talk does not exactly en- everyone will start to invest. www.economist.com.rights
dear Mr Khosla to environmentalists. The But Marc Andreessen, the co-founder