Michael Ho’s Techdirt Profile

About Michael Ho

Mike oversees the research department at Floor64. He has held various research roles at companies including BFGoodrich, Raychem and Nano-Tex. Before joining Floor64, Mike coordinated product development as a project leader at Nano-Tex. He earned his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and completed work towards a PhD at Stanford University. He continues to pursue his technical and scientific interests in a wide variety of fields.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeho

Posted on Techdirt - 1 July 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Out With A Whimper

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Our planet's environment is in a delicate balance with the ecosystem that's largely invisible. We have a thin ozone layer protecting everything from harmful UV rays. Plants seem to be doing a great job of supplying breathable oxygen. It's a bit concerning when human activity throws off something in the atmosphere on a large scale, but we might be able to do something about it. The first step, though, is admitting that we have a problem.

Snow-dwelling algae on glaciers might be a problem someday. Pink snow looks a bit unusual, but the algae that grows on frozen ice in a visible amount -- is also making that snow melt faster. And we probably don't want glaciers melting any faster than usual in the next few decades.
What ever happened to the hole in the ozone layer? The use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) has been significantly reduced, and the hole is expected to heal itself by 2050 -- thanks to the Montreal Protocol passed in 1987.
The reduction of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution has had a tangible effect on soil acidity -- finally. It's taken over two decades for regulations aimed at curbing acid rain (by limiting sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-fueled power plants) to start showing some positive results in the environment.

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6 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 30 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: The Second Most Abundant Element In The Universe...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Helium is a fascinating element that most people recognize as the stuff that you can inhale to make your voice sound funny. However, it has some really serious uses in MRI machines and rocket engines -- and if we're not careful, we could waste this precious material and not have any kind of replacement for it. Once we run out of helium on earth, there aren't a lot of great options for obtaining more. It's not like we can just swing by Jupiter and bring some back. Maybe we can recycle and conserve for a bit, and perhaps someday we'll figure out fusion.

Vast helium reserves in Tanzania have been discovered that could supply the world with enough helium for several years (assuming we don't celebrate will a LOT of unnecessary balloons). About 54 billion cubic feet of helium might last about 6 years or so at the global consumption rate, but this is the first time anyone has actually gone specifically looking for helium deposits (successfully). Presumably, if we have a method that works, we'll be able to find a bit more helium before we need to resort to helium rationing.
The lunar surface could be mined for helium. If mining the moon for helium sounds impractical and crazy, it wouldn't be if we could use a specific isotope of helium for a fusion reactor. Just gotta get fusion technology working....
The US National Helium Reserve is the largest supplier of helium in the world right now, but that could change. Nobel laureate Robert Richardson warned everyone about "peak helium" a few years ago, but party balloons are still cheap -- so it's likely no one will really care about a helium shortage until it's almost too late.

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15 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 29 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Fountains Of Youth...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Lab mice aren't really a great model model for studying human health, but we use them anyway. And every so often, researchers stumble on drugs that seem to make lab mice live longer. Unfortunately, no one has found a reliable treatment for significantly extending a human lifespan just yet -- but if you want to raise old mice, there are plenty of things that'll work. Check out a few of these potential fountains of youth for mice.

The first human clinical trials using nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) to slow the aging process should begin soon -- on a small sample of 10 healthy people. NMN works remarkably well in mice, but no one knows yet how well it will work in people. If it's safe enough, though, it's a good bet that people will be adding this stuff to vitamins ASAP.
A hormone, osteocalcin, injected in old mice appears to allow the rodents to run just as far as much younger mice. Old mice that weren't given this hormone ran about half as far, so researchers are planning to try this in people next.
If rapamycin works to delay the onset of certain diseases in mice, maybe it'll work... on our pet dogs? And if Fido lives a bit longer and healthier, maybe we'll try it ourselves, too. (Eating our own dogfood..?)
How about chemical precursors to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) to try to keep yourself young? You can buy this stuff right now as a supplement, if you'd like to participate in your own highly unscientific study....

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2 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 28 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Racing Into Space Again...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

After the Cold War ended, the space race enthusiasm evaporated as the funding for ambitious projects to explore space dried up. Launching dozens of satellites into space to form communications networks was (and still is) a risky business -- with a lot of upfront costs and a lot of equipment that's nearly obsolete by the time it reaches orbit. But it's becoming a bit cheaper to get stuff into space, and maybe we're seeing a bit more of a commercial space race. Check out a few of these space-bound projects.

NASA recently tested its Space Launch System (SLS) engine that will send an uncrewed Orion capsule beyond the orbit of the moon in 2018 (assuming no delays). Someday, NASA's SLS could take people to Mars, but there are still some engineering challenges to solve before that actually happens.
Tom Markusic, the founder of the small satellite venture, Firefly Space Systems, wants to clean up the artificial space junk in geo-stationary orbit and recycle it for future moon and mars missions. Markusic proposes using solar electric propulsion-powered space tugs to push old satellites to potential staging bases for human colonies on mars.
Vector Space Systems is a space vehicle startup just getting off the ground, aiming to put small satellites into low earth orbit -- at a price of 45 kilograms for a $2-3 million. The company plans to have commercial launches ready in 2018, targeting very small satellites that normally go up as secondary payloads on larger launch systems. Smaller payloads with their own dedicated launches won't be subject to the delays or requirements of other payloads, and Vector's launch vehicle claims that its missions could be ready to go within a relatively short 3-month window.
Russia's new space port at Vostochny has had some delays, but it seems to be up and running. However, the mis-management of this cosmodrome has caught the attention of president Putin who warned that some of the senior managers involved in an embezzlement scheme could go to jail for a few years. The description of the first launch with a visit from Putin sounds a bit like a scene from Return of the Jedi.

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2 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 27 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Badminton Robots FTW

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We have computers that can beat us at games like chess and Go (and Jeopardy!), but we haven't seen too many robots that can beat humans at more physical sports like soccer or tennis. We've seen some air hockey robots that are nearly unbeatable, so it's really only a matter of time before robots learn how to play sports with a few more dimensions. Here are some badminton robots that are inching toward playing better than some of us.

Badminton robots are getting better slowly. This robot has binocular vision from two cameras and was built by students at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. However, it cheats a little bit by using two rackets....
Just last year, Dong Jiong (a retired badminton professional) played against a couple of these badminton robots on a regulation court. The robots didn't play very well, but they actually played -- and presumably, upgrades will give them superhuman badminton skills someday.
Badminton robots from the Flanders' Mechatronics Technology Centre (FMTC) in Belgium were relatively primitive 2013. However, the developers were learning about optimizing the efficiency of robots -- not actually trying to create a robot that could beat people at badminton.

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1 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 24 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: More Robot Servants Will Be Nice...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Robots are getting better at performing complex tasks all the time. It won't be too long before they can drive cars and deliver packages (and replace about a quarter of a million human workers who drive for UPS/FedEx/USPS/etc). The technology isn't quite there yet, but it doesn't seem to be too far off in the future. However, we're nowhere near seeing a Rosie the Robot servant, predicted in the 1960s, but we're getting closer. Check out these marginally helpful robots for the home that could beat flying cars and pneumatic tube transportation to becoming a reality.

Laundroid is a machine about the size of a refrigerator that can fold your laundry... very slowly. It's currently just a prototype, but maybe in a couple of decades it'll just be part of your washer/dryer setup.
Boston Dynamics has another cool video of an even smaller version of its "robot dogs" -- and its SpotMini has a creepy appendage with a hand/head at the end. This little guy can apparently put away dishes in a dishwasher and looks like it can pretend to be a puppy (a uncanny valley metal puppy).
A laundry folding robot from a few years ago can only fold rectangular towels. If you enjoy watching paint dry, though, this is a cool robot to watch as it uses two humanoid arms and stereo camera vision... to complete the one task it knows how to do.

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1 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 23 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Spaceplanes 2.0

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The Space Shuttle was a cool idea, but it never accomplished the goal of providing a relatively low-cost route to space. The concept of reusable space ships is still attractive, but it really depends on how much it takes to refurbish them before they attempt another launch. A few different organizations are already testing some reusable space vehicles (and Boeing has its X-37B that's orbiting somewhere above us right now). Here are just a few more spaceplanes that might join the new reusable space race.

The EU has its Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) robotic space plane that was tested last year. The IXV is scheduled to fly another test in 2019, and it might be operating by the time Elon Musk is on Mars.
DARPA's XS-1 spaceplane project has a goal of flying 10 times in 10 days and putting a few tons of satellite payload into space -- for less than $5 million per flight. That's a pretty ambitious plan, especially if it's supposed to start testing by 2019 (and they're still narrowing down the technology).
The Skylon concept spaceplane is a single-stage-to-orbit dream. It might not be hard to explain how it could work, but it'll sure be difficult to actually build a working prototype.

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2 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 22 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Smarter Than The Average Bear Cat... Bird?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Animals aren't as dumb as you might think, and the more we study our pets -- the more we find that we may not just be anthropomorphizing our favorite animals. Some animals definitely have personalities, and some can exhibit some pretty complex cognitive skills. If we can understand more and more animal brains, maybe we'll be able to figure out our own brains, too, someday. Here are just a few things to remember about cats, fish and birds.

Cats are pretty smart pets, and they may understand more than you think -- like cause and effect. Okay, that ability isn't exactly surprising, but cats might also understand a bit of physics, too -- but it probably won't help them when they're trapped in a box with a radioactive source connected to trigger a release of poison.
How long does a fish's memory really last? Finding Dory makes a joke out of fish having short term memory loss, but some researchers have measured some fish with memory spans that can last 3 months.
Bird brains are surprisingly packed with more neurons per pound than mammals (including primates). This might explain how some birds can make tools, pass the mirror test, understand cause and effect, and even be said to be as smart as a 5-year-old human child.

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8 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 21 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Crazy Cars That No One Drives

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We're on the verge of a transportation revolution with autonomous cars and electric vehicles about to become mainstream means of mobility. Various concept cars make the future of transportation look more bubble-shaped or like spandex, so the roads are really going to look a bit crazy if we allow 40-year-old muscle cars to drive along with surviving K-cars and futuristic-looking Tron-like hypercars. Check out a few more crazy cars that aren't quite practical in the links below.

The Rimono is a 2-seater electric car from Japan with an all cloth exterior. Drivers will need a motorcycle license to use it, and it's not clear how often it should be laundered....
The classic yellow taxi cab isn't manufactured any longer, but a company that still makes parts for these iconic vehicles has a couple of funky-looking prototype vehicles based on its cabs. The A888 limo is basically a stretched out 6-door, 12-passenger version of a yellow cab, and the "Sport Pick-up Crossover" is a yellow cab in front and Chevy El Camino-style pickup in the back.
Maybe you've heard of cars that run on compressed air -- well, those cars aren't exactly efficient. Surprise!? One study says compressed air cars score worse than electric vehicles on energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and life-cycle costs -- but that maybe a hybrid electric and compressed air car might be more practical somehow?

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8 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 20 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Solving Mysteries Of The Universe...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The vast blackness of space might not look like much to the naked eye, but the origins of all life have come from distant stars. As Carl Sagan put it, we are all "star stuff" -- we're made of atoms that could have only been born in intense supernovas. It may appear futile to try to decipher what happened billions of years ago, but astronomers can literally look back in time and see the formation of the universe. Here are just a few cool things astronomers have discovered lately.

A prebiotic, chiral molecule has been detected for the first time outside of our own solar system. All known life on earth is based on chiral molecules, but no one knows how this situation occurred originally. This first example of a chiral propylene oxide molecule could help explain how life on our planet acquired its preference for handedness or how primordial cosmic seeds might spread through the universe. (Or not.)
Oxygen has been found 13.1 billion light years away -- perhaps the first oxygen atoms to form in the universe. There's not that much oxygen at a galaxy called SXDF-NB1006-2, but its abundance is in line with simulations of how we think early stars formed.
Galaxy simulations on supercomputers help explain how stars form in interstellar space. Apparently, feedback from existing stars can regulate how other stars form and influence the growth of galaxies, solving a mystery of how a relatively small fraction of gas in interstellar space is used to form a star.

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3 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 17 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Chickens Versus Eggs...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The American food chain can be fascinating, as well as disgusting. There are happy, free-range chickens. There are also apparently a lot of very unhappy, caged chickens. The treatment of farm animals seems to vary quite a bit, and the economics of the food industry doesn't always account for the well-being of animals. However, the situation may be slowly changing as more humane techniques are developed, but until science figures out how to grow tasty meat in a petri dish, we'll still have to kill animals if we're going to continue to eat them.

By 2020, nearly all US chicken egg producers will stop the practice of culling male chicks. Male chickens that aren't specifically bred to grow fast (and obviously can't lay eggs) are economically useless to the chicken industry. So instead of killing male chicks in a blender shortly after they hatch, their embryos will simply never be allowed to gestate significantly. The chicken GATTACA future is here.
Vegans have discovered an egg substitute called aquafaba that's very simple to obtain. It's just chickpea brine -- the leftover water from a can of chickpeas. This stuff can be whipped like eggs and baked in a variety of desserts.
Japanese high school students have shown the world that a chicken egg can be incubated without a shell -- and still produce a live chick. This isn't the first time this technique has been used, but it's probably the first time an obscure scientific paper's procedure have been reproduced and watched online by millions of people.

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2 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 16 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Flying Around Everywhere..?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The promise of flying cars and a future like the Jetsons obviously hasn't come to pass, but people are still working on it. Yes, drivers haven't even mastered safely navigating roads, and adding another dimension and the risk of falling out of the sky isn't going to help. Still, we shouldn't let these challenges prevent us from trying to create an awesome and boundless future of flying safely to work or school or a grocery store. Maybe we'll have groceries delivered by drones, instead of needing to shop for them in person, but traveling everyday by flying shouldn't just be for the birds.

Larry Page owns not just one, but two flying car companies. Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk are the companies, out of about a dozen, that are working on some kind of flying car for personal transportation. [url]
Huge solar-powered airships from China could be floating 20 kilometers up in the sky someday. The Yuanmeng airship has been tested for 24 hours already, and it has a 5-7 ton payload capability. [url]
The solar-powered plane, Solar Impulse 2, recently landed in NYC and is preparing to cross the Atlantic next. This solar-powered plane is setting some records for endurance (not speed), but presumably the technology will get better and this demonstration will lead to more solar-powered flights around the world. [url]

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4 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 15 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Moonshot 2.0

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It's been a while since anyone has proposed and executed a plan as 'out there' as going to the moon in less than a decade. Sure, we have computers that can beat humans at Go, and we're on the cusp of using CRISPR for some amazing genetic modifications. However, we haven't really been serious about getting people off the planet -- and onto another planet -- for quite some time. Here are just a few moonshot-like projects for getting stuff into space, and perhaps making baby steps toward becoming a Type II civilization.

A California startup, Moon Express, is almost ready to get approval for landing a 20-pound spacecraft on the moon in 2017. This company is navigating both the rocket ~~science~~ engineering challenge AND the daunting regulatory approval process at the same time, and it's also competing in Google's Lunar X Prize contest for $20 million. [url]
A space elevator made from carbon nanotubes (CNTs) might not be practical because CNTs aren't as strong as previously thought. A single flaw in the structure of CNTs can reduce the material's maximum strength, rendering a CNT tether far from ideal for a space elevator. [url]
If everything goes according to plan, Elon Musk's SpaceX will land human beings on Mars in less than a decade. That's an extremely bold goal that goes well beyond JFK's moonshot in the 1960s -- and regular cargo trips to Mars could happen every couple years or so to prepare for this venture. [url]

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8 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 14 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Public Speaking Made Easy...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Talking in front of a big audience can be daunting, and there are a few organizations that try to help people get better at this skill (eg. Toastmasters, the Association of Speakers Clubs, POWERtalk, etc). But a great speech doesn't necessarily have to be delivered in front of a large, live audience, especially now that Youtube/Facebook can reach millions of people (sometimes unintentionally). Practice helps, but good video editing can be pretty important, too.

Chris Anderson knows a thing or two about what a good TED talk is. The original TED curator has a book on public speaking, and Anderson thinks anyone (who can tell a story to a group of friends at dinner) can become a good speaker. Perhaps Anderson has better dinner guests than average, though. [url]
A few years ago, The Onion made a classic TED talk parody. Too bad it was made before What Does The Fox Say? went viral, but The Onion had a whole series of TED-like videos, too. [url]
If you ever want to give a serious talk that appeals to a mass audience, just follow a few simple rules. Any presentation seem more legitimate if there are slides....

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4 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 13 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Classic Cars 2.0

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Cars have changed a lot over the past hundred years, and sometimes new cars don't quite look so great. It'd be nice to see some classic cars get modern technology in them, but it ain't simple or inexpensive. Check out a few of these classic cars that might get a modern makeover.

There's a converted 1978 Ferrari 308GTS with a range of about 80 miles. San Diego-based company, Electric GT, salvaged an old Ferrari and replaced its V8 internal combustion engine with 3 electric motors and a bunch of batteries. [url]
Jaguar is re-making a limited run of its 1950s XKSS supercars -- with some modern technology. For £1 million, you get a classic supercar that handles like a modern vehicle -- but it'll still have the same specs with a 340 horsepower 3.8L engine (no electric motors). [url]
If you prefer a classic American muscle car, you can get 95% of the parts for a 1964-66 Ford Mustang straight from Ford. You could build a classic Mustang on your own assembly line if you wanted, but it wouldn't be cheap. [url]

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6 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 10 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Big Data Isn't Necessarily Better

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The old -- Garbage In, Garbage Out -- GIGO principle originated during the early days of computing, but it may be even more applicable today. With the explosion of data available that can be collected, there's a temptation to assume that analyses and meta-analyses can make sense of all that data and produce incredible insights. However, we should probably have some skepticism before we jump into the deep end of data and expect miraculous results.

Microsoft researchers report that they think they can diagnose internet users with pancreatic cancer -- just by analyzing a large number of search requests. It's not clear what can be done with this research since the data was anonymized (and therefore no one can be contacted), and if users know their searches are being monitored for serious health issues -- will they continue to search using search engines that might creepily diagnose them? [url]
Google Flu Trends attempted to predict flu seasons based on people's searches, but it didn't end up doing such a great job. Future versions of this project could be better, but the initial success of predicting flu trends suffered acutely from "big data hubris" -- a treatable (hopefully) ailment. [url]
A widely-told parable warning of the mistakes using neural nets tells how the US Army once tried to train software to detect camouflaged tanks from various images. The complex software didn't learn how to detect tanks at all, but instead focused on the clouds that the algorithms determined correlated well with tanks. Oops. Who wants to trust AI to make life-or-death decisions if we can't understand what the machines are thinking? [url]

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3 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 9 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Wolves In Sheepdog's Clothing?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Man's best friend, the dog, has a mysterious and complex relationship with people. Ancient humans presumably domesticated wolves or some other closely related species a long time ago -- perhaps multiple times on different continents. The story of dogs and wolves and people is far from over, getting ever more interesting as we learn more about ancient dog specimens and create more genetically-engineered dogs.

IVF (aka in vitro fertilization) has been successful for a bunch of different animals, but only relatively recently with canine puppies. Test tube puppies can now be breed to become healthy adult dogs, and the techniques to do doggie IVF could also help bring back distantly-related wolf populations. [url]
Dogs and wolves can interbreed, suggesting that they are very closely related, if not the same, species. Defining what a species is -- is tricky, and the existence of the coywolf (a coyote, dog, wolf hybrid) makes the pedigree of dogs/wolves/coyotes a bit more complicated than one might have guessed. [url]
Wolves were re-introduced into Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s (after a decades-long absence), and a small population of wolves may have drastically changed the ecosystem and perhaps even the geography of the area. Subsequent studies of the wolves paint a more complex picture of this classic example of "trophic cascade" -- and the role of wolves may not be so directly correlated to thriving beaver populations or the feeding behavior of elk. [url]

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5 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 8 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Reusing Plastic Instead Of Throwing It All Away...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Disposable packaging adds up to a lot of trash. Sure, some of it gets recycled, but there's a significant amount that doesn't -- and ends up polluting the environment in mind-boggling ways. In the not-so-distant future, we might have more plastic in the ocean by weight than fish. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Making comfortable running shoes from plastic recycled from old fishing nets retrieved from the coast of Africa isn't the easiest way to recycle, but it might be one of the more fashionable ways. Adidas is only making 50 pairs of shoes made with this kind of recycled plastic, so it's nowhere near a sustainable manufacturing process. However, using more recycled plastics in fashionable items could catch on -- if it can be done economically. [url]
Do you have any idea what all those plastic recycling numbers mean? A bunch of common plastics that make up everyday containers can also be useful prototyping materials, so check out this brief guide to prototyping materials for which plastics might be suitable for DIY projects. [url]
Plastic garbage floating on water might be gathered up more easily with a "tractor beam" of small artificial surface waves. It would probably be a bit difficult to overcome the natural waves in the oceans to clean up garbage, but this is analogous to how trash in ocean gyres came about in the first place. [url]

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6 Comments

Posted on Techdirt - 7 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Antibiotic Resistance Is (Not) Futile...

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With the news that a "superbug" resistant to an antibiotic of last resort was found in the US, there's a bit of concern that medicine could regress significantly in the face of uncontrollable bacteria. We've had antibiotic drugs for about 70 years now, and we've grown accustomed to the effectiveness of these drugs. Hopefully, we can stay ahead of drug-resistant microbes with new pharmaceuticals or phage therapy.

Antibiotic resistance sounds like a new problem, but ancient microbes have been found with genes that make them resistant to modern drugs. DNA from 30,000-year-old permafrost shows that there were "superbugs" well before we even discovered antibiotic compounds. [url]
Waste water from various sources can obviously cause antibiotic-resistant bacteria to emerge. Heavy metal contamination in waste water may be a contributing factor, not just waste from residential sewage systems. [url]
If you're looking for a hand sanitizer that doesn't irritate your skin, try some quaternary ammonium salt formulations. Sure, you could use alcohol-based lotions or diluted chlorine solutions, but those ingredients can dry out your skin if you use them a lot. [url]

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Posted on Techdirt - 6 June 2016 @ 5:00pm

DailyDirt: Fingerprints And Watermarks On Everything?

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Making copies of physical goods is becoming easier and easier all the time. Some folks want to make sure that all these physical items are authentic, devising fingerprinting or watermark technology to identify objects uniquely. Dollar bills, documents and all kinds of valuable things could be tracked with this kind of anti-counterfeiting tagging. Here are just a few other examples of making a mark on stuff that could be useful.

SmartWater is a chemical fingerprint spray that can help identify thieves (who get caught) by covering them with a durable watermark. This stuff can stay on skin for months, and SmartWater has been a commercial product for decades now. [url]
Actual fragments of DNA injected into underground wells could help track hydrothermal water for drilling optimal wells for geothermal energy production. DNA-encoded materials can identify where water flows underground, and they're a bit more environmentally friendly and durable than radioactive tracers or chemical dyes. [url]
Wrinkled silica polymers can be formed into artificial fingerprints that could be used as anti-counterfeit tags. If artificially intelligent robots are going to take over the world someday, maybe we should give them fingerprints just like us. [url]

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