Surgeon Plans First Human Head Transplant Next Year

The neurosurgeon who intends to attempts the first ever human head transplant says he hopes to do so in the UK next year. Maverick and often criticized professor Sergio Canavero made the announcement while revealing a virtual reality project that he hopes will be used to get his patient ready for the experience of gaining a new body. The patient – Russian Valery Spiridinov – has already been chosen and the two hope to attach his head to a donor body. The operation will involve freezing Spridinov’s head and cutting it from his body. It would then be fused onto a donor body. Professor Canavero said the UK looked to be the “most promising place” in Europe to conduct the procedure, partly due to the huge support that he has received from the country. The operation could lead to “unexpected psychological reactions” in the patient – with one expert saying the experience could be “worse than death” – and so the virtual reality system is intended to avoid those. Professor Canavero said: “This virtual reality system prepares the patient in the best possible way for a new world… in which he will be able to walk again.” “ I do believe that it could get real traction if we push it hard here, so it is time for you here in Britain to start discussing all the ethical implications and if you are willing to see this happen here, because if the UK says no then it will be somewhere else.” In the system created by US firm Inventum Bioengineering Technologies, patients would participate in sessions for months before the surgery. Prospective patient Spiridonov said: “Virtual reality simulations are extremely important as it allows you to get involved in action and learn fast and efficiently. As a computer scientist I am extremely certain that it is an essential technology.” The procedure for cutting the spinal cord is said to be so delicate, with the need to avoid nerves, that Prof Farid Amirouche at the University of Illinois has developed a knife that can control cuts to a micrometer (one millionth of a metre).

Soon, Charge Your Phone In Seconds

You could soon charge your smartphones within seconds, thanks to scientists, including one of Indian origin, who have developed new flexible super-capacitors that can be recharged more than 30,000 times without degrading. After 18 months or so, smartphones hold charge for less and less time as the battery begins to degrade. Scientists from University of Central Florida (UCF) in the US developed a new process for creating the novel super-capacitors. The novel method could eventually revolutionize technology as varied as mobile phones and electric vehicles. If we were to replace the batteries with these super-capacitors, you could charge your mobile phone in a few seconds and you wouldn’t need to charge it again for over a week.

With This Paint, Your Walls Can Generate Power

The walls of your home could soon produce electricity, thanks to a new thermoelectric plant which captures the waste heat from hot surfaces and converts it into electrical energy, scientists say. Scientists expect that the thermoelectric painting technique can be applied to waste heat recovery from large-scale heat recovery from large-scale heat source surfaces. For example, the temperature of a building’s roof and walls increases to more than 50°C in the summer.

Half The World To Be Online By Year-End

By the end of 2016, almost half of the world’s population will be using the internet as mobile networks grow and prices fall, but their numbers will remain concentrated in the developed world, a UN agency said on 22 November. In the world’s developed countries about 80% of the population uses the internet. But only about 40% in developing countries and less than 15% in less-developed countries are online, according to a report by the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU). In several of Africa’s poorer and more fragile countries, only one person in 10 is on the internet. The offline population is female, elderly, less educated, and poorer and lives in rural areas, said the union, specialized agency for information and communication technologies. Globally, 47% of the world’s population is online, still far short of a UN target of 60% by 2020. Some 3.9 billion people, more than half the world’s population, are not. ITU expects 3.5 billion people to have access by the end of this year. In 2016, people no longer go online, they are online. The spread of 3G and 4G networks across the world had brought the internet to more and more people. Telecoms and internet firms are expanding as more affordable smartphones encourage users to browse the internet, causing demand to grow for data-heavy services. However, less developed countries (LDCs) still trail the rest of the world. Internet penetration levels in LDCs today are lagging 20 years behind the developed countries, report said, blaming high cost of services and of extending infrastructure to rural areas and the high price of cellular use.