Fixing Hearing Loss, Tongue controlled Mouse and a Rocket powered Spaceplane

May 4

The week we examine a new way of fixing hearing loss. We investigate a Rocket powered spaceplane and a tongue controlled mouse that lets you take control of your computer by using your mouth. Finally we discover an AI that will look at your fridge and suggest a recipe from the ingredients.

Fixing Hearing Loss

We know that if we damage the hair cells in the inner ear that enable hearing we will suffer a loss of hearing. The hair cells in the inner ear are like biological microphones that help pass the sound signal from the inner ear to the brain. Exposure to high levels of sound over prolonged periods is known to damage hearing in this way. As we age the amount of damage that we have done over our lifetime starts to bite and we need hearing assistance.

A team at Harvard Medical School have developed a drug cocktail of molecules that they believe can successfully regenerate the hair cells in the inner ear. They have been able to get the hair cells to regrow in mice by reprogramming genetic pathways in the inner ear. Unlike certain species of fish, birds and reptiles, humans do not have the ability to regenerate these hair cells

The hairs of the inner ear (photo by Steve Gschmeisser)

The team used small interfering RNAs (siRNA) to remove the genes that suppressed the activation of a genetic pathway to regrow the hair cells. When the cocktail of drugs was delivered to the inner ear of mice, the mice were able to regenerate new hair cells that appeared to be fully functioning (you can’t really ask a mouse “did you hear that”).

The next step is to try the process out on larger animals before preparing for clinical trials in Humans. If the team succeeds in bringing the treatment to market it will help the many people that have suffered partial hearing loss.

Rocket Powered Spaceplane

New Zealand startup, Dawn Aerospace has flown it’s rocket powered spaceplane for the first time. They then flew it the next day and again the following day. Quite an achievement for a rocket powered aircraft.

Most rockets are designed to get the main module to space and then to burn up in the atmosphere. SpaceX have developed a reusable rocket that can land itself however it takes at least 21 days to refurbish the rocket for the next flight. Every launch must be also be individually approved by regulators. The ability to reuse rockets brings down the cost per launch significantly. If the need to have every flight approved by a regulatory body, the cost will fall further.

Dawn has designed its’ rocket powered spaceplane to be able to reach space twice per day. They are doing this by certifying the spaceplane as an aircraft. The plane takes off and lands horizontally which allows for this approval. The removal of regulatory approval for every flight speeds up the reuse of the rockets and dramatically reduces the cost of each flight.

The spaceplane is only 15 feet long and designed to carry a 5kg (max 3 liter) cargo to space. Perfect for applications in earth observation, atmospheric research, climate monitoring, communications, microgravity research and more. The plane is remotely piloted and flies in a parabolic trajectory at Mach 3+. The payloads can be delivered to the upper atmosphere and the edge of space (110 kilometers max altitude).

Once the current plane is operating commercially, Dawn plans to start work on a new more powerful spaceplane that can take cargo to Low Earth Orbit (up to 2,000 kilometers above earth).

Tongue controlled Mouse

San Francisco based firm, Augmented Technologies have developed a bluetooth mouse designed to be worn inside the user’s mouth. The MouthPad was designed to be used by paraplegics to be able to use their computers, smartphones, tablets and other electronics.

The MouthPad is worn like a mouthguard and uses a tongue sensitive trackpad. Right clicks and left clicks are performed by a suck in gesture and a tongue press.

Each device is fully personalized to the user via a process of intra-oral scanning. This generates a 3D model of the mouth from which a custom device is designed and printed with dental resin. A flexible circuit board with sensors, a processing unit and a bluetooth radio are all sealed in a watertight casing that protects the technology from saliva. The MouthPad will connect with iOS and Android devices, Windows, Mac and Linus based desktops and laptops.

The MouthPad may have further uses beyond helping the disabled. Applications in surgery, laboratories and factories may benefit from one hand being freed up for other uses. Leisure users of audio and visual AR devices may want their hands free but still be able to control the AR device.

Using AI in the Kitchen

We are seeing AI in more and more of everyday life. A team at PeopleTec, an Alabama based company have developed an AI that can look at your fridge and suggest recipes based upon what is inside.

The team started on the project in 2020. They had a party game where one team would propose a list of ingredients and another would use an AI language model to dream up an original recipe. Since then, language models have improved enormously and computer vision can better recognize ingredients.

The new AI model is based upon models that can identify objects in images and GPT-4 from OpenAI. To achieve recipe generation from imagery, they used Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of models for image analysis and combined that with the text generator underpinning ChatGPT. The model was then trained on over 2000 images of open refrigerators with different sets of ingredients. The Language Model then generated a 100 page recipe book with interesting and unique recipes.

The AI is asked to construct a plausible cooking recipe, including the expected title, proportions and steps to make the dish. The AI can also be challenged in various ways by asking it to minimize the cost of the meal, change or vary portion sizes and to accommodate specific dietary restrictions. The Large Language model breakthroughs of the last few months have made this possible. The next step is to develop a phone app that can easily be used by amateur and professional chefs.

Paying it Forward

If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.

If you have any questions or comments please comment below.

I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.

Till next week.