Radar detection of Heart Issues, Thermal Imaging to detect Cancer and are Aliens watching Us?
April 3
This week we discover a new way of using radar for early detection of heart problems. We investigate a development in Thermal Imaging that may allow us to detect cancer early. Finally we ask the question “Are Aliens watching us?”. We examine how many planets might have the capability of seeing us and we consider how easy it might be for Aliens to detect us.
Using Radar to detect Heart Issues
A team at the University of Waterloo have developed a small radar device that one day may be available everywhere people sit to help detect heart problems before they are otherwise identified. This might be in your car, on the couch, at the office, anywhere.
The system contains a super sensitive motion detector that is capable of registering the small chest movements created by a beating heart. A small box the size of a mobile phone is attached to the chair and emits radar waves that invisibly fan out. Barely perceptible chest movements are captured and analyzed.
Data collected by the device is converted into a heartbeat profile. Deviations from that normal profile are used to flag potential problems for further examination. For example the time it takes the heart to reset between beats is critical. If it is too long, it indicates an elevated risk of serious cardiac events.
Results take a few minutes and have an accuracy comparable to a medial grade ECG. The team is currently working on commercialization.
Using Thermal Imaging to Track our Health
A team at Georgia Tech have developed a system for collecting and processing thermal images that allows for a passive, reliable and detailed measurement of vital signs such as respiration, heart rate and body temperature.
The improvement in the system has come from eliminating the fuzziness of typical thermal images. Thermal images don’t usually sharply differentiate between subtle temperature variations. Heat in the environment can also make images too noisy for the level of precision required.
The team was able to show that they could precisely measure heart rate, respiration rate and body temperature from multiple parts of the body. Their tool can differentiate between people and accurately capture variations before and after exercise.
A series of filters was used to capture 10 images of different parts of the infrared spectrum. This is the wavelength where thermal radiation is detected. A mathematical tool was then used to resolve textures in 3 dimensions, smaller than a millimeter. This allowed the team to differentiate between fine thermal variations. For example between facial skin, thick hair near the scalp, thinner hair of the eyebrows and eye glasses.
The system could easily be integrated into hospital and other healthcare settings. This could give us a noninvasive way for early detection of cancer. Tumor cells require more oxygen to reproduce. This makes the temperature of a tumor higher than normal tissue.
The team hopes that the new system is a first step in the next generation of biomedical thermography for early detection and diagnosis of cancer.
Are Aliens Watching Us?
The existence of Aliens is a long pondered question with a range of fantastical answers. The Fermi Paradox tries to address the issue by describing the statistical likelihood of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations existing in the universe and the complete absence of observable evidence for such life (despite the claims from Roswell and elsewhere we have no real evidence).
The Fermi Paradox argues that the Milky Way contains 200 to 400 billion stars. The observable universe (only the bit we can see) contains 70 sextillion (7 with 22 zeros following) stars. We are constantly identifying planets orbiting starts, we have identified over 5,000 in our immediate neighborhood in the past couple of decades. We believe that most stars will have some sort of planetary system associated with them. The sheer number of potential habitats suggestions civilizations should be widespread.
Earth is about 4.5 billion years old which is far younger than the universe which is 13.8 billion years old. Even if older civilizations had travelled much slower than the speed of light, they could have colonized their galaxy within 5 to 50 million years. So where are all the aliens and the detectable artifacts that might prove their existence?
There are a range of philosophical arguments that try to explain the paradox. These include the hypothesis that the conditions for life are vanishingly rare, all other capable civilizations self destruct before colonizing their galaxy (this seems more and more probable every day given our current trajectory), advanced civilizations use technology that we can not currently detect and alien civilizations have arisen and died out long before we humans walked on this pale blue dot.
Where Aliens might be Watching Us
In 2021 a team at the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University and the American Museum of Natural History in New York identified 1,715 stars in our solar neighborhood that could have seen earth in the past 5,000 years. The way that we identify planets is when the planet orbits in front of its host star, slightly dimming the star and hinting at a planet in orbit. The team found 1,715 stars that had an orbit which would have allowed them to see our sun and the slight dimming from the earth during that 5,000 years.
Most of the known exoplanets that we have discovered are very close to their star so scorching hot. There are however about 3 dozen that we have found in the so called “Habitable Zone” that are cool enough to host life. There are likely many more that we have not found yet.
The European Space Agency’s Gaia mission launched in 2013 aims to survey 1% of the 100 million stars in the Milky Way (on a side note, Gaia was turned off this week). To date it has generated a catalogue of stars within 326 light years of our sun. Less than 1% of the 331,312 stars catalogued are at the right place to observe an Earth transition in front of the sun and thus identify us as an exoplanet. More data from Gaia is still to be analyzed.
Roughly 1,400 stars are currently in the right place to see Earth. This vantage point does not last forever as the cosmos is constantly moving. The Gaia mission has given us enough data to be able to simulate the movement of the surveyed stars over the past thousands of years. We can see what the cosmos looked like since the birth of civilization on Earth.
If we had been looking into the sky for orbiting planets 1,000 years ago we would have identified different planets that we would today. Using the Gaia simulation the team was able to estimate that 1,715 stars could have observed the earth in the past 5,000 years and an additional 319 stars will be able to observe the earth in the next 5,000 years. of these 2,034 stars there are only 7 known exoplanets with 3 in the Habitable Zone.
The three stars that host planets in the Habitable Zone are close enough to detect radio waves from Earth. Radio waves travel at the speed of light. Since we have had the capability to send out radio signals (just over 100 years ago) only 75 stars on the list have had the chance to pick up our radio signals. We just don’t know if nobody is listening or if we are being ignored.
Detecting Earth
Just how far away can Earth’s techno signatures be detected? Aliens could detect Earth from a range of signals that we emit everyday.
Radio Signals; 4G LTE cell towers, WiFi, GPS and radar continuously emit radio signals
Optical Signals; high powered lasers used for communication could be visible across interstellar distances.
Atmospheric and Surface Impacts, pollution such as nitrogen dioxide emissions, city lights on the earth’s night side could signal technological activity
Artificial objects; satellites, lunar landing modules and space debris highlight a technically advanced civilization.
Some of these signals are more detectable than others. Powerful radar bursts from the now decommissioned Arecibo Telescope (in Puerto Rico) could be observed from great distances. Low level radiation from 4G LTE signals could be detectible within about 4 light years (enough to reach Proxima Centauri our closest neighbor).
Most signals are weak compared to cosmic noise making detection difficult. Narrow band signals are clear advanced technology capability indicators. Many of our strongest signals are not evenly dispersed requiring any observer to be in the right place at the right time. Signals travel at the speed of light. The Arecibo messages have only travelled 50 light years since they were created in 1974.
As we grow as a civilization we will increase pollution (making us more detectible), advance our communication capabilities and enhance our understanding of how other alien civilizations might be able to detect us. One day they might find us, or we might find them.
Paying it Forward
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