In this Tokyo cafe, the waiters are robots operated remotely by people with disabilities

A pop-up restaurant in Tokyo has run a trial employing disabled people to work as waiting staff. But this is no ordinary trial. Instead of taking orders or clearing tables themselves, the staff of the Dawn ver.β cafe were piloting a team of robots from the comfort of their homes.

The robots were developed by Kentaro “Ory” Yoshifuji, CEO of the Ory Lab, which he set up with co-founders, Aki Yuki and Yoshifumi Shiiba. The remote-controlled OriHime-D robots are part of on an ongoing project to use technology to combat social isolation. They stand 1.2 metres tall and have expressionless, white faces reminiscent of Japanese Noh masks. They transmit video and audio back to their controllers, who are able to direct them from home via a smartphone or tablet.

The cafe is named after a similar establishment in a 2008 anime called Time of Eve, where robots and humans co-exist as equals. The addition of ver.β (beta) to the cafe’s name was there to show it was a work in progress – a beta version.

Five OriHime-D robots were used during the trial, and they were controlled by a team of 10 people, with a range of conditions including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common motor-neuron disease. They were all paid 1000 yen ($8) per hour, which is just above the minimum wage in Japan.

Even people with very limited mobility are able to interact with and control OriHime-D robots. Ory Labs has created a video showing how a man who is only able to move his eyes can still operate the robot, and another where a man in a hospital bed gets an OriHime-D to hand a cup of coffee to a waiting Yoshifuji.

Yoshifuji has an impressive track record as an inventor with an interest in using technology for good. Between the ages of 10 and 14 he did not attend school due to poor health and went on to represent Japan in the 2005 Intel Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), with a project designed to help wheelchairs climb curbs. It was the years he spent missing out on school that ultimately led to the development of OriHime, which he sees as a way to help people overcome adversity and disability to actively participate in society through the use of avatars.

There are 75 million people in the world who need a wheelchair but only 5% to 15% of those in need actually have access to one. Globally, there are an estimated 200 million visually impaired people and 466 million people with hearing loss who aren’t able to access help. But in recent years, the topic of assistive technology has started to attract more attention.

While there are still many accessibility barriers technology can be used to break down, the use of robots is already underway in some situations. The Shin-tomi nursing home in Tokyo has around 20 different robots in use performing different aspects of residents’ care, from leading exercise sessions to powering interactive soft toys.

Voyager 2 has reached interstellar space

NASA’s Voyager 2 has become the second human-made object in history to reach the edge of our solar system, after the spacecraft exited the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun.

Its twin, Voyager 1, crossed this boundary in 2012, but Voyager 2 — launched 41 years ago — carries a working instrument that will provide first-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway into interstellar space.

Voyager 2 now is slightly more than 18 billion kilometres from Earth. While the probes have left the heliosphere, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have not yet left the solar system, and won’t be leaving anytime soon.

Mission operators still can communicate with Voyager 2 as it enters this new phase of its journey, but information — moving at the speed of light — takes about 16.5 hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth. By comparison, light travelling from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach Earth.

NASA also is preparing an additional mission — the upcoming Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), due to launch in 2024 — to capitalise on the Voyagers’ observations. Voyager 2 launched in 1977, 16 days before Voyager 1, and both have travelled well beyond their original destinations. The spacecraft were built to last five years and conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn.

However, as the mission continued, additional flybys of the two outermost giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, proved possible.

Helmholtz & his revolutionary Ophthalmoscope

Dec. 6, 1850 - Hermann von Helmholtz demonstrated his revolutionary ophthalmoscope to the Berlin Physical Society.

Ophthalmoscopy, also called funduscopy, is a test that allows a health professional to see inside the fundus of the eye and other structures using an ophthalmoscope (or funduscope). It is done as part of an eye examination and may be done as part of a routine physical examination. It is crucial in determining the health of the retina, optic disc, and vitreous humor.

History

Although some credit the invention of the ophthalmoscope to Charles Babbage in 1847, it was not until it was independently reinvented by Hermann von Helmholtz that its usefulness was recognized - it was to revolutionize ophthalmology.

Hermann von Helmholtz

While training in France, Andreas Anagnostakis, an ophthalmologist from Greece, came up with the idea of making the instrument hand-held by adding a concave mirror. Austin Barnett created a model for Anagnostakis, which he used in his practice and subsequently when presented at the first Ophthalmological Conference in Brussels in 1857, the instrument became very popular among ophthalmologists.

In 1915, Francis A. Welch and William Noah Allyn invented the world's first hand-held direct illuminating ophthalmoscope, precursor to the device now used by clinicians around the world. This refinement and updating of von Helmholtz's invention enabled ophthalmoscopy to become one of the most ubiquitous medical screening techniques in the world today. The company Welch Allyn started as a result of this invention.

Medical Use

Ophthalmoscopy is done as part of a routine physical or complete eye examination. It is used to detect and evaluate symptoms of various retinal vascular diseases or eye diseases such as glaucoma.

In patients with headaches, the finding of swollen optic discs, or papilledema, on ophthalmoscopy is a key sign, as this indicates raised intracranial pressure (ICP) which could be due to hydrocephalus, benign intracranial hypertension or brain tumor, amongst other conditions. Cupped optic discs are seen in glaucoma.

In patients with diabetes mellitus, regular ophthalmoscopic eye examinations are important to screen for diabetic retinopathy as visual loss due to diabetes can be prevented by retinal laser treatment if retinopathy is spotted early.

In arterial hypertension, hypertensive changes of the retina closely mimic those in the brain, and may predict cerebrovascular accidents (strokes).

Etymology

The word ophthalmoscopy uses combining forms of ophthalmo- + -scopy, yielding "viewing the eye". The word funduscopy derives from fundus + -scopy, yielding "viewing the far inside".

Scientists have successfully created a fifth state of matter in space

In 1995, researchers were able to prove that a fifth state of matter — the Bose-Einstein condensate — could be created at very low temperatures. Until recently, this state of aggregation could only be generated using high-vacuum apparatus on Earth and was the state was extremely short-lived due to gravity. However, a German research team has now succeeded in generating and studying the Bose-Einstein condensate using an unmanned space rocket.

In addition to the standard aggregate states of solid, liquid, and gas, matter can also have other states. A gas, for example, can be ionised at high temperatures to form a plasma.

In 1995, researchers were able to prove that a fifth state of matter could be created at very low temperatures — the Bose-Einstein condensate.

In quantum mechanics, the Bose-Einstein condensate is used to conduct quantum experiments. For example, it can be used to study gravitational waves or the Earth's gravitational field. Until now, however, this special state of aggregation could only be generated using high-vacuum apparatus on Earth and the state was extremely short-lived due to gravity. A German research team has now succeeded for the first time in generating and studying the Bose-Einstein condensate on board an unmanned space rocket. The duration of experiments is limited by gravity.

The formation of such a condensate at extremely low temperatures was first predicted by the two physicists Satyendranath Bose and Albert Einstein. Researchers detected the Bose-Einstein condensate after cooling atoms to a temperature only one millionth of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin).

As the atoms are cooled, the movement of atoms decreases and, at the same time, the wavelength of the particles increases. Near absolute zero, an almost complete standstill is reached and the wave functions (each particle is described in quantum mechanics with its own wave function) of the individual particles overlap. In this state, all atoms in the system have the same physical properties — they behave like a single atom or a superatom.

Although experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates are extremely useful, they have so far proved difficult to carry out: due to the gravitational forces acting on the atoms in the condensate cloud, they fall down in a very short time and experiments can't continue.

In order to be able to study the cold condensate cloud for longer, researchers therefore use very high drop towers. In this way, the duration of the experiments can be extended.

But even very tall drop towers such as the 122-metre tower in Bremen, you can only achieve free-fall in weightlessness for a few seconds — or as we call it, microgravity," explained Maike Lachmann from the University of Hanover in World of Physics. "In space, on the other hand, much longer and more precise measurements can be made".

In order to conduct experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates in space, researchers developed a chip made of rubidium atoms and, in January 2017, transported it aboard space rocket MAIUS-1 from Esrange Space Center.

Once in space, the temperature of the atoms was reduced by laser and evaporative cooling until the condensate formed. The researchers were then able to investigate how the atomic gas behaved when manipulated in different ways. During its boost phase and six-minute space flight, 110 experiments were performed.

In 2020 and 2021, further experiments will be carried out, including experiments with potassium atoms. Researchers from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and NASA will use the findings of the German researchers in future for their own research on cold quantum gases aboard the ISS.

Source - Business Insider Deutschland