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Will personal rapid transit -- or "pods" -- ever come to the United States?

Fifty years ago, we sure did love the monorail.  It was sleek, shiny, seemingly safe and, not surprisingly, a centerpiece of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.  Two years later, it starred again at the New York World’s Fair, as newsreel video gushed about its being the “train of the future.” Yes, as America moved forward into the 21st century, this was going to be our ride.

But, as we know, it didn’t work out that way.  To get a sense, though, of how much the thrill is gone–and not just with the monorail, but all public transportation–consider that next week the House of Representatives could vote on a bill that would change how mass transit projects are funded, making them easy targets for budget cutters.

That’s not to say that people aren’t developing innovative ways to help us get around.  We just need to look elsewhere now for the best examples.

Beat this, Superman!

High-speed trains epitomize how much some in the U.S. have fallen out of love with cutting-edge transit.  Not that long ago, states would have fought furiously for federal funding to help provide faster trains connecting their main cities.  Last year governors in Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida turned it down. And the one state where it would seem to have the best shot–California, where a high-speed line would run from San Francisco to Los Angeles–Gov. Jerry Brown, its biggest booster, is clearly facing an uphilll battle.

But in China (Isn’t it always China lately?) it’s a very different story. The country already has the world’s fastest rail line–the train running from Wuhan, in the heart of central China, to Guangzhou, on the southeastern coast, hit a top speed of 245 miles per hour in trials and averages 194 miles per hour on its trips. By 2020, bullet trains will connect all of China’s major cities and within the next five years, more high-speed rail likely will be added in China than the rest of the world combined.

This time it’s personal

They’re technically known as Personal Rapid Transit, or PRTs. But most people call them “pod cars.” Which makes sense since they really are electric pods with wheels.  No driver, no steering wheel, no accelerator.  They show up when requested, you and as many as three others get in, you press the start button and you’re off to your pre-programmed destination. They’ve been in use at London’s Heathrow Airport since last summer  and a bit longer to transport people around Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. Other PRT systems are being developed in South Korea and North India, the latter to provide easy access to the Golden Temple, the holy Sikh shrine in Amristar. Best bet for the first one in the U.S. is in San Jose, California, which has already committed $4 million for a study to see if it makes sense to have pod cars serving the city’s airport.

Cars standing by

In Paris, they’re taking the ZipCar concept up a notch. Through a system called AutoLib that launched last fall, people can rent a tiny electric “Bluecars,” much as you would a bike in one of the bike-sharing programs you see now in a lot of  U.S. cities. Once you register and get an ID badge, you can pick up a car at one of the 1,200 parking spaces–complete with charging stations–around the city.  You simply use your badge to unlock the vehicle.  The promise is that you can drive up to 150 miles on a single charge. They rent for roughly $13 a day or $20 a week. City officials say they hope to have 5,000 of the little cars buzzing around Paris’ streets by next year.

The real magic bus

The world’s first full-size, all-electric buses are also on the street and yes, they’re in China. Hunan Province has ordered 1,000 of them, but Chinese automaker BYD, which makes the silent vehicle, has big plans to export them around the world.  Hertz is already using one of the BYD buses at Los Angeles International Airport, and the Chinese company hopes to sell some to both Los Angeles and Chicago. The bus, which also has nine solar panels on its roof, can reportedly travel almost 190 miles on one charge.  If you have any doubts about this venture, note that both Warren Buffet and Bill Gates traveled to China for the launch of the new bus last fall.  Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway owns 10 percent of BYD.

This way up…and down

Sometimes what a city needs is a good escalator. That’s right, an escalator, and I’m not talking about some dinky moving stairway at the mall, but one that climbs hillsides like the old funiculars used to do. The world’s largest outdoor, covered escalator system started moving people up and down a Hong Kong hill in the mid-1990s and it has since transformed the section of the city known as Mid-Levels.   And last December, the city of Medellin in Colombia, opened a six-section, 1,200-foot-long escalator that climbs into one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Residents used to have walk up stairs equivalent to ascending a 28-story building.  Now what used to be a 30-minute hike takes them not much more than five minutes.

An update: Nevada announced last week that it has finalized regulations for driverless cars. (No, you can’t drink and “drive.”) Google has been lobbying the state to have its highways become the proving ground for the Google robot cars I wrote about last summer.

Video bonus: Take a ride in one of Heathrow’s pod cars in this clip from Reuters.

Is there an end in sight for Alzheimer's? Image courtesy of Flickr user Susan NYC

If you made it through the Grammy Awards Sunday night, you probably saw onetime country pop star Glen Campbell. And you may know that, like almost every singer who had a few hits in the 1970s, Campbell’s in the middle of a farewell tour.

But this isn’t some Rolling Stones’ “I-can-still-dance-and-wear-tight-pants” spectacle. This is a real Farewell Tour. Because Campbell, now 75, has Alzheimer’s disease. And it won’t be long before he won’t remember lyrics or how to play the songs he’s performed thousands of times. Then things will get considerably worse.

In a perfect world every Alzheimer’s patient would get a farewell tour, a chance to make one last sweep through a life before all the names and connections and memories get locked away inside a shuttered brain. But most don’t, and instead disengage from the world as their family and friends watch, with no way to slow the cruel decline. Right now there are more than 5 million people with Alzheimer’s in the U.S. alone, with that number expected to triple by 2050.

Unless…

Researchers discover a miracle drug that stops the downward spiral before it gets started. There’s been talk of this for years now, suggestions that scientists were getting close. It hasn’t happened. But just last week hopes were raised again with the report that researchers at Case Western Reserve in Ohio had made a remarkable discovery. After treating mice with a drug called bexarotene, usually a treatment for skin cancer, they found that, within 72 hours, the animals were able to start remembering things again.

The news set off a frenzy of calls to doctors from people anxious to know if this really was some magic cure. Could it actually reverse the horrible effects of Alzheimer’s on humans?

No one knows yet. It’s entirely possibile it will have little or no effect.  The scientists at Case Western hope to start a  small trial on humans this spring, which could last four months. But after that it’s hard to say how this will play out because the patents on bexarotene as a cancer drug, held by the Japanese pharmaceutical firm Eisai, Inc., run out this year and so far it hasn’t shown interest in funding the new research at Case Western.

Meanwhile, two other big pharmaceutical firms, Pfizer, Inc. and Eli Lilly will have data from trials on their own Alzheimer’s drugs later this year. Talk about high stakes–particularly for Pfizer, which badly needs a big seller, now that the patent on Lipitor, its cholesterol medication that was a cash cow for so many years, has run out. Can you imagine what it will mean to be first on the market with a truly effective Alzheimer’s treatment?

Darkness spreads

Two other discoveries announced this month, while not quite as dramatic as the bexarotene study, could be almost as pivotal in finding an effective treatment. The first, confirmed in separate studies at Harvard and Columbia, found that Alzheimer’s spreads from neuron to neuron along paths that nerve cells use to communicate with one another. And that suggests that one way to stop the disease would be to find a way to prevent cell-to-cell transmission.

In the other key finding, UCLA scientists determined that a brain imaging tool they developed could effectively track the buildup of memory-dimming plaque deposits in the brain, which could allow treatment to begin even before symptoms appear.

Consider them two more pieces that may help solve the nastiest brain puzzle of all.

Brain drains

Here’s more recent news on memory research:

• Shocking news: Researchers at UCLA found they were able to improve memory by using electrical stimulation on the part of the brain where the first signs of damage from Alzheimer’s usually appear.
• Forget how to count calories? Older people who consume more than 2,000 calories a day could double their risk of memory loss. That’s what scientists at the Mayo Clinic concluded after a study of 1,200 men and women in their 70s and 80s.
• Another reason not to wake me up: More evidence of the value of a good night’s sleep comes from researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.  They determined that there may be a link between “disrupted sleep” and the buildup of amyloid plaque in the brain, a marker of Alzheimer’s.
• Is 40 the new 60? A recent study in London found that cognitive function could actually start declining in people as young as 45.
• There’s an app for that? Yes, there now actually is a Facebook app, created in Singapore, that allows you to experience Alzheimer’s disease. It’s called Sort Me Out and it’s designed to give you a sense of what it feels like to lose your friends and memories.

Video bonus: Neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert thinks we give our brains too much credit.  In this TED talk, he argues that their real purpose is not to let us think, but rather to help us move.

Image courtey of Flickr user clarescupcakes.co.uk

Applying science to love is a fool’s game.

As much as we want there to be rules that always hold true, romance continues to confound us. And yet the quest goes on, with scientists checking hormone levels, doing brain scans, taking countless surveys with the goal of making love and attraction a little less inscrutable and knowing that our appetite for answers never wanes.

Take, for instance, the new book, “The Science of Relationships: Answers to Your Questions About Dating, Marriage and Family, and its companion website.  It’s all about the science, compiling research on the subject of love, while acknowledging, as co-author and Colorado State psychologist Jennifer Harman puts it, “the more work all of us do, the more we realize how much we don’t know.”

Among the things the scientists think they do know:

• When women are ovulating, they tend to be attracted to more manly men; when they’re not, they prefer guys with a softer side.
• Opposites may attract, but they dont’ last. People with similar body types tend to do better together in the long run.
• Women who listen to romantic lyrics are more likely to give their phone numbers to men.
• Men do not, as conventional wisdom has it, think of sex a few thousand times a day.  It’s more like 34.
• And this stunner: Everyone, including members of your own sex, looks better when you’re drinking. Who’d have thunk it?

The soulmate trap

Even companies in the business of matchmaking now say they’ve turned to science.  When outfits such as Match.com, eHarmony or Chemistry tell people they can help them find their soulmates, they usually cite their use of algorithms.  Ah algorithms, the secret sauce of personalization.  I mean, if they can help Google come up with matches for every word in the world, they should be able to zero in on the person of your dreams, right?

Don’t bet on it.  Certainly, that’s the advice of Eli Finkel, an associate professor of social psychology at Northwestern University and one of the authors of a study on online dating websites that will be published this month in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. Not that the researchers were able to analyze the matchmakers’ algorithms–it is secret sauce, after all. But Finkel says singles shouldn’t get their hopes up.

The problem, he and co-author Benjamin Karney, of UCLA, wrote in the New York Times yesterday, is that scientific studies suggest that you can’t really predict if two people can sustain a relationship until after they meet. What really counts is how they resolve disagreements. Also, online services tend to base their recommendations on similarities in personality and attitudes.  That may make for some fun dates, but, based on reams of research, it apparently doesn’t make a big difference over the long haul.

Conclude Finkel and Karney: “None of this suggests that online dating is any worse a method of meeting potential romantic partners than meeting in a bar or on the subway. But it’s no better either.”

There’s another downside to online dating, according to a different study, this one by researchers at the University of Rochester.  Because singles now have so many potential choices online, it found that more of them are treating the Web dating experience like a visit to the Amazon site, shopping for potential dates like shiny objects, running through mental checklists as they scroll through profiles. All of which results in unrealistic expectations that if they just keep looking, they’ll find a soulmate. Good luck with that.

Animal attraction

When it comes to demystifying attraction, though, sometimes only studying animal sex will do. Take , for example, new research that found that boosting the estrogen level in a male garter snake attracted dozens of other male snakes eager to mate with it.

But my personal favorite among recent studies involved fruit flies. Seems that researchers at the University of Michigan introduced a male fruit fly into a special chamber containing two female fruit flies. First, however, they decapitated the two females so, according to the report, they couldn’t “influence” the male fly.  (What, bat their lashes? Purse their lips?)  What they found is that the male was attracted to the headless female that smelled younger.  And then they repeated the experiment, and  this time the male made a beeline to an older fly because it has been covered with a younger fly’s pheremones.

So much for old spice.

Love talk

Here’s more of what’s new from the love and marriage front:

• Missing link: A study at the University of Utah found that when couples were separated four to seven days, their levels of the stress hormone cortisol rose and they didn’t sleep as well.
• The L word: Contrary to what most of us think, researchers at MIT discovered that it’s men who tend to say “I love you” first in a relationship. And the men usually were happier than the women when their partner said it. Unless it was after sex. Then the women were happier to hear it.
• Maybe because it lasted longer: In her book, “The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us,” University of Texas scientist Sheril Kirshenbaum says that research shows that our first kiss leaves a stronger impression than our first sexual encounter.
• The look of love: British scientists found that women thought a man was more attractive if they saw a photo of a pleasant-looking woman looking at him.
• What? Text messages don’t count? Just under half of the women surveyed in a British study said they’ve never received a love letter.  And only 10 percent of the men surveyed said they had written one.

Video Bonus: So where did all this Valentine’s Day stuff start? Would you believe a pagan ritual with an animal sacrifice?  You should probably stick with candy.

The Samsung Smart TV

Pity your poor TV.

Just a few years ago, it owned Super Bowl Sunday.  For hour after hour, it held every eye, every ear at every party.

But last Sunday things were different.  The TV was still in center ring, but there was all this other stuff going on.  Someone was playing “Words With Friends” over there, someone else was tweeting to pretend polar bears over there.  What’s up with that?  How could a TV lose the room during the Super Bowl?

The truth is that our TVs are now badly outnumbered by the other screens in our lives, screens on devices that, whether we like it or not, know a lot more about us.  In fact, research released today by Nielsen confirms that Americans under 35 are definitely spending less time in front of TV sets. Which is why a lot of people think that if TVs are going to get back on top of the heap, they have to get more like those other devices.  They have to get a lot smarter.

What makes you so smart?

Smart TVs have actually been around since 2009 when Samsung came up with the name to describe its TVs with Internet access.  But it was only last month, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, that they started being hailed as tech whose time has come.

So what exactly can a Smart TV do? For starters, it allows you to browse the Web. You can watch YouTube videos and finally blow up your Facebook page to a size fitting your greatness. You can transfer photos from your phone to the big screen. You can make Skype video calls.

But the real transformation of the TV into something more like a very large smart phone will come, not surprisingly, through apps. Samsung, for instance, offers a Netflix app and a Hulu Plus app so you can watch movies and TV shows on your own time, like you would on your laptop or an Xbox 360. It also has something called ESPN Next Level that layers the kind of stats sports geeks love over live game action. And then there’s a Social TV app which allows you and friends’ tweets to run down the screen as catty commentary while you’re watching the Oscars.  Two screens in one–now you’re talking. 

And then along came Apple

Still, there are those who feel that Smart TVs won’t really be all that smart until they can tell you which episodes of “Breaking Bad” you missed and can recommend other shows with the snarkiness of ”30 Rock.” Or when they’re connected by WiFi to every other device in your house–your smart phone, of course, but also your dishwasher and refrigerator (“Chill the brewskis, March Madness today.”).

Then there’s the remote problem. I mean, how smart can a device be if it relies on another one that’s a) designed to make you feel stupid and b) always lost?

And this is where the Apple intrigue begins. Looming over the future of Smart TV is Apple TV. Not that an Apple TV actually exists, but its aura does, fed by cryptic comments by Steve Jobs in Walter Isaacson’s biography. ”I’ve finally cracked it,” Jobs said of Smart TV, which in the tech world, qualifies as an Issac Newton moment.

So it was a big deal last week when it was reported that Apple’s been in touch with companies that make TV components. And then again a few days ago, when Best Buy sent out a survey to customers asking them if they’d be interested in a product it described as an “Apple HDTV.”

The notion that Steve Jobs from beyond the grave will do for Smart TV what he did for smart phones has tech writers channeling Talmudic scholars as they try to interpret just what he meant. Nick Bilton, for one, writing for the “Bits” blog in the New York Times, posits that Jobs wasn’t just talking about the TV’s interface, but rather how artificial intelligence (AI) software could change the whole TV-watching experience. Jobs, he says, was talking about Siri, the digital personal assistant on the iPhone 4S that ‘s become the voice of AI.

Sure, other entertainment systems, such as Xbox 360 Kinect respond to hand gestures and voice commands.  But Siri can carry on the semblance of a conversation.  Imagine…

“Siri, how about another episode of ‘Cops’?”

“Are you sure that’s what you really want to watch?”

“Yes, Siri, that’s what I want.”

“But you know that’s not good for you.  Might I recommend ‘Downton Abbey’?”

TV or not TV

Here’s some other recent news on the TV front:

• Killer ads: One group that’s especially jazzed about the potential of Smart TV is advertisers, who are starting to imagine what’s possible when you combine the emotional power of the big screen with the targeting precision of Web advertising.
• Finally, couch potatoes get a little credit: A new iPhone and iPad app called Viggle can track what you’re watching on TV, then gives you credits at the rate of two points per minute. Rack up enough points and you can win a $5 gift card to places like Burger King and Starbucks.  May not seem like much, but you’ll know you earned that latte.
• Watch and buy: A mobile app called Zeebox is hoping to make a business out of making it easier to buy things you see on TV.
• TV goes new school: Another indication that Smart TV is percolating was the announcement this week that Flingo, a company that makes TV apps, has landed $7 million in venture capital funding.

Video bonus: Want to see for yourself? Here’s a quick tutorial on what a Samsung Smart TV can do.

3D contact lenses are already being designed for the U.S. military

The Super Bowl is over and now we have to face an ugly reality.  It’s February and we’re only one week in.

With the hope of lifting your spirits, here are 10 examples of innovative thinking to remind you that better things are coming.

The movie inside my head: Here’s something you could use some grim February afternoon, although alas, not this month. But by 2014 we could have contact lenses that display computer-generated, panoramic 3D images that make the real world go away. They’re being developed for the U.S. military by the Washington State company Innovega, with the idea that soldiers could have maps or other critical data fed directly to their contacts.  But gamers probably won’t be far behind and it will only be a matter of time before the rest of us are able to have very private screenings inside our heads.

Dunkin’ iPhones: Drop your phone in the sink and you’re pretty much headed for a bad day.  But a California start-up named Liquipel says it has created a coating that will protect your phone in the event of a dreaded dip.  And the word is that both the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S3 will come with the wondrous waterproofing.

Seeing green: For those already dreaming about getting on your bike again, a new invention should make city riding a bit safer.  Called the Intersector, it uses a microwave radar gun to calculate the speed and length of approaching objects.  If it determines a car is coming into an intersection, the light stays green for four seconds; if it’s a bike, the green last for 14 seconds.  The nifty device is now being tested in a handful of California cities.

When cans chill: When spring comes, so will the first self-chilling can. Joseph Company International will start selling in California and Las Vegas an all-natural energy drink called  West Coast Chill that not only provides a jolt, but also absolves you of the weighty responsibility of putting it in the refrigerator.  Just press a button on the can and the temperature of the liquid inside drops 30 degrees F.  How did we do without this?

Chew your package: While we’re on the subject of packaging that makes our lives even easier, we may soon, thanks to Harvard researchers, have containers we can eat. The scientists call them WikiCells. They’re food membranes held together by electrostatic forces and they work like an edible, biodegradeable shell that’s gotta taste better than cardboard.

Does this make me look virtually fat? It will also become easier to buy clothes online. Make that to buy clothes online that fit. Using the same kind of 3D camera technology as Microsoft Kinect, the British firm BodyMetrics has come up with a way to let you try on clothes without actually trying them on. By creating a 3D map of your body, it will show you precisely how clothes will fit you, not Heidi Klum. Don’t be surprised to see this technology available on the Amazon website. And eventually, with 3D cameras in new models of Smart TVs, your living room could also become your fitting room.

Wearin’ of the screen: Not only will your clothes fit better, but they’ll also be able to turn into actual touch screens. Canadian scientists are testing new fibers that will keep clothing soft and flexible while it doubles as a sensor. Soon you may be able to turn up the music by simply brushing your sleeve or take your blood pressure without lifting a finger.

Thanks for sharing: Why should you have to search all over the place to see the video clips on YouTube or Vimeo that your friends have shared through social networks? Now you don’t. A new iPad app called Showyou pulls thumbnail images for all of them into one easy-to-use grid that turns your friends’ recommendations into Web video programming. What are friends for?

Coming soon: The Robot Diet: If we assume that robots will be doing a lot of our work in the future, here’s more good news. We may not have to worry about them running out of batteries. British scientists are making progress in getting robots to run on biological fuel, causing some to speculate that they’ll one day be able to live on dead insects, rotting plants and yes, human waste.

Now this would make a great halftime show: In case the above info makes you think less of our robot friends, take a look of this video of flying “nano quadrators” or little bots developed at the University of Pennsylvania. And prepare to be awed by how they fly in formation. If not for all of the Super Bowl ads put online before the game, this would have been the most popular clip on YouTube last week with more than 3 million views.

Video bonus: No matter how grim things may get this month, one surefire way to keep everything in perspective is to spend a little time gazing at photos of Earth from space. Check out this “Science Friday” clip on how NASA creates the images of our home planet.