Robocop-style headsets, virtual reality worlds and designer smells are on offer as leading scientists invite Londoners to take a tour around their own senses.
Anne Corbett
Over the next month, the Dana Centre hosts a series of events showcasing cutting-edge research into the human senses.
Research in this area comes from many disciplines, including molecular and cellular biology, nanotechnology and bionics. With the fundamental mechanisms behind each of the senses firmly established, research now follows two overlapping directives: to fully dissect the functions of the senses at a molecular level, and to use this knowledge to mimic or enhance them.
To coincide with the Five Senses series, Nature Network London looks at the London participants, and other sensory research in the capital.
Sound
To open the series, BAFTA-award winners Braunarts have developed a 3-D sound installation, ‘Ah,…the sea’. The soundscape demonstrates the versatility of the newest audio technology, encouraging people to think about the sound around them, to manipulate and edit it for themselves, and to question their assumptions about how they hear it. Creator Terry Braun explains, “We want them always to be asking, ‘Does this sound real?’ – and is it important if it sounds real?".
The Sound evening includes a talk from Bill Davies of the Positive Soundscape Project, a collaborative effort including the London College of Communication. The project investigates the positive psychological effects of noise in the urban soundscape, and their implications for building design. It also incorporates live brain imaging to identify how the brain responds to different auditory stimuli. The work has produced some surprising results, revealing the soothing effect of traffic noise and the undesirability of total silence.
Project manager Joanne Leach says, “Hubbub is valued. We should not be trying to design noise out. We want to bring back the human element and create a pleasing soundscape.”
Several groups in London are studying the negative impact of noise, including a project run by the Centre for Environmental Acoustics at the London South Bank University looking at its effect on children, and the design of acoustically beneficial classrooms. A group led by Deepak Prasher at UCL has recently published a link between long-term noise and heart disease. Meanwhile, Emmanual Drakakis is amongst engineers at Imperial who are developing more sophisticated processors for cochlear implants and bionic ears.
Ah,…the sea 17–21 September
Sound 18 September
Sight
This evening is led by Patrick Degenaar from Imperial, who directs a project to produce prosthetic retinas for the visually impaired. His unique approach disregards the use of inefficient, invasive electronic chips to stimulate retinal cells. Instead he’s developed a headset that processes images in real time and uses them to stimulate individual ganglion cells on the retina, seeking to emulate the human design as closely as possible. He explains, “We want to take the best ideas from the human eye. It’s a beautiful system. We have to take inspiration from it and transfer it over.” Visitors can try the headset, which gives partially sighted people a clearer image of the world.
Across London, a variety of disciplines work on vision. Imperial scientists Kim Parker and Anil Bharath are developing algorithms to image retinal vasculature in extraordinary new detail, for early diagnosis of diabetes, high blood pressure and retinopathy. Bharath also models the visual cortex to develop analysis systems with the adaptive properties of human vision.
Meanwhile, clinicians at the Cognitive Neurology Laboratory are investigating the mechanisms behind disorders of visual attention and perception. Additionally, a group led by Kevin Gregory-Evans is modifying embryonic stem cells to treat age-related macular degeneration of the retina (AMD) by delivering a neutrotrophic factor to the retina to inhibit cell death.
Sight 25 September
Touch
The Touch event looks at haptic technology, including its applications for virtual worlds and video games. Much of the work in this field is done at UCL, where a collaboration with MIT’s TouchLab aims to introduce touch to the internet. By manipulating computer connections, synchronising pressure sensors and employing actuators to mimic natural touch, users might feel objects, and even people, via the internet. The research has clear applications for the visually and audibly impaired, and would introduce another dimension to the internet for all users.
A project at UCL, Presenccia, is also developing this technology to give patients with paralysis the ability to ‘move’ through a virtual world using just their imagination. Meanwhile, scientists at Imperial led by David Brooks and Paola Piccini are studying muscle coordination by the brain, using positron emission tomography to dissect the anatomy of motor control.
Touch 2 October
Smell
This event exhibits electronic noses. The technology relies on molecule recognition by shape and size, but research led by Andrew Horsfield at the London Centre for Nanotechnology has shown that our human sense of smell is far more complex. We can identify molecules by their vibrational frequency, a method familiar from the laboratory in infrared spectroscopy. “How,” asks Horsfield “can you fit a whole spectrometer into the nose? This is where the difficult physics comes in.” He explains that receptors in the nose excite electrons in the odour molecule, which vibrates in a very specific way. It could be possible to apply this idea to make a new generation of electronic noses, but as yet this technology is in its infancy.
Meanwhile, other aspects of smell are being explored at UCL, where Michael Abraham’s group is investigating the odour thresholds of human noses. And at King’s College, the Industrial Emissions Team carry out assessments of odour pollution in the environment.
Smell 9 October
Taste
The Taste evening focuses on potential applications of nanotechnology in the food industry. Ongoing research is developing ‘on-demand’ food, which consumers could modify to suit their own nutritional needs and tastes. The idea relies on nanocapsules containing flavour enhancers or additional nutrients.
The so-called ‘nanofood market’ has avoided publicity over fears of an initially negative public reaction. News of the research is gradually becoming available but the industry remains very secretive because, as Vic Morris at the Institute of Food Research explains, “The difficulty is that nanotechnology products in food would need clearance as novel foods and hence there is some degree of sensitivity and secrecy about research in this area”.
A new centre at King’s College, funded by Tate and Lyle, is studying the link between nutrition and health. Their work will include a carbohydrate laboratory where scientists are researching the role of carbohydrates in gut health and their potential use in preventing metabolic syndrome associated with diabetes and heart disease. Meanwhile a group at Imperial is investigating dynamics of cholesterol in the body by modelling glucose and lipoprotein metabolism.
Taste 11 October