December 10, 2019
FLIES LIKE A DREAM
It was one of those bolts of inspiration that rousts an engineer from sleep and sends him scrambling for a piece of paper. Michimasa Fujino was researching aircraft design for the Japanese automaker Honda when, in the middle of the night, it hit him: What about a plane with a dolphinlike nose and engines mounted over the wings? Two decades later, you can see the fruits of that idea in skies around the world: the HondaJet, a sleek, eye-catching business plane that has the crisp handling of a sports car and the efficient power granted by a pair of GE HF120 turbofan engines. On the strength of Fujino’s design, the Honda Aircraft Company grew into the sixth-largest maker of business jets last year, attracting not just busy execs but air ambulance services — and one very famous pilot.
Cruise altitude: Admittedly, Tom Cruise is less famous for being an amateur pilot than he is for the “Mission Impossible” movies, not to mention “Top Gun.” But not long ago, the actor got a behind-the-scenes look at HondaJet’s headquarters in North Carolina — where he also got an intensive training course for new owners of the plane. “He was one of the best-prepared pilots for the training and our instructor was very impressed by him,” said Fujino, now CEO of Honda Aircraft Company. The movie-star market isn’t the only place HondaJet is spreading its wings. Purchased by the air ambulance service Wing Spirit, several of the planes are set to go into medevac service in 2020 in Hawaii, where they’ll be particularly suited to island-hopping in medical cases where time is of the essence. “It is gratifying to see that our advanced technologies are tapping into new markets and that our hard work is paying off,” Fujino said.
Learn more here about the HondaJet’s journey.
BITS AND BYTES
Nestled in the hills of eastern Tennessee, the storied Oak Ridge National Laboratory made history as part of the Manhattan Project, demonstrating the crucial ability to produce plutonium from uranium in a nuclear reactor. Today ORNL is still concerned with tiny bits of matter, but its scientists are focused on another piece of potentially world-changing technology altogether: 3D printing. This computer-controlled manufacturing process relies on lasers to build objects layer by layer from fine metal powders. In October, GE Additive signed a five-year cooperative research and development agreement with ORNL to combine the lab’s research capabilities with GE’s experience in 3D-printing products from metals.
Heavy metal potential: Metal is one ingredient in the 3D-printing revolution — another is data. Sensors attached to 3D printers can monitor everything from fluctuations in heat to the chemistry of the powders, information that can be used to optimize production processes and steer clear of error. They generate so much data, in fact, that analyzing it on traditional computers would take ages. Enter Summit, the most powerful computer in the world — which lives at ORNL and is capable of completing 200 quadrillion calculations per second. The hope is that, ultimately, the findings can be integrated into AI-driven software that can make adjustments to manufacturing equipment in real time. “This industry is still in its infancy,” said Christine Furstoss, vice president of advanced manufacturing at GE Additive. “We don’t have 50 or 60 years of processing knowledge and people studying it, like traditional manufacturing. That’s why relationships like this are so important.”
Learn more here about what GE Additive and ORNL are building together in Tennessee.
BREATHING EASIER
Emergency room physicians know that shortness of breath can be caused by a number of problems, including heart attack, panic attack, or collapsed lung — and when they see a patient struggling to breathe, docs need to know ASAP what they’re looking at. Collapsed lung, or pneumothorax, affects some 74,000 Americans each year; it can be detected by X-ray and is easily treatable if caught early. But it’s that early detection that’s key, said Dr. Rachael Callcut, a surgeon at University of California San Francisco's Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center and director of data science for the Center for Digital Health Innovation: “The timing of the diagnosis is important. The longer we go without knowing, the higher the risk to the patient.
The smart solution: Callcut said this uncertainty made pneumothorax the perfect test case for artificial intelligence that can help doctors swiftly sift through piles of X-ray images, calling attention to anything that looks suspicious. Working with GE Healthcare, she helped develop the Critical Care Suite, a collection of algorithms embedded in a mobile X-ray device that was recently cleared for use by the FDA. That means doctors can begin working with the software in pilot tests, and the software should start to show up more widely in hospitals in early 2020. Says Katelyn Nye, general manager of mobile radiology and AI at GE Healthcare: “We just passed a significant milestone which will begin to help technologists and radiologists do their jobs more efficiently.”
Learn more here.
COOLEST THINGS ON EARTH ?
1. AI Surprise
Researchers at MIT designed an artificial intelligence model with a grasp of “intuitive physics” similar to that of human toddlers — it can experience “surprise,” for instance, when an object isn’t where it’s supposed to be.
2. Nervous Breakthrough
A collaboration led by researchers at the U.K.’s University of Bath developed the first “artificial neuron” on a silicon chip, which they hope could someday lead to cures for chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s and heart failure.
3. Pavlov’s Gel
Finnish scientists used light and heat to teach artificial materials to adopt new behaviors.
Learn more about this week’s Coolest Things on Earth here.
— QUOTE OF THE DAY —
“As a result of our commitment to innovation, the HondaJet Elite is the fastest, farthest and highest-flying aircraft in its class, while also being the most fuel-efficient and comfortable. We have successfully designed and built an innovative aircraft that transforms people’s lifestyles.”
— Michimasa Fujino, CEO of Honda Aircraft Company
Quote: GE Reports. Image: HondaJet.
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