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among the many different kinds of

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research being done on the international

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space station there are some experiments

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that are trying to develop new

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technologies that would benefit future

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deep space exploration or life on earth

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and then there are some where both of

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those things are the case one example in

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that latter category is an experiment

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that is known as synthetic muscle and

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that's flying on the international space

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station now in order to test how it

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holds up under the radiation that exists

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in space

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joining us this morning to tell us more

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about it is the principal investigator

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and developer of the product dr lenoir

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rasmussen the founder and chief

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technology officer at ras labs in quincy

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massachusetts good morning dr ross

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madison

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good morning pat your product synthetic

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muscle is intended to do i guess just

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what the name implies

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how did you become interested in

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developing a product like that

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um

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when i was in grad school i i have an

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agricultural background and one of my

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cousins was

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working on the farm and was injured

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pretty severely

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and as the resident scientist in the

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family i was put in charge of looking at

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prosthetics

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and um

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there are some wonderful solutions but i

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was kind of disappointed nonetheless and

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what i found and felt as a kind of young

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naive chemist at the time that if you

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could develop something that responded

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to electricity

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or some other stimulus you could kind of

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bridge that gap between form and

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function you could make a prosthetic

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that both looked and moved naturally

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now part of what i understand you're

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trying to develop this for is that that

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it will have an impact in robotics in

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space

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why would a synthetic muscle improve the

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performance of a robot

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several reasons part of what i'm trying

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to do is to produce human-like grasp

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which is both gentle and firm

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and for robotics particularly for

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grippers that remains a challenge also

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our materials are self-sensing which

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means when there's mechanical pressure

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the impedance changes

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so not just for prosthetics to move

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naturally and to be able to

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sense what's going on but for robotics

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that that element that is often missing

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is touch that these can be integrated

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into one solution

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would revolutionize the way we look at

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at motion

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now you got some help from cases in

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order to get this experiment on orbit

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right

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correct

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yeah cases was very useful um actually

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in mentoring i i was one of the mass

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challenge

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2013 global accelerator went through

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that program and that's where i met

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cases um they one of the uh cynthia

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bohot was one of my mentors

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and

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my materials though i'm kind of

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my focus was on the prosthetic community

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i have done extreme temperature

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conditions prior to that when i was you

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know back in the princeton area um these

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materials lend themselves to being

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radiation resistant the class of

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polymers that they're in plus we did

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some additives and coatings on the

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iss experiment

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so that just was was just it was a great

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fit it's been a wonderful

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experience

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explain to me what it is that is is

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happening with your experiment on orbit

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now

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okay i actually have a mock experiment

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that

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just to show people there are four um

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kind of protective cages a little more

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sophisticated than this but they have

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each have eight samples

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one of them is my synthetic muscle

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um

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then the next two slots have different

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additives to enhance the radiation

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effect then the next few slots have

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coatings various coatings such as the

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mylar that's currently being used in

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space suit technology also some

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specialized coding from the us army

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natick labs and then the last

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the last spot the last two spots have

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combinations of inhibitors and coatings

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there's four of these two of them are my

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generation three material two of these

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cages up there are my generation four

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materials and then in these micro

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environments they're all encapsulated

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separately there's like one

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teflon bag around it

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so um each of the generations has a dry

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and a moist environment in order for the

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synthetic muscle to work it operates

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best moist just like real human tissue

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um

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but it can be dried and then rehydrated

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so that's one thing to consider for

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traveling is could it be you know

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desiccated dried out and then wherever

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it lands you know be reactivated with

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moisture

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and then um of the four uh experiments

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up there i also have four on earth under

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the same conditions as kind of like the

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twin

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study so there's

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32 samples and four protective cages on

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the iss and the same here on earth in

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our quincy lab

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it'll be very interesting for you to to

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get those samples back and and move on

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to that next step uh thank you for

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taking the time to tell us about it this

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morning i appreciate that

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oh thank you yes i can hardly wait to um

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and the most the analysis will be back

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here on earth

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dr lenoir rasmussen is the principal

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investigator of the synthetic muscle