Page 53 - How It Works - Book Of Amazing Answers To Curious Questions, Volume 05-15

Technology

What is

Google

Cardboard?

Turn your smartphone

into a VR headset with
a cardboard box, a This new technology may speed up drug
development by simulating how human cells
magnet and a handful respond to different chemicals
of Velcro!
oogle’s Cardboard venture has What are
opened up the world of virtual
Greality to everyone. To whisk us
away into a fantasy world, Google invites us
to make our own VR headset using just a organs on chips?
few items that can be found in your garage.
Various cardboard headsets can also be
purchased ready-made, so it’s not all about
DIY. Once you’ve sourced the headgear, all Is this the end of animal testing?
you need to do is download the Google
Cardboard app to get started. esigned to imitate the functions of capillary cells on the other. These are divided
Your smartphone sits in the headset and complex organs such as the heart, lungs by a porous membrane – a thin walled
the app shows you a specially designed Dand intestines, these silicon microchips structure that enables air or liquid to pass
split-screen view. When you look at the are only the size of a small USB stick, but could through. Air runs through one side and a blood-
screen through the headset’s lenses that have the power to transform medicine. The like solution flows through the other, while a

are placed at an optimum distance from the chips are embedded with microfl uidic stretching motion generated by a vacuum

screen, this concentrates your field of view channels, which are lined with human cells replicates the mechanics of breathing.
and creates a 3D effect. Your smartphone’s from particular organs. Chemicals can then be Several different organs have been replicated
motion sensor detects your movement and pumped through these tubes, enabling so far by scientists at the Wyss Institute at
so all of these factors come together to researchers to see how these ‘organs’ will react Harvard University, who continue to test and
enable you to walk, run and jump through through a microscope. evaluate the limits of their chips. It is hoped
your own virtual world. The lung chip, for example, features human that these devices could be used to develop
Google has made this technology lung cells on one side of the chip and blood drugs without the need for animal testing.
incredibly accessible for developers, so
there is also a huge array of compatible VR
Air channel
apps available to take your Cardboard Inside the chips From head to toe Air is pumped through one of
experience to the next level. These silicon devices can
Find out how these tiny devices be used to mimic many the channels so that it fl ows past
can mimic a human lung different parts of the body, the layer of human lung cells.
from the vital organs to
tissues like bone marrow.
Analysis
The new instrument will allow
for real-time observation and
analysis of the human body’s
biochemical functions. Illustration by Adrian Mann

Vacuum
The vacuum channels on
either side cause the
‘lung’ to regularly stretch
and relax, to mimic
breathing in and out.

Human response © Wyss Institute at Harvard; Thinkstock
The chips are lined with
human cells to give the best Translucent coating
possible indication of how Each chip will be made out of a
the body reacts to certain translucent material that is both

substances. clear and flexible for easy study.
How It Works 53