“He’s dead Jim.”

It’s a line made famous by the original Star Trek’s Dr. ‘Bones’ McCoy after he waved the seemingly magical medical Tricorder over someone just blasted by an advanced alien weapon.

Science fiction? Sure, but so were the little discs Kirk and Spock would pop into the Enterprise’s “computer banks” to get information. Remember, the original show aired in the mid-1960s, well before CD-ROMs, much less the World Wide Web. Or how about those mysterious electronic slates Kirk was always signing off on? Someone at UPS must’ve been watching.

But back to the Tricorder. The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) is funding a noninvasive, needle-free system that uses light to measure tissue oxygen and pH as an alternative to needles to draw blood and cumbersome equipment to determine metabolic rate. The “Venus” prototype is being developed by Dr. Babs Soller and her colleagues. It has the capability to measure blood and tissue chemistry, metabolic rate (oxygen consumption) and other parameters.

“Tissue and blood chemistry measurements can be used in medical care to assess patients with traumatic injuries and those at risk for cardiovascular collapse,” Soller, who leads NSBRI’s Smart Medical Systems and Technology team, said in a release. “The measurement of metabolic rate will let astronauts know how quickly they are using up the oxygen in their life-support backpacks. If spacewalking astronauts run low on oxygen, the situation can become fatal.”

Placed directly on the skin, the four-inch by two-inch sensor uses near infrared light (that is just beyond the visible spectrum) to take the measurements. Blood in tiny blood vessels absorbs some of the light, but the rest is reflected back to the sensor. The monitor analyzes the reflected light to determine metabolic rate, along with tissue oxygen and pH.

Good for more than spacefarers

Former NASA astronaut and NSBRI User Panel Chairman Dr. Leroy Chiao said Soller’s sensor system and other technologies being developed for spaceflight promise to payoff in many other areas. “Not only is this research going to help future astronaut crews and operations, it has very real benefits to people on the ground, especially to people in more rural areas.”

For example, Soller said Venus would help first-responders get quick feedback on the severity of a person’s injury. “Data can be communicated directly to the hospital. Early access to this type of information may increase a victim’s chances of survival.”

Venus could also be useful to athletes and physical therapy patients to measure metabolic rate and to assist in determining the best level of activity or exercise needed.

Star Trek has been the inspiration, or at least presaged, for a number of tech advances including other work on Tricorder-like devices. Blogger Jay Joshi recently compiled a neat list of “Inventions Inspired by Star Trek”.

Maybe it does payoff to have a lot of friends on Facebook.

Chris Kelly, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Public Policy, has just announced he’s formed a committee to explore running for California Attorney General in 2010.

How serious is this bid? Hey, he’s already got a Kelly2010 Web site devoted to the effort.

“Over the past year, many people I respect have asked me to run for California Attorney General in 2010. Today, after much consideration, I am announcing that I’ve launched a committee to further explore the race,” Kelly said in a statement. “As the next Attorney General of California, I would utilize my experience to protect California consumers, maintain an open and accountable government, and guarantee an effective legal system.”

In a video at the site, Kelly notes his first job out of law school was as a law clerk in San Diego, helping a federal judge handle criminal and civil cases. He was also an advisor to the Clinton administration after working for him during the 1992 presidential campaign.

Facebook has had its share of privacy-related controversies, but it’s also helped pioneer the whole social networking phenomena and had to figure out some of the do’s and don’ts on a trial by error basis. “At Facebook I lead an outstanding team that is building a safer and more trusted online experience for more than 200 million people,” said Kelly.

“For the past four years, I’ve worked closely with Attorneys General across the nation to help make the Internet safer for consumers of all ages, particularly young people. I understand the technological challenges parents face in protecting their children from potential online predators and preserving online privacy because I have been building systems to help protect you and your children. Improving Internet safety for young people and providing people of all ages with a safer online experience will be a critical role for me as your Attorney General.”

Kelly said the exploratory committee will help him determine “how I can best continue my contributions to a safer, more secure and more transparent California. California’s justice system and our political system as a whole need a transformation that will enhance the lives of all Californians. California has been victim to inefficient government and wasteful spending. It’s time for that to change.”

As a kid I was taught how to sing a round (“Row, Row, Row Your Boat” anyone?), but in the digital age it’s all about mashups. Perhaps the next generation of kindergartners will drag musical performance snippets across the classroom touchscreen video wall with their fingers as they learn the basics of video mashups.

Of course there’s nothing to mash without great individual performances, so I don’t see those going away anytime soon (Susan Boyle anyone?).

But clearly, mashups are creating a whole new category of creativity, expression and entertainment. YouTube weighed in today with the latest example, “The Internet Symphony” Global Mashup.

The YouTube-sponsored video features Tan Dun’s composition “Internet Symphony, Eroica,” as selected and mashed up from nearly 3,000 video submissions from around the globe. And it’s not just online. Tonight over 90 musicians from around the world — including a Spanish guitarist, a Dutch harpist and a Lithuanian birbyne player — will perform at New York’s famed Carnegie Hall in the debut YouTube Symphony Orchestra performance.

If classical music’s not your thing, click here to see a very funky alternative mashup.

Both of these are pretty cool, but my favorite mashup by far is the amazing work sponsored by Playing for Change “a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect and bring peace to the world through music.”

This talented group of musicians from around the world transform a great song, Stand By Me, into something even more moving and magical.

Enjoy.

Twitter is coming to an ice rink near you. Well, not exactly. But with the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs set to begin Wednesday, April 15, the NHL is adding a bit of Web 2.0 to the proceedings.

The National Hockey League has announced what it believes to be the first ever nationwide “Tweetup” in professional sports. Coverage will extend to 21 cities in the US and Canada.

Cities included are: Anaheim, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, Edmonton, Hartford, Montreal, Nashville, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Regina (Sask.), San Jose, St. John (NB), Toronto, Vancouver and Washington DC.

More information on the Tweetups at each city and how join in is available here .

“My expectation is that people will really, really enjoy this,” said NHL spokesman Mike DiLorenzo.

He admits the NHL has no specific expectations from a numbers or business/marketing perspective (very Twitter-like!), but says that’s not the point.

“We’re doing this for all the right reasons. We have a very tech savvy fan base that loves Twitter so we’re overlaying that with their love for the NHL. My hope is they come away from this saying the NHL is really cool to start the NHL playoffs this way. Down the road we’ll figure out other ways we can leverage this from a business perspective.”

Forget the old view of teachers as anti-technology luddites more comfortable in front of a blackboard than a home page. Teachers get high marks for driving the adoption of a wide variety of Web 2.0 technologies, according to a recent survey.

Specifically, K-12 teachers were most frequently cited for driving the adoption of digital multimedia resources (78 percent), online learning games and simulations (65 percent) and teacher-generated online content (60 percent), in the national research survey of more than 500 district technology directors commissioned by Lightspeed Systems and Thinkronize.

The two companies have more than a passing interest in the results. Lightspeed Systems makes network security and management software for schools, while Thinkronize is the creator of an educational search tool called netTrekker. Atomic Learning, which also provided support for the survey, develops Web-based software training and curriculum resources for schools.

While teachers rated highly the group most cited for driving the adoption of social networking and student-generated online content was none other than … drumroll … students themselves.

“The research indicates that the movement toward Web 2.0 use to engage students and address individual learning needs is largely being driven in districts from the bottom up — starting with teachers and students,” said Dr. Jay Sivin-Kachala, vice president and lead researcher at Educational Systems Design.

“Furthermore, the results show that many districts are using or planning to use Web 2.0 tools in teacher professional development, which suggests that teachers will become increasingly comfortable with these technologies and better able to teach students how to use them safely and productively.”

There is a persistent gap between how today’s “digital” kids learn in school and how they work and interact outside of school, the companies noted in a release announcing the results. It’s a trend they say underscores the critical need for districts to keep pace with technological advances and adapt to students’ learning needs.

Is it safe yet?

At the same time, education leaders face the challenge of maintaining a high level of security and safety while allowing for creative and collaborative work using these new technologies. Lightspeed Systems and netTrekker said they’ve launched an ongoing “Safe Schools in a Web 2.0 World,” initiative to help schools implement Web 2.0 technologies safely and effectively to improve teaching and learning.

Gmail turned five earlier this week, April Fools Day to be exact.

But the original launch was no joke. Gmail, perhaps the longest running app to still be labeled “BETA” shook up the e-mail landscape immediately on its debut and continues to push the envelope with innovative releases.

It’s easy to forget that back in 2004 e-mail services like Yahoo Mail and Hotmail were free, but free storage was limited, you had to pay for storage in, for example, 20 to 100 megabyte increments. Google’s idea to provide Gmail users with up to a gigabyte of free storage was audacious at the time and compelling enough to force competitors to match it or risk losing users.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) also gained by being late to the e-mail party, learning from the mistakes by others. Rather than open up the service to all comers, Gmail started in true beta fashion as a test application that only a limited number of people could access. In the first year, you had to know someone at Google or a Gmail user to be “invited” to sign up. This not only helped control growth, it limited opportunities for spammers and helped the company fine tune its approach to deal with spam.

Even as its user base has grown into the millions, Gmail has one of the best spam-blocking systems on the planet. I rarely check my spam folder because there’s almost never anything in there that’s “real” e-mail meant for me.

Ironically, today I noticed one of those exceptions, a “Google Alerts” email from Google itself, ended up in my Spam folder. Wow, of all the things to slip through!

And then there’s that revenue thing. Does Gmail make money? “Gmail is absolutely profitable,” a Google spokesperson told me for a story last year. “We’re making money,” agreed Matthew Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise.

Perhaps more importantly, Gmail was a key part of Google’s eventual cloud initiative. A few years after Gmail’s debut, Google Docs and Spreadsheets came out, followed quickly by the ever-growing Google Apps Suite that includes the Gmail service.

Gmail has also been a test best for new services. One example, Google turned to Gmail first to offer an offline access feature and it has since expanded that capability to other apps in its cloud offering. More recently, Gmail labs released an “Undo Send” option that gives users five seconds to recall an e-mail from being sent even after hitting the send button. Clever.

So happy 5th birthday Google, you’ve come a long way.