BETTER BATTERIES FROM THE GROUND UP

Better batteries from the ground up

ORNL microscopy explores the "room at the bottom" in lithium-ion batteries

Today, people talk about their electronic devices almost as if they were living, breathing beings. We wake our computers up, our cellphones die and we have longer conversations with our GPS devices than with many of our friends.

As new wireless technologies appear in devices from tablet computers to electric cars, efforts to improve these life forms focus on a common organ: the heart-like battery. Yet despite an accelerating demand for battery-powered devices, the pulse of the electronics world is not as well understood as you might think.

"In some sense, we think of batteries are ideal devices, but from a chemical viewpoint, they are very complicated," says ORNL senior scientist Sergei Kalinin. "Batteries look ideal only when they're inside a package, and you don't care what's inside."

Kalinin is among a team of scientists at ORNL's Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences that is developing new microscopic methods to analyze and understand nanoscale complexities inside electrochemical systems such as lithium-ion batteries. "Richard Feynman famously noted that there is plenty of room at the bottom," Kalinin says, referring to the physicist's 1959 talk on the potential of nanoscience. "This room does not do us much good if we cannot explore it."

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http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/v45_1_12/article04.shtml

NANOTUBE ‘SPONGE’ HAS POTENTIAL OIL SPILL CLEANUP

Nanotube 'sponge' has potential in oil spill cleanup

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 10, 2012 — A carbon nanotube sponge that can soak up oil in water with unparalleled efficiency has been developed with help from computational simulations performed at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Carbon nanotubes, which consist of atom-thick sheets of carbon rolled into cylinders, have captured scientific attention in recent decades because of their high strength, potential high conductivity and light weight. But producing nanotubes in bulk for specialized applications was often limited by difficulties in controlling the growth process as well as dispersing and sorting the produced nanotubes.

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http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20120510-00

AIR-POWERED CAR COMING TO INDIA

In 2007, Mumbai, India-based Tata Motors signed a licensing deal with Motor Development International, a French design firm. The idea was to build a car that could run on compressed air. Now Tata says it has tested two cars with the engines. The next step is setting up the manufacturing plants to actually build them.

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ANCIENT LANGUAGE DISCOVERED ON CLAY TABLETS

Ancient language discovered on clay tablets found amid ruins of 2800 year old Middle Eastern palace

Archaeologists have discovered evidence for a previously unknown ancient language – buried in the ruins of a 2800 year old Middle Eastern palace.

The discovery is important because it may help reveal the ethnic and cultural origins of some of history’s first ‘barbarians’ – mountain tribes which had, in previous millennia, preyed on the world’s first great civilizations,  the cultures of early Mesopotamia in what is now Iraq.

Evidence of the long-lost language - probably spoken by a hitherto unknown people from the Zagros Mountains of western Iran – was found by a Cambridge University archaeologist as he deciphered an ancient clay writing tablet unearthed by an international archaeological team excavating an Assyrian imperial governors’ palace in the ancient city of Tushan, south-east Turkey.

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HALF OF MEN WILL BE OBESE BY 2040, CLAIM EXPERTS

Half of all men will be obese by 2040, claim experts

(May 10, 2012)  NEARLY half of all men and more than a third of all women will be obese within the next 30 years, experts have warned.

They claim that if current trends continue the cost of treating related illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer will soar in the next two decades.

The predictions, made at European Congress on Obesity, were calculated by extrapolating current rises into the future.

The conference in Lyons, France, heard that in 1993, only round 10 per cent of English men aged between 18 and 40 were classed as obese. Today, the figure stands at 20 per cent.

By 2030, 40 per cent of young men in England are predicted to be obese, and by 2040 the figure will hit 45 per cent.

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SCRIPPS FLORIDA SCIENTISTS IDENTIFY NEUROTRANMITTERS THAT LEAD TO FORGETTING

Ron Davis, 

chair of the Scripps Research Department of Neuroscience who led the project.

Scripps Florida Scientists Identify Neurotranmitters that Lead to Forgetting

(May 9, 2012)  While we often think of memory as a way of preserving the essential idea of who we are, little thought is given to the importance of forgetting to our wellbeing, whether what we forget belongs in the “horrible memories department” or just reflects the minutia of day-to-day living.

Despite the fact that forgetting is normal, exactly how we forget—the molecular, cellular, and brain circuit mechanisms underlying the process—is poorly understood.

Now, in a study that appears in the May 10, 2012 issue of the journal Neuron, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have pinpointed a mechanism that is essential for forming memories in the first place and, as it turns out, is equally essential for eliminating them after memories have formed.

“This study focuses on the molecular biology of active forgetting,” said Ron Davis, chair of the Scripps Research Department of Neuroscience who led the project. “Until now, the basic thought has been that forgetting is mostly a passive process. Our findings make clear that forgetting is an active process that is probably regulated.”

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CLUB OF ROME HAS A SKEPTICAL TAKE ON THE FUTURE

Club of Rome has a skeptical take on the future

(May 9, 2012)  Fourty years ago, the Club of Rome released "The limits of growth." Now, it has released another look into the future. But how accurate are such predictions?

In its latest publication "2052 – a Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years," the Club of Rome takes a bold look into the future. The 66 scientists and economists that make up the club predict - similarly to their first report ("The limits of growth") in 1972 - that the current economic development could soon tip over.

But differing from their view back then, they now put climate change at the heart of their study. Their prognosis is mainly influenced by the assumption that a warming of more than 2.5 degrees Celsius is likely: There will be more floods, draughts and climate extremes.

The use of fossile energy is still on the rise. The goal to keep the global temperature rise under 2 percent will probably not be reached, the report concludes. It won't be before 2030 that a reduction of CO2 emissions would be realized and even that would only work if governments continue pushing for a move away from fossil fuels.

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PSYCHOPATHY LINKED TO BRAIN ABNORMALITIES

Psychopathy linked to brain abnormalities

New research provides the strongest evidence to date that psychopathy is linked to specific structural abnormalities in the brain. The study, led by researchers at King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) is the first to confirm that psychopathy is a distinct neuro-developmental sub-group of anti-social personality disorder (ASPD).

The study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London and published in Archives of General Psychiatry.

Most violent crimes are committed by a small group of persistent male offenders with ASPD. Approximately half of male prisoners in England and Wales will meet diagnostic criteria for ASPD. The majority of such men are not true psychopaths (ASPD-P). They are characterised by emotional instability, impulsivity and high levels of mood and anxiety disorders. They typically use aggression in a reactive way in response to a perceived threat or sense of frustration. 

However, about one third of such men will meet additional diagnostic criteria for psychopathy (ASPD+P). They are characterised by a lack of empathy and remorse, and use aggression in a planned way to secure what they want (status, money etc.). Previous research has shown that psychopaths’ brains differ structurally from healthy brains, but until now, none have examined these differences within a population of violent offenders with ASPD.

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AGRICULTURAL BACTERIA: BLOWING IN THE WIND

USDA-ARS post-doctoral researcher, Matt Baddock,

stands next to a portable wind tunnel used to simulate wind erosion

Agricultural Bacteria: Blowing in the Wind

It was all too evident during the Dust Bowl what a disastrous impact wind can have on dry, unprotected topsoil. Now a new study has uncovered a less obvious, but still troubling, effect of wind: Not only can it carry away soil particles, but also the beneficial microbes that help build soil, detoxify contaminants, and recycle nutrients.

Using a powerful DNA sequencing technique, called pyrosequencing, a team led by USDA-ARS scientists Terrence Gardner and Veronica Acosta-Martínez analyzed the bacterial diversity in three Michigan agricultural soils, and in two eroded sediments generated from these soils during a wind tunnel experiment: coarse particles and fine dust. Not only were the microbial assemblages on the coarse particles distinct from those on the dust, report the scientists in the current issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality, but the two types of eroded sediments were each enriched in certain groups of microbes compared with the parent soil, as well.

The findings suggest that specific bacteria inhabit specific locations in soil—and thus different groups and species can be carried away depending on the kinds of particles that erode. “It’s important to know which microbes are being lost from soil,” says Acosta-Martínez, a soil microbiologist and biochemist at the USDA-ARS Cropping Systems Laboratory in Lubbock, TX, “because different microbes have different roles in soil processes.”

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STUDYING SCHOOL QUALITY, TO FIGHT INEQUALITY

Studying school quality, to fight inequality

New MIT center examines education and its lifelong effects.

May 9, 2012

Education has long been perceived as a great leveler in the United States, providing opportunities throughout society. But at a time of economic struggle, millions of people are wondering if the country’s schools can still provide a platform for success.

“School quality and human capital are major issues on the American policy agenda,” says Josh Angrist, the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT, noting the emphasis President Barack Obama placed on the issue during his most recent State of the Union address.

Yet it is hard for parents to make confident decisions about the subject. “A very difficult question is finding out what is a good school for your child,” says Parag Pathak, a professor in MIT’s Department of Economics. Moreover, state and local civic leaders must continually evaluate schools as well.

That is one reason Angrist, Pathak and economist David Autor have founded the School Effectiveness & Inequality Initiative (SEII), a new center at MIT giving a home to diverse studies of education and its effects on Americans throughout their working lives.

Some of those studies have already made headlines: Angrist and Pathak, working with other scholars, have found that while some Boston charter schools outperform the city’s other public schools, charter schools elsewhere in Massachusetts fail to generate gains in student achievement. They have also found that some highly regarded public schools — which use competitive test-based admissions — may not improve the trajectory of the already-thriving students who are accepted into them.

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POTENTIAL EXAMPLES OF ALTERNATIVE LIFE

Bit by Bit: The Darwinian Basis of Life

All known examples of life belong to the same biology, but there is increasing enthusiasm among astronomers, astrobiologists, and synthetic biologists that other forms of life may soon be discovered or synthesized. This enthusiasm should be tempered by the fact that the probability for life to originate is not known. As a guiding principle in parsing potential examples of alternative life, one should ask: How many heritable “bits” of information are involved, and where did they come from? A genetic system that contains more bits than the number that were required to initiate its operation might reasonably be considered a new form of life.

Thanks to a combination of ground- and space-based astronomical observations, the number of confirmed extrasolar planets will soon exceed 1,000. An increasing number of these will be said to lie within the “habitable zone” and even be pronounced as “Earth-like.” Within a decade there will be observational data regarding the atmospheric composition of some of those planets, and just maybe those data will indicate something funny going on—something well outside the state of chemical equilibrium—on a potentially hospitable planet. Perhaps our astronomy colleagues should be forgiven for their enthusiasm in declaring that humanity is on the brink of discovering alien life.

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PLASTIC TRASH ALTERING OCEAN HABITATS

Plastic Trash Altering Ocean Habitats, Scripps Study Shows

Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego

(May 8, 2012)   A 100-fold upsurge in human-produced plastic garbage in the ocean is altering habitats in the marine environment, according to a new study led by a graduate student researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

In 2009 an ambitious group of graduate students led the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition (SEAPLEX) to the North Pacific Ocean Subtropical Gyre aboard the Scripps research vessel New Horizon. During the voyage the researchers, who concentrated their studies a thousand miles west of California, documented an alarming amount of human-generated trash, mostly broken down bits of plastic the size of a fingernail floating across thousands of miles of open ocean.

At the time the researchers didn't have a clear idea of how such trash might be impacting the ocean environment, but a new study published in the May 9 online issue of the journal Biology Letters reveals that plastic debris in the area popularly known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" has increased by 100 times over in the past 40 years, leading to changes in the natural habitat of animals such as the marine insect Halobates sericeus.

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UCLA SCIENTISTS UNLOCK MYSTERY OF HOW ‘HANDEDNESS’ ARISES

UCLA scientists unlock mystery of how 'handedness' arises

(May 08, 2012)  The overwhelming majority of proteins and other functional molecules in our bodies display a striking molecular characteristic: They can exist in two distinct forms that are mirror images of each other, like your right hand and left hand. Surprisingly, each of our bodies prefers only one of these molecular forms.

This mirror-image phenomenon — known as chirality or "handedness" — has captured the imagination of a UCLA research group led by Thomas G. Mason, a professor of chemistry and physics and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.

Mason has been exploring how and why chirality arises, and his newest findings on the physical origins of the phenomenon were published May 1 in the journal Nature Communications.

"Objects like our hands are chiral, while objects like regular triangles are achiral, meaning they don't have a handedness to them," said Mason, the senior author of the study. "Achiral objects can be easily superimposed on top of one another."

Why many of the important functional molecules in our bodies almost always occur in just one chiral form when they could potentially exist in either is a mystery that has confounded researchers for years.

"Our bodies contain important molecules like proteins that overwhelmingly have one type of chirality," Mason said. "The other chiral form is essentially not found. I find that fascinating. We asked, 'Could this biological preference of a particular chirality possibly have a physical origin?'"

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GROUNDWATER PUMPING LEADS TO SEA LEVEL RISE

Groundwater pumping leads to sea level rise, cancels out effect of dams

(May 8, 2012)  As people pump groundwater for irrigation, drinking water, and industrial uses, the water doesn’t just seep back into the ground — it also evaporates into the atmosphere, or runs off into rivers and canals, eventually emptying into the world’s oceans. This water adds up, and a new study calculates that by 2050, groundwater pumping will cause a global sea level rise of about 0.8 millimeters per year.

“Other than ice on land, the excessive groundwater extractions are fast becoming the most important terrestrial water contribution to sea level rise,” said Yoshihide Wada, with Utrecht University in the Netherlands and lead author of the study. In the coming decades, he noted, groundwater contributions to sea level rise are expected to become as significant as those of melting glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and the Antarctic.

Between around 1970 and 1990, sea level rise caused by groundwater pumping was cancelled out as people built dams, trapping water in reservoirs so the water wouldn’t empty into the sea, Wada said. His research shows that starting in the 1990s, that changed as populations started pumping more groundwater and building fewer dams.

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QUANTUM DOTS BRIGHTEN THE FUTURE OF LIGHTING

(May 8, 2012)  With the age of the incandescent light bulb fading rapidly, the holy grail of the lighting industry is to develop a highly efficient form of solid-state lighting that produces high quality white light.

One of the few alternative technologies that produce pure white light is white-light quantum dots. These are ultra-small fluorescent beads of cadmium selenide that can convert the blue light produced by an LED into a warm white light with a spectrum similar to that of incandescent light. (By contrast, compact fluorescent tubes and most white-light LEDs emit a combination of monochromatic colors that simulate white light).

Seven years ago, when white-light quantum dots were discovered accidentally in a Vanderbilt chemistry lab, their efficiency was too low for commercial applications and several experts predicted that it would be impossible to raise it to practical levels. Today, however, Vanderbilt researchers have proven those predictions wrong by reporting that they have successfully boosted the fluorescent efficiency of these nanocrystals from an original level of three percent to as high as 45 percent.

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CREATING ENERGY FROM LIGHT AND AIR

(May 8, 2012)  Researchers from the University of Leeds are studying how to make electricity from electrodes coated in bacteria, and other living cells, using light or hydrogen as the fuel.

The aim of the research long-term is to develop more efficient biofuel cells, seen as the future of electronics. Because biofuel cells are powered by readily available biological materials, they have the potential to be used indefinitely when electricity is required at places where is it not possible to replace a battery or recharge them.

Most biofuel cells create electricity using enzymes that process glucose, but the Leeds research will focus on bacterial enzymes that can harness light or hydrogen gas to create energy. The work is funded by a £1.42m grant from the European Research Council.

Lead researcher, Dr Lars Jeuken, from the University's Faculty of Biological Sciences, says: "Technology that creates an electrical signal from a biochemical reaction is already in commercial use, for example in blood glucose biosensors. However, developing an efficient biofuel cell that can create sufficient electricity for general use has proved much more difficult. This is mainly because the systems developed to date have only limited control of how inorganic materials and biological molecules interact.

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NOVEL BATTERY TECHNOLOGY SCALED TO 36 KWH DEMONSTRATION AT CCNY

(May 7, 2012)  The CUNY Energy Institute, which has been developing innovative low-cost batteries that are safe, non-toxic, and reliable with fast discharge rates and high energy densities, announced that it has built an operating prototype zinc anode battery system. The Institute said large-scale commercialization of the battery would start later this year.

Zinc anode batteries offer an environmentally friendlier and less costly alternative to nickel cadmium batteries. In the longer term, they also could replace lead-acid batteries at the lower cost end of the market. However, the challenge of dendrite formation associated with zinc had to be addressed. Dendrites are crystalline structures that cause batteries to short out.

To prevent dendrite build-up, CUNY researchers developed a flow-assisted zinc anode battery with a sophisticated advanced battery management system (BMS) that controls the charge/discharge protocol. To demonstrate the new technology and its applications, which range from peak electricity demand reduction to grid-scale energy storage, they have assembled a 36 kilowatt-hour rechargeable battery system.

The system, housed in the basement of Steinman Hall on The City College of New York campus, consists of 36 individual one kWh nickel-zinc flow-assisted cells strung together and operated by the BMS.  In peak electricity demand reduction, batteries charge during low usage periods, i.e. overnight, and discharge during peak-demand periods when surcharges for power usage are very high.

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SUPERSONIC GREEN MACHINE

This future aircraft design concept for supersonic flight over land comes from the team led by the Lockheed Martin Corporation.

The team's simulation shows possibility for achieving overland flight by dramatically lowering the level of sonic booms through the use of an "inverted-V" engine-under wing configuration. Other revolutionary technologies help achieve range, payload and environmental goals.

This concept is one of two designs presented in April 2010 to the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate for its NASA Research Announcement-funded studies into advanced supersonic cruise aircraft that could enter service in the 2030-2035 timeframe.

source >>

HONDA develops LPG-powered PORTABLE GENERATOR

Honda develops LPG -powered portable generator

(April 30, 2012)  In what will be welcome news to many electricity-challenged Asian communities, Honda Motor Co has announced a portable generator capable of generating electricity by using propane gas which is far cleaner than the standard diesel or gasoline powered units.

The company will start to provide the generator to businesses that deal with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) gas apparatuses in the summer of 2012.

Honda developed the generator based on the "EU9i," the company's existing generator that uses gasoline as fuel and has a rated output of 900VA. Consumer needs for private power generators that can be used in a time of emergency are increasing, particularly in Japan and China where a huge increase of power outages are expected this year.

The new generator uses propane gas, which is used for gas apparatuses in households throughout Asia and does not deteriorate much even when left unused for a long period of time. A gas container can be easily attached to the generator in emergency situations.

With 50kg of LP gas, the generator can be operated for about 100 hours. It is possible to connect two generators in parallel and realize a maximum output power of 1,800VA. Also, it can be used even in low-temperature environments (external temperature: -15°C) such as winter and nighttime.

source >>

Honda Web Page >>

90% OF THE WORLD’S LANGUAGES COULD HAVE BEEN WIPED OUT

By the end of the 21st century, 90% of the world's languages could have been wiped out

(May 7, 2012)  Many of the world’s languages could become extinct if more is not done to protect threatened environments, scientists say.

It's little reported next to the extinction of species, but as 'wild' areas are industrialised, languagees are being wiped out at a frightening rate, say Penn State University researchers.

Experts estimate that by the end of the century between 50 and 90% of the world’s languages may have disappeared.

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3D PRINTING - CUBIFY PRINTER

3D printing gets social: New Cubify printer allows you to create, upload and SELL your own inventions

(May 7, 2012)  These objects may look tacky, plastic souvenirs the the kind you might buy from street stalls on your summer holidays.

But look closer at the technology behind them, and you realise you are looking at technology would could potentially shake up the way we live.

These products are the outcome of home 3D printers, and as the technology finds itself creeping into our homes, they could provide instant items for you - for instance cutlery and cups, door handles, toys - indeed, almost anything of any shape.

The next 3D printer to launch is called Cubify, which brings something new and exciting to the market -  the ability to create, upload, and then sell your own inventions.

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Cubify Web Page >>

A NEW PAPER MADE OF GRAPHENE AND PROTEIN FIBRILS

A new paper made of graphene and protein fibrils

(May 7, 2012)  Researchers led by Raffaele Mezzenga, a professor in Food and Soft Materials Science, have created a new nanocomposite made of graphene and protein fibrils: a special paper, which combines the best features of both components.

The circular sheets that Raffaele Mezzenga gently lifts from a petri dish are shiny and black. Looking at this tiny piece of paper, one could hardly imagine that it consists of a novel nanocomposite material, with some unprecedented and unique properties, developed in the laboratory of the ETH professor.

This new "paper" is made of alternating layers of protein and graphene. The two components can be mixed in varying compositions, brought into solution, and dried into thin sheets through a vacuum filter - "similarly as one usually does in the manufacture of normal paper from cellulose" says Mezzenga. "This combination of different materials with uncommon properties produces a novel nanocomposite with some major benefits," says the ETH professor. For example, the material is entirely biodegradable.

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ROBOTS THAT REVEAL THE INNER WORKINGS OF BRAIN CELLS

Robots that reveal the inner workings of brain cells

New method offers automated way to record electrical activity inside neurons in the living brain.

(May 7, 2012)  Gaining access to the inner workings of a neuron in the living brain offers a wealth of useful information: its patterns of electrical activity, its shape, even a profile of which genes are turned on at a given moment. However, achieving this entry is such a painstaking task that it is considered an art form; it is so difficult to learn that only a small number of labs in the world practice it.

But that could soon change: Researchers at MIT and Georgia Tech have developed a way to automate the process of finding and recording information from neurons in the living brain. The researchers have shown that a robotic arm guided by a cell-detecting computer algorithm can identify and record from neurons in the living mouse brain with better accuracy and speed than a human experimenter.

The new automated process eliminates the need for months of training and provides long-sought information about living cells’ activities. Using this technique, scientists could classify the thousands of different types of cells in the brain, map how they connect to each other, and figure out how diseased cells differ from normal cells.

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BACTERIAL BUILDERS ON SITE FOR COMPUTER CONSTRUCTION

Bacterial builders on site for computer construction

(May 4, 2012)  Forget computer viruses - magnet-making bacteria could be used to build tomorrow’s computers with larger hard drives and speedier connections.

Researchers at the University of Leeds have used a type of bacterium which 'eats' iron to create a surface of magnets, similar to those found in traditional hard drives, and wiring. As the bacterium ingests the iron it creates tiny magnets within itself.

The team has also begun to understand how the proteins inside these bacteria collect, shape and position these "nanomagnets" inside their cells and can now replicate this behaviour outside the bacteria.

Led by Dr Sarah Staniland from the University's School of Physics and Astronomy, in a longstanding collaboration with the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, the team hope to develop a 'bottom-up' approach for creating cheaper, more environmentally-friendly electronics of the future.

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HOW A GENE DUPLICATION HELPED OUR BRAINS BECOME ‘HUMAN’

HOW A GENE DUPLICATION HELPED OUR BRAINS BECOME ‘HUMAN’

Scripps Research Institute Scientists Show How a Gene Duplication Helped our Brains Become 'Human'

Extra Copy of Brain-Development Gene Allowed Neurons to Migrate Farther and Develop More Connections; Findings May Offer Clue to Autism and Schizophrenia

(May 3, 2012)  What genetic changes account for the vast behavioral differences between humans and other primates? Researchers so far have catalogued only a few, but now it seems that they can add a big one to the list. A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has shown that an extra copy of a brain-development gene, which appeared in our ancestors’ genomes about 2.4 million years ago, allowed maturing neurons to migrate farther and develop more connections.

Surprisingly, the added copy doesn’t augment the function of the original gene, SRGAP2, which makes neurons sprout connections to neighboring cells. Instead it interferes with that original function, effectively giving neurons more time to wire themselves into a bigger brain.

“This appears to be a major example of a genomic innovation that contributed to human evolution,” said Franck Polleux, a professor at The Scripps Research Institute. “The finding that a duplicated gene can interact with the original copy also suggests a new way to think about how evolution occurs and might give us clues to human-specific developmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.”

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NIST PROTOCOL HELPS COMMUNICATE BIOMETRICS FROM ANYWHERE

(May 2, 2012)  New Protocol Enables Wireless and Secure Biometric Acquisition with Web Services

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed and published a new protocol for communicating with biometric sensors over wired and wireless networks—using some of the same technologies that underpin the web.

The new protocol, called WS-Biometric Devices (WS-BD), allows desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones to access sensors that capture biometric data such as fingerprints, iris images and face images using web services. Web services themselves are not new; for example, video-on-demand services use web services to stream videos to mobile devices and televisions.

The WS-Biometric Devices protocol will greatly simplify setting up and maintaining secure biometric systems for verifying identity because such biometric systems will be easier to assemble with interoperable components compared to current biometrics systems that generally have proprietary device-specific drivers and cables. WS-BD enables interoperability by adding a device-independent web-services layer in the communication protocol between biometric devices and systems.

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LIGHTNING SIGNATURE COULD HELP REVEAL THE SOLAR SYSTEM’S ORIGINS

Science Nugget: Lightning Signature Could Help Reveal the Solar System's Origins

Every second, lightning flashes some 50 times on Earth. Together these discharges coalesce and get stronger, creating electromagnetic waves circling around Earth, to create a beating pulse between the ground and the lower ionosphere, about 60 miles up in the atmosphere. This electromagnetic signature, known as Schumann Resonance, had only been observed from Earth's surface until, in 2011, scientists discovered they could also detect it using NASA's Vector Electric Field Instrument (VEFI) aboard the U.S. Air Force's Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite.

In a paper published on May 1 in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers describe how this new technique could be used to study other planets in the solar system as well, and even shed light on how the solar system formed.

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HOW DOES A BROKEN DNA MOLECULE GET REPAIRED?

A needle in a haystack: how does a broken DNA molecule get repaired?

(May 3, 2012)  Scientists from the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology have discovered a key element in the mechanism of DNA repair. When the DNA double helix breaks, the broken end goes searching for the similar sequence and uses that as a template for repair. Using a smart new dual-molecule technique, the Delft group has now found out how the DNA molecule is able to perform this search and recognition process in such an efficient way. This week, the researchers report their findings in Molecular Cell.

A staggering problem Sometimes, the DNA double helix gets broken: both strands are accidentally cut. This presents a vital problem because cells cannot cope with such damaged DNA. Genomic DNA instabilities such as these, are a known cause of cancer. The good news is that an intricate DNA repair system exists which is impressively error-proof and efficient. How does this work?

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REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGY ENABLES OBJECTS TO KNOW HOW THEY ARE BEING TOUCHED

Revolutionary Technology Enables Objects To Know How They Are Being Touched

(May 3, 2012)  A doorknob that knows whether to lock or unlock based on how it is grasped, a smartphone that silences itself if the user holds a finger to her lips and a chair that adjusts room lighting based on recognizing if a user is reclining or leaning forward are among the many possible applications of Touché, a new sensing technique developed by a team at Disney Research, Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Touché is a form of capacitive touch sensing, the same principle underlying the types of touchscreens used in most smartphones. But instead of sensing electrical signals at a single frequency, like the typical touchscreen, Touché monitors capacitive signals across a broad range of frequencies.

This Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing (SFCS) makes it possible to not only detect a "touch event," but to recognize complex configurations of the hand or body that is doing the touching. An object thus could sense how it is being touched, or might sense the body configuration of the person doing the touching.

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Simplicity and (quantum) complexity

(May 3, 2012)  Simulations of reality would require less memory on a quantum computer than on a classical computer, new research from scientists at the University of Bristol, published in Nature Communications, has shown.

The study by Dr Karoline Wiesner from the School of Mathematics and Centre for Complexity Sciences, together with researchers from the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore, demonstrates a new way in which computers based on quantum physics could beat the performance of classical computers.

When confronted with a complicated system, scientists typically strive to identify underlying simplicity which is then articulated as natural laws and fundamental principles.  However, complex systems often seem immune to this approach, making it difficult to extract underlying principles.

Researchers have discovered that complex systems can be less complex than originally thought if they allow quantum physics to help: quantum models of complex systems are simpler and predict their behaviour more efficiently than classical models.

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NIST PHYSICISTS BENCHMARK QUANTUM SIMULATOR WITH HUNDREDS OF QUBITS

NIST Physicists Benchmark Quantum Simulator with Hundreds of Qubits

(May 2, 2012)  Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built a quantum simulator that can engineer interactions among hundreds of quantum bits (qubits)—10 times more than previous devices. As described in the April 26 issue of Nature*, the simulator has passed a series of important benchmarking tests and scientists are poised to study problems in material science that are impossible to model on conventional computers.

Many important problems in physics—especially low-temperature physics—remain poorly understood because the underlying quantum mechanics is vastly complex. Conventional computers—even supercomputers—are inadequate for simulating quantum systems with as few as 30 particles. Better computational tools are needed to understand and rationally design materials, such as high-temperature superconductors, whose properties are believed to depend on the collective quantum behavior of hundreds of particles.

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FIRST ELECTRONIC RETINAS IMPLANTED IN THE UK

First electronic retinas implanted in the UK

(May 4, 2012)  Surgeons in Oxford are the first in the UK to successfully implant an electronic retina into the back of an eye.

On 22 March 2012, Chris James became the first patient in the UK to receive this ground-breaking surgery as part of a clinical trial being carried out at John Radcliffe Hospital and King's College Hospital in London.

Mr James's operation took place at the Oxford Eye Hospital with the surgical team led by Professor Robert MacLaren.

He was assisted by Mr Tim Jackson, a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at King's College Hospital in London. The following week, a second patient, Robin Millar, a 60 year old music producer from London, received a retinal implant at King's College Hospital, with Professor MacLaren assisting Mr Jackson.

Both patients were able to detect light immediately after the electronic retinas were switched on, and are now beginning to experience some restoration of useful vision. Further operations are now planned for other suitable patients.

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ALZHEIMER’S TRIGGER

Scientists Gain New Understanding of Alzheimer's Trigger

(May 2, 2012)  A highly toxic beta-amyloid – a protein that exists in the brains of Alzheimer's disease victims – has been found to greatly increase the toxicity of other more common and less toxic beta-amyloids, serving as a possible "trigger" for the advent and development of Alzheimer's, researchers at the University of Virginia and German biotech company Probiodrug have discovered.

The finding, reported in the May 2 online edition of the journal Nature, could lead to more effective treatments for Alzheimer's. Already, Probiodrug AG, based in Halle, Germany has completed phase 1 clinical trials in Europe with a small molecule that inhibits an enzyme, glutaminyl cyclase, that catalyzes the formation of this hypertoxic version of beta-amyloid.

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THE CONSUMER OF THE YEAR 2020 IN EIGHT TENDENCIES

The consumer of the year 2020 in eight tendencies

AZTI-Tecnalia, technological centre specialised in marine and alimentary investigation, has developed for the first time in the scientific field a project typical of identification and study of tendencies in feeding, that presented the past day 27 March in the International Living room of Feeding and Drunk, Alimentary 2012. In front of professionals of the sector, gave to know the main tendencies that the technological centre has identified as more notable for the next decade. Know the tendencies supposes for the industry agroalimentaria a big opportunity to promote the innovation in feeding and anticipate to the demands of the consumers.

The feeding in the next years will have to adapt to the new rhythms of urban life, with available foods anytime and place and that, without merma of quality and salubridad, suppose an instantaneous satisfaction. The near future will be marked also by services that allow to do the shopping of a faster way and intelligent, with a better discrimination of the products chosen.

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EMOTION REVERSED IN LEFT-HANDERS' BRAINS HOLDS NEW IMPLICATIONS FOR TREATMENT OF ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION

(May 2, 2012)  The way we use our hands may determine how emotions are organized in our brains, according to a recent study published in PLoS ONE by psychologists Geoffrey Brookshire and Daniel Casasanto of The New School for Social Research in New York.

Motivation, the drive to approach or withdraw from physical and social stimuli, is a basic building block of human emotion. For decades, scientists have believed that approach motivation is computed mainly in the left hemisphere of the brain, and withdraw motivation in the right hemisphere. Brookshire and Casasanto's study challenges this idea, showing that a well-established pattern of brain activity, found across dozens of studies in right-handers, completely reverses in left-handers.

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STUDY USING STEM CELL THERAPY SHOWS PROMISE IN FIGHT AGAINST HIV

(May 1, 2012)  UC Davis Health System researchers are a step closer to launching human clinical trials involving the use of an innovative stem cell therapy to fight the virus that causes AIDS.

In a paper published in the May issue of the Journal of Virology, the UC Davis HIV team demonstrated both the safety and efficacy of transplanting anti-HIV stem cells into mice that represent models of infected patients. The technique, which involves replacing the immune system with stem cells engineered with a triple combination of HIV-resistant genes, proved capable of replicating a normally functioning human immune system by protecting and expanding HIV-resistant immune cells. The cells thrived and self-renewed even when challenged with an HIV viral load.

"We envision this as a potential functional cure for patients infected with HIV, giving them the ability to maintain a normal immune system through genetic resistance," said lead author Joseph Anderson, an assistant adjunct professor of internal medicine and a stem cell researcher at the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures. "Ideally, it would be a one-time treatment through which stem cells express HIV-resistant genes, which in turn generate an entire HIV-resistant immune system."

To establish immunity in mice whose immune systems paralleled those of patients with HIV, Anderson and his team genetically modified human blood stem cells, which are responsible for producing the various types of immune cells in the body.

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LARGE-SCALE SIMULATION OF HUMAN BLOOD

Penn Scientists Develop Large-scale Simulation of Human Blood

(April 30, 2012)  Having a virtual copy of a patient’s blood in a computer would be a boon to researchers and doctors. They could examine a simulated heart attack caused by blood clotting in a diseased coronary artery and see if a drug like aspirin would be effective in reducing the size of such a clot.

Now, a team of biomedical engineers and hematologists at the University of Pennsylvania has made large-scale, patient-specific simulations of blood function under the flow conditions found in blood vessels, using robots to run hundreds of tests on human platelets responding to combinations of activating agents that cause clotting.

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CLEAN DRINKING WATER FOR EVERYONE

Clean Drinking Water for Everyone

(April 30, 2012)  Nearly 80 percent of disease in developing countries is linked to bad water and sanitation. Now a scientist at Michigan Technological University has developed a simple, cheap way to make water safe to drink, even if it’s muddy.

It’s easy enough to purify clear water. The solar water disinfection method, or SODIS, calls for leaving a transparent plastic bottle of clear water out in the sun for six hours. That allows heat and ultraviolet radiation to wipe out most pathogens that cause diarrhea, a malady that kills 4,000 children a day in Africa.

It’s a different story if the water is murky, as it often is where people must fetch water from rivers, streams and boreholes. “In the developing world, many people don’t have access to clear water, and it’s very hard to get rid of the suspended clay particles,” says Joshua Pearce, an associate professor of materials science and engineering. “But if you don’t, SODIS doesn’t work. The microorganisms hide under the clay and avoid the UV.”

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RENEWABLE PLASTIC BOTTLES

UMass Chemical Engineers and Collaborators Discover a High-Yield Method for Producing Everyday Plastics from Biomass

(April 30, 2012)   A team of chemical engineers led by Paul J. Dauenhauer of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered a new, high-yield method of producing the key ingredient used to make plastic bottles from biomass. The process is inexpensive and currently creates the chemical p-xylene with an efficient yield of 75-percent, using most of the biomass feedstock, Dauenhauer says. The research is published in the journal ACS Catalysis.

Dauenhauer, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at UMass Amherst, says the new discovery shows that there is an efficient, renewable way to produce a chemical that has immediate and recognizable use for consumers. He says the plastics industry currently produces p-xylene from petroleum and that the new renewable process creates exactly the same chemical from biomass.

‘You can mix our renewable chemical with the petroleum-based material and the consumer would not be able to tell the difference," Dauenhauer says.

Consumers will already know the plastics made from this new process by the triangular recycling label "#1" on plastic containers. Xylene chemicals are used to produce a plastic called PET (or polyethylene terephthalate), which is currently used in many products including soda bottles, food packaging, synthetic fibers for clothing and even automotive parts.

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