Choosing interactive tools for virtual museums mixes art and science

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's virtual tour affords

the visitor 360 degree views of the exhibits and space.

Image: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History/Loren Ybarrondo

(September 21, 2015)  Museum curators planning to develop virtual exhibits online should choose communication and navigation technologies that match the experience they want to offer their visitors, according to a team of researchers.

"When curators think about creating a real-world exhibit, they are thinking about what the theme is and what they want their visitors to get out of the exhibit," said S. Shyam Sundar, Distinguished Professor of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory. "What this study suggests is that, just like curators need to be coherent in the content of the exhibit, they need to be conscious of the tools that they employ in their virtual museums."

Many museum curators hope to create an authentic experience in their online museums by using technology to mimic aspects of the social, personal and physical aspects of a real-world museum experience. However, a more-is-better approach to technology may actually hinder that authentic experience, the researchers suggest.

In a study, visitors to an online virtual art museum found that technology tools used to communicate about and navigate through the exhibits were considered helpful when they were available separately, but less so when they were offered together. The researchers tested customization tools that helped the participants create their own art gallery, live-chat technology to facilitate communication with other visitors and 3-D tool navigation tools that some participants used to explore the museum.

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Concertina Collection for Louis Vuitton - 2015

(September 21, 2015) Getting the chance to work with a prestigious company like Louis Vuitton, we wanted the take the opportunity to create something special yet in the lines of its long lasting heritage of luxury.

Known for its artisanal expertise, we knew that we had the freedom to be ambitious and complex with our ideas. Commissioned to envision foldable furniture and travel accessories as part of collection ‘objets nomades’, we started working on developing various mechanisms and geometries for a collapsible chair.


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AI system solves SAT geometry questions as well as average human test taker

Aaron Escobar, flickr

(September 21, 2015)  The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) and University of Washington researchers have created an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can solve SAT geometry questions as well as the average American 11th-grade student, a breakthrough in AI research.

This system, called GeoS, uses a combination of computer vision to interpret diagrams, natural language processing to read and understand text and a geometric solver to achieve 49 percent accuracy on official SAT test questions. If these results were extrapolated to the entire Math SAT test, the computer roughly achieved an SAT score of 500 (out of 800), the average test score for 2015.

AI2/University of Washington

A paper outlining the research, “Solving Geometry Problems: Combining Text and Diagram Interpretation,” was a joint effort between the UW Computer Science & Engineering department and AI2.

These results, presented at the 2015 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) in Lisbon, Portugal, were achieved by GeoS solving unaltered SAT questions that it had never seen before and that required an understanding of:

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SASKI BASKET CHAIR

(September 21, 2015) Design by Jean Louis Iratzoki
Saski means basket in Basque. This chair features strips of wood that are bent and then joined together. No screws or metal fastenings are used; nor will you find any mortise and tenon joints in this piece. Just a set of components that are crafted and joined together with adhesives. This is precise weaving work that combines the know-how of Alki's craftsmen with cutting-edge CNC technology.

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Mind Your Manners, Robot: How Social Cues Influence Human-Robot Interaction

(September 21, 2015)  Robots are increasingly being considered for use in highly tense civilian encounters to minimize person-to-person contact and danger to peacekeeping personnel.  Trust, along with physical qualities and cultural considerations, is an essential factor in the effectiveness of these robotic peacekeepers. New research to be presented at the HFES 2015 Annual Meeting in Los Angeles in October examines the importance of social cues when evaluating the role of trust in human-robot interaction.

Joachim Meyer, coauthor of “Manners Matter: Trust in Robotic Peacekeepers” and a professor at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Industrial Engineering, notes that  “interactions between machines and people should follow rules of behavior similar to the rules used in human-to-human interaction. Robots are not seen as mindless technology; rather, they are considered agents with intentions.”

Meyer and coauthor Ohad Inbar asked 30 participants to report first impressions of a humanoid peacekeeping robot interacting with individuals using varying levels of politeness. The scenario they evaluated depicted the robot in charge of inspecting people who were trying to enter a building.

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‘Cancer seeing’ technology is one in a hundred innovations to change our world

(September 21, 2015)  A groundbreaking piece of medical imaging technology that could revolutionise cancer treatment will be featured as part of a showcase of 100 engineering ideas that have changed our world.

A section of the PRaVDA instrument, developed at the University of Lincoln, UK, for enhancing the treatment of cancer using proton beam therapy, will be included in the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) new show wall at its Savoy Place headquarters in London.

The IET is the largest professional engineering institution in Europe and its show wall will be a celebration of engineering ideas that have had the biggest impact on humanity. Other items on show include an internal combustion engine, as designed by Karl Benz, and a mechanical television system, which was masterminded by Logie Baird.

The international consortium of researchers behind the PRaVDA (Proton Radiotherapy Verification and Dosimetry Applications) project is led by the University of Lincoln’s Distinguished Professor of Image Engineering Nigel Allinson MBE.

Funded by the Wellcome Trust, he and his multinational team are developing one of the most complex medical instruments ever imagined to improve the delivery of proton beam therapy in the treatment of cancer. The advances they have made in medical imaging technology could make this type of therapy a viable treatment for many more cancer sufferers.

The world-first technology developed by the team uses proton beams to localise treatment, causing less damage to healthy tissue.

Professor Allinson, from the University of Lincoln’s School of Computer Science, said: “It is an amazing honour for our work to be included on the IET’s show wall, and to be up there with some of the all-time greats of engineering innovation.”

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Active thermal cloak

Design of active thermal cloak. (a) Multiple TE components are arranged around the air

hole with equal distance on the Carbon Steel plate. Blue TE components absorb incident

thermal flux while red ones release heat back to the plate. In the demonstration, heat flows

from bottom to top. As a result, grey TE components can stay inactive as they do not

absorb or release heat, but they can be activated if heat flows in other directions. (b)...

(September 21, 2015)  Thermal cloaking, as an ultimate thermal “illusion” phenomenon, is the result of advanced heat manipulation with thermal metamaterials—heat can be guided around a hidden object smoothly without disturbing the ambient thermal environment. However, all previous thermal metamaterial cloaks were passive devices, lacking the functionality of switching on/off and the flexibility of changing geometries. In this letter, we report an active thermal cloaking device that is controllable. Different from previous thermal cloaking approaches, this thermal cloak adopts active thermoelectric components to “pump” heat from one side to the other side of the hidden object, in a process controlled by input electric voltages. Our work not only incorporates active components in thermal cloaking but also provides controllable functionality in thermal metamaterials that can be used to construct more flexible thermal devices.

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The color is the message

Marina Puzakova, assistant professor of marketing, has been studying the effect of colors,

specifically red and blue, on consumer perception. Image: Getty Images

(September 21, 2015)  Case studies of how corporations handle crises are a staple at business schools. Johnson & Johnson’s handling of its cyanide-tainted Tylenol in 1982, for example, is often taught as a classic in good crisis management.

But if there are lessons to be learned from best practices, there are certainly lessons to be learned, and fines to be paid, for companies that do the wrong thing. In July, Fiat Chrysler was forced to pay a record $105 million penalty to federal regulators for failing to complete safety recalls of 11 million vehicles. Seven months earlier, Honda was assessed $70 million in penalties for defective airbags in some of its vehicles.

Headlines filled with such negative corporate news piques the interest of Marina Puzakova, assistant professor of marketing in Lehigh’s College of Business and Economics. Puzakova has found fertile scholarly ground studying how people respond to negative news, such as product failures, recalls or malfeasance.

After reading about a company’s failed product, Puzakova began pursuing a new but related line of intellectual inquiry by studying the effect of colors, specifically red and blue, on consumer perception. After two years of experiments involving more than 800 participants, Puzakova and three other researchers – Hyokjin Kwak, Drexel University; Suresh Ramanathan, Texas A&M University and Joseph Rocereto, Monmouth University – found the colors can have a major impact on consumer perception.

Puzakova said she hit on the idea several years ago as she was reviewing the literature in the field of color psychology, but found little on the use of color in corporate messaging of negative information.

“Most of the research [on consumers’ reactions to negative news] had been on people’s commitment to the brand and prior attitude,” she said.

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4-D Technology Allows Self-folding of Complex Objects

This image shows the folded box, which is intended to simulate a postal mailer.

The folding is done in a tank of warm water to provide uniform heating to the materials.

(Credit: Qi Laboratory)

(September 21, 2015) Using components made from smart shape-memory materials with slightly different responses to heat, researchers have demonstrated a four-dimensional printing technology that allowed creation of complex self-folding structures.

The technology, developed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), could be used to create 3-D structures that sequentially fold themselves from components that had been flat or rolled into a tube for shipment. The components could respond to stimuli such as temperature, moisture or light in a way that is precisely timed to create space structures, deployable medical devices, robots, toys and range of other structures.

The researchers used smart shape memory polymers (SMPs) with the ability to remember one shape and change to another programmed shape when uniform heat is applied. The ability to create objects that change shape in a controlled sequence over time is enabled by printing multiple materials with different dynamic mechanical properties in prescribed patterns throughout the 3-D object. When these components are then heated, each SMP responds at a different rate to change its shape, depending on its own internal clock. By carefully timing these changes, 3-D objects can be programmed to self-assemble.

Yiqi Mao, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Jerry Qi at Georgia Tech, shows a

folded box structure produced from smart shape-memory materials. The materials were

created with the 3-D printer shown with him. (Credit: Candler Hobbs, Georgia Tech)

The research was reported September 8 in the journal Scientific Reports, which is published by Nature Publishing. The work is funded by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Singapore National Research Foundation through the SUTD DManD Centre.

This image shows the self-folding process of smart shape-memory materials with slightly

different responses to heat. Using materials that fold at slightly different rates is

important to ensure that the components do not interfere with one another during

the process. (Credit: Qi Laboratory)

The research creates self-folding structures from 3-D printed patterns containing varying amounts of different smart shape-memory polymers. The patterning, done with a 3-D printer, allows the resulting flat components to have varying temporal response to the same stimuli. Earlier methods required application of differential heating at specific locations in the flat structure to stimulate the shape changes.

Using a 3-D printer, researchers produce smart shape-memory materials with

slightly different responses to heat. Heat from water in a tank activates the

materials and begins the self-folding process.

(Credit: Qi Laboratory, Georgia Tech)

“Previous efforts to create sequential shape changing components involved placing multiple heaters at specific regions in a component and then controlling the on-and-off time of individual heaters,” explained Jerry Qi, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. “This earlier approach essentially requires controlling the heat applied throughout the component in both space and time and is complicated. We turned this approach around and used a spatially uniform temperature which is easier to apply and then exploited the ability of different materials to internally control their rate of shape change through their molecular design.”

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‘Tree of life’ for 2.3M species released; U-M plays key role in project

 A first draft of the first comprehensive "tree of life," showing the links between

the roughly 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes.

The draft took three years to complete and was accomplished by combining

more than 450 existing trees. Image credit: Stephen Smith

(September 19, 2015)  A first draft of the "tree of life" for the roughly 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes has been released, and two University of Michigan biologists played a key role in its creation.

A collaborative effort among 11 institutions, the tree depicts the relationships among living things as they diverged from one another over time, tracing back to the beginning of life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago.

Tens of thousands of smaller trees have been published over the years for select branches of the tree of life—some containing upwards of 100,000 species—but this is the first time those results have been combined into a single tree that encompasses all of life. The end result is a digital resource that is available free online for anyone to use or edit, much like a "Wikipedia" for evolutionary trees.

Understanding how the millions of species on Earth are related to one another helps scientists discover new drugs, increase crop and livestock yields, and trace the origins and spread of infectious diseases such as HIV, Ebola and influenza.

"This is the first real attempt to connect the dots and put it all together," said principal investigator Karen Cranston of Duke University. "Think of it as Version 1.0." A paper summarizing the findings was published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Sept. 18.

U-M evolutionary biologist Stephen Smith heads the group that tackled the nitty-gritty details of piecing together all the existing branches, stems and twigs of life's tree into a single diagram. Cody Hinchliff, formerly a postdoctoral researcher in Smith's lab who is now at the University of Idaho, did much of the heavy lifting on the project and shares first-author credits with Smith on the PNAS paper.

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The current version ofthe tree is available to browse and download >>

Slow light speeds up the microscopic world

A team of researchers from the University of St Andrews and the University of York has slowed down the speed of light in a process which could have major applications in fundamental science and medical diagnosis.

Dr Yoshihiko Arita and Professor Kishan Dholakia of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of St Andrews and Dr Mark Scullion and Professor Thomas Krauss of the University of York created a specially fabricated nanostructure and used it to drive particles at high speed along a track of light.

The work, published in the international journal Optica, could open up more rapid methods of understanding disease or indeed the way we look at the biological world in general.

As light bends through a transparent object such as a marble, it exerts a minuscule but important force. The marble could not move as the force is too weak, but the force is sufficient to move and propel particles the size of blood cells or smaller.

Light moves at 186,000 miles per second but can be slowed down in glass, for example, by a third.

The researchers designed special nanostructures made from silicon that affect the motion of photons, called photonic crystals, to reduce the speed further.

The effect is like placing speed bumps into the light’s path, and the researchers managed to slow the light down by 95%, corresponding to a reduction by a factor 20 compared to free space.

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Discovery of a New Photonic Crystal where Light Propagates through the Surface without being Scattered

Above: Schematic of photonic crystals consisting of cylinders in a honeycomb

lattice viewed from above. Photonic crystals obtained by dividing the nearest

neighboring cylinders into hexagonal clusters, and widening (left) or narrowing (right)

the separation between hexagonal clusters from the original honeycomb lattice (middle),

while keeping the shape and size of hexagons. Below: Relationship between the wave number

and frequency of the photonic crystal in each case. Here, a0 denotes the distance between the

hexagonal clusters as measured from their center, and R denotes the length

of one side of the hexagon.

Achievable Even by Silicone Alone; Developments of New Functions through Integration with Semiconductor Electronics

(September 18, 2015)  NIMS MANA researchers elucidated a new principle whereby electromagnetic waves including light propagate on the surface of a photonic crystal without being scattered.

Abstract

1. Xiao Hu, Principal Investigator of the International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), and Long-Hua Wu, NIMS Junior Researcher, elucidated a new principle whereby electromagnetic waves including light propagate on the surface in a photonic crystal without being scattered. By merely slightly adjusting positions of insulator or semiconductor cylinders (nanorods) in a honeycomb lattice, electromagnetic waves can propagate without being scattered even at corners of crystal or by defects. Since this property can be achieved even by a semiconductor, such as silicone, alone, developments of new functions are expected via integrating information processing functions achieved by the well-established semiconductor electronics and the excellent propagation property of electromagnetic waves.

2. In recent years, active studies have been conducted on materials with topological properties where unique properties appear on surfaces of materials. Suppressions of scattering of light by defects in conventional photonic crystals is also expected in topological photonic states. However, special materials were required to create topological photonic crystals.

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Researchers developed highly accurate method for measuring luminous efficacy of LEDs

PQED consists of a Brewster window (left) protecting the detector elements from impurities,

adjustable bellows and the detector chamber itself. In order to further decrease uncertainties

in measurement, the window was removed and the detector was protected from impurities

using nitrogen flow.

The method helps discovering the most efficient lamps, which may save billions in lighting costs in the future.

(September 18, 2015)  Researchers at Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have succeeded in developing a method which helps to improve the relative uncertainty in measuring the luminous efficacy of LEDs from the approximate five percent of today to one per cent in the future. The results were just published in the distinguished Light: Science & Applications journal.

– Thus far, solutions based on incandescent lamps have been used in photometry, i.e. in measuring light detected by the human eye, explains Tomi Pulli, a doctoral student at Aalto University.

– The photometers that lamp manufacturers use for calibrating their devices have been produced and calibrated for incandescent lamps, which results in errors when measuring the efficacy of LEDs. In our research, we used a LED lamp with a well-defined spectrum and a PQED detector, which we developed together with VTT MIKES Metrology and European partners, and whose spectral responsivity can be determined highly accurately.  Therefore, there was no need for the problematic optical filters used in applications based on incandescent lamps. Indeed, accurately determining and analysing the spectrum of the LED was the most challenging and crucial part of the research, he reveals.

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Could fast radio bursts help astronomers chart the cosmos in 3D?

Canada’s Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment radio telescope could offer

the first set of regular data from fast radio bursts.

(September 18, 2015)  If only calculating the distance between Earth and far-off galaxies was as easy as pulling out the old measuring tape. Now UBC researchers are proposing a new way to calculate distances in the cosmos using mysterious bursts of energy.

In a study featured today in the journal Physical Review Letters, UBC researchers propose a new way to calculate cosmological distances using the bursts of energy also known as fast radio bursts. The method allows researchers to position distant galaxies in three dimensions and map out the cosmos.

“We’ve introduced the idea of using these new phenomena to study cosmological objects in the universe,” said Kiyoshi Masui, a postdoctoral fellow at UBC and a global scholar with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. “We believe we’ll be able to use these flashes to put together a picture of how galaxies are spread through space.”

Some unknown astrophysical phenomenon is causing these bursts of energy that appear as a short flashes of radio waves. While only 10 fast radio bursts have ever been recorded, scientists believe there could be thousands of them a day.

As these fast radio bursts travel toward Earth, they spread out and arrive at different times based on their wavelengths. The researchers propose using the delay between the arrival times of different frequencies to map the cosmos. The amount of spread in the signal that arrives on Earth gives scientists a sense of how many electrons, and by extension how much material including stars, gas and dark matter, are in between Earth and the source of the burst.

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The structural memory of water persists on a picosecond timescale

The lifetime of local water structures is probed using

ultrafast laser pulses. © Yuki Nagata / MPI-P

Long-lived sub-structures exist in liquid water as discovered using novel ultrafast vibrational spectroscopies.

(September 18, 2015)  A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) in Mainz, Germany and FOM Institute AMOLF in the Netherlands have characterized the local structural dynamics of liquid water, i.e. how quickly water molecules change their binding state. Using innovative ultrafast vibrational spectroscopies, the researchers show why liquid water is so unique compared to other molecular liquids. This study has recently been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

With the help of a novel combination of ultrafast laser experiments, the scientists found that local structures persist in water for longer than a picosecond, a picosecond (ps) being one thousandth of one billionth of a second (10-12 s). This observation changes the general perception of water as a solvent. “71% of the earth’s surface is covered with water. As most chemical and biological reactions on earth occur in water or at the air water interface in oceans or in clouds, the details of how water behaves at the molecular level are crucial. Our results show that water cannot be treated as a continuum, but that specific local structures exist and are likely very important” says Mischa Bonn, director at the MPI-P.

Water is a very special liquid with extremely fast dynamics. Water molecules wiggle and jiggle on sub-picosecond timescales, which make them undistinguishable on this timescale. While the existence of very short-lived local structures - e.g. two water molecules that are very close to one another, or are very far apart from each other - is known to occur, it was commonly believed that they lose the memory of their local structure within less than 0.1 picoseconds.

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3D-printed guide helps regrow complex nerves after injury

A 3D-printed nerve regeneration pathway implanted in a rat helped

to improve walking in 10 to 12 weeks after implantation.

(September 18, 2015)  Research could help more than 200,000 people annually who suffer from nerve injuries or disease

A national team of researchers has developed a first-of-its-kind, 3D-printed guide that helps regrow both the sensory and motor functions of complex nerves after injury. The groundbreaking research has the potential to help more than 200,000 people annually who experience nerve injuries or disease.

Collaborators on the project are from the University of Minnesota, Virginia Tech, University of Maryland, Princeton University, and Johns Hopkins University.

Nerve regeneration is a complex process. Because of this complexity, regrowth of nerves after injury or disease is very rare, according to the Mayo Clinic. Nerve damage is often permanent. Advanced 3D printing methods may now be the solution.

In a new study, published today in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, researchers used a combination of 3D imaging and 3D printing techniques to create a custom silicone guide implanted with biochemical cues to help nerve regeneration. The guide’s effectiveness was tested in the lab using rats.

To achieve their results, researchers used a 3D scanner to reverse engineer the structure of a rat’s sciatic nerve. They then used a specialized, custom-built 3D printer to print a guide for regeneration. Incorporated into the guide were 3D-printed chemical cues to promote both motor and sensory nerve regeneration. The guide was then implanted into the rat by surgically grafting it to the cut ends of the nerve. Within about 10 to 12 weeks, the rat’s ability to walk again was improved.

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A barrier against brain stem cell aging

Dividing neural stem cells (outlined with a white line) establish a diffusion

barrier in the endoplasmic reticulum during cell division. This barrier

participates in the asymmetric segregation of aging factors such as ubiquitinated,

damaged proteins (red) during cell division (DNA (blue) of 2 daughter cells at the

end of mitosis). The barrier ensures proper neural stem cell proliferation. (Image: UZH)

(September 18, 2015)  Neural stem cells generate new neurons throughout life in the mammalian brain. However, with advancing age the potential for regeneration in the brain dramatically declines. Scientists of the University of Zurich now identified a novel mechanism of how neural stem cells stay relatively free of aging-induced damage. A diffusion barrier regulates the sorting of damaged proteins during cell division.

Yeast are good for making wine, bread, and brewing beer. But they are also a good model for neural stem cells in the mammalian brain. It was known that with every division cellular aging factors are asymmetrically distributed between the mother and the daughter cell, allowing for rejuvenation and full life span of the daughter independent of the age of the mother cell. At least partially responsible for this is the presence of a diffusion barrier that restricts movement of molecules from one side to the other side of the cell during cell division.

The stem cells asymmetrically segregate damaged proteins (red) between the mother and the

daughter cells (on the left: DNA grey). Responsible for this is a diffusion barrier. The strength

of the barrier weakens with advancing age. This leads to reduced asymmetry of damaged

protein segregation (on the right). (Image: UZH)

Disposing of age

A group of scientists led by Sebastian Jessberger of the Brain Research Institute showed now that also the stem cells of the adult mouse brain asymmetrically segregate aging factors between the mother and the daughter cells. Responsible for this is a diffusion barrier in the endoplasmic reticulum (a channel system within the cell that is for example important for protein synthesis and transport). The barrier prevents retention of damaged proteins in the stem cell daughter cell keeping the stem cells relatively clean. «Neural stem cell divisions appear to be much more asymmetric than we had previously anticipated,» states Darcie Moore, postdoc in the group of Sebastian Jessberger and lead author of the study.

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Solving the problem of sea ice thickness distribution using molecular concepts

(Photo by Norbert Untersteiner, 1957)

(September 18, 2015)  Yale University scientists have answered a 40-year-old question about Arctic ice thickness by treating the ice floes of the frozen seas like colliding molecules in a fluid or gas.

Although today’s highly precise satellites do a fine job of measuring the area of sea ice, measuring the volume has always been a tricky business. The volume is reflected through the distribution of sea ice thickness — which is subject to a number of complex processes, such as growth, melting, ridging, rafting, and the formation of open water.

For decades, scientists have been guided by a 1975 theory (by Thorndike et al.) that could not be completely tested, due to the unwieldy nature of sea ice thickness distribution. The theory relied upon a term that could not be related to the others, which represented the mechanical redistribution of ice thickness. As a result, the complete theory could not be mathematically tested.

Enter Yale professor John Wettlaufer, inspired by the staff and students at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Summer Study Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts. Over the course of the summer, Wettlaufer and Yale graduate student Srikanth Toppaladoddi developed and articulated a new way of thinking about the space-time evolution of sea ice thickness.

The resulting paper appears in the Sept. 17 edition of the journal Physical Review Letters.

“The Arctic is a bellwether of the global climate, which is our focus. What we have done in our paper is to translate concepts used in the microscopic world into terms appropriate to this problem essential to climate,” said Wettlaufer, who is the A.M. Bateman Professor of Geophysics, Mathematics and Physics at Yale.

Wettlaufer and co-author Toppaladoddi recast the old theory into an equation similar to a Fokker-Planck equation, a partial differential equation used in statistical mechanics to predict the probability of finding microscopic particles in a given position under the influence of random forces. By doing this, the equation could capture the dynamic and thermodynamic forces at work within polar sea ice.

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Accurate eye operations using lasers and optical coherence tomography

Caption figure 1: 3-D OCT projection of an fs laser membrane cut (symbolic laser focus in red).

The membrane in blue is only 300 µm from the prepared porcine retina in brown.

Individual images from the middle show the geometry. Illustration: LZH

(September 17, 2015)  Several laser-based operations are already established for correcting defective vision. However, this highly precise and yet gentle method cannot be used yet for presbyopia and for adhesions on the retina. In the project IKARUS the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH) and four project partners have combined femtosecond laser technology with optical coherence tomography (OCT) as well as adaptive optics, to expand the range of laser surgery.

In the established femtosecond laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (fs LASIK), the cornea is cut open using the laser to subsequently correct the defective vision. In order to treat presbyopia however, the tissue has to be cut deeper. The scientists at the LZH and their industrial partners use an fs laser for precisely cutting the lens, creating slip planes and thus making the lens more flexible.

  

Cutting the eye lens with the laser, without damage

This treatment becomes only possible through an effective visualization of the eye tissue. For this, the Image Guided Laser Surgery Group of the Biomedical Optics Department of the LZH has adapted an OCT imaging unit from the ROWIAK GmbH. With this and a special software it is possible to image the cutting of the eye as well as the laser beam delivery during the operation. Within the project cuts into the eye have already been done without damaging neither the front nor the rear part of the lens capsule. In current clinical studies, the ROWIAK GmbH is further examining this process.

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U of A Engineers to Lead Design of New Solar Cells to Power Space Missions

Photo credit: NASA

University of Arkansas researchers are developing the next generation of photovoltaic

devices to be used in space missions, such as the International Space Station.

(September 17, 2015)  Two University of Arkansas researchers working on a promising new material to create more efficient solar cells will lead a corps of Arkansas scientists chosen to develop the next generation of photovoltaic devices used in space missions.

Shui-Qing “Fisher” Yu, associate professor of electrical engineering, will serve as principal scientific investigator on the multi-institutional project. The team will  develop photovoltaic devices made of silicon-germanium-tin, a powerful semiconductor that has been proven to increase efficiency in electronic devices that source, detect and control light.

The project is made possible by a $750,000 NASA/EPSCoR grant to the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium Office at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. EPSCoR — Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research — is a funding program to increase state participation in competitive aerospace-related research activities.

“We are excited that our material research has been recognized by NASA,” Yu said. “Now we have the opportunity to move forward developing a high-performance solar cell for space applications.”

Yu will collaborate with Hameed Naseem, professor of electrical engineering; Mansour Mortazavi, physics professor at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff; and Allan Thomas, physics professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Yu, Naseem and Mortazavi previously received a $725,000 grant from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research to work on similar technology. 

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Nano-trapped molecules are potential path to quantum devices

With a nano-ring-based toroidal trap, cold polar molecules near the gray shaded surface

approaching the central region may be trapped within a nanometer scale volume.

(September 17, 2015)  Single atoms or molecules imprisoned by laser light in a doughnut-shaped metal cage could unlock the key to advanced storage devices, computers and high-resolution instruments.

In a paper published in Physical Review A, a team composed of Ali Passian of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Marouane Salhi and George Siopsis of the University of Tennessee describes conceptually how physicists may be able to exploit a molecule’s energy to advance a number of fields.

“A single molecule has many degrees of freedom, or ways of expressing its energy and dynamics, including vibrations, rotations and translations,” Passian said. “For years, physicists have searched for ways to take advantage of these molecular states, including how they could be used in high-precision instruments or as an information storage device for applications such as quantum computing.”

Catching a molecule with minimal disturbance is not an easy task, considering its size – about a billionth of a meter – but this paper proposes a method that may overcome that obstacle.

When interacting with laser light, the ring toroidal nanostructure – sort of like a doughnut shrunk a million times – can trap the slower molecules at its center. This happens as the nano-trap, which can be made of gold using conventional nanofabrication techniques, creates a highly localized force field surrounding the molecules. The team envisions using scanning probe microscopy techniques to access individual nano-traps that would be part of an array.

“The scanning probe microscope offers a great deal of maneuverability at the nanoscale in terms of measuring extremely small forces,” Passian said. “This is a capability that will undoubtedly be useful for future trapping experiments.

“Once trapped, we can interrogate the molecules for their spectroscopic and electromagnetic properties and study them in isolation without disturbance from the neighboring molecules.”

While previous demonstrations of trapping molecules have relied on large systems to confine charged particles such as single ions, this new concept goes in the opposite direction, at the nanoscale. Next, Passian, Siopsis and Salhi plan to build actual nanotraps and conduct experiments to determine the feasibility of fabricating a large number of traps on a single chip.

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Making 3D Objects Disappear

A 3D illustration of a metasurface skin cloak made from an ultrathin layer of

nanoantennas (gold blocks) covering an arbitrarily shaped object.

Light reflects off the cloak (red arrows) as if it were reflecting off a flat mirror.

Berkeley Lab Researchers Create Ultrathin Invisibility Cloak

(September 17, 2015) Invisibility cloaks are a staple of science fiction and fantasy, from Star Trek to Harry Potter, but don’t exist in real life, or do they? Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have devised an ultra-thin invisibility “skin” cloak that can conform to the shape of an object and conceal it from detection with visible light. Although this cloak is only microscopic in size, the principles behind the technology should enable it to be scaled-up to conceal macroscopic items as well.

Working with brick-like blocks of gold nanoantennas, the Berkeley researchers fashioned a “skin cloak” barely 80 nanometers in thickness, that was wrapped around a three-dimensional object about the size of a few biological cells and arbitrarily shaped with multiple bumps and dents. The surface of the skin cloak was meta-engineered to reroute reflected light waves so that the object was rendered invisible to optical detection when the cloak is activated.

(From left) Yuan Wang, Zi Jing Wong and Xiang Zhang have devised an ultra-thin

invisibility “skin” cloak that can conform to the shape of an object and conceal it

from detection with visible light. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt)

“This is the first time a 3D object of arbitrary shape has been cloaked from visible light,” said Xiang Zhang, director of Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and a world authority on metamaterials – artificial nanostructures engineered with electromagnetic properties not found in nature. “Our ultra-thin cloak now looks like a coat. It is easy to design and implement, and is potentially scalable for hiding macroscopic objects.”

Now you see it, now you don’t, invisibility cloak makes 3D object disappear.

Click to see gif. (Courtesy of Zhang group)

Zhang, who holds the Ernest S. Kuh Endowed Chair at UC Berkeley and is a member of the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at Berkeley (Kavli ENSI), is the corresponding author of a paper describing this research in Science. The paper is titled “An Ultra-Thin Invisibility Skin Cloak for Visible Light.” Xingjie Ni and Zi Jing Wong are the lead authors. Other co-authors are Michael Mrejen and Yuan Wang.

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Carbon research may boost nanoelectronics

A carbyne strand forms in laser-melted graphite. Carbyne is found in astrophysical bodies

and has the potential to be used in nanoelectronic devices and superhard materials.

Image by Liam Krauss/LLNL

The smallest of electronics could one day have the ability to turn on and off at an atomic scale.

(September 17, 2015)  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have investigated a way to create linear chains of carbon atoms from laser-melted graphite. The material, called carbyne, could have a number of novel properties, including the ability to adjust the amount of electrical current traveling through a circuit, depending on the user’s needs.

Carbyne is the subject of intense research because of its presence in astrophysical bodies, as well as its potential use in nanoelectronic devices and superhard materials. Its linear shape gives it unique electrical properties that are sensitive to stretching and bending, and it is 40 times stiffer than diamond. It also was found in the Murchison and Allende meteorites and could be an ingredient of interstellar dust.

Using computer simulations, LLNL scientist Nir Goldman and colleague Christopher Cannella, an undergraduate summer researcher from Caltech, initially intended to study the properties of liquid carbon as it evaporates, after being formed by shining a laser beam on the surface of graphite. The laser can heat the graphite surface to a few thousands of degrees, which then forms a fairly volatile droplet. To their surprise, as the liquid droplet evaporated and cooled in their simulations, it formed bundles of linear chains of carbon atoms.

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“BEING SIGMUND FREUD”

EMBODIMENT MODIFIES THOUGHT PROCESS

(September 17, 2015)  The illusion of being in another body affects not only our perception (as is already known) but also our way of thinking. Thanks to virtual reality, some subjects embodied Sigmund Freud and proved better at giving themselves psychological advice compared to when they were simply themselves.

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Ban on microbeads offers best chance to protect oceans, aquatic species

(September 17, 2015)  An outright ban on the common use of plastic “microbeads” from products that enter wastewater is the best way to protect water quality, wildlife, and resources used by people, a group of conservation scientists suggest in a new analysis.

These microbeads are one part of the microplastic problem in oceans, freshwater lakes and rivers, but are a special concern because in many products they are literally designed to be flushed down the drain. And even at conservative estimates, the collective total of microbeads being produced today is enormous.

In an article just published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, scientists from seven institutions say that nontoxic and biodegradable alternatives exist for microbeads, which are used in hundreds of products as abrasive scrubbers, ranging from face washes to toothpaste. Around the size of a grain of sand, they can provide a gritty texture to products where that is needed.

“We’re facing a plastic crisis and don’t even know it,” said Stephanie Green, the David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow in the College of Science at Oregon State University, and co-author of this report.

“Part of this problem can now start with brushing your teeth in the morning,” she said. “Contaminants like these microbeads are not something our wastewater treatment plants were built to handle, and the overall amount of contamination is huge. The microbeads are very durable.”

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