Optoelectronic microprocessors built using existing chip manufacturing

Researchers have produced a working optoelectronic chip that computes electronically

but uses light to move information. The chip has 850 optical components and 70 million

transistors, which, while significantly less than the billion-odd transistors of a typical

microprocessor, is enough to demonstrate all the functionality that a commercial optical

chip would require. Image: Glenn J. Asakawa

High-performance prototype means chipmakers could now start building optoelectronic chips.

(December 23, 2015)  Using only processes found in existing microchip fabrication facilities, researchers at MIT, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Colorado have produced a working optoelectronic microprocessor, which computes electronically but uses light to move information.

Optical communication could dramatically reduce chips’ power consumption, which is not only desirable in its own right but essential to maintaining the steady increases in computing power that we’ve come to expect.

Demonstrating that optical chips can be built with no alteration to existing semiconductor manufacturing processes should make optical communication more attractive to the computer industry. But it also makes an already daunting engineering challenge even more difficult.

“You have to use new physics and new designs to figure out how you take ingredients and process recipes that are used to make transistors, and use those to make photodetectors, light modulators, waveguides, optical filters, and optical interfaces,” says MIT professor of electrical engineering Rajeev Ram, referring to the optical components necessary to encode data onto different wavelengths of light, transmit it across a chip, and then decode it. “How do you build all the optics using only the layers out of a transistor? It felt a bit like an episode of ‘MacGyver’ where he has to build an optical network using only old computer parts.”

The project began as a collaboration between Ram, Vladimir Stojanović, and Krste Asanovic, who were then on the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science faculty. Stojanović and Asanovic have since moved to Berkeley, and they, Ram, and Miloš A. Popović, who was a graduate student and postdoc at MIT before becoming an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Colorado, are the senior authors on a paper in Nature that describes the new chip.

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PET LAMP

(December 23, 2015)  From Madrid, the challenge as industrial designers is to transform this half-finished product, the lamp shade created by artisans in Colombia, into a product ready to be sold on the market: the lamp.

Given that each lamp shade is unique we chose to offer individual lamps as well as big installations. For this we designed an adornment which is cilindrical and made out of mechanised iron and later phosphated, like a black hole from which all the different cables fall.

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Unsynchronized Structured Light

(December 23, 2015)  Various Structured Light (SL) methods are used to capture 3D range images, where a number of binary or continuous light patterns are sequentially projected onto a scene of interest, while a digital cam- era captures images of the illuminated scene. All existing SL meth- ods require the projector and camera to be hardware or software synchronized, with one image captured per projected pattern. A 3D range image is computed from the captured images. The two synchronization methods have disadvantages, which limit the use of SL methods to niche industrial and low quality consumer ap- plications. Unsynchronized Structured Light (USL) is a novel SL method which does not require synchronization of pattern projec- tion and image capture. The light patterns are projected and the images are captured independently, at constant, but possibly dif- ferent, frame rates. USL synthesizes new binary images as would be decoded from the images captured by a camera synchronized to the projector, reducing the subsequent computation to standard SL. USL works both with global and rolling shutter cameras. USL enables most burst-mode-capable cameras, such as modern smart- phones, tablets, DSLRs, and point-and-shoots, to function as high quality 3D snapshot cameras. Beyond the software, which can run in the devices, a separate SL Flash, able to project the sequence of patterns cyclically, during the acquisition time, is needed to enable the functionality.

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Ringing in a New Way to Measure and Modulate Trapped Light

The focused ion-beam tool developed at the NIST Center for

Nanoscale Science and Technology can inject ions into the resonator,

creating tiny bulges that affect the structure’s resonant properties—akin

to how a bell maker can change the sound a bell makes by adding material and

changing its shape. Credit: NIST

(December 23, 2015)  Researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a novel way to noninvasively measure and map how and where trapped light vibrates within microscale optical resonators.*

The new technique not only makes for more accurate measurements but also allows scientists to fine-tune the trapped light’s frequency by subtly altering the shape of the resonator itself.

Visualizing the vibration patterns will help scientists to perfect ultrasensitive optical sensors for detecting biomolecules and even single atoms. The fine-tuning capability will also open the door to creating optical resonators with identical resonances, a feat now impossible to achieve during manufacturing, but necessary for applications such as quantum information processing with single photons.

Microscale optical resonators are like tiny bells that ring not with sound, but with light. Just like a bell’s tone, the frequency with which an optical resonator “rings” is determined by its size and shape, so that it amplifies and sustains some frequencies of light and diminishes others.

The devices are so tiny that the light actually extends outside their outer surfaces where they form “near-fields.” Where these vibrating near-fields are strongest, the resonator is hypersensitive to changes in the environment. Any perturbation of a near field, say by a stray molecule or atom, will affect the light inside the resonator in a detectable way, much in the same way that touching a ringing bell will change its tone or volume or silence the bell altogether.

Mapping these vibration patterns of light in real devices will help scientists to make them even more sensitive.

At present, the vibrational profiles of these resonators are measured using sharp, needle-like probes. The problem with using a probe is that it strongly disturbs the near-fields before it is able to get close enough to the surface to do high-resolution imaging. High-resolution imaging of the microresonator requires a probe that is able to reach the surface without disturbing the near fields.

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Images and codes provide alternative to multiple device passwords systems

(December 23, 2015)  A system using images and a one-time numerical code could provide a secure and easy to use alternative to multi-factor methods dependent on hardware or software and one-time passwords, a study by Plymouth University suggests.

Researchers from the Centre for Security Communication and Network Research (CSCAN) believe their new multi-level authentication system GOTPass could be effective in protecting personal online information from hackers.

It could also be easier for users to remember, and be less expensive for providers to implement since it would not require the deployment of potentially costly hardware systems.

Writing in Information Security Journal: A Global Perspective, researchers say the system would be applicable for online banking and other such services, where users with several accounts would struggle to carry around multiple devices, to gain access.

They also publish the results of a series of security tests, demonstrating that out of 690 hacking attempts – using a range of guesswork and more targeted methods – there were just 23 successful break-ins.

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16 - Modular Armature

(December 23, 2015)  16 is formed by sequentially pouring three separate layers of molten glass – in varying opacities – on a horizontal plane. Each layer responds to the indeterminate shape of the previous pour to create a uniquely layered whole. Two of these pieces are then attached and illuminated with an internal LED lamp.

A modular armature system connects the glass pieces to a series of branches and stems. Each armature segment carries low-voltage electricity and diverges into 2-4 separate branches, allowing both vertical and horizontal deployment with an infinite variety of possible forms. The branches simply click together during installation for custom, on-site arrangements.

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Detecting consumer decisions within messy data

“In health care, there’s this gigantic world of unstructured data that needs to be translated into

useable information,” says Paul Nemirovsky, who co-founded dMetrics with Ariadna Quattoni.

Image: MIT News

Software analyzes online chatter to predict health care consumers’ behavior.

(December 22, 2015)  Millions of people each month report positive and negative health care feedback across the Web. Some jump into forums to complain about ineffective prescriptions or to discuss which drugs are best to treat illnesses. Others take to blogs to describe symptoms and how to get relief.

MIT spinout dMetrics believes this online chatter is an information treasure-trove for the health care industry. “In health care, there’s this gigantic world of unstructured data that needs to be translated into useable information,” says Paul Nemirovsky PhD ’06, who co-founded dMetrics with Ariadna Quattoni PhD ’09.

The startup has developed a platform called DecisionEngine that uses machine learning and natural language processing — which helps computers better understand human speech — to mine billions of conversations about drugs, medical devices, and other health care products. These discussions are happening on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, forums, and even in comments accompanying news articles and videos.

From those vast stores of messy data, the software reveals insights into consumer decisions, Nemirovsky says: “What people do, don’t do, consider doing, may do, did in the past, as well as what needs, fears, and hopes they have.”

Today, Nemirovsky explains, dMetrics has a database that includes every public comment about patient-reported illnesses, solutions, and outcomes, pulled from more than 1 million online sources. This includes information on more than 14,000 health care products.

Clients, including Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations, can use dMetrics software to answer specific questions, such as how many patients used a specific medication for a particular reason in certain time frame, or which customers are considering switching from their drug to a competitor’s drug.

Although focusing on the health care industry, dMetrics, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, is also trialing its platform with consumer finance and political organizations. Credit card companies, for instance, can analyze why consumers favor specific credit cards over others. Political scientists could use the software to determine which issues people care about and how strongly they stand behind their opinions.

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Tooth fillings of the future may incorporate bioactive glass

(December 22, 2015)  A few years from now millions of people around the world might be walking around with an unusual kind of glass in their mouth, and using it every time they eat.

Engineers at Oregon State University have made some promising findings about the ability of “bioactive” glass to help reduce the ability of bacteria to attack composite tooth fillings – and perhaps even provide some of the minerals needed to replace those lost to tooth decay.

Prolonging the life of composite tooth fillings could be an important step forward for dental treatment, the researchers say, since more than 122 million composite tooth restorations are made in the United States every year. An average person uses their teeth for more than 600,000 “chews” a year, and some studies suggest the average lifetime of a posterior dental composite is only six years.

The new research was just published in the journal Dental Materials, in work supported by the National Institutes of Health.

“Bioactive glass, which is a type of crushed glass that is able to interact with the body, has been used in some types of bone healing for decades,” said Jamie Kruzic, a professor and expert in advanced structural and biomaterials in the OSU College of Engineering.

“This type of glass is only beginning to see use in dentistry, and our research shows it may be very promising for tooth fillings,” he said. “The bacteria in the mouth that help cause cavities don’t seem to like this type of glass and are less likely to colonize on fillings that incorporate it. This could have a significant impact on the future of dentistry.”

Bioactive glass is made with compounds such as silicon oxide, calcium oxide and phosphorus oxide, and looks like powdered glass. It’s called “bioactive” because the body notices it is there and can react to it, as opposed to other biomedical products that are inert. Bioactive glass is very hard and stiff, and it can replace some of the inert glass fillers that are currently mixed with polymers to make modern composite tooth fillings.

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NEWLY DEVELOPED LIQUID CRYSTAL ELASTOMER MATERIAL COULD ENABLE ADVANCED SENSORS, KENT STATE RESEARCHERS SAY

Kent State University chemical physics graduate student Andrii Varanytsia demonstrates laser

emission with a liquid crystal elastomer in Professor Peter Palffy-Muhoray’s lab at the

Liquid Crystal and Materials Sciences Building on the university’s Kent Campus.

(December 22, 2015)  Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), essentially rubbers with liquid crystal properties, can do a number of fascinating things, especially in the fields of optics, photonics, telecommunications and medicine. They can curl up, bend, twist, wrinkle and stretch when exposed to light, heat, gases and other stimuli. Because they are so responsive, they are ideal for applications like artificial muscles and blood vessels, actuators, sensors, plastic motors and drug delivery systems. They can even be used as a mechanically tunable mirrorless “rubber” laser.

In the College of Arts and Sciences at Kent State University, Peter Palffy-Muhoray, Ph.D., associate director of the Glenn H. Brown Liquid Crystal Institute® and professor of chemical physics, has been collaborating with the world’s experts in liquid crystal elastomers research for many years. Recently, he and his graduate assistant, Andrii Varanytsia, and Kenji Urayama and Hama Nagai from the Kyoto Institute of Technology in Japan developed the first type of cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers with special properties that enable it to precisely emit laser light, without the use of mirrors, while being stretched.

Lasers consist of cavities, typically formed by fixed mirrors. Light bouncing between these has a characteristic frequency, just like a guitar string of a certain length. Light-emitting material in the cavity amplifies the light wave, which is then emitted at a precise frequency – like a pure tone from some musical instrument.

A liquid crystal elastomer is used as a mechanically tunable mirrorless “rubber” laser in the lab of

Peter Palffy-Muhoray, Ph.D., associate director of the Glenn H. Brown Liquid Crystal Institute and

professor of chemical physics at Kent State University. The elastomer has properties that enable it to

precisely emit laser light, without the use of mirrors, while being stretched.

In 2001, Palffy-Muhoray, Bahman Taheri, Ph.D., and several other colleagues were the first to demonstrate that they could use liquid crystals to bounce laser light back and forth inside the material, without the need for any external mirrors. However, accurate control of the laser emission frequency was not possible then.

Their recent work, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and Japan Society of Promotion of Science, was published on Nature.com on Dec. 4 in an article titled “Tunable Lasing in Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Elastomers With Accurate Measurement of Strain.”

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NREL Research Advances Hydrogen Production Efforts

Surface modification strategies for the p-GaInP2 photoelectrodes. (nature.com)

(December 22, 2015)  Researchers at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have made advances toward affordable photoelectrochemical (PEC) production of hydrogen.

NREL's scientists took a different approach to the PEC process, which uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The process requires special semiconductors, the PEC materials and catalysts to split the water. Previous work used precious metals such as platinum, ruthenium and iridium as catalysts attached to the semiconductors. A large-scale commercial effort using those precious metals wouldn't be cost-effective, however.

The use of cheaper molecular catalysts instead of precious metals has been proposed, but these have encountered issues with stability, and were found to have a lifespan shorter than the metal-based catalysts.

Instead, the NREL researchers decided to examine molecular catalysts outside of the liquid solution they are normally studied in to see if they could attach the catalyst directly onto the surface of the semiconductor. They were able to put a layer of titanium dioxide (TiO2) on the surface of the semiconductor and bond the molecular catalyst to the TiO2.

Their work showed molecular catalysts can be as highly active as the precious metal-based catalysts.

Their research, "Water Reduction by a p-GaInP2 Photoelectrode Stabilized by an Amorphous TiO2 Coating and a Molecular Cobalt Catalyst," has been published in Nature Materials. Jing Gu and Yong Yan are lead authors of the paper. Contributors James Young, Nathan Neale and John Turner are all with NREL's Chemistry and Nanoscience Center. Contributor K. Xerxes Steirer is with NREL's Materials Science Center.

Turner points out that although the molecular catalysts aren't as stable as the metal-based catalysts, PEC systems are shut down each evening as the sun sets. That leaves time to regenerate a molecular catalyst.

"Hopefully you would not have to do that every day, but it does point to the fact that low stability but highly active catalysts could be viable candidates as a long-term solution to the scalability issue for PEC water splitting systems," Turner said.

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Locust-Shaped, 3D-Printed Robot Can Traverse Rocky Terrain, Assist In Search And Rescue

photo: Tel Aviv University, American Friends of Tel Aviv University

(December 22, 2015) In recent years, advanced robotic platforms have provided assistance to crisis intervention teams in the wake of man-made and natural disasters. The objective of such robots, in various sizes and shapes, has been to intervene where humans cannot and send life-saving data to rescue teams in the field.

Now, a miniature robot is poised to make a major contribution to the field of advanced robotics. The new locust-inspired robot, developed in Israel by researchers from Tel Aviv University and Ort Braude College, is five inches long and weighs less than one ounce. It can jump 11 feet high — more than twice the height of similar-sized robots, according to the researchers — and cover a horizontal distance of 4.5 feet in one leap. The researchers believe the robot will perform well in search-and-rescue missions and in reconnaissance operations in rough terrain.

 Inspired by nature

“Our locust-inspired, miniature jumping robot is a beautiful example of bio-inspired technological innovation,” TAU’s Prof. Amir Ayali, who led the research, said in a statement. “Miniature robots are of special interest in the robotics field, attracting a lot of attention and research. The manufacture of tiny robots is cheap and efficient; their small size allows them to traverse difficult and unknown terrain; and many can be used in any given situation.”

video: Tel Aviv University, American Friends of Tel Aviv University

The scientists printed out the body of the robot on a 3D printer using plastic materials that can also be found in Lego blocks. The robot’s legs were composed of stiff carbon rods, and its torsion was made of springs of steel wire. A small, on-board battery powers the robot, which is remotely controlled.

“Biological knowledge gained by observing and studying locust, was combined with state-of-the-art engineering and cutting-edge technologies, allowing biological principles to be implemented in a miniature robotic jumping mechanism,” according to Ayali.

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Mental time travel: an exclusively human capacity

 Our brains use different types of memory. Cortical dementia is thought to affect semantic memory

to a greater degree than episodic memory. Sub-cortical dementia, as in HD, is thought to affect

semantic memory to a lesser degree than cortical dementias.

(December 22, 2015)  To anticipate the future, one must know the past

Episodic memory is only one component of mental time travel

Are humans the only ones who are able to remember events that they had experienced and mentally time travel not only into the past but also the future? Or do animals have the same capacity? To a certain extend, according to three researchers who are contributing a new theoretical model to this long-standing discussion. They published their results in the journal “Neuroscience and Behavioral Reviews”.

Episodic memory is a component of mental time travel

The model developed by the three researchers Prof Markus Werning, Prof Sen Cheng (both Mercator Research Group “Structure of Memory” at RUB) and Prof Thomas Suddendorf (University of Queensland) differs from other approaches with regard to one major aspect: it suggests a new relationship between mental time travel and episodic memory. The research team assumes that mental time travel is composed of different components. “Component one are memory traces from episodic memory. That means: fairly accurate representations of personally experienced episodes, where each trace represents a particular experience, i.e. is very specific,” explains Prof Sen Cheng. Component two is the ability to construct mental scenarios; by this, the researchers mean dynamic representations of past or expected situations that are not isolated but rather can be embedded into larger contexts and be reflected. If, for example, someone misplaces their key, they mentally travel back to places and situations where they still had the key. By associating the past situation with other experiences and information, a scenario is created. The question if and, if so, how the construction of mental scenarios is linked to a specific “autonoetic” form of consciousness is particularly interesting from the philosophical point of view. The authors discuss several options with an open outcome.

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How nanoparticles give electrons away

The research showed that the effect is most pronounced for small particles

with around 50 atoms. Image: designed by Sergey Kozlov and Oriol Lamiel.

(December 22, 2015)  Whether it is in catalytic processes, new types of solar cells or advanced electronic components, nanoparticles are everywhere in modern production and environmental technologies. Their unique properties ensure efficiency and save resources. Remarkable properties of nanoparticles often arise from chemical interactions with the support material on which they are placed. Such interactions change the electronic structure of the nanoparticle when electrical charge is exchanged between the particle and the support.

Research groups led by scientists from University of Barcelona, ICREA Professor Dr. Konstantin Neyman, and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany), Prof. Dr. Jörg Libuda, have now succeeded in quantifying the charge that is lost by a platinum nanoparticle when it is deposited onto a typical oxide support. Their work brings the possibility of designing nanoparticles with tailor-made properties a step closer.

In order to measure the electrical charge exchanged between metal particles and supports the international team of researchers from Germany, Spain, Italy and Czech Republic funded by the European Commission prepared a clean, atomically well-defined oxide surface, on which platinum nanoparticles have been placed. Using a highly sensitive detection method at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste the researchers were able to quantify the effect for the first time. Studying particles with various numbers of atoms, from dozens to several hundreds, they measured the number of electrons transferred and showed that the effect is most pronounced for small particles with around 50 atoms.

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Researchers at the University of Gothenburg create focused spin wave beams - synchronize an unlimited number of spintronic oscillators

focused spin wave beams, University of Gothenburg

(December 22, 2015)  Researchers at the University of Gothenburg Physics Department have finally found the secret to synchronize an unlimited number of spintronic oscillators. Such devices are very promising for future applications requiring wideband functionality.

Unfortunately, such nanoscale microwave oscillators suffer from an unbearable low power and high phase noise. It is generally accepted that one of the most attractive ways to solve this issue is to synchronize a large number of these nanoscopic oscillators in order to limit the detrimental influence of thermal energy.

The synchronization of two such oscillators was first published in 2005. However, by 2013 the number of synchronized oscillators had only increased to four low-frequency oscillators and three microwave-frequency oscillators. Furthermore, the coupling was difficult to control in a reproducible manner.

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Robots to Help Immigrant Children Learn German

In a new EU project, Bielefeld researchers are investigating how the robot Nao

can help children learn a language. Photo: CITEC/Bielefeld University.

(December 22, 2015) Researchers at Bielefeld University plan to use the humanoid robot ‘Nao’ for language training

According to the Federal Statistical Office, one-third of children under the age of five in Germany come from immigrant families. Could technical assistants be used to help prepare immigrant children for school and teach them the new language? L2TOR, the new project financed by the European Union, is researching that very question. The project will launch in January 2016 and will run for three years. One research group at the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) of Bielefeld University wants to provide tutoring systems with Tablet-PCs and robots that can assist in language learning. To do this, researchers are developing modules that recognize a child’s language abilities and motivation so that the robot can react individually to each child.

Computer scientists, educators, and linguists are working together on this project in a consortium of five universities and two companies. Plymouth University in Great Britain is coordinating the research. The abbreviation L2TOR (pronounced ‘el tutor’) stands for ‘Second Language Tutoring Using Social Robots.’ “We are investigating how interactive robots can be used to help teach children between the ages of 4 to 6 a second language,” says Professor Dr. Stefan Kopp, who heads the research group Social Cognitive Systems, which belongs to the Faculty of Technology and is part of CITEC. “We are working to provide children with the language abilities that they need for school.”

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2D Islands in Graphene Hold Promise for Future Device Fabrication

This AFM image shows 2D F4TCNQ islands on graphene/BN that could be used

to modify the graphene for electronic applications.

Berkeley Lab Scientists Discovery Could Help Improve Graphene Electronics

(December 22, 2015)  In what could prove to be a significant advance in the fabrication of graphene-based nanodevices, a team of Berkeley Lab researchers has discovered a new mechanism for assembling two-dimensional (2D) molecular “islands” that could be used to modify graphene at the nanometer scale. These 2D islands are comprised of F4TCNQ molecules that trap electrical charge in ways that are potentially useful for graphene-based electronics.

“We’re reporting a scanning tunneling microscopy and non-contact atomic force microscopy study of F4TCNQ molecules at the surface of graphene in which the molecules coalesce into 2D close-packed islands,” says Michael Crommie, a physicist who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley’s Physics Department. “The resulting islands could be used to control the charge-carrier density in graphene substrates, as well as to modify how electrons move through graphene-based devices. They might also be used to form precise nanoscale patterns that exhibit atomic-scale structural perfection unmatched by conventional fabrication techniques.”

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Salty sea spray affects the lifetimes of clouds, researchers find

(December 22, 2015)  All over the planet, every day, oceans send plumes of sea spray into the atmosphere. Beyond the poetry of crashing ocean waves, this salt- and carbon-rich spray has a dramatic effect on the formation and duration of clouds.

Yes, clouds, which cover 60 percent of the Earth’s surface at any given time. In a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online Dec. 21, Colorado State University’s Paul DeMott, a senior research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science, says sea spray is a unique, underappreciated source of what are called ice nucleating particles – microscopic bits that make their way into clouds and initiate the formation of ice, and in turn affect the composition and duration of clouds.

“The presence of these particles is critically important for precipitation and the lifetime of clouds, and consequently, for their radiative properties,” said DeMott, who works in the lab of Sonia Kreidenweis, professor of atmospheric science, associate dean for research in the College of Engineering and a University Distinguished Professor.

Clouds’ effect on climate

Clouds, with their ability to reflect solar energy and absorb terrestrial radiation, have dramatic effects on climate. Their radiative properties are greatly influenced by the number, size and type of droplets and ice particles inside the cloud. These cloud particles can initiate from any number of sources of aerosols – particles suspended in air – from land and ocean surfaces. From desert dust to burning fossil fuels, aerosols that affect clouds are everywhere.

DeMott’s study has confirmed that ice nucleating particles from oceans are distinct, both in their abundance as well as their ice-making properties, from land-sourced particles. Hence, their influence on the liquid/ice phase structure of clouds, and their subsequent radiative impacts, can differ over vast swaths of Earth.

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Polymer breakthrough could revolutionize water purification

Dichtel Group

A porous material made from cup-shaped cyclodextrins, which rapidly bind

pollutants and remove them from contaminated water.

(December 21, 2015)  We’ve all seen the Febreze air fresheners, which employ a derivative of corn starch to trap invisible air pollutants in the home and remove unwanted odors.

A team of Cornell researchers has used the same material found in Febreze, cyclodextrin, to develop a technique that could revolutionize the water-purification industry.

The team is led by Will Dichtel, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology and a 2015 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship winner. His group invented a porous form of cyclodextrin that has displayed uptake of pollutants through adsorption at rates vastly superior to traditional activated carbon – 200 times greater in some cases.

Activated carbons have the advantage of larger surface area than previous polymers made from cyclodextrin – “more sites for pollutants to stick to,” Dichtel said – but they don’t bind pollutants as strongly as cyclodextrin.

“What we did is make the first high-surface-area material made of cyclodextrin,” Dichtel said, “combining some of the advantages of the activated carbon with the inherent advantages of the cyclodextrin. When you combine the best features of those two materials, you get a material that’s even better than either class.

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Speeding up brain’s waste disposal may slow down neurodegenerative diseases

Proteasomes and Brain Cell Death: Using mouse brains, scientists studied

the role of the proteasome system in neurodegenerative disorders.

Karen Duff, Ph.D., Columbia University.

(Ddecember 21, 2015)  NIH-funded mouse study identifies therapeutic target for clearing out toxic proteins damaged during neurodegenerative disorders.

A study of mice shows how proteasomes, a cell’s waste disposal system, may break down during Alzheimer’s disease, creating a cycle in which increased levels of damaged proteins become toxic, clog proteasomes, and kill neurons. The study, published in Nature Medicine and supported by the National Institutes of Health, suggests that enhancing proteasome activity with drugs during the early stages of Alzheimer’s may prevent dementia and reduce damage to the brain.

“This exciting research advances our understanding of the role of the proteasomes in neurodegeneration and provides a potential way to alleviate symptoms of neurodegenerative disorders,” said Roderick Corriveau, Ph.D., program director at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), which provided funding for the study.

The proteasome is a hollow, cylindrical structure which chews up defective proteins into smaller, pieces that can be recycled into new proteins needed by a cell. To understand how neurodegenerative disorders affect proteasomes, Natura Myeku, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow working with Karen E. Duff, Ph.D., professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University, New York City, focused on tau, a structural protein that accumulates into clumps called tangles in the brain cells of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and several other neurodegenerative disorders known as tauopathies.

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New flow battery offers lower-cost energy storage

PNNL researcher Xiaoliang Wei prepares a small demonstration organic flow battery.

(December 21, 2015)  PNNL organic battery will be cheaper than standard vanadium flow battery

Energy storage system owners could see significant savings from a new flow battery technology that is projected to cost 60 percent less than today's standard flow batteries.

The organic aqueous flow battery, described in a paper published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials, is expected to cost $180 per kilowatt-hour once the technology is fully developed. The lower cost is due to the battery's active materials being inexpensive organic molecules, compared to the commodity metals used in today's flow batteries.

"Moving from transition metal elements to synthesized molecules is a significant advancement because it links battery costs to manufacturing rather than commodity metals pricing" said Imre Gyuk, energy storage program manager for the Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE), which funded this research.

"The battery's water-based liquid electrolytes are also designed to be a drop-in replacement for current flow battery systems," said PNNL materials scientist Wei Wang, one of the paper's corresponding authors. "Current flow battery owners can keep their existing infrastructure, drain their more expensive electrolytes and replace them with PNNL's electrolytes."

Changing currents

Flow batteries generate power by pumping liquids from external tanks into a central stack. The tanks contain liquid electrolytes that store energy. When energy is needed, pumps move the electrolytes from both tanks into the stack where electricity is produced by an electrochemical reaction.

Both flow and solid batteries, such as the lithium-ion batteries that power most electric vehicles and smartphones today, were invented in the 1970s. Lithium-ion batteries can carry much more energy in a smaller space, making them ideal for mobile uses. The technology gained market acceptance quickly, for both mobile uses like cell phones and larger, stationary uses like supporting the power grid.

Lithium-ion batteries now make up about 70 percent of the world's working, grid-connected batteries, according to data from DOE-OE's Global Energy Storage Database. However issues with performance, safety and lifespan can limit the technology's use for stationary energy storage.

Flow batteries, on the other hand, store their active chemicals separately until power is needed, greatly reducing safety concerns. Vanadium-based flow batteries have become more popular in recent years, especially after PNNL developed a new vanadium battery design in 2011 that increased storage capacity by 70 percent. Three different companies have licensed the technology behind PNNL's vanadium design.

Nearly 79 percent of the world's working flow batteries are vanadium-based, according to data from the Global Energy Storage Database. While vanadium chemistries are expected to be the standard for some time, future flow battery cost reductions will require less expensive alternatives such as organics.

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New device uses carbon nanotubes to snag molecules

A patterned and cylindrical structure made up of carbon nanotubes.

Courtesy of the researchers

(December 21, 2015) Nanotube “forest” in a microfluidic channel may help detect rare proteins and viruses.

Engineers at MIT have devised a new technique for trapping hard-to-detect molecules, using forests of carbon nanotubes.

The team modified a simple microfluidic channel with an array of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes — rolled lattices of carbon atoms that resemble tiny tubes of chicken wire. The researchers had previously devised a method for standing carbon nanotubes on their ends, like trees in a forest. With this method, they created a three-dimensional array of permeable carbon nanotubes within a microfluidic device, through which fluid can flow.

Now, in a study published this week in the Journal of Microengineering and Nanotechnology, the researchers have given the nanotube array the ability to trap certain particles. To do this, the team coated the array, layer by layer, with polymers of alternating electric charge.

“You can think of each nanotube in the forest as being concentrically coated with different layers of polymer,” says Brian Wardle, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. “If you drew it in cross-section, it would be like rings on a tree.”

A zoomed in view of carbon nanotubes, showing individual tubes.

Depending on the number of layers deposited, the researchers can create thicker or thinner nanotubes and thereby tailor the porosity of the forest to capture larger or smaller particles of interest.

The nanotubes’ polymer coating may also be chemically manipulated to bind specific bioparticles flowing through the forest. To test this idea, the researchers applied an established technique to treat the surface of the nanotubes with antibodies that bind to prostate specific antigen (PSA), a common experimental target. The polymer-coated arrays captured 40 percent more antigens, compared with arrays lacking the polymer coating.

Wardle says the combination of carbon nanotubes and multilayer coatings may help finely tune microfluidic devices to capture extremely small and rare particles, such as certain viruses and proteins.

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Nature's unique way of controlling colour explains why birds never go grey

(December 21, 2015)

*  Birds generate their colour using structure, not dyes and pigments

*  The jay is able to change the colour of its feathers along the equivalent of a single human hair using a tuneable nanostructure

*  This discovery may lead to synthetic structural colour that could be made cheaply and used in paints and clothes that will not fade like dyes and pigments.

Birds use sophisticated changes to the structure of their feathers to create multi-coloured plumage, using a process that could pave the way for the creation of paints and clothing colours that won’t fade over time.

Using X-ray scattering at the ESRF facility in France to examine the blue and white feathers of the jay, researchers from the University of Sheffield found that birds demonstrate a surprising level of control and sophistication in producing colours.

Instead of simply using dyes and pigments that would fade over time, the birds use well-controlled changes to the nanostructure to create their vividly coloured feathers - which are possibly used for jays to recognise one another. The jay is able to pattern these different colours along an individual feather barb - the equivalent of having many different colours along a single human hair.

The jay’s feather, which goes from ultra violet in colour through to blue and into white, is made of a nanostructured spongy keratin material, exactly the same kind of material human hair and fingernails are made from.

The researchers found that the jay is able to demonstrate amazing control over the size of the holes in this sponge-like structure and fix them at very particular sizes, determining the colour that we see reflected from the feather. This is because when light hits the feather the size of these holes determines how the light is scattered and therefore the colour that is reflected. As a result, larger holes mean a broader wavelength reflectance of light, which creates the colour white. Conversely, a smaller, more compact structure, results in the colour blue.

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“METAL” DRUGS TO FIGHT CANCER

Credits: Giulia Palermo

(December 21, 2015)  A new study improves our understanding of chemotherapy agents

What is the mechanism of action of metal-based chemotherapy drugs (the most widely used for treating common cancers like testicular or ovarian cancer)? How can we improve their effect and reduce their toxicity? A new study combining experiments and theory has broadened our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms of these active drugs to help experimentalists devising increasingly effective drugs with fewer side effects. The study, just published in the journal ChemMedChem, was conducted with the participation of International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste.

Pharmaceutical research can be difficult and frustrating. Often, one happens to synthesize a molecule without knowing exactly what kind of therapeutic effect  it will have (if it ever will have any). “It is rare for someone to develop a new active drug already knowing what mechanism it will trigger in the body”, explains Alessandra Magistrato, CNR-IOM/SISSA research scientist.

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Protein That Boosts Memory Identified

 Wissenschaftler der Universität Heidelberg haben es geschafft, das Erinnerungsvermögen

älterer Mäuse mit Hilfe eines Eiweißes (Proteins) zu verbessern. Foto: dpa

(December 21, 2015)  Research findings of Heidelberg neurobiologists could lead to new treatment approaches for memory loss and anxiety disorders.

Increasing the level of a certain DNA-modified enzyme in the brain significantly improves cognitive ability. The discovery was made by the research team led by Prof. Dr. Hilmar Bading at the Interdisciplinary Center for Neurosciences of Heidelberg University. Mouse experiments showed that the Dnmt3a2 protein can boost memory performance in the animals. Because this protein also affects fear memory and the ability to erase bad memories, the researchers hope these findings can be used to develop new treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder and other forms of anxiety. The results of the research were published in the journal “Molecular Psychiatry”.

In an earlier study, the Heidelberg scientists learned that there are reduced levels of Dnmt3a2 protein in the brains of older mice. When the elderly animals were injected with viruses that produce this protein, their memory capacity improved. “Now we have found that increasing the Dnmt3a2 level in the brains of younger mice also boosts their cognitive ability”, explains Prof. Bading. In a number of different long-term memory tests, including classic Pavlovian conditioning, the scientists were able to demonstrate that mice with more Dnmt3a2 on board performed considerably better.

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Teaching machines to see: new smartphone-based system could accelerate development of driverless cars

SegNet demonstration, Credit: Alex Kendall

(December 21, 2015)  Two technologies which use deep learning techniques to help machines to see and recognise their location and surroundings could be used for the development of driverless cars and autonomous robotics – and can be used on a regular camera or smartphone. 

Two newly-developed systems for driverless cars can identify a user’s location and orientation in places where GPS does not function, and identify the various components of a road scene in real time on a regular camera or smartphone, performing the same job as sensors costing tens of thousands of pounds.

The separate but complementary systems have been designed by researchers from the University of Cambridge and demonstrations are freely available online. Although the systems cannot currently control a driverless car, the ability to make a machine ‘see’ and accurately identify where it is and what it’s looking at is a vital part of developing autonomous vehicles and robotics.

The first system, called SegNet, can take an image of a street scene it hasn’t seen before and classify it, sorting objects into 12 different categories – such as roads, street signs, pedestrians, buildings and cyclists – in real time. It can deal with light, shadow and night-time environments, and currently labels more than 90% of pixels correctly. Previous systems using expensive laser or radar based sensors have not been able to reach this level of accuracy while operating in real time.

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The 6 Most Important Things That Happened in Virtual Reality in 2015

Credit: Illustration by Tim Lahan

A lot happened in virtual reality this year; here are the key things to remember.

(December 21, 2015)  Though virtual reality is still far from mainstream, 2015 was a big year for the industry as new headsets were introduced—some full-featured and powerful, some simple and portable—and companies announced new ways to control and capture VR imagery, too. Throughout the year, investors poured money into companies developing the technology, content creators figured out how to make everything from films to advertisements in VR, and millions of Americans experienced virtual-reality technology for the very first time.  

With all that happened, it can be hard to sift out what’s most important. We cut through the virtual noise to bring you the six most significant events in virtual reality this year.

1. HTC and Valve show off the Vive VR headset

In March, smartphone maker HTC and video-game company Valve Software pulled back the curtains on their collaborative virtual-reality effort, the Vive headset. Vive has a tracking system that uses lasers to keep an eye on your location within a space as large as 15 by 15 feet, making it possible to roam around while using the headset. The Vive is slated for commercial release in April.

2. Oculus unveils its first consumer headset, Rift, and Oculus Touch hand controllers

In June, Facebook-owned Oculus trotted out its first consumer headset, Rift, and a pair of half-moon, button-bedecked controllers, both of which it plans to release next year (see “Oculus Shows Its First Consumer Headset, Circular Hand Controls”).

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