|
|
||||
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
Top Stories in Science
|
July 2005 Issue |
| [D] Defence and security |  |
|
|
|
|
|
Tipping point According to the World Health Organisation, the world is at a tipping point beyond which a bird flu pandemic will become inevitable. It says that East Asian countries are doing their best to contain bird flu outbreaks among poultry and wild bird populations, but need much greater funding and resources from the West. The problem has deep socio-economic roots. The backyard farms, where most food is produced and where people and animals live side-by-side, provide ideal conditions for bird flu to spread and to pass to humans. So also do the wet markets, where live birds are stored for shoppers. [D][H][X]
Spread of bird flu Many thousands of wild geese on Qinghai Lake in north-west China are dying of bird flu. This raised fears that the virus could soon spread around the world. The geese migrate to Europe, India and Australia, and can fly up to a thousand miles in a day. Four H5N1 virus sub-strains isolated from the geese were tested on mice and chickens, and proved highly virulent. Even if the virus cannot infect humans, it can decimate poultry industries if it spreads to other countries. The precise genetic make-up of the virus strains proves that the wild geese were infected by contact with domestic birds in China. [D][H][X]
Drug resistant bird flu The “Z” strain of the H5N1 virus that has spread through SE Asia has become resistant to the human anti-flu drug amantadine. China is introducing controls to stop its farmers continuing to use amantadine to combat bird flu in their poultry, but this may be too late. [D][H]
Action on Africa In addition to the G8 decisions on tackling poverty and security in Africa, the new head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, has pledged that Africa will be the development agency's main focus under his leadership. [D][E][H][X]
EU security measures In the wake of the London bombings, EU interior ministers have agreed new security measures. These include agreeing the "substance" of plans to force European phone and internet firms to keep records of calls, text messages and e-mails, which has been a controversial proposal because of the risk to civil liberties. The measures agreed also include sharing more information on lost and stolen explosives, tackling terrorist finances through stronger controls on money transfers and laundering, ensuring common standards for those countries with identity card schemes, and a new effort to stop the recruitment of potential terrorists. [D][I][K][X]
Botulism threat The US government has allowed publication of a report from a bioterrorism risk analysis that discloses that terrorists could poison more than 500,000 people, and more than half would die, by putting as little as 10 grams of botulinum toxin in a milk truck. The report was initially blocked, but it was decided that analyses which use only publicly-available data are better published than suppressed. [D][H][X]
Countering suicide bombers Sensors to detect suicide bombers before they can reach a target and detonate explosives might not reduce deaths and injuries substantially in urban settings, according to a Yale study. Although sensors are likely to be effective in protecting specific target areas such as sports events, transport nodes and government buildings, the density of sensors required for wide urban coverage would be prohibitively expensive. Also, intervention could be difficult and in some situations could create more casualties rather than less if the bombers were in a crowd. [D][R][S]
Identity recognition The shapes of each person's ears are quite individual and, unlike faces, ears do not change shape with different expressions or with age, and remain fixed in the middle of the side of the head against a predictable background. However, attempts to exploit ear shape for identity recognition have been unsuccessful. A new approach has now been developed at Southampton University. Unlike previous technology that analysed ears in terms of features, the new method captures the shape of the ear as a whole and represents this in code, allowing the whole ear shape to be compared. The researchers believe that this can make identity recognition using ear shape an order of magnitude better than face recognition. [D][R][S]
European Security Research Programme The European Parliament has adopted a non-binding resolution on the proposed European Security Research Programme (ESRP), arguing that to ensure continuity the programme's budget should be linked to the trend in gross domestic product. The Parliament noted the current fragmentation and duplication of security research in Europe, the need to enhance European industrial competitiveness, and the fact that the US spends on average four times as much on homeland security as the EU. [D][A][I][K][R] |
||
| [A] Aeronautics and space | |
|
|
|
|
|
Environmental impact of air travel New targets to reduce the environmental impact of air travel - set to triple over the next 30 years - are being launched by the UK's aviation industry. Aircraft manufacturers, airports and airlines aim by 2020 to halve the amount of carbon dioxide produced by new aircraft. There will also be similar targets to cut noise. [A][E][P][U]
Sustainable travel The UK Sustainable Development Commission has proposed that major new taxes on air and road travel are needed if the UK is to meet greenhouse gas targets. [A][E][P]
Solar powered plane Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones made the first non-stop around the world balloon-flight in 1999. Now, with a team of 60 specialists, they are constructing a solar-powered plane in which to fly around the world. The aim is that the plane, which exploits ESA technology, will be ready for flight in 2010. [A][P]
New launch concept A consortium of small aerospace companies with NASA funding is spearheading the concept that astronauts can be launched safely and cheaply using rockets that drop in a vertical orientation from carrier aircraft. This would enable the rockets to be launched from an altitude of 10 to 13 km without needing wings. The aircraft first drops the horizontal rocket's tail, holding onto its nose for a fraction of a second longer. Gravity pulls the tail downwards and a parachute slows the rotation. To test the idea, the consortium, t/Space, has tested models 6.35 metres long - about one-quarter of the size of the full scale 27.5-metre rocket. During three drop tests over the Mojave desert, the launchers behaved as predicted by computer simulations. [A]
Deep Impact The Deep Impact spacecraft successfully launched its 372 kg copper projectile into comet Tempel 1. The impact produced a larger than expected cloud of material, indicating that the comet's surface was much softer than anticipated. Unfortunately, this large plume of ejected material prevented the spacecraft from seeing into the impact crater from its safe distance of 500 km. The preliminary analyses of x-ray emissions from the ejected material, observed using NASA's Swift satellite, indicate that several tens of thousands of tons of material were released. But this may be very largely ice. According to the European Southern Observatory, the impact does not appear to have created a large new zone of activity and may not have gone deep enough to liberate much of the pristine material inside the comet that would help in understanding the origins of the solar system. [A][F][R]
Mars Express The two booms of the Mars Express radar have been successfully deployed, enabling the spacecraft to start searching for water beneath Mars' surface. [A][R]
Protection from space radiation With funding from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, researchers have designed a way to use electric fields to protect a future Moon base from space radiation, including intense radiation from solar flares. The scheme is based on balloons made of a thin, nonconductive material coated with a layer of gold, just 10 to 300 nm thick. Several spheres charged to -50 megavolts could surround others charged to +150 megavolts. Together they would form a canopy that could protect the base from overhead radiation by bending the charged particles away. [A][M][P] |
||
| [U] Unmanned vehicles and robotics | |
|
|
|
|
|
Hydrogen powered UAV A US company, AeroVironment, says it has successfully completed test flights of an aircraft powered by liquid hydrogen. Oxygen from the air is combined with the hydrogen in a fuel cell to generate electricity that drives the propellers. According to the company, the unmanned plane should be able to fly for 24 hours on a tank of liquid hydrogen. [U][A][E][P]
UAVs at Paris The highlights of the Paris Air Show included a Dassault UAV similar to the X-45A and X-47A, and a demonstrator from a DARPA project to develop a morphing aircraft that can change its shape in flight. The hope is that morphing will give better endurance, higher top speed, and increased manoeuvrability, while also maximizing the time the aircraft can remain over the battlefield and allowing it more flexibility in the payloads it can carry. The ability to change the critical physical characteristics of a plane in flight would enable a single vehicle to perform multiple missions. [U][A]
Flying eyeball NASA's Miniature Autonomous Extravehicular Robotic Camera could be ready for its first space mission in 2006 or 2007. If it is flown on space shuttle missions, Mini AERCam could hover under the orbiter’s belly to check for damage to the heat shield. It could also regularly inspect the exterior of the International Space Station. [U][A][R]
Robot curiosity Sony's Aibo is a popular robot dog designed to interact with its owner and to perform simple tricks. However, Sony researchers believe that to behave more like real dogs, Aibos may need to copy the way that animals learn. They have therefore completely reprogrammed a litter of Aibos to exhibit curiosity similar to that seen in baby animals. The dogs slowly learn to explore their surrounding world, before playing with toys and trying to communicate with other Aibo dogs. Researchers found that every Aibo in the litter followed a similar but not identical learning pattern, as is also the case with learning animals. [U][B][K][R][V][W] |
||
| [P] Propulsion and energy | |
|
|
|
|
|
Biogas propulsion In September 2005, Sweden will become the first country in the world to introduce a passenger train powered solely by biogas. Sweden already has 779 biogas buses and more than 4,500 cars running on a mixture of petrol and either biogas or natural gas. [P][E]
Carbon sequestration The world's first industrial-scale clean energy power plant generating electricity from hydrogen could be built in Scotland. The plant will convert natural gas into hydrogen and carbon dioxide and will use the hydrogen to fuel a new power station. The carbon dioxide will be liquefied and piped underground for storage in BP's Miller oil field in the North Sea, where its pressure can also help to recover more oil from the field. [P][E]
Methane hydrates The world has vast resources of methane hydrates. In energy terms these may be twice as large as all the other known fossil energy deposits combined, including coal, oil, and conventional natural gas. However, it is not clear how much of this vast methane resource can be exploited. One problem is that hydrate deposits under the sea are sparsely distributed making them commercially difficult to extract. Deposits on land, held in permafrost, are more concentrated, and small-scale extraction could be commercially viable today in some particularly favourable locations, such as Alaska's North Slope. Japan has large methane hydrate deposits off-shore, which it would like to exploit given its lack of other fossil fuels. [P][T]
Future of nuclear power An unlikely alliance is forming between the nuclear industry and many environmentalists, who believe that nuclear energy, with all its risks, is the best way to reduce the even greater risks from carbon emissions. However, the economics of nuclear power generation are very sensitive to assumptions about the cost of power from other sources. Most studies done on nuclear economics (including the most authoritative ones, done by MIT and by RIIA) conclude that new plants built by the private sector, with investors bearing the full brunt of risks, are not financially viable without substantial subsidy. A large carbon tax would be needed to make nuclear power generation competitive in a free energy market. [P][E][T]
Thermonuclear power The long argument over whether to site the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) at Rokkashomura in Japan or at Cadarache in France has finally been resolved in favour of the French site. The European Union, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China are partners in the project. With rapid construction, ITER could be operating by 2015. If it is successful, a demonstration fusion power plant would be built in the mid-2030s, and if all goes well the first commercial fusion plant would be created mid-century to assess economic feasibility. [P][E]
Cold nuclear fusion Researchers at Purdue have found new evidence that the implosion of bubbles generated by acoustic cavitation can create sufficiently high pressures and temperatures to produce thermonuclear fusion. The researchers used a glass test chamber filled with deuterated acetone, which they exposed to neutrons. They then bombarded the liquid with a specific frequency of ultrasound, which caused cavities to form into tiny bubbles. The bubbles then expanded to a much larger size before imploding. The experiment yielded tritium and 2.5 MeV neutrons, both evidence of deuterium fusion. The same results were not seen when the researchers ran control experiments with normal acetone rather than deuterated acetone. [P][R][S]
Hydrogen from wind A detailed study has compared emissions that would be produced by vehicles on US roads under different future scenarios: if they were powered by 1) conventional internal-combustion engines, 2) a combination of electricity and internal combustion of gasoline, as in hybrid vehicles, 3) hydrogen generated from wind-powered electrolysis, 4) hydrogen generated from natural gas and 5) hydrogen generated from coal gasification. The study, sponsored by the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford and by NASA, concluded that wind is the most promising. It estimates that the cost of making hydrogen from wind is $1.12 to $3.20 per gallon of gasoline or diesel equivalent ($3 to $7.40 per kilogram of molecular hydrogen). This means that if one includes the hidden societal costs of gasoline due to pollution, of between 29 cents to $1.80 per gallon, hydrogen propulsion already looks cost competitive. The study recommended that the benefits in health and lower healthcare costs is a compelling argument for hydrogen technology. [P][E][H]
Alternative energy General Electric (GE) is worried about falling behind European companies in environmental innovation and alternative energy technologies. GE has therefore launched an "ecomagination" initiative, aimed at competing with Vestas and Siemens in wind power, and being a world leader in photovoltaics. [P][J][T] |
||
| [M] Materials, structures and surfaces | |
|
|
|
|
|
Optical 3D quasicrystals Quasicrystals are highly ordered structures that, unlike conventional crystals, never repeat themselves. They have rotational symmetry but not translational symmetry. Metallic quasicrystals created from exotic alloys have shown promise for storing hydrogen and for super-strong materials. Researchers at New York University have now developed a way to make 3-D quasicrystals of glass and plastic. The optical properties and photonic bandgap in these crystals are of great interest for optical computing. [M][C][N][O]
Mechanism of melting Physicists at the University of Pennsylvania have experimentally discovered a fundamental principal about how solid materials melt. Their studies have shown explicitly that melting begins at defects within the crystalline structure of solid matter, beginning along the cracks, grain boundaries and dislocations that are present in the otherwise orderly array of atoms. [M]
Nanotube reinforced carbon fibre composites Carbon fibre composites can be reinforced by embedding carbon nanotubes in the resin matrix. This improves stiffness and strength, according to a Swiss bicycle manufacturer. The technology has been exploited in bicycle frames used in the 2005 Tour de France. [M][N]
Monitoring structural health A system developed at Sheffield University monitors, in real-time, the behaviour of crowds in stadiums and the vibration levels that they can produce. The trend to make stadiums more slender and to use cantilever seating means that vibration induced by crowds moving rhythmically is increasingly significant. The technology could enable the structural health of a building to be monitored remotely, without having to carry out detailed building inspections. [M][R] |
||
| [E] Environment, transport and marine | |
|
|
|
|
|
Ecosystem risks According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report, desertification, as a result of climatic factors and human activities, is one of the world's greatest environmental challenges, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and in central Asia. Drylands occupy 41 percent of the world's land area and contain 43 percent of the world's cultivated land. They are home to over two billion people, including half of the world's poor. Desertification is destabilizing these societies by deepening poverty and creating environmental refugees who often add stress to other areas. Desertification is also increasing the huge dust storms that cause ill-health, particularly in China, Japan, and Korea, and in parts of North America. The report says effective policies and sustainable agricultural practices can reverse the decline of drylands. Chief among these are measures that protect soils from erosion, salinisation and other forms of degradation. Proper land use management policies are needed to protecting existing vegetation cover from overgrazing, over-exploitation, trampling and unsustainable irrigation practices. [E][D][H][X]
Climate change and Africa According to researchers at Oxford University, another way that climate change will adversely affect southern Africa is by damaging the vegetation cover that currently holds in check massive sand dunes. These dunes punctuate 2.5 million sq km of Africa - from the northern end of South Africa, through Angola, Botswana and Namibia, to western Zimbabwe and western Zambia. Their spread is likely to smother large areas of agricultural land. [E][D]
G8 declaration on climate change In the Gleneagles communiqué, the G8 leaders have unanimously declared that the world faces serious and linked challenges in tackling climate change, promoting clean energy and advancing sustainable development globally. The nations, including the US, recognised that increased need and use of energy from fossil fuels, and other human activities, contribute in large part to increases in greenhouse gases associated with global warming. Importantly the US agreed that enough is known to act now. The "Gleneagles" plan of action will initiate a new dialogue between the G8 countries and the emerging economies of the world, notably China and India. This dialogue will be established by a conference in November 2005, to be followed through at future G8 summits starting with the one that Russian President Vladimir Putin will host in 2006. Whilst the lack of any concrete targets and timescales in the communiqué is widely condemned as a failure, the UK Prime Minister stressed that the full participation of the US, and also of China and India, is essential for any genuine solution. [E][D][P][X]
Global warming Average temperatures in Siberia have risen by three degrees Celsius since 1960, according to German scientists, and the forests in the region are also turning out to be less effective in soaking up greenhouse gases than previously believed. [E]
EU emissions According to the European Environment Agency, emissions of carbon dioxide rose in the EU by 1.5 percent in 2003 after falling in 2002, Italy, Finland and the UK saw the largest emission increases in absolute terms - 15 million tonnes, eight million tonnes and seven million tonnes respectively. This raises doubts over whether the EU can meet its Kyoto target to cut emissions by 8 percent of 1990 levels by 2012. [E][P]
Risks to the Gulf Stream Large regions of the North Atlantic Ocean have been growing fresher since the late 1960s as melting glaciers and increased precipitation, both associated with greenhouse warming, have enhanced continental runoff into the Arctic and sub-Arctic seas. There are concerns that this could affect the Gulf Stream. Oceanographers in the US and Norway have now determined the amounts and rates of fresh water accumulation by analysing data collected in the North Atlantic between Labrador, Greenland and northern Europe over the last 55 years. They report that patterns of fresh water accumulation over the past four decades suggest that a freshening threshold important to the ocean circulation and its poleward transport of heat could be reached within a century, depending on the future impacts of global warming and glacial melting. [E][D][P][X]
Protecting important habitats Military training areas have protected important habitats from development, and the rare chalk grasslands on Salisbury Plain are an example of this. However, the grasslands are still damaged by the military training itself and this damage takes at least 50 years to recover, according to UK research. The findings have important implications for damage to the countryside from off-road vehicles as well as for managing the hundreds of areas of special scientific interest (SSIs) in military training areas. [E][D]
Economic benefits of organic farming Results from a 22 year US trial comparing organic and conventional farming have shown that for corn and soybeans organic farming produces the same overall crop yields as conventional farming, but consumes 30 percent less energy. It also conserves more water in the soil, induces less erosion, improves soil quality and conserves more biological resources. The researchers believe that organic farming is equally favourable for growing wheat, barley and other grains, but might be less favourable for crops like grapes, apples, cherries and potatoes, which have greater pest problems. The findings are relevant for areas such as southern Europe where agriculture is threatened by climate change, soil degradation and incipient desertification. [E] |
||
| [R] Remote sensing and sensor systems | |
|
|
|
|
|
Rising sea level Research in the past few years by NASA, NOAA and other organisations has shown that in the period 1993 to 2005 sea level has been rising by about 3 mm a year, compared with an average of 2 mm per annum since 1955, and that melting of glaciers and polar ice caps is primarily responsible. Three quarters of the world’s freshwater is stored in glaciers and ice sheets, equivalent to about 220 feet of sea level. NASA satellite missions devoted to sea level research include: the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE); the Ocean TOPography Experiment (TOPEX/Poseidon), a joint US/French radar satellite; Jason, which measures ocean height and monitors ocean circulation; and the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), whose primary purpose is to study the mass of polar ice sheets and their contributions to global sea level change. [R][D][E][T]
Sensor web NASA is trying to tie together satellites, airborne instruments and ground-based data-collection stations to develop a "sensor web" to track pollution and improve air quality forecasts. Each sensor collects data as part of a team of cooperating sensors, reacting to data sent to it from other sensors on other satellites that have different but complementary capabilities, and also reacting to data from atmospheric modelling. Collectively the sensor web can target particular events such as volcanic eruptions, fires, and emissions from cities, industrial plants and power stations. [R][A][C][D][E][H][I][P][X]
Mini-SAR Sandia has flown what is probably the world's smallest fine-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR), making real-time images from 6-kilometer range with a resolution of four inches. The instrument may soon be used for reconnaissance on near-model-airplane-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The current version weighs 25 pounds, but the researchers believe this can be reduced to 5 to 10 pounds using microsystems technology. [R][A][J][S][U]
Discovering oil and gas
Production from existing oil fields is in decline and the volume of newly discovered reserves peaked in the year 2000. As it becomes harder to find new oil reserves it is important to develop better methods of exploration. A major challenge is the need to generate sound waves that are strong enough to be detected after they have been reflected from subtle changes in rock characteristics up to 8 km below the Earth's surface. MEMS geophones provide advantages of lightness, cheapness and uniform frequency response. Virtual reality and 3D simulation help in making sense of seismic data and in monitoring how the distribution of hydrocarbons varies within a reserve over time. This allows a large proportion of the oil to be extracted. Measuring seismic shear waves as well as compression waves can reveal the presence of oil and gas by comparing the arrival times and amplitudes of the different reflected waves. Measurements of ground resistivity can provide information about porosity, permeability and density that are impossible to measure directly using sound. [R][C][E][J][K][P][S][T][V]
Extremely large telescope Scientists within the EU funded OPTICON project have formally argued the case for the construction of the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) - an optical telescope the size of a sports field that, with highly advanced adaptive optics to cancel the effects of atmospheric turbulence, could watch the seasons change on a planet orbiting a star on the other side of the galaxy. [R][F]
UKIRT Infrared Digital Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Astronomers are using the world's most powerful infrared survey camera to compile a detailed survey at infrared wavelengths, which will complement the Sloan Digital Sky Survey at visible wavelengths. Infrared light can be used to study astronomical objects that are not hot enough to show up in visible light, such as failed stars in our own Galaxy that were not large enough to ignite their nuclear reaction, as well as objects like distant quasars that are so far away that the expansion of the Universe has shifted their light into the infrared spectrum. The camera, mounted on the UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, has a large field of view made possible by having four of the largest available new-generation infrared detectors. The survey data will be used internationally by thousands of astronomers. [R][A][S] |
||
| [S] Sensor devices | |
|
|
|
|
|
Intelligent crash protection A dashboard finger scanner could prevent thousands of car injuries each year by fine-tuning crash restraint systems to a passenger's bone density. The scanner, developed by researchers at Cranfield and Nissan, measures the bone density from the time that ultrasound pulses take to pass through he passenger's finger. This allows an onboard computer to configure the smart seatbelt to prevent injury, and could also alter air bag settings, perhaps softening the cushioning slightly if the passenger seems especially frail. [S][E][V]
Nanowire mm-wave detector Researchers from the UK, Finland, Germany, Spain and Sweden have made a nanowire device that can detect microwave radiation of up to 110 GHz at room temperature. They believe the technology can be extended to teraHz frequencies. The device is fabricated in only one nanolithography step and is planar, making it cheap, suitable for detector arrays, and easy to couple to the radiation. These advantages, together with the small size, ultra-sensitivity and broad detection bandwidth, should give the technology wide application. [S][D][I][J][N][R]
IR tagging Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed a cheap infrared coding system that can be used as a micro-taggant. The primary aim is to use this to mark textiles to be able to identify the source, type, production conditions and composition of textile material, and so distinguish counterfeit materials. The marker can survive the textile manufacturing process, which includes scouring, bleaching, mercerising, dyeing and finishing. The system, because of its ruggedness and cheapness, could have many other applications, including security, defence and inventory tracking and control. [S][D][M][O][R][W]
DNA barcode tagging A new technology developed at Cornell University can identify genes, pathogens, illegal drugs and other chemicals of interest by tagging them with colour-coded probes made out of synthetic tree-shaped DNA. Tests using samples containing various combinations of E. coli, anthrax and tularaemia bacteria, and ebola and SARS viruses, showed the colour codes could clearly distinguish several different pathogens simultaneously. The technology does not require complex preparation of a sample and can be applied to living cells. It could be used in genomic research, clinical diagnosis, drug testing, environmental monitoring and monitoring for biological terrorism. [S][D][E][G][H]
Gene scanning New gene scanning techniques developed at Southampton University make it practical for the first time to look at the whole population to find rare and "special" genetic variations. These special variants may cause mild forms of a particular disease or feature in just one or two individuals, or may protect them against diseases. The new technique has been used successfully to study variations across the whole population in genes relevant to cholesterol and to growth, obesity and cardiovascular disease. [S][G][H]
Telehealthcare sensor A tiny electronic device, which can be attached to an ordinary sticking plaster, has been developed by a scientist from London's Imperial College. The device checks vital signs such as temperature, blood pressure and glucose levels, sending results to a computer, which highlights any cause for concern. [S][H][I][K]
Nano quantum interference magnetic sensor By using DNA molecules as scaffolds, scientists at the University of Illinois have created a superconducting nanodevice that demonstrate a new type of quantum interference. The researchers say their device is very sensitive to magnetic fields and, if coupled to a scanning probe microscope, can be used to detect nanoscale local variations in magnetic field. [S][N]
EUV nano-microscope A team of US, Russian and Ukrainian scientists is using a table-top EUV illumination source to create an optical microscope that can image features as small as 100 nm. Operating in reflection mode and requiring little sample preparation, the EUV microscope can rapidly characterise the topography of microelectronic circuits, lithography masks and other material surfaces. [S][J][M][N][O] |
||
| [O] Optoelectronics, optics and lasers | |
|
|
|
|
|
Coherent XUV The Fourier transform of a very long train of femtosecond laser pulses nanoseconds apart is a series of equally spaced frequency spikes, called a frequency comb. Optical frequency combs have led to demonstrations of optical atomic clocks and are furthering research in extreme nonlinear optics, precision spectroscopy, and laser pulse manipulation and control. US researchers have now produced a frequency comb that extends into the extreme UV. This makes it possible to study the fine structure of atoms and molecules with coherent XUV light. [O]
Optical quantum computing Past attempts to use photons for quantum computing have found that instability is a big problem. UK and Japanese researchers have proposed a new approach that they believe will be more robust and scalable. The system would use laser beams as a communication channel between optical qubits. Information on the quantum state of qubits would be combined in the beam, and then processed by measuring the beam. This would make it much less difficult to process quantum information, as beams can be controlled more easily than single photons. The approach could also be used to link quantum computing to optical communications systems. [O][C][I]
World Year of Physics The experimental measurement in 1960 of the gravitational redshift - the way that the frequency of light changes in a gravitational field - was one of the classic tests of Einstein's theory of relativity. Today the gravitational redshift is essential for understanding the cosmos and for satellite navigation. The satellite-borne clocks of the GPS system must be regularly corrected for changes induced by gravitational redshift.. [O][F][R][T]
100 GB optical disc Sharp has developed a super-resolution optical disc that can hold 100 gigabytes of data. It uses a blue laser beam with a diameter of around 400 nm to read data marks that are just 100 nm wide. The laser beam illuminates several marks simultaneously, but heating-induced differences in the film’s optical transmission allow a distinction between the pits and bumps. [O]
Fingernail information storage Japanese scientists have shown that data can be written into a human fingernail by irradiating it with femtosecond laser pulses. The technology could have security applications. [O][D]
Galactic maser Astronomers have long known that interstellar gas clouds emit radiation at very narrow frequencies, which they concluded must be due to maser action. Now, radio astronomers in New South Wales, studying a neutron star pulsar called B1641-45, have observed such maser emission coming from a cloud of interstellar gas lying between the star and the Earth. The maser emission flashes on and off precisely when the pulsar pulse does. The discovery backs an earlier suggestion that interstellar clouds could be useful for galactic communications. If alien civilisations wanted to contact others by sending radio signals, they could use the maser action in the clouds to amplify a message without distorting it. [O][I][R] |
||
| [I] IT, communications, networking and secure systems | |
|
|
|
|
|
Ultra Wideband network Sandia and industrial partners have developed a secure wireless Ultra Wideband (UWB) data communication network that can handle the high data rates for advanced sensor networks including for use with UWB radar. The technology will be used for sensor networks to protect US military bases and nuclear facilities, and for wireless control of remotely operated weapon systems. [I][D][R]
Crisis communications In the hours after the London terrorist bombing, mobile telephone networks struggled to cope with the volume of calls. Web news sites such as Sky News and BBC News were heavily overloaded, but maintained service, in part through using cacheing networks. Sky News handled 1.7 million unique visitors, the equivalent of a month's normal traffic on the site. [I][D]
Mobile phone safety A study of 456 drivers needing hospital treatment after road crashes in Perth, Australia, has found that mobile phone use in the 10 minutes before a crash was associated with a four-fold increased likelihood of crashing. This was irrespective of whether the driver was using a hand-held or hands-free phone. Similar results were found for the interval up to five minutes before a crash. The researchers did not assess whether different types of hands-free devices affected outcomes. However, the results add substantially to other evidence that suggests that it is the activity of phoning, and probably the distraction of conversing, that increases the accident risk. [I][B][V]
EU i2010 initiative The European Commission has published its i2010 European Information Society initiative. The initiative is aimed at completing the internal market for information society and media services, creating a single European information space with speed, rich content, interoperability and security, and achieving a common approach to the challenge of transforming the current convergence of digital technologies into growth, innovation, jobs and better public services and quality of life in Europe. [I][K][T]
Quantum key distribution A new encryption protocol devised at Cambridge University has been shown mathematically to be totally secure as long as information cannot be transferred faster than the speed of light. The protocol is totally secure even if the full quantum mechanical rules of quantum encryption do not apply. [I][O]
OODA-loop tactics in malicious software Virus writers have adopted a new tactic to try to make sure their malicious programs reach as many victims as possible. Instead of releasing Windows viruses intermittently, many creators of worms and trojans are releasing them in rapid succession, faster than security` firms can analyse them and update their scanners. This is equivalent to the military tactic of acting faster than an opponent's capacity to handle the cycle of observation, orientation, decision and action (OODA). [I][D]
E-mail Trojan horses A report on Trojan horses in e-mails, by the UK National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre's (NISCC), says that attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Organised gangs are using distribution e-mail lists to cleverly engineer mails that look legitimate and relevant. Many of the attacks seem to originate from Asia. The scale and complexity of the attacks is unlike anything seen before, and poses a possible risk to the UK's critical infrastructure. [I][D]
Malevolent data smuggling Discrepancies in the way different combinations of software deal with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) could allow a new form of web attack, dubbed "HTTP Request Smuggling" (HRS). This could hide harmful packets of data within seemingly legitimate ones. [I] |
||
| [K] Knowledge, information and technology management | |
|
|
|
|
|
Telehealthcare A review of ambulance services in the UK has led to a plan for a new cadre of paramedics that can take the hospital to the patient. The UK government believes that many as 90 percent of calls to the emergency service could be dealt with in ways other than by rushing the patient to hospital in an ambulance. [K][H][I]
Traffic forecast Sacramento, California, has introduced the world's first traffic forecasting system that combines real-time sensing of traffic density and speed with historical trends on major routes. The system predicts traffic conditions seven days in advance. The level of congestion depends largely on the time of day and day of the week, and often patterns are repeated through the seasons. The system adds to this data on the effect of accidents, road works, weather conditions, and some calendar events such as sporting events. The system will be rolled out to 19 major US cities. [K][C][E][I][R]
e-voting In the 2004 US presidential election, paperless e-voting performed well, according to the report of the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project. The newest Direct Record Electronic voting machines, when accompanied by the appropriate training, outperformed all other voting technologies for accuracy. Only 0.4 percent of votes were spoiled on these machines compared with 1.7 percent on average. [K][I]
Personal computing research Microsoft has announced a new approach to personal computing research, claiming that the availability of faster, more powerful processors has made much of the basis of 20th century software design obsolete. Priorities now include: systems that can overcome current testing limitations to create more stable, virus-free software; new methods to search and organise files and avoid information overload; new forms of computer-human interaction such as interactive surfaces; and 'intelligent' software based on machine perception. [K][C][U][V][W]
Preserving data and information As the scale of electronic data grows more and more rapidly, the capacity to make all of this accessible in even 20 years time remains a big challenge. [K][C][H][T][W][X]
Knowledge networks Strategic guidelines published by the European Commission for increasing cohesion within Europe have a strong emphasis on research and innovation. Specific actions include: establishing poles of excellence, bringing together high-tech SMEs around research and technological institutions and regional clusters around large companies; providing business support services for competitiveness and internationalisation; exploiting Europe's strengths in eco-innovations through the introduction of environmental management systems; and promoting various forms of entrepreneurship. [K][E][W]
Open innovation Many European policymakers are trying to get firms to relocate their R&D labs back to Europe in order to reach the EU Barcelona target of increasing R&D to 3 per cent of GDP across Europe. However, a study by the London School of Economics finds that UK companies have gained greatly in productivity and innovation by placing a large number of their researchers in the US so that they have been able to draw on the new ideas of US scientists and bring these ideas back to the UK. [K][W]
Evaluation of R&D Following a meeting of partners from the EU, US and Asia in Seoul, an agreement has been made to establish the International Network for Evaluation of Research (INTER) to improve the evaluation of public-funded R&D. The network will initially run for a period of three years until June 2008, and the initial phase of the programme in 2005/2006 will focus on three key areas of collaboration: theory and evidence-based evaluation, new methods and tools for systemic evaluation of R&D and innovation systems, and reliable and internationally comparable data. [K]
Women in science A charter for women in science, engineering and technology has been launched in the UK with the aim of tackling gender inequalities in universities. The six-point charter has been drawn up by the Athena project and the Scientific Women's Academic Network. All universities that sign up will commit themselves to bringing about cultural change within academia. [K]
Nurturing company health Companies need to be managed for health as well as performance, according to a McKinsey report. This means setting strategy, assessing risks, developing new leaders, and monitoring other issues that underpin long-term health. Executives should monitor a small but robust set of metrics that reflect what is happening in the different areas of the business over a range of time horizons, and enable the company to communicate its health to investors, analysts and employees. A company's strategy should be reflected in a portfolio of initiatives that consciously embraces different time horizons. Companies must also take a longer-term view of the way they manage talent and career tracks, and of the incentives created by money, recognition, and promotion. [K][T][W][X] |
||
| [C] Computing, supercomputing, modelling and simulation | |
|
|
|
|
|
Design of C++0x As a living language C++ must grow and adapt, but must also remain sufficiently generic to meet the diverse needs of the millions of users - expert, occasional and novice - in the C++ programming community. The next C++ standard, C++0x, must be sufficiently backwards compatible with C++; it must preserve useful existing techniques at the same time as bringing new programming and design techniques into the mainstream. Simple mapping of language features to hardware to give high computational performance will be as crucial to the success of C++0x as it has been for C++ and for C. The huge diversity of C++ users dictates favouring general mechanisms and efficient abstraction over specialised solutions to specific current problems. Library extensions, rather than language extensions, are the best way to aggressively provide enhancements. [C][T]
Quantum computing limits For quantum computing, making qubits physically small helps to reduce their interaction with the external environment and thereby helps avoid decoherence destroying the computation before it is complete. However, this is not enough. Dutch researchers have found theoretically that quantum information will inevitably be lost after a certain time, even without any external disturbance, because the qubit will spontaneously collapse into a single state. Moreover, spontaneous decoherence seems to happen more quickly as the qubit is made smaller. [C][J][N]
Simulation and reality A small fMRI study of brain activity in video-game veterans playing violent games suggests that their brains show the same pattern of activity as if they are imagining real violence. More than 90 percent of American children play video games every day, and half of the top selling games contain extreme violence. There is now strong evidence that people who play violent games tend to be more aggressive. It is possible that their brain circuits become more primed for aggression. However, another possibility is that aggressive people are more attracted to play violent games. [C][B][D][V]
Video games Online gaming is now a $5 billion pa industry and is predicted to grow to $10 billion by 2009. At any given moment, 150,000 people are immersed in one or another online fantasy game created and maintained by Sony Online Entertainment. The company's biggest games, EverQuest and EverQuest II, are played by a total of 600,000 people around the world, and are often considered the archetypes of a successful online game, having spawned a subculture of obsessed players for six years. [C][I][T][V]
Virtual society A society of virtual "agents”, each with a realistic personality and the ability to learn and communicate, is being crafted by scientists from five European research institutes. From the project, called NEW-TIES, the researchers hope to gain insights into the way human societies evolve. They will watch how about 1000 agents live together in a simulated world hosted on a network of 50 computers based at the institutions involved. Each agent will be capable of various simple tasks, like moving around and building simple structures, but will also have the ability to communicate and cooperate with its cohabitants. A programming interface will be made publicly available, enabling other researchers to carry out similar experiments using the parameters of the NEW-TIES virtual world. The experiment may complement what can be learned from watching how real human societies develop in cyber-space. [C][K][V][X] |
||
| [W] Whole life engineering, manufacture and testing | |
|
|
|
|
|
Agile Light-touch Project Management The growth of agile computing methodologies, such as eXtreme Programming (XP) and Scrum, is creating a need for better ways to manage agile projects. A group of managers, authors, consultants and team members from different agile project has published the Declaration of Inter-dependence (DOI) for Agile and Adaptive Management. This identifies six core values: continuous flow of value; frequent interactions and shared ownership with customers; expecting and managing uncertainty; unleashing creativity and innovation through individuals; group accountability; and improving effectiveness and reliability through situationally specific strategies, processes and practices. Having a light touch is one of the six good practices identified for managing agile projects. [W][C][I]
Virtual aircraft design The Falcon 7X, which made its first public flight at the 2005 Paris Air Show, lays claim to being the first fly-by-wire business jet and also the first aircraft to be designed entirely in a virtual environment. A single database was used to define the aircraft's design, including all 40,000 of its parts and 200,000 fasteners. This database was shared between workers at the 30 or so firms that contributed different parts of the plane. Before a single piece of metal was cut, everyone involved could walk around the plane in virtual reality and iron out conflicts over what went where. The design extended to the robots that would create the tools to fit the parts of the plane together, and to the aeroplane's maintenance in later years. [W][A][C][V]
Computer aided manufacturing A new process specification language, named ISO 18629, should make computers much more useful in manufacturing. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) and language analysis to represent computer commands in the context of a manufacturing plan. Researchers have incorporated approximately 300 process and control concepts, such as "duration" and "sequence," into its software structure. [W][C][K][U]
Performance measurement A study by the UK Economics and Social Research Council has found that measuring output and productivity in the public services to improve value for money and raise standards is far from easy. For example, the study found that across the EU, as has also been found by studies in the US, there appears to be little relationship in health sectors at the macro level between expenditure on services and the actual medical outcomes. However, at the microeconomic level, the outcomes for some specific diseases did suggest that there were some links between the way health systems are organised and medical outcomes. The study recommends that measurements must take account of extraneous factors, such as lifestyle changes leading to better health status in the case of medical outcomes, and that better ways of measuring output are needed including tracking outcomes over a long period, such as from diagnosis to post treatment outcomes or from educational attainment to subsequent earnings. [W][H][K][X] |
||
| [X] Systems, complexity and risk | |
|
|
|
|
|
Highly complex circuits Intel's Pentium 4 microprocessor has 42 million transistors and the Itanium 2 has 410 million. At this complexity, the performance in terms of the time taken to run a standard programme becomes very variable and statistically exhibits deterministic chaos. This means that the course of a computation is sensitive to the processor's precise state when the computation began. [X][C][U][W]
Complex system optimisation Around 20 percent of the human genome is composed of short sections of DNA called retrotransposons. These are often called "jumping genes" as they can be copied from one location in the genome and inserted elsewhere. This process was thought to happen only in sex germ lines, which create eggs and sperm. However, the Salk Institute has now found that retrotransposons are also active in precursor cells in the brain, and may randomly change the genetic information in single brain cells to create diverse neural circuits. The brain is then optimised by a process of natural selection that preserves useful circuits and destroys the others. This process would explain why brains are so diverse and why even the brains of identical twins are different. Retrotransposons may be genetic parasites, somewhat like retroviruses, that have been exploited in the genome to enhance the diversity of ecosystems and species and their optimisation by natural selection, and likewise the diversity and optimisation of individual brains. [X][B][G]
Microbial gene networks The conventional model of evolution is represented as a tree in which the common ancestors are located at the base of the trunk and the most recently evolved species at the tips of the branches. However, researchers from the European Bioinformatics Institute have shown that, in the case of bacteria, gene families are also transferred through the exchange of genetic material between distantly related organisms. This makes bacterial evolution more like a network. They also showed that the net is scale-free, similar to social networks, air-travel networks and the Internet. The network has hubs that serve as bacterial 'gene banks', providing a medium to acquire and redistribute genes in microbial communities, and allowing a gene to be disseminated rapidly from organism to organism through very few horizontal gene transfer events. This explains why drug resistance can spread so quickly. [X][G][H]
Earthquake risk A Spanish physicist has discovered that the structure of the time interval between successive earthquakes is similar to the spatial structure of systems when they change phase at critical points. This shows that, although the occurrence of future earthquakes cannot be accurately predicted, the interval between earthquakes must be dependant on previous earthquakes in a very determined way. This may help to improve risk estimation. [X][C][D][E][M][P][R]
Complex risks A new research centre has been established at Oxford University to encourage innovative interdisciplinary thinking on the greatest risks facing the world today. Topics identified include climate change, extreme inequalities in wealth, world population growth and distribution, global food shortages, rapid technological change, war and internecine conflict, and globalisation exacerbating the danger from epidemics and natural disasters. [X][D][E][P][R][T]
Holistic threat management The threat of potential pandemics such as Ebola, SARS, and avian influenza demands a more holistic approach to disease control, one that prevents diseases from crossing the divide between humans, their livestock, and wildlife, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). This "One World, One Health" concept calls for the integration of efforts to deal proactively with disease threats to human and animal health, including the global traffic in wild animals. At least 35 new infectious diseases, including HIV and Ebola, have emerged in humans from wildlife since 1980. The transmission of wildlife-borne pathogens can also threaten domestic animals and native species. For example, a fungal disease called chytridiomycosis, spread by the international trade in African clawed frogs, is now threatening 30 percent of all of the amphibian species worldwide with possible extinction. [X][A][D][E][H][R] |
||
| [V] Virtuality and human-machine interface | |
|
|
|
|
|
Visual processing The retina actively seeks novel features in the visual environment, dynamically adjusting its processing over timescales of seconds, according to research at Harvard. For example, in a forest or field of grass with many vertical elements, the retina adjusts to suppress vertical features and highlight rare horizontal features. [V][B][R][S][U]
Automatic alerting An initial prototype for wearable computers that could be used by future astronauts on Mars has been tested at a site in Spain. The site resembles a Martian region being explored by one of NASA's rovers, and the wearable computer is designed to help astronauts in looking for signs of life. The system uses software that picks out interesting features and highlights them in real-time in a visor on one eye or a tablet display. In the tests, the rate of false positives and negatives was moderately high, but overall the concept was considered to be promising. [V][R][U]
Two-way voice translation An interdisciplinary team at the University of Southern California has created a rudimentary two-way voice translation system that allows an English-speaking doctor to talk to a Persian-speaking patient. The translation system turns a doctor's spoken English questions into spoken Persian, and translates patients' spoken Persian replies into spoken English. Much of the success of the interface has come from the fact that a doctor-patient dialogue is by its nature highly structured, using a narrow set of concepts. Also very important was the use of real dialogue in the development, which used a database of some 300 English-speaking-doctor/Persian-speaking-patient dialogs created by USC medical students and Iranian-heritage USC students and Los Angeles residents. [V][H][K][W]
Digital home A survey of 2600 people in the UK has found that most are wary about the advantages of having an integrated digital home. The high price of gadgets and the daunting complexity of joining them up are big causes for concern, and there are also worries over privacy and security and over rapid obsolescence. Home entertainment and home healthcare systems found the most enthusiastic consumer interest. [V][I][K][P][R][T][U] |
||
| [B] Brain research and human science | |
|
|
|
|
|
Social behaviour Very little is known about the brain mechanisms governing human social behaviour, despite their huge importance. Using fMRI, researchers at NIH have now compared the brains of healthy volunteers to those with a rare genetic disorder, called Williams Syndrome, that causes unique changes in social behaviour. The research has revealed a delicate network by which three areas of the prefrontal cortex modulate the activity of the amygdala. The three areas have previously been implicated in decision-making, representation of social knowledge, and judgment, and the amygdala's response and regulation are thought to be critical to people's social behaviour through the monitoring of daily life events, such as danger signals. People with Williams Syndrome ignore danger signals in social interactions but over-react in other situations and often suffer from debilitating phobias. [B][D][H][V]
Human irrationality A famous example of human "irrationality" is the way that in financial transactions most people will prefer to avoid the risk of making a loss rather than the taking the chance of making an equivalent gain, or even a statistically superior gain. Scientists at Yale have now shown that capuchin monkeys show the same risk aversion, suggesting that it has a common evolutionary origin in both humans and monkeys. One possible explanation is that in a situation where food supply is barely adequate, avoiding the risk of starvation has a stronger survival advantage than seeking satiety. [B][X]
Training cognition Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are conventionally treated with drugs such as ritalin, particularly in US schools. However, studies increasingly show that while medication may calm a child's behaviour, it does not improve grades, peer relationships or defiant behaviour over the long term. Many children with ADHD have cognitive deficits, specifically in working memory, and can be helped using teaching and software tools that train memory, according to UK and Swedish research. [B][C][H][V]
Emergent mental processes By tracking the mouse movements of undergraduate students working at a computer, researchers have found compelling evidence that language comprehension is a continuous process. This supports the growing body of evidence that the brain does not work by passing discrete packets of information in a strictly feed-forward fashion from one cognitive module to the next, but rather as a dynamical system in which perception and cognition are mathematically described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional mental space. The neural activation patterns flow back and forth to produce nonlinear, self-organized, emergent properties. [B][C][K][U][X]
Pain killers Marijuana-like chemical in the brain, called endocannabinoids, play a key role in blocking pain after an injury during periods of intense stress, according to researchers at UC Irvine. This discovery may lead to a new class of drugs with fewer side effects than those of many existing pain medications. The researchers have developed a novel inhibitor molecule that boosts the analgesic effect of the specific cannabinoid compound most directly related to pain relief. [B][H]
Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease involves the loss of neurones that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine and lie in a brain region called the substantia nigra. Recent genetic and cellular discoveries, including the role of misfolded proteins, are pointing to better ways to ease the symptoms of Parkinson's and to limit the neuronal degeneration responsible for disease progression. One approach is to prevent or repair the protein misfolding. Another is to use neurotrophic factors to promote neuronal growth and differentiation to encourage regeneration. A third approach is to use gene therapy, for example to reduce symptoms by damping down overactive areas of the brain. A fourth is to transplant stem cells or foetal cells to replace those that have died. [B][G][H][T]
Misfolded protein diseases An important new model has been proposed for how misfolded proteins may cause Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases, as well as other degenerative diseases. US researchers examined the three-dimensional structure of several different proteins associated with these diseases, and observed that all of the proteins folded into structures resembling ion channels. These structures could form additional pores within cell membranes, thereby disrupting the electrical properties of the cell. If this model is correct, it may be possible to prevent and/or treat the various diseases by controlling the activity of these disruptive pores and designing specific drugs to regulate them. [B][G][H]
Factors in Alzheimer's disease By sifting the 20,000 participants in the Swedish Twin Registry for the 109 "discordant" pairs where only one twin had been diagnosed with dementia, researchers have identified that inflammatory diseases, such as chronic gum disease, during youth may make individuals more vulnerable to developing Alzheimer's disease later in life. Other recent research indicates that reduced metabolic activity in the hippocampus, as measured using brain scans, is an early indicator of Alzheimer's disease. [B][H] |
||
| [H] Healthcare and medicine | |
|
|
|
|
|
Vaccine for Lassa fever US and Canadian scientists have developed a vaccine against Lassa fever that experiments show fully protects nonhuman primates. The research could lead to a vaccine for human use. Recently, Lassa fever has been imported by travellers into both the US and Europe, and it is also a potential bioterror agent. [H][D]
SARS treatment A drug, Cinanserin, has been found to be effective in inhibiting the SARS coronavirus, according to a team of European and Chinese scientists. Cinanserin has been used since the 1970s to treat schizophrenia and could be directly prescribed to prevent SARS or treat SARS patients if there is another SARS epidemic. [H][D]
SARS receptor Austrian scientists have confirmed that ACE2, a protein involved in regulating blood pressure, is a crucial SARS receptor. From experiments in mice they found that the SARS protein known as Spike reduces ACE2 expression. This causes the blood vessels in the lungs to become damaged and the lungs to become flooded. They also report that treating mice with ACE2 can protect the animals from lung failure brought on by another condition, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The results could apply to all acute lung injuries arising from viruses and other causes, including from a potential avian flu pandemic. [H][D][G]
Bioengineering new arteries US researchers have demonstrated that they can grow new human blood vessels from a patient's own cells for treating cardiovascular disease. They took muscle cells from the saphenous vein of four men between the ages of 47 and 74 who were undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery. To create the new arteries, they fashioned a tube from a thin sheet of a biodegradable polymer that was 97 percent air, much like a sponge, and impregnated the muscle cells through the tube. A bioreactor with vitamin and nutrient solution pulsed through and around the tube created conditions as close as possible to those that would exist in nature. A particularly important result was the demonstration that the cells could be successfully treated to prevent telomere shortening thereby enabling them to divide enough times to build the new artery. [H][G][M]
Cancer-preventing foods Compounds like sulforaphane in broccoli and resveratrol in wine have been shown to help in preventing cancer by triggering the production of proteins that prevent DNA damage. Researchers at the University of Illinois believe that they have unravelled how this works and shown that in humans the modification of just one amino acid in the protein Keap-1 triggers this production. This finding could help in developing drugs that mimic or enhance the effect of these cancer-preventing foods. [H][G]
Cancer-treating foods The incidence of cancer of the colon, breast, prostate and lung is ten times lower in India than in the US. One factor in this remarkable difference may the consumption of the spice curcumin. This is derived from turmeric and is used extensively in India as a food-preservative, folk medicine and to colour and flavour food. Curcumin has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic properties. US research has now found that curcumin is effective against malignant melanoma. It prevents key proteins from being activated and thereby stops growth of the melanoma, and it also induces apoptosis in the cancer cells. [H]
Cell death Cell death occurs broadly in two ways - through the disciplined process of apoptosis and through the more devastating process of necrosis in which a dying cell bursts apart, scattering its contents and damaging neighbouring cells. Scientists at Harvard have found that one form of necrosis, which they call necroptosis, is actually controlled, and they have identified a small molecule that can block this necrosis pathway. This may lead to treatments for medical conditions, such as stroke, that involve necrosis. [H][B][G]
Nerve damage Researchers at Purdue have found that a chemical called acrolein, a known carcinogen, is present at high levels in spinal tissue for several days after a traumatic injury. Although acrolein is produced by the body and is non-toxic at normal levels, it becomes hazardous when its concentration increases. They believe that acrolein may be responsible for the nerve degeneration that follows initial spinal cord injury and which leads to paralysis. A high concentration of acrolein has also been linked to neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson's, Huntington's and Alzheimer's diseases, and to the longer term damage from stroke. The hope is that developing drugs to detoxify acrolein might be useful against many disorders. [H][B] |
||
| [G] Genomics, biotechnology and bioinformatics | |
|
|
|
|
|
Therapy with adult stem cells It is generally believed that that adult stem cells grow old and die much sooner than embryonic stem cells, with the result that they have less capacity to multiply. However, scientists at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh report that a unique population of muscle-derived adult stem cells was able to undergo more than 200 population doublings, comparable to levels reached by researchers using embryonic stem cells. [G][H]
ESC-derived primordial germ cells Scientists at the University of Sheffield have proved that human embryonic stem cells can develop in the laboratory into the early forms of cells that eventually become eggs or sperm. Their work opens up the possibility that eggs and sperm could be grown from stem cells and used for assisted reproduction, therapeutic cloning and the creation of more stem cells for further research and for the improved treatments for patients suffering from a range of diseases. In principle, the results mean it may be possible to clone stem cells from an infertile patient and turn these into the required sperm or eggs for IVF. [G][H]
Foetal development Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a way to study the earliest steps of human blood development using human embryonic stem cells grown in a lab dish instead of the embryos themselves. The findings mean that it may be possible to study many aspects of human development without the ethical problems of using embryos. [G][H]
Power of bioinformatics By comparing 140 sequenced bacterial genomes, researchers at HHMI have uncovered a system for regulating genes essential to bacterial replication. Since many antibiotics work by attacking the process of bacterial DNA replication, the work has identified potential targets for designing new antibiotic drugs. But more importantly, it demonstrates the power of bioinformatics. Discoveries of whole regulatory systems can be now be made through careful analysis of genomes. Comparing hundreds of genomes can reveal patterns that are not seen when looking at a few, and using multiple bioinformatics tools can uncover cell systems that might have escaped experimental detection. [G][C][H][K][X]
Epigenetic drift Identical twins show minor physical variations and differences in characteristics such as susceptibility to disease, which increase with age. A new report suggests that epigenetic factors could be responsible, by affecting how the genome is expressed in each twin. Further studies could help to elucidate this epigenetic drift, and the factors that affect it, such as chemical exposure, dietary habits and environmental factors. [G][H]
Human evolution Humans may have evolved during a few rapid bursts of genetic change, according to a new study of the human genome, which challenges the popular theory that evolution is a gradual process. Researchers studying human chromosome 2 have discovered that the bulk of its DNA changes occurred in a relatively short period of time and, since then, only minor alterations have occurred. This supports a theory called “punctuated equilibrium” which suggests that evolution has occurred as a series of jumps with long static periods between them. [G]
GM crops Breeding short, sturdy and high yield cereal crops – a hallmark of the “Green Revolution” in the 1960s – has often been credited with saving the world from starvation. Now, using genetic engineering, Japanese researchers have given rice a further 26 percent increase in yield whilst also keeping it sufficiently sturdy to not fall over in bad weather. A similar improvement in yield and sturdiness may be possible in wheat and corn. However, rice has a very simple genome and other species such as wheat, which has six sets of chromosomes, may prove trickier. [G][D][E] |
||
| [N] Nanotechnology and molecular technology | |
|
|
|
|
|
Biological nanowires Research at the University of Massachusetts has made the surprising discovery that the bacteria Geobacter can produce tiny biological nanowires, only 3-5 nm in width, that are highly electrically conducting. Geobacter are of great interest for bioremediation of groundwater contaminated with pollutants such as toxic and radioactive metals or petroleum. They also have the ability to convert human and animal wastes or renewable biomass into electricity. For these functions, Geobacter must transfer electrons outside the cell onto metals or electrodes. The discovery of their biological nanowires provides an explanation of how this is done. The nanowires are quite durable and several microns long. They may be useful in bioelectronics. [N][E][J][P]
Nanowire-molecular electronics Researchers from Northwestern University claim they have developed a lithography technique that can produce gaps as small as 2.5 nm wide in nanowires. The gaps can be filled with molecules to make nanowire-molecular components for electronic and photonic devices or for chemical and biological sensors. [N][J][S]
Nanoparticle drug delivery In experiments on mice, nanoparticles have been used to successfully smuggle a powerful cancer drug into tumour cells, whilst leaving healthy cells unharmed. The technique exploits the fact that, although all living cells require folic acid to replicate, cancer cells have a particularly strong appetite for it, displaying up to one thousand more folate receptors on their membranes. The nanoparticles, in the form of branching polymer molecules called dendrimers, were loaded with folic acid, and with the anticancer drug methotrexate. The folic acid molecules attached to branches of the dendrimer lured the cancer cells into accepting the whole package including the toxic drug. Mice with human epithelial cell tumours on their backs, injected with the loaded nanoparticles, lived much longer than those in the control group. [N][G][H]
Nanocrystal devices To use nanocrystals for solar cells, lasers or spintronic devices, they need to be doped with appropriate impurities. However this has proved difficult and it has been commonly concluded that nanocrystals 'self-purify' by expelling impurities from their interior. Now, however, research at NRL and University of Minnesota has found that the problem instead lies in the crystal surface, and that impurities are not incorporated into a growing nanocrystal unless they bind sufficiently strongly to the surface. This finding may open the way to using nanocrystals more widely in electronic devices. [N][J][M]
Nanomagnetic assembly To fabricate nanotech devices it is important to have simple ways to be able to transport, position and assemble component nanoscale elements. Research at Duke has demonstrated how this can be done magnetically by using a ferrofluid of iron oxide nanoparticles to herd the nanoscale elements into the desired positions on permanent magnetic traps. [N][M]
Nano-batteries Nanoscale electronics, sensors and biomolecular motors will require nanoscale batteries to power them. US researchers say they have developed a vesicle-based rechargeable battery, based on a biological design. The battery was formed from a pair of vesicles, one containing oxidant and the other reductant, and proved to be rechargeable over three consecutive discharge-recharge cycles. [N][P][S] |
||
| [J] Microelectronics, MEMS and spintronics | |
|
|
|
|
|
Nanomech memory According to a Dutch company, nanomechanical memory can read and write data a thousand times faster and using 100 times less power compared to conventional electronic and magnetic non-volatile memory. Nanomech memory incorporates hundreds of thousands of conductive metal levers, each just a few microns long. Applying a tiny voltage to an electrode below a lever causes it to bend forwards until it makes contact. Molecular forces latch the lever in position until it is switched back by applying a voltage to an electrode on the other side of the lever. The state of each switch can be sensed easily by the electrodes themselves. The company, Cavendish Kinetic, has developed a 256 kilobyte memory and aims to increase this to several gigabytes. [J][I][N]
Magnetic soliton transistor A scientist in Tehran has demonstrated a transistor that is based on the flow of tiny magnetic soliton vortices, which travel at the speed of light. The transistor has a switching speed of 8 GHz and speeds of 200 GHz may be possible. [J][C][I][M][N][S]
Nanofluidic transistor Researchers at Berkeley and LBNL have created a "nanofluidic transistor" that uses voltage to turn ion currents on and off. These nanodevices could be used for chemical computation, or perhaps more importantly, as the key element in a chemical processor that could sense proteins or sequence DNA. It is anticipated that a nanofluidic transistor could take the contents of as few as 10 cancer cells and identify the proteins or enzymes inside. An enzyme profile would be particularly useful for screening for cancers at a very early stage when there are only a few cells around. Nanofluidic transistors could be made using IC fabrication technology and nanofluidic channels could be integrated with electronics on a single silicon chip. [J][G][H][N][S]
Excitonic circuits Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and Bell Labs report that they have designed and demonstrated a two-dimensional semiconductor structure in which excitons exist longer and can move freely over distances of hundreds of microns. The ability to control excitons over long distances could lead to excitonic circuits in which photons are converted directly into excitons, which are then steered around a chip and converted back into photons again at a different location, such as an optical memory device. [J][C][O]
In-chip optical circuits German and Canadian scientists have developed a laser processing technique that writes low-loss optical waveguides in crystalline silicon. This could enable 3-D optical circuits in a chip. The buried waveguides are created using a femtosecond mid-infrared laser, focused at depths of up to 370 micron, to induce refractive index changes. [J][O]
Heat dissipation Georgia Tech has developed a way to fabricate cooling channels directly onto integrated circuits using a CMOS-compatible technique at temperatures of less than 260 degrees Celsius. Calculations show that the system, which can have either straight-line or serpentine microchannel configurations, should be able to cool 100 watts per square-centimetre. By eliminating the need for the large heat sinks, heat spreaders and high-aspect ratio fins needed today to cool high performance chips, the technology could allow denser packaging of integrated circuits, making 3D packaging feasible. [J][C][P] |
||
| [F] Fundamental science | |
|
|
|
|
|
Nanoscale gravity String Theory predicts that gravity may become much stronger at very small dimensions, although how small is uncertain because it depends on how tightly the extra dimensions of space time are curled up. Measuring gravity at the nanoscale is difficult because of the strength of the Casimir force. Researchers at Purdue, who have previously studied the Casimir force in great detail, have developed a way to cancel out its effect and have found that gravity shows no measurable anomaly at dimensions of a few hundred nanometres. They believe that in future experiments the sensitivity of their method can be increased by a further factor of a million. [F][N]
Cosmic neutrino background By detailed analysis of measurements of the cosmic microwave background made over the past decade, astrophysicists at Oxford University and the University of Rome have found evidence for tiny variations in the background of neutrinos left over from the Big Bang. Ripples in the neutrino background perturbed the gravitational potential in the early universe. This has in turn changed the energy or temperature of the photons of the microwave background as they travelled across the universe. The researchers report that their results are consistent with the standard models of both cosmology and particle physics. [F]
Origin of light A new theory postulates that light might arise from a vector field due to tiny violations of relativity, and that neutrino oscillations might arise from interactions between neutrinos and this background vector field rather than from neutrino mass. The new theory can be tested by looking for minute changes in the way light interacts with matter as the earth rotates (and changes its orientation with respect to the putative vector field). [F][O]
Origin of mass According to the Standard Model, the rest masses of the quarks and leptons arise from interactions with the Higgs field, and are proportional to the strength of the field times the strength of the interaction. The Standard Model requires only one Higgs field to generate all the elementary particle masses. However, physicists know that the Standard Model must be superseded by a more complete theory. Leading contenders, known as Supersymmetric Standard Models (SSMs), require at least two different types of Higgs field, and this implies five species of Higgs bosons. Detecting the Higgs bosons, hopefully with the Large Hadron Collider, will test the theories directly. However, the theories do not predict precisely what masses the Higgs bosons should have, making it harder to know where to look for them. Experimental results show only that the lightest Higgs boson should be no heavier than about 200 proton masses. What is discovered about Higgs bosons will not only test whether the Higgs mechanism is indeed providing mass, but might also point the way to the origin of dark matter and of neutrino mass. [F]
Superfluidity in an ultracold Fermion gas Physicists at MIT have found conclusive evidence for superfluidity in an ultracold Fermi gas by observing quantized vortices in a rotating gas of lithium-6 atoms. The results could shed new light on systems as diverse as high-temperature superconductors and the quark-gluon plasma. This is the first “high-temperature” superfluid, measured in terms of the ratio of the critical temperature (Tc), at which the superfluid transition takes place, to the Fermi temperature (Tf). For ordinary superconductors, Tc/Tf is about 0.0001. for superfluid helium-3 it is 0.001, for high-temperature superconductors it is 0.01, and for the new lithium superfluid it is 0.3. [F][M] |
||
| [T] Technology reviews | ||