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Top Stories in Science
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March 2005 Issue |
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| [D] Defence and security |  |
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Preventing weapons proliferation Programmes to find peaceful employment for the Soviet Union's weapons scientists so that their expertise does not fall into the hands of terrorists organisations or rogue states have been funded for a decade or more, particularly by the US. According to an article in the Economist, they seem to be a success. [D][T]
Destroying chemical weapons Russia still has a stockpile of 40,000 tonnes of chemical warfare agents and faces a race against time to dispose of the stockpile by 2007 in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The problem is to do this in an ecologically-sound manner that does not leave toxic by-products. Recent Russian research suggests bacteria may be able to destroy the toxic by-products from chemically treating mustard agent. [D][G][M]
Non-lethal weapons According to the New Scientist, the US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, the weapon fires a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person. The aim is to generate a pulse which triggers pain neurones without damaging tissue. [D][O]
Global population and poverty By 2050, according to the UN, the world's population is expected to rise from the current 6.5 billion to 9.1 billion, and the population in the world's 50 poorest countries will more than double, compounding the challenge of global poverty. The population of developed countries will remain almost static at 1.2 billion. [D][E]
HIV epidemic in Africa Nearly 90 million Africans could be infected by HIV in the next 20 years if more is not done to combat the epidemic, the UN has warned. [D][H]
HIV vaccination China has begun its first human trials of a new HIV vaccine. The UN has warned that the number of people affected by HIV and AIDS in China could rise to 10 million by 2010 unless much more is done to fight the disease. [D][H]
Ability of viruses to cross the species barrier A study of blood samples from nearly a thousand bushmeat hunters and handlers in Cameroon found that at least six viruses had crossed from monkeys to the people who were exposed to freshly caught bushmeat. Two of the viruses have never been seen before in humans. This suggests that cross species transfer of viruses, of the sort that caused the emergence of AIDS, may occur much more readily than previously thought. [D][G][H]
Risk of bird flu pandemic The WHO says that the world is in 'gravest possible danger' from bird flu. In Vietnam there is increasing evidence of human-human transmission. Two elderly relatives of patients killed by bird flu have tested positive for the virus and yet have no symptoms. Seven Vietnamese who initially tested negative for bird flu have now been found to have carried the virus. All have recovered. This suggests that the virus may perhaps be less lethal than currently indicated, but could also mean that many more people than previously thought may have harboured H5N1, raising the risk that it will adapt further to humans. [D][H]
Bird flu vaccine The WHO is calling on governments to consider stockpiling vaccines against H5N1 bird flu now, because even if these do not precisely match the virus in an actual pandemic, they can provide significant protection. This is a change in policy that reflects growing fears that a pandemic is likely and that there will not be time to produce much vaccine once it starts. Experiments on animals have shown that previous exposure to strains of influenza similar to H5N1 may not stop the animals falling ill when infected with actual H5N1 virus, but it can prevent them from dying. [D][H]
Disease transmission in air travel In March 2003 a single airline passenger with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) infected 22 fellow passengers on a flight from Hong Kong to Beijing. This showed that the risk of transmitting diseases during a long haul airline flight is much higher than had been thought. According to a new study, airlines could prevent transmission by boosting cabin ventilation during flights in geographical regions with disease outbreaks. However, the risk of disease transmission may be even higher in departure lounges where there is little air ventilation. [D][A][H][X]
Smart passports The introduction of machine readable passports that incorporate RFID chips containing the bearer's digital photograph, fingerprints and iris scans is running into many problems. Making the chips readable remotely and leaving the data unencrypted is convenient for border security staff, but it allows criminals and terrorists with suitable equipment to also check a passport holder's details remotely. Another big challenge is how to make biometric technology sufficiently reliable and interoperable round the world. [D][A][I][K][R][T] |
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| [A] Aeronautics and space | |
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Global flyer Steve Fossett has become the first person to fly a plane solo, non-stop around the globe without refuelling. He completed the circuit in 67 hours. Global Flyer's structure is made entirely from composite materials and is ultra-light, enabling it to fly 75 percent further than the previous range record for jet-powered aircraft. [A][M][P]
Long-range Boeing 777 Boeing has unveiled its new long-distance 777 plane, the 777-200LR, which will be capable of flying almost 11,000 miles non-stop, linking cities such as London and Sydney. [A]
Lightening and the radiation safe-zone for satellites. According to NASA, low frequency radio waves generated by lightning bursts in clouds are responsible for creating the so-called "safe zone" for satellites, lying between the two doughnut-shaped Van Allen radiation belts surrounding the Earth. The radio waves generated at high latitudes strike the ionosphere at an angle that allows them to leak out into the magnetosphere. Here they follow magnetic lines of force to where the gap in the radiation belts appears. The radio waves drain energy from any charged particles in the gap region, causing them to drop into the atmosphere. [A][E][R]
Lightening as a source of space radiation Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) are very short blasts of gamma rays, lasting about one millisecond, that are emitted into space from the Earth's upper atmosphere. New satellite observations of TGFs suggest they are produced above major thunderstorms by electrons travelling at near the speed of light. They may be a source of the radiation in the Van Allen radiation belts. [A][E][I][R]
Space tourism More than a dozen companies are currently vying for the space tourism market. One of the Ansari X Prize competitors, AERA Corporation, has signed an agreement with the US Air Force to use the launch services at Cape Canaveral, and claims it may be ready to offer sub-orbital tourist flights as early as 2006. Virgin Galactic, which has licensed technology developed by the X Prize winner, SpaceShipOne, plans to offer sub-orbital space flights in 2007 or 2008. The US FAA has released draft regulations for licensing and regulating commercial passenger spacecraft. [A]
Space tethers The NASA funded project called the Momentum-Exchange Electrodynamic Reboost (MXER) could lead to space tethers being used in 5-10 years time to catch satellites in low Earth orbit and fling them progressively into higher and higher orbits. One key challenge is the capture mechanism, which has to capture the satellite at space rendezvous in just a few seconds and also release it precisely. Other challenges include the ability of the tether material to withstand space radiation effects and micrometeoroid impacts, and designing a way to accurately predict the tether's location in its elliptical orbit at any point in time. [A][C][M][P][R][U]
Possibility of life on Mars A bacterium that sat dormant in a frozen pond in Alaska for 32,000 years has been revived by NASA scientists. The bacterium is named Carnobacterium pleistocenium as it is thought to have lived in the Pleistocene epoch. It is believed to be the first new species of microbe found alive in ancient ice. The discovery increases the likelihood that bacteria might be surviving in ice on Mars. [A][E][R]
Possibility of life on Mars Observations from the ESA Mars Express spacecraft suggest that a frozen sea, in the form of blocks of pack ice, may lie just beneath the surface of Mars in the Elysium Planitia region, about 5 degrees north of the Martian equator. The Elysium Planitia is the region where the spacecraft's Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS), which measures the composition of gases in the planet's atmosphere, appears to be detecting the highest emission of methane from the surface. This is fuelling speculation that the methane may come from organisms surviving in the frozen sea. [A][E][R]
Genesis mission Particles of solar wind have been successfully extracted by scientists from NASA's Genesis space capsule which crashed to Earth in Utah in 2004. [A][F] |
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| [U] Unmanned vehicles and robotics | |
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Robots walking like humans Three research groups have demonstrated robots that can walk like humans, using simple mechanical dynamics and minimal motorisation to stride along. The shape of each robot's frame and joints enables it to walk with about the same energy consumption as a human. In comparison, the most advanced commercial robots, including Honda's humanoid bot, Asimo, consume an order of magnitude more power because they typically require a multitude of motors and sensors in each joint, and powerful adaptive software to remain steady while walking. [U]
Robot learning Biomimetic experiments using robots that are similar to young animal can help to reveal what needs to be programmed in and what will emerge naturally through learning. Researchers at UC Davis are comparing the behaviour of rat pups, which when young are both blind and deaf, with robots designed to mimic them. [U][K]
Robotic medical procedures From the way slugs, leeches and earthworms move and grasp objects, US researchers have developed two flexible robotic devices that could make invasive medical procedures, such as colonoscopies, safer for patients and easier for doctors to administer. The researchers have obtained a patent for a new endoscopic device and a provisional patent for a gripping device, which may have industrial as well as medical uses. [U][H][R][V]
Robot ocean exploration Technological revolutions in sensors, robotics, and telecommunications are allowing unprecedented exploration of the oceans. Scientists can now visualise the ocean floor in remote areas of the Arctic, observe rockfish hideouts, and see live images of coral cities thousands of metres under the sea's surface. Soon robots will be able to "live" on the bottom of the ocean - monitoring everything from signs of tsunamis to the effects of deep sea drilling. [U][E][I][R][T] |
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| [P] Propulsion and energy | |
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Thermal barrier coatings for turbine blades US researchers have developed a new bond coat for thermal barrier coatings that may improve reliability and durability of turbine blades, and allow gas turbine engines in aircraft and power generation to withstand severe, high-temperature environments better. [P][A][M]
Improved Li-ion batteries Altair Technologies of Reno has created a new type of Li-ion battery in which the anode has an exceptionally high surface area, being made out of lithium titanate nanocrystals with a surface area of about 100 square metres per gram. This compares with 3 square metres per gram for carbon electrodes, and means that the battery that can be fully recharged in just 6 minutes and can provide high peak current. According to Altair, the lithium titanate electrode is extremely rugged and a lifetime of as many as 20,000 recharging cycles should be possible. [P][I][M][N]
Fuel cell powered electronics Nokia has dropped plans to develop fuel-cell powered mobile phones for at least the next few years, because of several issues with the technology. One problem is that current air transportation rules prohibit the carrying of methanol on an aircraft without special packaging. [P][A][V]
Hydrogen generation and storage Researchers at Oxford University have found that putting transition metal nanoparticles inside a microporous oxide material enables water to be directly split into hydrogen and oxygen by ordinary daylight. The next step is to design a gas separation membrane that can separate the gases. Another team at Oxford University has found a way of storing hydrogen at 8 to 9 percent by weight in a hydride, which releases it again at around 80 degrees C. This temperature is a great improvement on the temperatures of 200 degrees C or higher required in previous methods for storing a high weight percentage of hydrogen in porous materials. [P][M][N]
Exploiting waste methane As organic waste decomposes in landfill sites it generates methane. At some large landfills it has been practical to collect and use the methane to power vehicles or to heat nearby buildings. UK researchers have now proposed that simple modifications to existing landfills to prevent air being sucked into the landfill as the methane is drawn off can make it practical to extract methane from any site. In Europe, landfills have the potential to generate as much as 94 billion cubic metres of methane each year, and the potential in the US is even greater. [P][E]
Hydroelectric power Contrary to the popular image of hydroelectric power as being environment-friendly, hydroelectric dams can in some cases produce more greenhouse gases than power plants running on fossil fuels for the equivalent production of electricity. Organic material that is flooded, rots down to produce methane, and the seasonal changes in water depth mean there is a continuous supply of new flooded material. Methane's effect on global warming is 21 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide. [P][E]
Safer nuclear power Canada, France, Japan, UK and USA have signed an agreement to research a number of different concepts for next generation nuclear reactor systems that might be deployed from around 2030, and be safer than current reactors. [P]
Nuclear waste disposal According to a new report from the US National Academies' National Research Council, the US needs to establish a formal, "risk-informed" approach to decide what types and amounts of radioactive waste at DOE sites should be buried or left in place rather than shipped to a geological repository, such as the one proposed for Yucca Mountain. [P][E][X]
Ocean thermal energy conversion The feasibility of generating electricity commercially using ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) may soon be tested for real by building and operating a 100MW floating power plant. The plant will operate vapour turbines using the temperature differential of around 23 degrees C between the tropical surface water and deep ocean current, 900 metres below. This technology extracts energy from the ocean conveyor, and there is some concern that if were to be adopted on a vast scale it might be an added risk to the Gulf Stream. [P][E] |
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| [M] Materials, structures and surfaces | |
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Lubricant additives Since the 1930s, zinc phosphates have been the most common lubricant additives for protecting steel parts, such as pistons and cylinders in car engines, against wear when they contact each other. However, it has remained a mystery how they work, or why they do not protect aluminium. Now computer simulations have shown that at the pressures of 17 gigapascals where steel deforms in less than a nanosecond, clusters of zinc phosphate molecules form into a highly connected molecular network that forms a dense rubbery film and protects the steel. The pressure of 7 gigapascals at which aluminium deforms, however, is too low to produce the molecular network. [M][E][P]
Methane hydrates It is essential to understand the detailed nature of the methane hydrate deposits lying on the ocean floor before attempting to recover them for fuel. To study the kinetics of methane hydrate formation and decomposition, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have recreated in the laboratory the high-pressure, low-temperature conditions of the seafloor, including the ocean floor sediments. [M][E][P]
Nanotube supercapacitors Supercapacitors that can deliver a strong surge of electrical power could be manufactured from carbon nanotubes using a technique developed by researchers at UC Davis. Supercapacitors are useful in a wide range of electronic and engineering applications, wherever a large, rapid pulse of energy is needed. Hybrid-electric and fuel-cell powered vehicles need such a surge of energy to start - more than can be provided by regular batteries. [M][D][E][N][P]
Stem cell materials Stem cell researchers have shown how cosmetic surgery, such as wrinkle removal and breast augmentation, might be improved by using natural tissue generated from stem-cells rather than synthetic implants that are liable to rupture, leak or lose their shape. [M][G][H]
Sonoluminescence Sonoluminescence arises from acoustic cavitation - the formation, growth and implosion of small gas bubbles in a liquid blasted with sound waves. The collapse of these bubbles generates intense local heating. By looking at the spectra of light emitted from single collapsing bubbles, researchers at the University of Illinois have determined that their temperature reaches 20,000 degrees K. [M][O][P]
Hydration force Spanish and UK scientists have discovered what causes the hydration force, a phenomenon discovered in the 1970s, which causes some complex chemical and biochemical species (including DNA and other electrostatically charged molecules) to repel at short distances when surrounded by water. The findings could improve the design of chemical products used in the chemical, pharmaceutical and food industries. [M][G]
Electrically conductive adhesives Using self-assembled monolayers and a three-part anti-corrosion strategy, researchers at Georgia Tech have improved the performance of electrically conductive adhesives to the point where they can compete with tin-lead alloy solders for connecting display driver chips, memory chips and other devices to circuit boards. For environmental reasons, manufacturers are moving away from using tin-lead alloys. Japanese manufacturers adopted lead-free electronic interconnection technology in January 2005, and European Union manufacturers are expected to follow suit in June 2006. [M][J] |
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| [E] Environment, transport and marine | |
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Greenhouse gas emissions The UK government has announced tougher limits on greenhouse gas emissions following pressure from the European Commission. The announcement will enable UK firms to join fully with the fledgling European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a key component in EU plans to combat global warming. [E][W]
Inertia in global warming The effects of global warming are being held back by the thermal inertia of the oceans. According to a recent study, even if greenhouse gas levels had stabilised five years ago, global temperatures would still increase by about half a degree by the end of the century and sea level would rise some 11 cm. [E]
Future of farming Farmers will be rewarded for protecting the environment under a new initiative launched by the UK government. The Environmental Stewardship Scheme allows every farmer in England to earn payments for making their land more hospitable to wildlife. [E]
Decontamination Trichloroethene pollution of groundwater has serious implications for human health and the environment, and is also expensive to clean up. US researchers have found that gold nanoparticles partially coated with palladium are extremely effective catalysts for breaking down the chemical into less harmful products without producing toxic intermediaries including vinyl chloride. The researchers aim that a catalytic membrane of the gold-palladium nanoparticles inside a cylindrical pump could sit at the bottom of existing wells, continuously pumping and removing trichloroethene from water. This would eliminate drilling costs for new wells, energy costs for lifting water to the surface and construction costs for surface treatment facilities. [E][M][N]
Particulate air pollution Particular matter in air pollution enhances clotting factors, which thicken the blood, according to tests. The rate of death in immune cells also significantly increased, and exposure to the pollutants boosted inflammatory activity. This may help to explain why air pollution is associated with an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, and worsening respiratory problems. [E][H][N][P]
Ship drag Physicists at the University of Twente have confirmed under controlled conditions what shipbuilders have known for some time, that a shot of bubbles can help reduce the drag encountered by a ship moving through water. They found that the drag could be reduced by as much as 20 percent. [E][M]
Military catamaran A UK designed military catamaran, with a top speed of 50 knots, has been launched by the US Navy. It will be used as an experimental platform to evaluate the hydrodynamic performance, structural behaviour and efficiency of catamarans for use in littoral waters. [E][D][P]
Fish stocks Researchers report that fishing pressure is causing fish to evolve to smaller sizes, just as new studies show that larger fish are critical to sustaining populations. In species such as Pacific rockfish, the big, old females not only produce exponentially more eggs than younger, smaller females, but their larvae also have a far greater chance of survival. Many rockfish can live for 50 years or more, and some species can live well over 100 years. [E] |
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| [R] Remote sensing and sensor systems | |
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New astronomical radio source Astronomers at Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Sweet Briar College have detected a powerful new bursting radio source whose unique properties suggest it may be a new class of astronomical objects. The bursts are transient and coherent. Astronomical masers are one class of coherent sources, but these emit in specific wavelengths, whereas the new bursts were detected over a relatively large bandwidth. They might be a new type of emission from a class of sources known as "magnetars." The Naval Research Laboratory is a contributor to the Long Wavelength Array, which will be the world's largest and most sensitive low-frequency telescope and may revolutionise future searches for other radio transient sources, including Jupiter-like planets orbiting other starts. [R][F]
Vastly powerful infra red galaxies The Infrared Spectrograph, the largest of the three main instruments on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, has revealed a mysterious population of enormously powerful galaxies, about 11 billion light years away. They are radiating in the infrared spectrum with many hundreds of times more power than the Milky Way. [R][F]
Imaging spectrometry of Mars surface New data from the Omega visible and near-IR imaging spectrometer onboard Mars Express has found a large region - 60 kilometres by 200 km - that shows the clear spectral signature of calcium-rich sulphates, probably gypsum. This means that at least a portion of that northern "ocean" area was indeed covered by standing water for a long time. Results from the first 9 months of OMEGA data show that the surface of Mars is much more diverse than previously thought, with evidence for the presence of hydrated sulphates, silicates and various rock-forming minerals. [R][A]
Bone imaging and replacement Georgia Tech has shown that microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) imaging can provide detailed 3-D images of the vascularisation and mineralisation in bone, giving an unprecedented depth of data on how well a bone implant is integrating into the body. Other US researchers have shown that gene therapy can transform the dead bone of a transplanted skeletal graft into living tissue. By making the body treat the graft as its own tissue, the gene therapy produces vascularisation. The body then transforms the dead bone into fully living bone through the normal cycle of calcium replacement in which calcium is extracted from bones when it is needed for key functions such as maintaining the brain and heart, and is subsequently restored into bones when there is calcium to spare. Normally about 10 percent of bone in the body is replaced each year in this way. [R][G][H][M]
Seismic sensing using noise Seismologist generally rely on earthquakes or explosives to study the Earth's interior and can thereby construct tomographic images of Earth's crust and upper mantle (seismic tomography). However, earthquakes are infrequent and explosives are expensive. Researchers at the University of Colorado have now shown that they can instead recover surface-wave information from the normal seismic noise that is constantly produced by fluctuations in the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. This new method promises significant improvements in the resolution and accuracy of crust and upper mantle images down to 60 miles or more within the Earth. [R][E][P]
Muon imaging of volcano interior Japanese researchers are using muons generated when cosmic rays interact with the Earth's atmosphere to probe the inner structure of two active Japanese volcanoes. Detectors placed on the side of the volcanoes record muons as they pass through. By comparing the detections with predictions from computer models, conclusions can be drawn about the rocks and features inside the volcano. The hope is to be able to detect flowing magma and help to predict eruptions. [R][D]
Muon imaging for border security At Los Alamos, scientists have developed a sensor that uses muons produced in the atmosphere by cosmic rays to look through lead or other heavy shielding in order to detect smuggled uranium, plutonium or other dense materials. Muon radiography is far more sensitive than x-rays, and avoids the radiation hazards of the x-rays or gamma rays currently used at US borders. [R][D][S] |
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| [S] Sensor devices | |
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Narcotics detectors A sniffer system originally developed by Sandia for detecting explosives is proving effective for detecting narcotics in field trials by police in Texas. The sniffer works by drawing a bathtub volume of air through its nozzle, trapping heavy organic compounds in the air on a filter, then heating the filter and redistributing the collected compounds into a smaller air sample. The compounds then are identified in a commercial ion mobility spectrometer-based detector that is part of the system. [S][D]
Sensing facial movement Navarre University Hospital in Spain has launched a novel system that captures and quantifies facial movement in three dimensions. It uses three infrared cameras and software that can precisely measure and evaluate parameters including angles and the speed of the spreading movement by facial muscles at the corners of the mouth. The system helps in planning and executing facial reconstruction surgery and in assessing the outcome. It also has legal applications for precisely quantifying the damage caused by workplace and traffic accidents. [S][H][R]
Saliva diagnostic kit A saliva diagnostic kit not much bigger than a credit card is being developed at the University of Pennsylvania. It should be able to detect exposure to a variety of substances, from narcotics to common bacteria and viruses. The prototype detects HIV and Bacillus cereus, a bacterium closely related to anthrax. [S][D][H]
Measuring interactions between small molecules and proteins Researchers at Harvard have created a silicon nanowire FET that can measure interactions between small molecules and proteins - interactions important for drug discovery. They used the device to measure how various molecules, including the drug Gleevec, inhibit the binding of ATP to tyrosine kinase (a protein involved in chronic myelogenous leukaemia). They first linked the kinase molecules to the surfaces of the silicon nanowires and then introduced the test solutions in microfluidic channels surrounding the sensor. When the ATP bound to the kinase, the negative charge of the ATP increased the FET conductance, just like applying a negative gate voltage. The effects of Gleevec and other small molecules in inhibiting this binding could then be measured from how much this reduced the FET conductance. [S][G][J][N]
Detecting amyloid plaque It may become possible to use MRI scanners to detect amyloid plaques in the living brain, enabling Alzheimer's disease to be diagnosed early and treated before overt symptoms appear. Japanese scientists have developed a non-toxic tracer that attaches itself to the amyloid plaques in the brain and can be detected by regular MRI scanners. Using this tracer they have detected amyloid plaques in living mice. They have also shown that the tracer binds to amyloid in human brain tissue. [S][B][H]
Studying individual atoms At Madrid Autonomous University, researchers have watched a specific set of atoms continuously during a surface phase transition to see exactly how it occurs, and have made atomic-scale movies. They built an ultra-stable scanning-tunnelling microscope that can remain fixed on the same set of surface atoms, even as the temperature rises by 100 degrees K - a huge warming that would cause other microscopes to lost track. They found that the degree of corrugation in a layer of lead atoms on a silicon surface changes with temperature in precisely the way expected for an ideal system with no defects. [S][M][N] |
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| [O] Optoelectronics, optics and lasers | |
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Thermal imaging markers A vehicle marking material that allows police to distinguish between pursuit cars and offenders during chases at night and in bad weather is being trialled by UK police forces. The material was originally developed by QinetiQ for military stealth and has a multi-layer structure that functions as a mirror in the infrared, and allows the roof markings on vehicles to be read by police helicopters with a thermal-imaging camera. [O][D][M][S]
Optical vortices for microscopic sensing Optical vortices, the simplest kind of light beam carrying orbital angular momentum in which the energy spirals around the beam axis, might provide a new and potentially wide-ranging optical tool for sensing microscopic geometrical and structural properties of objects, including biological and chemical agents. The spiralling of the light represents an extra degree of freedom that researchers can use to optically encode information and subsequently to retrieve information from objects the beam strikes. [O][D][S]
Better single photon detector Physicists at Toshiba Research Europe and the University of Cambridge have developed a quantum dot device that can efficiently detect single photons and that avoids the frequent false detections arising from the avalanche of electrons needed in the common amplified-photoelectron approach to photon detection. It should benefit medical imaging, chemical analysis, environmental monitoring, and quantum information processing and cryptography. [O][C][E][J][I][M][S]
Longer lived OLEDs Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are very promising because they are easy to process and can emit over the full visible spectrum. However, their lifetime is currently too short for practical use. Researchers at Samsung have found that the lifetime of OLEDs based on the organic material TDAPB as the hole-transport layer can be doubled and their luminance increased by 30 percent by doping them with carbon-60. Carbon-60 is an electron acceptor that protects the TDAPB from damage by excess electrons ejected from the OLED's light-emitting layer. [O][N]
Electrically-driven Raman laser US scientists have made the world’s first electrically-driven Raman laser. The device exploits Raman scattering between quantum wells within the active region of a quantum cascade laser (QCL). The QCL output at 6.7 microns is Raman shifted to 9 microns with an efficiency of 30 percent. The development could lead to lasers that operates at wavelengths that conventional semiconductor lasers cannot reach. [O][J][R]
Wigner delays Physicists at the University of Rennes have used a femtosecond laser to measure the time that light spends outside a piece of glass when it undergoes total internal reflection. They found that there are in fact two of these Wigner delays, and not just one as was first suggested by Newton. They found that the delays increase as the angle of incidence approaches the critical angle. For light polarised perpendicular to the incident plane the largest delay was 28fs; for polarisation parallel to the incident plane, the delays reached 57fs. The Wigner delays could be used to study negative refractive index materials and materials with photonic band gaps, and they should also exist for beams of particles such as neutrons. [O][F][M]
Quantum interference in the time domain Physicists have performed a novel and rather beautiful version of the double-slit quantum-interference experiment with single electrons. In the classic version of the experiment, electrons pass through a mask containing two parallel slits and produce a pattern of bright and dark interference fringes on a screen. In the new version, the slits exist in time not space, and the interference pattern appears when the number of electrons at the detector is plotted as a function of their energy rather than their position on a screen. The electrons pass through a double slit in time as a result of being ejected from an atom at one of two possible times by a 5fs laser pulse containing only a few cycles of the electric field. [O][F]
Negative gravitational refraction Gravity sources, such as the Sun, bend light passing close to them. This positive refraction is known as gravitational lensing. Even the Earth causes some bending, and this is taken into account in global positioning systems (GPS). Gravitational lensing from galaxies is very important, because it can magnifying the images of extremely distance objects, enabling astronomers to see them. Researchers have now found theoretically that spinning black holes can create negative refraction. This means that light from very distant objects may be bent in unexpected and unpredictable ways by both positive and negative refraction, making interpretation much more difficult. [O][F][R] |
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| [I] IT, communications, networking and secure systems | |
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Security by facial recognition A Japanese company has developed software to enable a camera phone to recognise its owner's face in order to provide added security protection if the phone is lost or stolen. The software measures key parameters, such as the distance between the eyes, nose and mouth. It uses 370 kb of a cellphone's memory, and takes about one second to perform the check. [I][D][R]
Mobile phone virus The first mobile phone virus capable of rifling through a phonebook and automatically sending a copy of itself to uninfected phones has been discovered by anti-virus researchers. [I]
Authentication by delayed password disclosure A new security approach, called delayed password disclosure, uses a very simple exchange of information to enable banks and customers to authenticate each other before disclosing any sensitive information. It is aimed particularly at safeguarding the transfer of sensitive information over the Internet using wireless connections and at protecting Internet users from passing information to fake website set up to steal passwords, PINs, credit cards numbers and account numbers for online fund-transfer services. However, the researchers say that the approach may be useful in any environment where "mutual identity authentication" is required, including for the military and security services. [I]
System vulnerability assessment A consortium of software and security companies has designed a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) for rating the vulnerabilities of operating systems to attack from viruses and hackers. The system will provide system administrators with the first quick way to prioritise the dozens of software patches they receive each week. The companies include Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Symantec and Qualys, as part of their role on the US National Infrastructure Advisory Council, a branch of the US Department of Homeland Security. [I][D]
Identity theft The risk of identify theft is far greater in the US than in Europe, because a 1995 European Union directive on data privacy ensures that in Europe personal data is protected by default. In the US, the key information needed to steal an identity is often readily available on the Web. [I][D][K]
Wi-Fi security A survey of Wi-Fi networks in London, Frankfurt, New York and San Francisco has found that companies are becoming worse at keeping their wireless data networks secure, and that more than a third had basic security features turned off. [I] |
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| [K] Knowledge, information and technology management | |
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eHealth IT and eHealth are seen as the great hope for avoiding medical errors, cutting healthcare costs and coping with the burden of the ageing population. However a study of electronic prescription systems introduced in the US 10-15 years ago has found that the systems are actually encouraging medical prescription errors. Information errors occur from fragmentation of data and information, or failure to fully integrate the multiple computer and information systems. Human-machine interface flaws reflect machine rules that do not correspond to work organisation or usual behaviours. [K][H][I]
Telehealthcare Despite high expectations, telemedicine and telehealthcare systems, which enable doctors to interact with patients many miles away via video, digital imaging and electronic data transmission, have had only limited impact on the UK National Health Service, according to a study. Failure to think through the organisational problems involved in integrating new technology into everyday NHS activity is a likely reason for this. The study found that patients and other users are rarely consulted in any meaningful way about development and implementation, and it is often assumed that the needs of NHS service providers and of patients are the same. [K][H][I]
Pattern analysis and bioinformatics Algorithms capable of finding patterns in digital information could also help identify key genetic features across many different strains of HIV, according to researchers in Australia and the US. This could lead to an HIV vaccine that is effective against several strains at once. HIV mutates rapidly and at present vaccines developed to counteract one strain may not be effective against another variant. [K][G][H][I][R]
Decision support software New software developed for and beta tested by the US Marine Corps, can help anti-terrorism planners determine how best to allocate limited resources to defend military bases, industrial parks and civic facilities from terrorist attacks. The software, prioritises resources using objective criteria and provides a cost-benefit analysis for various mitigations. Based on these results, the software can guide users towards more rigorous and justifiable resource allocation decisions in a domain where emotion and uncertainty play a major role. [K][C][D][X]
Cognitive stress In high stress environments such as air-traffic control centres, operators must keep in mind several variables at once, and systems need to be designed to keep within these constraints. Psychologists have now found that, even for highly trained operators, it is virtually impossible to handle more than four variables at once, and this appears to be a fundamental limit of the human mind. [K][A][B][D][V]
Self-learning translation software Translation software that develops an understanding of languages by scanning through thousands of previously translated documents has been released by US researchers. Unlike most existing translation software, which uses hand-coded rules for transposing words and phrases, the new software builds probabilistic rules about words, phrases and syntactic structures. The approach should eventually give computers the ability to produce genuine insights into the structure of different languages. [K][B][C][V]
Self-organising language development No matter how complicated, or mutually unintelligible they are, all languages still follow basic guidelines common to all of them. It has long been assumed that this shows that human genes specify a 'universal grammar', and that the features of different human languages come from variations in how this universal grammar operates. New research, in which computers have evolved a language through talking together as young children would do, suggests instead that human genes set up more abstract conditions for language and that self organisation then creates many of the subsequent patterns and structures. That might explain why linguists can find strong tendencies within the sweep of the world's languages, but fewer absolute truths that run through all of them. [K][B][G][U][V][X]
Patenting of research The patenting of parts of the human genome has been very controversial, but in practice a large proportion of the patents may not stand up to legal challenge, according to a study by lawyers at the University of Illinois. They examined 74 patents on human genetic material related to nine diseases known or suspected to have genetic causes (Alzheimer's, breast cancer, asthma and obesity being among them). Their conclusion is that in many of the patents the claims made do not match the legal requirements of being useful, novel and non-obvious, and many of the inventions are not properly described and defined. [K][G][H]
Patenting of software A bill that would have allowed software to be patented has been rejected by the European Parliament. Proponents of the bill said it was a good compromise that avoided the excesses of the American system, which allows the patenting of business practices as well as software. But opponents argued that it could stifle innovation and be abused by firms keen to protect existing monopolies, and that it could hamper the growth of the open source movement. [K][C] |
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| [C] Computing, supercomputing, modelling and simulation | |
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Quantum-classical boundary and quantum computing Understanding the boundary between classical and quantum behaviour is highly important to fundamental science and also to quantum computing since decoherence is probably the main stumbling block in making a practical quantum computer. Experimental advances in the past decade have made it possible to study how an external influence affects the quantum interference of atoms and molecules. Recent matter-wave experiments show that there is no fixed boundary between the classical and quantum worlds. Molecules with over 100 atoms have been made to interfere and it may even be feasible for large objects such as proteins, small viruses and nanocrystals with atomic masses of up to a million units to show quantum interference. What seems to be the key factor in the transition from quantum to classical behaviour is the exchange of information between the quantum system and the outside world. [C][F][N][O][T]
Quantum entanglement Evidence for quantum entanglement of three macroscopic objects has been seen at the University of Maryland in a superconducting circuit operating at temperatures near absolute zero. The three objects were a niobium inductor-capacitor (LC) circuit plus a pair of Josephson junctions, each a sandwich of two superconductors separated by an insulator. Remarkably, all three macroscopic devices seem to act, when cold enough, like huge atoms. [C][F][N][O]
Quantum computing According to research at NIST, a quantum computer should be able to tolerate several hundred times more errors than generally thought acceptable if its architecture has several levels of error checking to ensure the accuracy of quantum bits (qubits). This suggests that a full scale quantum computer could achieve reliable computing even if individual logic operations made errors as often as 3 percent of the time, a performance level already achieved with qubits based on ions. It could mean that quantum computing may be achievable more quickly than previously thought possible. [C]
Grid computing - security and sociology Thousands of personal computer users have joined the World Community Grid (WCG), devoting idle computer time to help solve serious health and social problems, such as working out the roles of proteins in the body. To make these networks successful, user friendly security is a key issue, so that participants only need to know how to install the software and do not open themselves up to cyber attacks. It is essential that no special expertise is required to take part in the collective effort. The sociology of the network is also important. In the WCG, the teams and individuals earn points for the processing and calculations each has done. This reinforces their competitive motivation to do more. [C][G][I][K][V]
Computer simulation of nanodevices Computer simulations play a crucial role in discovering new properties of nanomaterials and potential nanodevices, particularly because of the practical difficulty of building structures and doing experiments at the nanoscale. The fact, for example, that gold is a very effective catalyst when it is in clusters of eight to two dozen atoms, and that electrical charging of gold is crucial to its catalytic capabilities, were discovered by computer simulation. [C][M][N]
Simulating epidemics Computer simulation of virtual plagues in real cities can reveal how social networks spread disease, and how best to stop epidemics. Governments and public health officials will have to make choices that could mean life or death for thousands, even millions, of people, as well as massive economic and social disruption. Unfortunately, history offers only a very rough guide. [C][D][H][T]
Solving complex problems Researchers at Cornell University have developed tools to solve many so-called intractable computer problems, at least in certain practical situations, by using methods that avoid searching the lengthy paths that occur in "heavy tails" of a path distribution. [C][R][U][X] |
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| [W] Whole life engineering, manufacture and testing | |
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Job satisfaction In Britain, studies of job satisfaction done between 1972 and 1983 showed a small downward trend in average satisfaction. There is a gap in data for much of the 1980s, but in the 1990s, three separate sources have continued to show significant declines. According to a new study, the chief reasons for declining job satisfaction in Britain today come from having to work harder and regimentation reducing the scope for personal initiative. Some similar declines in job satisfaction exist in other countries, but not in the US. [W][K] |
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| [X] Systems, complexity and risk | |
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Alleviating poverty in a market economy In 1897, Pareto showed that the distribution of wealth in Europe followed a simple power-law pattern, whereby the extremely rich owned most of a nation's wealth. Econophysicists at the University of Maryland have now found that Pareto's law applies only among the super-wealthy, at least in the US. They analysed income data from the US Internal Revenue Service from 1983 to 2001 and found that, apart from the super-wealthy, the incomes for the remaining 97 percent of the US population have a distribution like the spread of energies of atoms in a gas. The researchers conclude that it is very difficult to redistribute wealth substantially in a market economy like the US. [X][D][M]
Frequency and severity of terrorism and war Researchers at the University of New Mexico have analysed a database that contains details of more than 19,900 terrorist events that occurred in 187 countries between 1968 and 2004. They found that the frequency and severity of terrorist attacks - defined as the number of deaths plus the number of injuries - are related by a power law. Although the range and size of the data set is comparatively small, the results suggest that extreme events like 911 are part of a scale invariant pattern. This may be an extension of the still unexplained scale invariance between the frequency and intensity of wars. [X][D]
Managing complexity of open source software As the amount of open source software grows, so does the problem of managing the complexity. A European project called EDOS (Environment for the Development and Distribution of Free Software) will harness the expertise of major European research institutions and open source software companies to improve software building processes and quality testing. The resulting software will be released under an open source licence. [X][C][I][K][W] |
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| [V] Virtuality and human-machine interface | |
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Camouflage Birds can be deceived by camouflage patterns in the same way as humans are, according to researchers at Bristol University. [V][B]
Robotic arm Scientists in the US have created a robotic arm that can be controlled by thought alone. It has a fully mobile shoulder and elbow and a gripper that works like a hand. [V][B][H][U]
Sense of taste Using a molecular approach to understanding human taste perception, researchers have made a new finding demonstrating that each individual's personal set of taste-receptor alleles, or gene variations, codes for distinct receptor proteins that determine individual differences in bitter-taste perception. These differences in perception are ubiquitous, underscoring the idea that every human has a slightly different sense of taste. [V][G]
Haptic mobile phone Samsung is releasing a new type of mobile phone that has a haptic interface so that it can not only send images and streaming video, but can also vibrate. The sender of a text message can add one of a number of sensations from a menu. [V][I]
Transparent electronics Two groups, in Japan and the US, have reported making see-through circuits using amorphous oxide semiconductors. The circuits can be fabricated at room temperature, making them a candidate for in-window car electronics and cheap circuits made on plastic, including roll-up electronic displays. [V][J][M]
Roll-up displays Philips has announced that its roll-up display technology now has a performance to suit portable electronic devices. Potential applications include use as a portable external display for viewing large documents such as electronic maps or pages of text. [V][J][M] |
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| [B] Brain research and human science | |
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Brain of Homo Floresiensis The diminutive human, Homo Floresiensis, that lived in the Indonesian island of Flores possibly as recently as 13,000 years ago, represents a previously unrecognised species of early humans, according to the results of a detailed comparison of the fossil's brain case with those of humans, apes and other human ancestors. The skull has some remarkably advanced morphological features, including ones associated with complex brain processes in living humans. This suggests that Homo Floresiensis may have possessed a level of intelligence and tool making ability normally associated with larger brained humans. [B][F]
Causes of intelligence Although current human brains are triple the size of mankind's primitive ancestors, this may have little if anything to do with intelligence. The evidence is that ancient man went through two periods where brain mass increased, yet during these times toolmaking techniques did not improve. [B]
The ageing brain A new study sheds light on why higher education seems to buffer people from cognitive declines as they age. Brain imaging showed that in older adults taking memory tests, more years of education were associated with more active frontal lobes. The finding suggests that older adults, especially if highly educated, are able to exploit the frontal cortex as an alternative network to supplement other areas of their ageing brain. [B][K]
Neuronal architecture Neurones generate the observed wiring diagram of the brain by forming connections with each other that are specific rather than just random. Statistical analysis and mathematical modelling to search for recurrent, non-random patterns of local neuronal connectivity, has revealed strongly preferred patterns in the rat brain. These scaffolds of connectivity are likely to correspond to modules that play an important role in brain function in humans as well as in rats. [B][C]
Brain modelling Researchers have used sophisticated computer models to accurately predict patterns of brain activation that they then confirmed by trials on human subjects using fMRI. They found that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the area surrounding it appears to act as an early warning system to monitor environmental cues, weigh possible consequences, identify risky situations and help adjust behaviour to avoid dangers or errors. The ACC is located near the top of the frontal lobes and along the walls that divide the left and right hemispheres, and plays a critical role in the brain's processing of especially complex and challenging cognitive tasks. Abnormalities in the region are closely associated with many serious mental problems, including schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. [B][C][H]
Cause of dyslexia Researchers at Cardiff University have identified a gene, KIAA0319, that appears to be implicated in dyslexia. This could indicate that dyslexia, though apparently complex, may have a simple molecular cause and may be amenable to treatment in the future with drugs. [B][G]
Emotional feedback and post-traumatic stress disorder Research at Duke University on the brain structures involved in recalling an emotional memory a year later has found evidence for a self-reinforcing "memory loop" in which the brain's emotional centre triggers the memory centre, which in turn further enhances activity in the emotional centre. This may explain why traumatic events trap people in a cycle of emotion and recall that aggravates post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and why therapies in which people relive such memories and reshape their perspective to make the memories less traumatic can be beneficial. [B][D]
Predicting recovery of consciousness For treating patients in coma from severe brain injury it is very valuable to be able to predict the likelihood of recovering consciousness. A Northwestern University researcher has developed a measure of neurobehavioural functioning during coma that, it is claimed, accurately detects improvements, declines and plateaus in neurobehavioural functioning in unconscious patients, and predicts recovery of consciousness up to one year after injury with up to 86 percent certainty. [B][H]
Repairing optic nerve damage Damaged optic nerves have been regrown for the first time by scientists working with mice. The researchers produced mice with two genetic modifications, by first turning on a gene BCL-2 that promotes growth and regeneration of the optic nerve in young mice, and then breeding these mice with other mice carrying genetic mutations that reduce scar tissue formation in injured nerves. The nerve regrowth was only found in the genetically engineered mice and only when they were less than 14 days old. This may prove an important result in the quest for a way to restore sight to people whose optic nerves have been damaged by injury or glaucoma, or to regenerate other nerves in the body. [B][G][H]
Deep brain stimulation therapy Early results using an experimental technique called deep-brain stimulation (DBS) look very promising for treating the "refractory" type of depression that is currently untreatable by other means. According to the WHO, depression is the leading cause of disability in the world, and 15-30 percent of the 121 million suffers have "refractory" depression. The new treatment uses electrical stimulation with electrodes buried deeply in the brain, and is based on the finding that an area called the subgenual cingulate is overactive in patients with depression. Neural overactivity may also play a role in several other conditions, including chronic pain, dystonia, epilepsy, Tourette's syndrome, essential tremor, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Parkinson's disease. All of these illnesses may perhaps be treatable with DBS. [B][H][V]
Cocaine addiction Cocaine produces intense feelings of euphoria by blocking the transporting mechanism that recycles dopamine back to sending neurones. Normally, dopamine signals pleasure and reward by binding to receptors on the receiving neurones in the brain's reward centre, after which it is reabsorbed for later use by a protein that transports it back into the sending neurones. Blocking this recycling mechanism creates an unceasing message of pleasure. Researchers have long sought how to block cocaine's effects on the recycling without inhibiting the recycling itself. Now a new drug, similar to one used to treat Parkinson's disease, appears to do this, and could potentially be used to treat cocaine abuse. [B][D][G][H] |
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| [H] Healthcare and medicine | |
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Alzheimer's disease In Spain, experiments on rats have shown that a synthetic analogue of the active component of marijuana reduces the inflammation associated with Alzheimer's disease and might help to prevent the mental decline . [H][B][G]
Predicting brain aneurisms Brain aneurisms - a potentially lethal thinning of blood vessel walls in the brain - are relatively common, but fortunately only a small percentage rupture, causing death or severe disability in half of the cases. The problem is that aneurisms generally give no warning signs. However, Mayo Clinic researchers have now identified a genetic marker that indicates a ten-fold greater likelihood that an aneurism will rupture. [H][B][G]
Treating hypertension The preliminary results from a trial of 19000 patients in the UK and Scandinavia have found that a new treatment strategy for hypertension can cut the risk of strokes by around 25 percent and coronary events by around 15 percent, and may also cut the risk of diabetes by 30 percent. The trial was halted because the new treatment was clearly so much better than the convention treatment. [H]
Diet and lifespan Researchers have moved a step forward in understanding how calorie restriction is linked to lifespan extension in mammals. They have found that SIRT1, the mammalian version of a protein linked to longevity in simpler organisms, controls glucose metabolism in mice in response to fasting. [H][G]
Diet and health US scientists have found that a key aspirin-triggered anti-inflammatory fat in humans is derived from omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil. This explains why a diet high in oily fish like salmon and mackerel improves inflammatory conditions, such as arthritis, particularly in combination with low doses of aspirin. [H]
Metabolic syndrome Fatty acid binding proteins (FABPs) that shuttle lipids in the body might be a missing link between obesity and the other related conditions of metabolic syndrome, including diabetes and fatty liver disease, according to a new study on mice. The hope is that drugs that target the proteins might have great therapeutic potential. [H][G]
Personalised medicine Researchers have discovered gene differences that reveal which patients with heart failure will benefit from beta-blockers. In some patients, a beta-blocker does little to help and may actually cause more problems through side-effects, or through interfering with the other medications the individual is taking. [H][G][K]
Personalised medicine Scientists have published data on over one million crucial DNA variations in three racial groups - European-American, African-American and Han Chinese. The research is aimed at personalised medicines by answering questions such as why medicines lower blood pressure in some people and not others. [H][G][K]
Decontamination of surgical instruments The prions thought to cause CJD are not destroyed by routine sterilisation. After trying 400 chemicals, researchers at University College London have found one detergent wash that substantially reduces the risk of transmission. [H][M]
Combating AIDS During the early stages of HIV infection the immune cells produce telomerase, which enables them to keep dividing. However, once HIV becomes a chronic condition, telomerase production ceases. Researchers at UCLA have discovered two compounds that switch telomerase production on again, rejuvenating the immune cells and enabling them to continue to fight the HIV infection. [H][G] |
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| [G] Genomics, biotechnology and bioinformatics | |
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Natural resistance to HIV Around 10 percent of Europeans are naturally resistant to HIV because they carry a genetic mutation CCR5-Ä32 that prevents the virus from entering the cells of their immune system. The prevalence of this mutation is highest in Scandinavia and relatively low in the Mediterranean. According to scientists at Liverpool University, this provides evidence for the view that the plagues in Europe in the Middle Ages, including the Great Plague of London in 1665, were not caused by bubonic plague but by viral haemorrhagic fevers that like HIV use CCR5 as the entry point into the immune system. Because these plagues were 100 percent lethal, they would have created a strong selection pressure for the CCR5-Ä32 mutation. The plagues continued in Sweden, Copenhagen, Russia, Poland and Hungary until 1800, and this would explain the prevalence of the CCR5-Ä32 mutation in those countries. [G][H]
Natural resistance to HIV The immune system of some people with HIV produce an antibody, 4E10, that is able to neutralise nearly 100 different viral strains of HIV from all over the world. Scientists at Scripps Research Institute and several other institutions have now solved the structure of this rare human antibody, which was first isolated a decade ago. The hope is that, in addition to showing scientists what an effective HIV-neutralising antibody can look like, the structure could be used as a template to design an epitope mimic that would stimulate the human immune system to make 4E10 or similar broadly neutralising antibodies against HIV. [G][H]
Genetic factors in AMD As people age, microscopic damage accumulates in their eye tissues, which can in some people lead to age related macular degeneration (AMD) - the primary cause of vision loss in the elderly. Researchers have found that people are very much more likely to get AMD if they have one of several variants of the gene that encodes the protein called complement factor H, or CFH. The role of CFH is to rein in the inflammatory process, and one hypothesis is that AMD may occur because the CFH fails to control inflammation in the eye caused by accumulating damage, thereby causing the damage to escalate. [G][H]
Gene redundancy Research at the Weizmann Institute shows that if a gene in a cell is damaged other genes can act as substitutes. When a gene is damaged, unused raw materials build up and this, or the lack of the gene's output proteins, can trigger transcription factors to generate the substitution by other genes. The researchers believe that the substitute genes have to be sufficiently similar to the damaged gene to be able to take over, but sufficiently different and vital in their normal roles to have been preserved by evolution. [G][X]
Gene expression Faulty gene expression underlies septic shock and many diseases. Hence, understanding the many mechanisms through which gene expression is controlled is a very important area of research. Some mechanisms control when a DNA gene is transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA), or when and how the mRNA is translated into a protein. Then, many proteins are tightly controlled through various post-translational modifications that activate or deactivate them. Another vital way the body controls gene expression is by destroying mRNAs that are not needed, and making certain mRNAs inherently unstable and prone to degradation. Scripps researchers have now shown how this degradation is achieved by micro-RNAs working in co-operation with RNA binding proteins. [G][X]
Computer design of drugs Researchers at Boston University claim to have developed a mathematical algorithm that predicts the precise effects a given compound will have on a cell's molecular components or chemical processes. Using this tool, drug developers can design compounds that will act on only desired gene and protein targets, eliciting therapeutic responses free of unwanted side effects. In tests, they used the algorithm to successfully predict the molecular targets of a potential new anticancer compound, PTSB. Subsequent experiments verified that the prediction was correct. The findings not only validate the tool's capability but could also pave the way to investigations of a potentially new class of therapeutic compounds. [G][C][K]
Angiogenesis and cancer People with Down's syndrome have a significantly lower incidence of cancer. This is thought to be because they have an extra copy of chromosome 21 and produce 1.6 times more than the normal level of an endostatin protein that inhibits angiogenesis. As a result small tumours cannot generate the blood supply that they need to grow bigger. Researchers have now genetically mimicked this endostatin overproduction in mice, and have found that tumours in these mice grew three times more slowly than did tumours in normal mice. They also showed that removing any of several angiogenesis inhibitor molecules in the mice greatly increased tumour growth. This may be a landmark paper because it provides genetic proof that endogenous inhibitors of angiogenesis circulating in the blood may protect against cancer and that a mild increase in these inhibitors may confer substantial protection. [G][H]
Artificially switching proteins on and off Proteins are switched on and off in living cells by a mechanism called allosteric control whereby other molecules bind to their surface, inducing a shape change that makes the protein active or inactive. UCLA scientists have made an artificial mechanism of allosteric control based on mechanical tension, which they believe will work with virtually any protein. The technique works by chemically stringing a short piece of DNA around the protein, and switching the protein on and off by changing the stiffness of the DNA. It could have wide importance both for probing processes inside cells and for developing smart drugs that are active only in cells where a certain gene is expressed, or a certain DNA sequence is present. [G][H][N]
Stem cell activation after injury Ageing muscles are less able to heal than young one. However, this is not due to the muscles themselves. Healing depends on muscle stem cells that are distributed within the muscles and lie dormant until required. These stem cells are present in old muscle and young muscle alike, but appear to be activated after an injury by some as yet unidentified factor in blood that is active in young blood but relatively inactive or absent in old blood. Experiments show that if an old mouse is given a blood supply from a young mouse, damage to its muscles heals as if it were young. In vitro experiments, also indicate that the converse holds, namely that young muscles bathed in old blood heal more like old muscle. The same result also happens for healing of damage to the liver, and may be a general feature of stem cell activation after injury. [G][H]
Cancer stem cells Recent research has found that, within the billions of cells of a tumour, there exists a few ‘cancer stem cells’ that seem to be the cells that are resistant to cancer therapy. Michigan State University researchers have now found that a particular gene, oct-4, is expressed within some human adult stem cells, and that oct-4 may be a biomarker for those adult stem cells that give rise to cancer cells. If this is correct, then learning how to turn off the oct-4 gene in cancer cells or even in pre-malignant cells should have tremendous implications for both prevention and treatment of cancer. [G][H] |
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| [N] Nanotechnology and molecular technology | |
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Nanotube hydrogen storage Researchers at the University of Québec have used single-walled carbon nanotubes to improve the hydrogen storage capabilities of catalysed sodium alanates. The tubes improved the sorption kinetics of the material by a factor of four. [N][M][P]
Nanomolecular motors Japanese researchers have described how oil droplets can be made to continuously rotate round and round the circumference of a glass petri dish, powered by the repulsion between oily and watery molecules. They believe this propulsion is similar in principle to that used in biological motors inside living cells, which can turn chemical energy directly into work, producing no waste heat. The oil drop's movement is powered by its attraction to the oily ends of surfactant molecules on the glass surface. After the drop passes by and "mops up" surfactant, more surfactant from the surrounding medium recoats the surface, allowing the drop to cycle round and round the dish. The researchers believe this principle might be used to power nanomachines of the future. [N][G][M][P]
Nanomembranes Researchers at Purdue University have built and demonstrated a prototype for a new type of devices whose surface has nanometre-scale pores in it that mimic cell membranes. The pores are small enough to allow small molecules to pass through but not large molecules, such as proteins. The goal is to produce "laboratories-on-a-chip" less than a half-inch square that might contain up to a million test chambers, or "reactors," each capable of screening an individual drug. Because the volume of each reactor is only a few nanolitres, this allows a large number of drugs to be tested even on very small quantities of specific proteins that are hard to produce. [N][G][M][S]
Hollow nanospheres Using high-intensity ultrasound, researchers at the University of Illinois have created hollow nanospheres and the first hollow nanocrystals. The nanospheres could be used in microelectronics, drug delivery and as catalysts for making environmentally friendly fuels. [N][H][J][M][P]
Self-assembling nanosystems In the same way that biological systems are capable of very complex self-directed self-assembly, nanoengineers would like to find ways to self-assemble complex nanosystems flexibly and controllably using self-directed interlocking processes. US and German researchers have now demonstrated a way to make nanostructures that self-assemble and self-orient using two interlocking processes. They believe the technique could have applications in chemical sensing, separation, catalysis, high-density data storage and photonic materials. [N][J][M][O][S]
Molecular electronics Researchers at Columbia University and the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University have created the first reproducible single molecule negative differential resistor working at low voltages. This could be the basis for molecular memories, switches and logic elements. They believe their technique, which surrounds the molecule in a more biologically natural electrolyte solution, provides a route for designing single molecule devices based on biochemistry. [N][G][J] |
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| [J] Microelectronics, MEMS and spintronics | |
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Measuring very small geometry circuits US scientists have developed a nanoruler, based on the lattice spacing of silicon, in order to accurately measure distances at the nanoscale. This is valuable for fabricating very small geometry circuits and NEMS devices. [J][N]
Light emitting transistor At Caltech, physicists have invented a silicon light-emitting transistor that converts an electric signal directly into a light pulse without needing any constant drive current. It exploits a silicon nanocrystal, whose size can be used to tune the photon energy. As well as being relevant for optical interconnect, the device may also be useful for single-photon generation. [J][N][O] Strained-germanium channel transistors Compressing or stretching semiconductors can increase their mobility and hence circuit speed and output current. In the past two years, circuits using strained-silicon channels, in which the silicon is stretched, have come into general production. Now scientists at IBM have demonstrated still greater improvements in channels made | |||