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Top Stories in Science
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May 2005 Issue |
| [D] Defence and security |  |
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Nuclear non-proliferation The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is becoming fragile. Iran is threatening to restart work with uranium in breach of an agreement it made in November 2004. North Korea is rumoured to be planning its first nuclear test. And, the 180 nations reviewing the Non-proliferation Treaty at the UN have so far failed to even agree an agenda. Future scarcity of oil and the need to reduce carbon emissions mean that many countries will want to develop nuclear energy. Some way is needed to enable this to happen safely without encouraging further proliferation, according to an influential expert group, which has drawn on an MIT study on the future of nuclear power. The group has proposed that countries that now provide uranium-enrichment or plutonium-reprocessing services on the international market should promise to provide nuclear energy user states with fresh fuel for their nuclear power plants and to take back spent fuel for reprocessing and disposal. In return, the user states would agree not to obtain the enrichment or reprocessing technologies themselves. [D][P]
Earth-penetrating nuclear weapons An earth-penetrating nuclear weapon, exploded underground, can destroy deeply buried bunkers. However, according to a report from the US National Research Council, such weapons cannot go deep enough to avoid casualties of a million people or more if used in heavily populated areas. Deep bunkers are typically 250 metres below ground level. According to the report, a 300-kiloton earth-penetrating nuclear weapon has a high probability of destroying a target 200 metre deep, but a 1-megaton weapon is needed to destroy a 300-metre-deep facility. Deep bunker facilities that might be potential targets are often sited in densely populated areas. [D]
Less-than-lethal weapons The US National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has provided a limited description of the less-than-lethal weapons that may potentially be used by US police forces, according to the New Scientist. One device uses a microwave beam to cause heating of the skin, designed to inflict severe pain but no lasting damage. The second uses heating by a semiconductor laser. The third uses a laser to produce a "plasma flash bang" at the point of impact, stunning and disorienting the victim. [D]
European Security Research Programme The European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee has adopted a report calling for a minimum annual budget of one billion euros for the proposed European Security Research Programme (ESRP). The report recommends that the ESRP should not only support research activities on political-military security challenges, but also have a balanced interaction between research in the natural sciences and technology and research in other sciences, in particular in political, social and human sciences. The report also recommends that no distinction should be made between security and safety. [D][T]
EU action on freedom, justice and security The European Commission has launched its 5 year Action Plan for Freedom, Justice and Security. This includes detailed proposals for EU action on terrorism, migration management, visa policies, asylum, privacy and security, criminal justice and the fight against organised crime. [D]
Humanitarian operations A study of the humanitarian relief effort following the Indian Ocean tsunami has concluded that the biggest lesson for future major relief operations is that, with many different agencies involved, one centralised group needs to coordinate the logistics of the entire relief effort. [D][W]
Bird flu in pigs Indonesian scientists have found the H5N1 bird flu virus in a pig. This is significant because viruses of different species can mix in pigs and the fear is that this could happen between bird flu and human flu. The mixing of bird and mammalian flu is believed to have been responsible for the flu pandemics of 1957 and 1968, but not for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. [D][G][H]
Countering haemorrhagic fever US researchers have elucidated how the Ebola virus infects cells and how to prevent this infection. They discovered two cellular enzymes that the Ebola virus co-opts, and found that when one of these, cathepsin B, was inhibited, the infectivity of Ebola virus dropped to near zero. The other cellular enzyme, cathepsin L, plays an accessory role. This finding raises the possibility of developing a broad-spectrum antiviral therapy against many haemorrhagic fever viruses. This would be doubly valuable as these viruses could be used by bioterrorists as well as causing natural epidemics. [D][G][H] |
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| [A] Aeronautics and space | |
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A380 test flight The Airbus A380 successfully completed its maiden flight, powered by four Rolls Royce turbofan engines that give the plane a range of at least 15,000 km, enough to fly non-stop from London to Sydney. Airbus intends to build four prototypes and to carry out 2200 hours of testing before the aircraft enters service in 2006. [A][P]
Low cost LEO launch Kazakhstan and Russia have agreed on the development of a satellite launching system that could offer very low cost launch of payloads of up to 200 kg into low earth orbit (LEO). The proposal is to use the Mig-31s Fighter as a platform from which to launch an Ishim solid fuel missile at an altitude of 25,000 to 30,000 metres to carry the payload into LEO. [A]
Safety of space tourism The fledgling space tourism business faces a substantial challenge in convincing the regulatory authorities over safety. It needs ways to reduce the probability of failure and to find innovative new safety solutions. A big issue that concerns the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST), as the US regulatory authority for space tourism, is how to protect the public on the ground from a possible mishap. [A][D][R][U][X]
Spacecraft black box When the shuttle Columbia broke up catastrophically during re-entry in February 2003, an experimental data recorder that stored information about the temperature, pressure, and vibrations felt by 721 different onboard sensors luckily survived the catastrophe. This data was very valuable in reconstructing what had happened. NASA and Aerospace Corporation are now developing dedicated heat-resistant "black boxes", called Re-entry Breakup Recorders (REBRs), that can be installed on future spacecraft. [A][S]
NASA's launcher strategy NASA's new chief, Michael Griffin, has confirmed that the shuttle will be retired in 2010 as scheduled, and that NASA is looking at other options for completing the International Space Station if it is not finished by that time. Retiring the shuttle will hopefully avoid another shuttle accident and will also ensure that money is available to develop a proposed replacement ship, the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). The CEV's first manned flight is targeted for 2014, but Griffin wants to accelerate the development to smooth the transition from shuttle to CEV. The CEV may also exploit the shuttle heavy lifter stack, according to a report in the New Scientist. [A][P]
Crew Exploration Vehicle A consortium of small aerospace firms is advocating that NASA could get its Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) into space faster by flying the crew separately on a Crew Transfer Vehicle, based on an experimental small launch vehicle currently being developed for DARPA. This would avoid the difficulty of making the massive CEV boosters sufficiently safe for carrying people. [A][D][P]
Future of Hubble NASA will delay two missions to search for extrasolar planets in order to fund a shuttle mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. [A][R]
Space debris and spacecraft protection Small pieces of space debris, ranging from relatively harmless microscopic dust up to objects about 1 cm in diameter, can be defeated by protective shielding, including armour similar to that used on military vehicles. Pieces of debris from 1 to 10 cm in size are too small and numerous to be individually tracked, but can cripple or kill any spacecraft they hit. At present this only happens to one satellite roughly every 10 years, so it is still not yet a severe problem. However it is important to stop the accumulation of more debris. [A][R][T]
Space debris and regulation According to the 2002 draft Mitigation Guidelines issued by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), a grouping that includes ESA and 10 national space agencies, spacecraft in low-earth orbit (LEO) should be deorbited at the end of their life so that they burn up in the atmosphere within 25 years of mission end. Craft in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) should be parked in a graveyard orbit at least 300 km above the GEO ring, far enough away that radiation pressure from the Sun will not push them back. However, a recent study found that only a third of GEO satellite operators dispose of their satellites safely. The problem is the cost of the fuel needed to boost GEO satellites and to deorbit LEO satellites. Ion beam propulsion provides a solution to this, but there is no international agency with the power to enforce the protection of the space environment. [A][E][P][T]
Interplanetary superhighways Spacecraft use interplanetary superhighways, a network crisscrossing through the solar system and exploiting the competing gravitational attraction of the Sun, Earth, and other solar system bodies. By jumping from one highway to another at Lagrange points, a spacecraft can travel vast distances using practically no fuel, and this enables researchers to construct space trajectories that would otherwise be infeasible. SMART-1 exploited the Earth-Moon superhighway to reach the Moon using its ion beam propulsion. The Earth-Moon L1 Lagrange point may also be a good location for a permanent manned space station. [A][C][P][T]
SMART-1 ESA’s SMART-1 mission to the Moon has been monitoring the illumination of lunar poles since the beginning of 2005. The hope is that areas of permanent shadow may exist at the bottom of craters and that these might contain frozen water. Conversely, peaks that experience eternal light could be a key locations for possible future lunar outposts. [A][R]
Cassini spacecraft The Cassini spacecraft has flown through the upper atmosphere of Saturn's giant moon, Titan, and has detected a much higher concentration of complex organic chemicals than expected. Processes similar to those on Titan may have built large organic molecules in the atmosphere of early Earth. The Cassini team are hoping to learn more about Titan's atmosphere over the next few years - at least 39 further flybys are planned. [A][E][F][G] |
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| [U] Unmanned vehicles and robotics | |
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Solar-powered Venus UAV The very dense atmosphere on Venus and the fact that it rotates only once every 117 Earth days makes it potentially very suitable for using a solar powered aircraft to explore its atmosphere and to provide high resolution images of its surface. [U][A]
Robot workers Spanish researchers have developed a climbing robot that can work autonomously on an aircraft superstructure carrying out precision tasks such as drilling and riveting. [U][A][W]
Self-replicating robot Researchers at Cornell have built a scaleable self-replicating robot. It uses small mechanical building blocks that can swivel, and attach to one another using electromagnets. Each block contains a microprocessor, and all have an identical set of instructions that tell the block how to connect and swivel, depending on the way it is linked to other blocks. This enables blocks to work together to self-replicate. Self-replication could have major implications for how robots are used in remote environments where repairing them is difficult. [U][A][D][E][R][W]
Robotic surgery Surgery of the throat and neck, particularly to remove cancers, can be very difficult to perform and traumatic for the patient. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated that robotic surgery can be much more successful, and should have a dramatic impact on the ability to completely remove tumours and at the same time to preserve speech and swallowing, and to avoid disfiguring scars. [U][H]
Robotic dentist drill A “robotic” dentist's drill is to be tested on humans in Europe and the US, and could represent the first step towards more automated dental procedures. The drill is designed to greatly simplify dental implants, where replacement teeth and bridges are attached to small metal pins fixed into the jaw to mimic a tooth's root. [U][H]
Control theory for robot walking A robot built by US and French scientists walks like a human and has briefly run. The researchers have published the control theory for walking, which gives an analytical method that can predict in advance how the robot will move. This should be valuable for designing human prosthetics. [U][H][V]
Remotely controlled animals Remotely controlled rats may be able to sniff out explosives and hidden weapons or act as remote video sensors for military and police forces. The rats are remotely controlled via a radio link to electrodes inserted into the medial forebrain bundle (MFB), a part of their brain associated with reward, and into the somatosensory cortical area, which is linked to the right and left whiskers. Stimulating the whisker areas of the brain along with the forebrain reward region encourages the rats to move forwards or either left or right. Exposing the rats to a smell while stimulating the medial forebrain bundle causes them to act like miniature sniffer dogs, following an odour by instinct. [U][B][D][R][V] |
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| [P] Propulsion and energy | |
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Solar sail A lightweight solar sail that could allow future spacecraft to be propelled by the power of the Sun has been successfully deployed and its orientation controlled in the world’s largest vacuum chamber. The sail has a diameter of 20 metres and weighs 23 kg. A solar sail spacecraft would need a wingspan of 80 to 160 metres, depending in part on the mass of the spacecraft. [P][A][M]
Nuclear battery Nuclear batteries can provide very long battery life, needed for deep-space and deep-ocean missions or for pacemakers and other implanted electronics. The problem is that the energy conversion efficiency from nuclear decay to electrical power is very low. Now researchers at the University of Rochester have found a way to increase the efficiency by a factor 10, and believe that a factor of up to 160 improvement might be possible. They achieve this by embedding the radioactive tritium inside a honeycomb of p-n junctions created by porous etching of silicon. This greatly increases the p-n junction area that interacts with the electrons produced by beta-decay of the tritium. [P][A][E][H][J][M][N]
Chemistry of flames Combustion has been studied for 150 years, but researchers have now made the surprising discovery of an unsuspected compound, an enol, that is ubiquitous in flames. It has previously eluded detection because it was obscured by another related compound that shares the same mass. The discovery implies that there is a whole class of previously unsuspected chemistry happening in flames. It may offer new ways to reduce soot and other pollutants in flames, improve fuel cells, and model planetary atmospheres and interstellar chemistry. [P][E][M]
Energy consumption Asia's future share of global energy consumption will nearly double in the next 20 years, to about 48 percent for oil and 22 percent for natural gas. By 2010, Asia's oil consumption will surpass North America's. Such rapid growth has led world energy markets to their most critical juncture in more than two decades. [P][D]
EU energy policy To meet emission targets, the EU's two top priorities are for new clean coal technologies and for sequestering carbon dioxide underground, according to Europe's new commissioner for energy, Andris Piebalgs. The UK government has also announced support for exploiting clean coal technologies. Europe has a large potential burial ground in former oil and gas wells beneath the North Sea. Global estimates of the geological space available for the economic burial of carbon dioxide are sketchy, but there may be the capacity to handle several times the likely emissions from burning fossil fuels in the coming century. [P][E][R]
Biomass fuel The majority of all plant matter is cellulose. Termites are able in their guts to convert cellulose very efficiently into ethanol. If a similar process to turn cellulose into high grade fuel can be implemented industrially it could transform the world's looming energy supply and storage problems. [P][E][G][M]
Biomass fuel As part of a strategy of becoming less dependent on imported oil, the US could meet more than 30 percent of its petroleum consumption from biomass, according a detailed study produced by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. [P][E]
Hydrogen from biomass Using a new electrically-assisted microbial fuel cell that does not require oxygen, US scientists have developed a process that enables bacteria to produce four times more hydrogen out of biomass than can be generated typically by fermentation alone. Conventional fermentation can only produce hydrogen from carbohydrate-based biomass, and the reaction also produces other end products, such as acetic acid and butyric acid, that bacteria cannot break down further into hydrogen. The new process works with any dissolved organic matter that is biodegradable. [P][E]
Pyroelectric nuclear fusion Physicists at UCLA have generated nuclear fusion in a simple, table-top device at room temperature by exploiting intense pyroelectric fields generated in a lithium tantalate crystal. The pyroelectric field accelerated deuterium nuclei to more than 100 keV over a distance of 1 cm. The nuclei then collided and fused with deuterium nuclei in an erbium deuteride target. Each deuterium-deuterium fusion reaction created a helium-3 nucleus and a 2.45 MeV neutron. The energy produced is far too small to be useful for power generation, but the device could have applications as a portable neutron generator. It might be able to produce around a million neutrons per second from a target containing tritium, and the technology might also be useful in propulsion systems for miniature spacecraft. [P][A][M]
Desktop laser fusion Researchers at Lawrence Livermore have used a small femtosecond laser to produce "table-top" nuclear fusion. The energy output was 100,000 times smaller than the energy input, but the technology will make it possible to study nuclear fusion without the expense of a high energy laser. [P][D][O] |
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| [M] Materials, structures and surfaces | |
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New form of nickel Physicists in China, Italy and the US have managed to produce nickel with a body-centred cubic (bcc) structure instead of the normal face-centred cubic structure (fcc). The bcc structure was in the form of a 3.5 nm layer grown on top of a gallium arsenide substrate using molecular beam epitaxy. Surprisingly the bcc form has quite different ferromagnetic properties than the normal fcc form. This illustrates the potential to make useful new materials as nano-films. [M][J][N]
Photo-induced shape-memory polymers An MIT engineer and German colleagues have developed polymers that can be deformed and temporarily fixed, within a second, into a new shape by illumination with light having certain wavelengths. The polymers can also be switched back to their original shape when exposed to light of specific different wavelengths. The temporary shapes are very stable for long times even when heated to 50 degrees C. The technology could have medical and industrial applications. For example, for minimally invasive surgery, a string of the plastic threaded through a tiny incision could be activated by a fibre-optic probe to form a spiral stent for holding blood vessels open. [M][H][O][W]
Coating water-repellent when wet A polymer coating that is hydrophilic when dry, but becomes water-repellent when wet has been discovered at Virginia Commonwealth University. Wetting the surface appears to cause rearrangement of the polymer side chain, exposing hydrophobic, fluorine-containing groups to the surface. The effect is reversible and may have many applications, including the testing of bodily fluids, switching devices, and drag-reducing coatings. [M][A][E][S]
Nano-catalysis Researchers at Oak Ridge have found that platinum nanoparticles can cause a mixture of methanol and air to ignite spontaneously at room temperature. This mimics the way that natural organisms obtain energy by oxidizing organic chemicals at body temperature, often using enzyme catalysts containing metals. Nanoparticle catalysts could substantially reduce the cost of industrial processes by avoiding the need for preheating reagents. [M][N][W] |
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| [E] Environment, transport and marine | |
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Climate change talks International talks to draw up a treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions after 2012, when the existing Kyoto Protocol expires, are revealing great differences between nations. Some want a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, with a similar recipe of national emissions targets and trading in pollution permits. Others believe it would be easier to persuade Kyoto opt-outs like the US and Australia, and developing countries like China, India and Brazil, to accept targets if they were based on something other than crude cuts in national emissions. Countries might make commitments to introduce renewable energy technologies, for example. Targets based on economics were also mooted, with a US proposal for "carbon intensity targets" in which countries would agree to reduce the amount of carbon emitted for every dollar of Gross Domestic Product. Pegging national emissions to population was proposed by Switzerland. The UK warned that time was tight to stave off dangerous and irreversible climate change and that climate systems would not wait for political processes. [E][D][X]
Earth's energy imbalance Measurements from satellites and ocean buoys together with computer models of the ocean heat content over the past 10 years indicate that the Earth is absorbing 0.85 watts per square metre more energy from the Sun than it is radiating into space. This imbalance is the expected consequence of greenhouses gases and atmospheric black carbon particles. Much of this heat is going into warming the oceans. The huge thermal drag provided by the oceans will help to moderate the impact of global warming for the next few decades, but currently is hiding a lot of global warming that is in the pipeline. [E][C][R]
Warming of Antarctica The first comprehensive survey of glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula shows a widespread retreat. The three-year investigation of more than 2000 aerial and satellite photographs shows that 87 percent of the glaciers have retreated over the past 50 years, with the icebergs breaking off earlier each year. In contrast, fifty years ago most of the glaciers were advancing. The change into a rapid retreat appears to be further evidence of global warming. [E][R]
Ocean currents and nutrients If global warming upsets the Atlantic Conveyer current this will not only affect climate in the North Atlantic but also the availability of nutrients that drive the ocean food chain. According to a new study, in a worst case scenario, global production of phytoplankton could decrease by as much as 20 percent and by 50 percent in the North Atlantic. [E][D][X]
Global warming and food production Higher temperatures and droughts caused by climate change are expected to depress crop yields in many parts of the world in coming decades. However, laboratory experiments on plant growth have indicated that the higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide might more than compensate for this by boosting photosynthesis. Unfortunately, it appears from tests in open fields that the laboratory experiments may have greatly overestimated the benefits of the higher carbon dioxide levels on photosynthesis and that with higher ozone levels resulting from global warming, the world’s crop yields could in fact decline by 10 to 15 percent. In tropical countries like India there are further risks that hot spells in the high 40s Celsius could completely destroy crops if they coincide with the flowering period. [E][D][X]
GM crops Conventional GM crops are engineered to be resistant to a single herbicide, but when only one herbicide is used to control weeds this encourages them to develop herbicide resistance. Animals, including humans, have a general immunity to herbicides. So, by inserting a human gene into rice, Japanese researchers have given it the ability to break down a large spectrum of herbicides. This could enable the rice to be used with a rotating regimen of herbicides. The approach might also produce crops that are useful for bioremediation by cleaning herbicides and other contaminants from cropland. [E][G]
Soil health Changes in farming, land use and climate are threatening the health of soil in many areas. According to the first full assessment of Europe's soil, produced by the EU's Joint Research Centre, more than a sixth of EU land is affected by soil degradation, and more than a third is affected in eastern EU countries. In Southern Europe nearly three-quarters of soil has an organic matter content low enough to cause concern. [E]
Air pollution The WHO and the European Commission are working together on a new long-term strategy known as Clean Air for Europe (CAFE). According to the WHO, the EU could save up to 161 billion euros a year by reducing deaths caused by air pollution. Air pollution currently reduces the life of the average European by 8.6 months. Transport and the use of fossil fuels in homes are the major contributors to air pollution. Diesel is a particular culprit. [E][P] |
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| [R] Remote sensing and sensor systems | |
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Global land cover map During 2005, an international partnership including ESA is using the ESA Envisat environmental satellite to produce a global land cover map of the entire Earth to a resolution of 300 metres. three times sharper than any previous satellite map. The completed GLOBCOVER map will have numerous uses, including plotting worldwide trends in land use, studying natural and managed ecosystems, and modelling the extent and impacts of climate change. [R][A][E]
Combating the Marburg virus Updated satellite maps of Angolan cities, based on 2.5-metre resolution SPOT 5 imagery along with metric IKONOS images, have greatly assisted WHO teams combating the outbreak of Marburg haemorrhagic fever that has spread across northern Angola. Medical researchers are also using satellites to track massive dust storms blowing across Africa's Sahel belt. The aim is to learn more about lethal meningitis epidemics that often follow in the dust's wake. [R][D][H]
Vast radio telescope A new radio telescope, named LOFAR, will use 20 thousand simple radio antennae to produce a sparse adaptive antenna array spread over hundreds of kilometres. The antennae will be connected by a fibre-optic network that will handle 22 terabits of data per second, and the data will be combined using a new 27 teraflop supercomputer, named STELLA, at the University of Groningen. This will correct in real time for the effects of ionospheric fluctuations. LOFAR will be vastly more sensitive than any previous long-wave radio telescope. One of its main goals is to discover and study the end of the so-called cosmic dark age - a few hundred million years after the big bang. LOFAR will also watch the formation of galaxies, map out the magnetic field of our galaxy and its neighbours, and hopefully be able to trace the radio trails of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays back to their origins. [R][C][F][I][O]
Tracking cell travel Two-photon laser-scanning microscopy holds huge promise for biology by enabling real-time observation of cells in their native environment. The technique exploits that fact that red light can penetrate deeply into tissue and that two red-light photons can together stimulate cells labelled with green fluorescent dye. This has enabled researchers to observe how immune cells move through tissue, and how they travel to different locations in response to triggers. [R][B][G][H][O]
X-ray imaging A new X-ray device invented at the University of North Carolina and based on carbon nanotubes, emits a scanning X-ray beam composed of multiple smaller beams while itself remaining stationary. This can allow smaller and faster X-ray imaging systems for airport baggage screening and for tomographic medical imaging. The nanotube X-ray devices can be operated at room temperature rather than at the 1,000 degrees Celsius that conventional sources require. It can also be operated as a fast X-ray camera, capturing clear images of objects moving at high speed. [R][A][D][N][O][S]
Virtualised reality Engineers at the University of California have demonstrated a way to build a complete 3D computer model of an urban environment in a few hours. The approach, called virtualised reality, scans the urban landscape using lasers and digital cameras mounted on a truck or a UAV. As a demonstration the engineers created a working model of downtown Berkeley in just 26 minutes of driving and 4 hours of data processing. This speed should make the technology suitable for the urban battlefield, as well as for emergency services, urban planners and tourism. [R][C][K][V] |
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| [S] Sensor devices | |
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Detecting explosives Researchers at MIT have found that the sensitivity of an existing method of sensing explosives based on fluorescent semiconducting organic polymers can be increased by a factor of up to 30 by using a laser to excite the fluorescence. This means it should be possible to produce a portable sensor that can detect just one femtogram of explosive vapour. This could detect concealed explosives and landmines with higher sensitivity than that of a trained dog. [S][O][R]
Portable NMR German and American researchers have built the first portable nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) sensor with an open-sided magnet. Because of the magnet's U-shape, the device can identify samples that are simply placed next to it rather than inside a barrel-size, cylindrical electromagnet. The unique design will allow NMR to be used in situations where it is not possible to surround the sample, such as for analysing a tree or an artefact at an archaeological dig. The magnetic field from the horseshoe magnet is non-uniform, whereas conventional NMR requires a uniform field. The researchers overcame this non-uniformity problem by designing a coil that creates matching variations in the oscillating field. This removes the relative difference between the two fields, effectively cancelling out the static field's irregularity. [S]
Chemical weapon sensor By combining the outputs of three different chemical vapour detectors researchers have developed a prototype system for detecting chemical weapons that they say virtually eliminates false alarms over a broad range of non-lethal vapour concentrations. [S]
Electronic detection of DNA Researchers at Arizona State University have developed a technique that uses nanocrystals to detect genetic mutations. The method creates a bioelectronic signature for point mutations known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). It can detect SNPs in as little as two hours - much faster than current methods - and does not require heating above room temperature. The method is readily adaptable for identifying protein targets or single molecules, enabling applications in detecting infectious agents and providing reliable forensic analysis. [S][G][N] |
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| [O] Optoelectronics, optics and lasers | |
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Negative refraction materials Physicists at Purdue have demonstrated negative refraction at optical wavelengths. The material, consisting of an array of pairs of parallel gold nanorods, is relatively easy to fabricate, according to the researchers, and could lead to optical "superlenses" that reflect no light and operate with sub-wavelength resolution. [O][M][N]
Superlens In 2003, scientists at UC Berkeley showed that optical evanescent waves are enhanced as they pass through a silver superlens in carefully designed conditions. They have now demonstrated optical imaging with a superlens. Using a thin film of silver as the lens and ultraviolet (UV) light at 345 nm wavelength, they recorded the images of an array of nanowires and the word "NANO" onto an organic polymer at a resolution of about 60 nm. This technology should allow biomedical imaging devices with dramatically enhanced resolution, and also higher density electronic circuitry and faster fibre optic communications systems. [O][H][J]
Micro lens camera A compound lens, made from hundreds of tiny "micro lenses", can provide the same field of view and image quality as a single conventional lens, but can be made much thinner. German and Swiss scientists have produced a 2-millimetre-thick prototype which has 21 light-channelling components, each containing three separate lenses. Each individual lens points in a slightly different direction and projects part of the image onto a photosensor. The hope is to make compound lenses just a few hundred microns thick, allowing smart cards to contain a built in camera that can perform simple image recognition tasks. [O][S]
Variable focus flat lens Optics researchers in Canada have made a liquid-crystal lens with a focal length that can be adjusted by applying a voltage. The lens, which is flat, could have applications in mobile phones, laser cavities and surveillance equipment. [O][I][S]
Liquid mirror adaptive optics Scientists in Canada have demonstrated a liquid mirror that changes its shape when heated by a laser. This may provide a low-cost alternative to mechanically actuated adaptive optics. [O][R]
Optical clocks Atomic clocks can be made accurate to one part in 1000 trillion, but this requires averaging over a day. While aircraft can navigate via GPS, it is not yet acceptable to land an aircraft by GPS alone because the atomic clocks on satellites are still not accurate enough and it takes too long to compute positions. Optical clocks could provide accuracy of one part in 1000 trillion by averaging over only a few seconds, and one part in 100,000 trillion by averaging over a longer period. Highly accurate clocks will allow aircraft and vehicles to be located with sub-metre precision in real time, and will also be useful for deep-space probes. The concept for an optical clock was demonstration in 2001. There are three main challenges to realising a practical device. The first is a highly stable reference frequency provided by a narrow optical absorption in an atom or ion. The second is a highly stable laser as a "local oscillator". The third is a way of counting the extremely rapid oscillations of the local oscillator, probably using a device called a femtosecond comb. [O][E][I][R][T][U] |
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| [I] IT, communications, networking and secure systems | |
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Radio propagation in rubble Inside buildings, radio signals are absorbed, reflected, refracted, and diffracted by various materials. When buildings collapse the signal attenuation increases by two or three orders of magnitude, but for certain frequencies it can be as much as eight orders of magnitude. To understand this, and to help rescue operations following earthquakes and other disasters, US researchers are studying radio propagation in condemned buildings as they are demolished by implosion. [I][D][R][T]
Wi-Fi roaming Wi-Fi roaming, including Mobile Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi), could be much easier as a result of a new handoff algorithm, called SyncScan, developed at UCSD. This can cut the time it takes to switch from one Wi-Fi access point to another by a factor of a hundred compared with existing solutions. The algorithm works by continuously monitoring the proximity of nearby 802.11 access points and thus avoiding the delays in scanning for a new signal at handoff. SyncScan can be deployed incrementally and implemented in software without requiring any changes to the 802.11 standard or any hardware upgrades. [I]
Wimax Intel has unveiled its new chip, codename Rosedale, which is expected to power devices to receive Wimax signals. Intel hopes that Rosedale will do for Wimax what Centrino chips did for the spread of Wi-Fi. Whilst Wi-Fi provides networks in individual homes, offices and wireless hotspots, Wimax is engineered to cover an entire city or physical area. It offers the potential of always-on, always-accessible broadband networks across a wide area and could have a huge impact on the use of the internet on the move, and in areas such as net telephony. Wimax might also eventually become a competitor to mobile phone networks. [I]
Combating spam Spam now constitutes more than two thirds of all e-mail transmitted over the Internet, accounting for billions of messages every day, and has become more threatening with the proliferation of so-called phishing attacks. Technology to recognise spam has evolved from simple "fingerprint" recognition to increasingly sophisticated and fast machine learning algorithms. Methods using very sophisticated pattern analysis techniques, including ones from bioinformatics, are being developed. Anti-spam technology might also exploit the fact that, to make a profit, spammers need to send their emails to a very large number of addressees. Increasing the cost of sending an email can thwart spammers without affecting legitimate senders. Legislation prohibiting spam can also sometimes work, and seems to be having an effect in Europe, at least in preventing large companies from sending unsolicited marketing email. [I][C][G][K][T]
Collectively combating spam Researchers at UCLA have developed software than enables computers to pool information about spam to immediately identify new spam messages. In this way, an entire social network of email users can pool its experience of spam messages, greatly increasing a spam filter's accuracy. In simulations, the researchers found that if the network contained many users - hundreds of thousands or even millions - then it would detect almost all spam emails and only rarely misclassifying legitimate messages. [I][K]
Quantum cryptography Physicists at Toshiba have used quantum cryptography to transmit voice and video over a secure optical fibre link at 1.55 micron wavelength. The demonstration shows that the single-photon encryption technology is compatible with real Internet Protocol (IP) traffic and sufficiently robust for commercial optical fibre networks. The server can generate up to 100 quantum keys per second, enough to encrypt each video frame with a separate key. [I][C][O] |
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| [K] Knowledge, information and technology management | |
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Improving web search Google has patented a search method for selecting news stories not only by their relevance but also by the quality of the source. This quality score of each source is determined by continually monitoring the number of stories from all news sources, along with average story length, the number with by-lines, the number of bureaux cited, how long they have been in business, the number of staff a news source employs, the volume of internet traffic to its website, and the number of countries accessing the site. [K][I]
Telehealthcare A study has shown that diagnostic-quality ultrasound images can be transmitted by telephone, potentially paving the way for ultrasound examinations to be performed in poorer areas of the world, inexpensively transmitted via the Internet, and read by experienced radiologists elsewhere. [K][H][I][R][S]
Successful scientific teams A “universal recipe” for building highly successful teams has been devised by studying the make-up of groups behind hit Broadway musicals and successful science projects from 1955 to 2004. The science projects were rated in terms of the impact of the journals they published their work in, spanning ecology, astronomy, social psychology and economics. The study found that in all cases the success could be predicted largely by just two parameters, both related to the rate at which new people and new collaborations were introduced into the team. The most successful teams had made an effort, through team membership and flexible collaboration, to include the most experienced people plus a certain number of newcomers bringing novel approaches and a tendency to challenge dogmas. It was also important that the newcomers were well nurtured by the experienced members. [K][X]
European Institute of Technology The updated Lisbon strategy unveiled by the European Commission in February 2005 included a proposal to set up a 'European Institute of Technology', modelled on MIT and able to attract the brightest minds in the world. However, the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB), which advises the commission on science policy, has recommended that such a "top down" approach is not viable since history shows that great institutions have to grow over a long time. An alternative approach supported by some of Europe's leading universities might be to create a virtual EIT by linking these leading universities as a network. [K] |
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| [C] Computing, supercomputing, modelling and simulation | |
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Personal supercomputer A personal supercomputer with a power of 230 gigaflops has been launched, aimed at scientists and engineers who routinely carry out computationally intensive calculations. It contains a "cluster" of 96 interconnected low-voltage microprocessors, each of which is capable of running at 1.2 GHz. [C][G]
Multiplayer online games Massive multiplayer online role-playing games, or MMORPGs, provide users with a complex virtual world in which to interact and act out adventures with others. Existing games require users to connect to a centralised server owned and maintained by the company behind the game. This makes a game easier to control and maintain, but creates a single point of failure and can complicate expanding the game for large numbers of player. Now researchers at France Telecom have built a simple role-playing game that works without the need for any centralised server. The project, called Solipsis, uses peer-to-peer technology to allow users to interact within a virtual space hosted collectively on their own computers. [C][I][K][V]
LHC supercomputer Grid The analysis of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be undertaken worldwide by passing petabytes of data around a supercomputer Grid. In tests, this LHC Grid has successfully sustained a continuous flow of 600 megabytes per second for 10 days from the Geneva laboratory to seven sites in Europe and the US. [C][I][K]
Quantum computing For specific classes of computation, a quantum computer with 300 qubits has potentially more processing power than a classical computer containing as many bits as there are particles in the universe. An important example is Shor's algorithm, which is a series of steps for finding the "prime factors" of large numbers and underlies the great potential of quantum computing for code breaking. Scientists at NIST have now demonstrated the final pattern-finding step of Shor's algorithm in a quantum computer the uses 3 trapped beryllium ions as qubits. [C][O]
Quantum coherence The big challenge for solid state approaches to quantum computing is how to isolate the qubits sufficiently from environmental perturbations in order to maintain quantum coherence long enough to complete the calculation. Therefore a lot of attention must be given to the physics and quantum engineering of the 'baths' in which the new devices will be immersed and to turbulence problems, similar to those in aerodynamics. [C][A][M]
Predicting hurricane severity A new computer model developed by scientists at University College London (UCL) can predict with significant accuracy the strength of hurricane activity that will strike the United States during the main hurricane season. The model uses anomalies in wind patterns from six regions over North America and over the east Pacific and North Atlantic oceans during July in order to predict the wind energy of hurricanes striking the US from August to October. This model should be of value in enabling government, public, emergency planning bodies and insurers with US interests to make appropriate preparations by knowing in early August the likelihood of either high or low hurricane damage during the subsequent three months. [C][D][E][X]
Validating computer-assisted proofs Some mathematical proofs involve steps that are only feasible to do by computer because of the effort involved. There has been concern, however, over whether such computer generated mathematical proofs can be trusted to be truly valid, since they could not be checked by hand. Research at Microsoft Cambridge and INRIA in France has shown how a computer-assisted proof of a famous 150-year-old mathematical conjecture, the Four Colour Theory, can at last be checked by human mathematicians. They translated the proof into a language used to represent logical propositions - called Coq - and created logic-checking software to confirm that the steps put forward in the computer-assisted proof, published in 1976, did make sense. This result may lead to much more use of computer generated mathematic proofs in the future. Microsoft also hopes to develop a similar system for checking the logic used in computer programs. [C][I][X] |
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| [W] Whole life engineering, manufacture and testing | |
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Designing complex systems The ability to abstract complex things is vital for managing complexity in engineering and science. Physical scientists and engineers use the "black box" concept of hiding complexity. The approach is ubiquitous and very flexible: as part of an audio signal processing chain, a black box can be as simple as a low-pass filter, and as part of a communications network, it can be as complicated as a set of thousands of processors, each with its own local network. Software engineers, in contrast, manage complexity somewhat differently by using programming language abstractions. The best system engineers need to have a sufficiently deep understanding of both approaches that they can sense and adjust to whatever world view is currently in play, without giving up the best attributes of the alternative view. Intel's failure to achieve this duality in the design of its 432 chips in the early 1980s almost certainly led to the 432 series became obsolete rather quickly. [W][J][T][X]
Problems of the electronic workplace A UK study of office workers has found that, far from boosting productivity, the constant flow of e-mail messages and information can seriously reduce a person's ability to focus on tasks. Eighty volunteers were asked to carry out problem solving tasks, firstly in a quiet environment and then while being bombarded with new emails and phone calls. Although they were told not to respond to any messages, their attention was significantly disturbed and this caused an average IQ reduction of 10 points. Men were, on average, twice as distracted as women. [W][B][I][K]
Productivity and trust Research at the University of Bonn has found that monitoring workers closely leads to poorer performance because workers tend to do more for a trusting boss and only the bare minimum for one who supervises them closely. [W][K] |
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| [X] Systems, complexity and risk | |
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Environmental economics Putting a value on ecosystem services is not without its difficulties, but there is a growing consensus about how and where it is appropriate. This is an important step forward for economists and environmentalists. Where the environment is a large portion of the risk in a project, there are insurance incentives for paying to protect it. It can pay cities to protect the environment from which their water supply comes or users of the Panama Canal, for example, to invest in forestation to protect the constant water flow on which the canal depends. Improving the environment for pollinating insects can pay dividends in better crop yields. Wetlands can provide very valuable services in cleaning of sewage and waste water from industry, and in flood attenuation and the support of downstream fisheries. Putting a value on environmental services helps to make rationale decisions and can encourage self-interested private sector investment to protect the environment. [X][E][D][T][W]
Managing uncertainty The world faces a number of challenges, both long- and short-term, that are far from well understood: how to preserve the environment, cope with the ageing population, guard against terrorism and manage the effects of novel technology. These problems are too complex and contingent for scientists to make definitive predictions - they are inherently complex problems and involve deep uncertainty. Unfortunately, current methods of analysis, such as cost-benefit analysis, have great difficulty in dealing with complex problems and deep uncertainty. As a result, scientific uncertainty can become an excuse for decision makers to ignore long-term problems, such as climate change. To address this, RAND has developed a rigorous, systematic methods for dealing with deep uncertainty, which sidesteps the need for precise prediction by using a computer to help frame strategies that work well over a very wide range of plausible futures. Rather than seeking to eliminate uncertainty, the approach highlights uncertainty and then helps decision makers to examine ways to manage it. [X][C][D][E][H][K][T]
Universal dynamic A universal dynamic may turn out to underlie the popularity of any product or any idea in society. Mathematicians, who analyzed data on about 2000 cinema films released in the US between 1999 and 2004, have found that the total income distribution of all movies released in a particular year followed a power law with a tail that had a "Pareto" exponent of 2. This exponent is quantitatively identical to that seen recently for other popularity distributions, such as the number of citations of scientific papers and online sales of books. The distribution of wealth in many western countries also follows a similar pattern. [X]
Collective behaviour French scientists have found that collective social behaviour, such as the adoption of cellphones in Europe in the 1990s, plummeting European birth rates in the late 20th century, and the way people collectively stop clapping at the end of a concert, can all be described mathematically in the same way as a system of magnetic spins aligning in a magnetic field. [X][M] |
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| [V] Virtuality and human-machine interface | |
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Gesture-based interfaces Gesture-based computer interfaces may provided a powerful way to sort through large amounts of information, such as satellite imagery and intelligence data. In the case of a system being developed by Raytheon, users don a pair of reflective gloves and manipulate images projected on a panoramic screen. A mounted camera keeps track of hand movements and a computer interprets gestures. [V][D][G][K][R][W]
3D volumetric displays 3D displays do not only need to create the appearance of a 3-dimensional image; they must do this is a way that is easy on the eye and does not cause visual fatigue, headaches or nausea. A hologram display allows viewers to see 3-D images comfortably but is technologically very demanding, except for fixed images. Volumetric displays are technically easier and also create 3-D images that are easy on the eyes. Their images consist of a set of volumetric pixels (voxels) distributed throughout an enclosed 3-D volume. Because voxels appear at different physical depths inside the volume, the viewer's eyes converge and focus on them just as they would on any solid object. Volumetric displays work with conventional 3-D graphics programs, so scientists and engineers can easily and intuitively manipulate images of such things as drug molecules, oil fields, and satellite orbits. [V][B][C][D][G][H][T]
Cellelectronics The integration of biological processes and molecules with nanoscale-fabricated structures offers the potential for electronic control and sensing of biological systems, including artificial eyes and direct in vivo detection of cancer and other diseases. A big challenge, however, is how to cope with the complex hierarchy of length scales in biosystems, from proteins to cells and from cells to multi-cellular structures. US scientists say they have overcome this by using individual nanotubes to interact with individual proteins and networks of nanotubes to contact multiple cell membranes. In this way, they say, they have demonstrated the first interaction of a nanoelectronic device with an intact functioning biological system. [V][B][G][J][N][R][S]
Man-machine incorporation Monkeys that learn to use their brain signals to control a robotic arm are not just learning to manipulate an external device as if it were replacing one of their own limbs, researchers have found. Depending on the goal, the monkey can use its own arm or the robotic arm, and in some cases both. The researchers conclude that the monkey's brain structures are adapting to treat the arm as if it were an extra part of its body. This high degree of brain adaptability bodes well for the clinical success of brain-operated devices to give the handicapped the ability to control their environment. [V][B][D][H][U][W]
Probing the subconscious Researchers at University College London and in Japan have independently found that fMRI can reveal what a person is thinking deep down even when the individual is unaware of it. This offers an exciting new ways to probe the subconscious. [V][B][H][R]
Intelligent alarm If sleepers are woken when they are in deep sleep they are likely to feel groggy. US researchers have developed an alarm clock that prevent this by waiting for the lightest phase of the sleep cycle before waking the sleeper. It measures the sleeper's brain waves using a headband equipped with electrodes and a microprocessor. [V][B] |
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| [B] Brain research and human science | |
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Deep non-REM sleep Although the Circadian rhythms that determines the timing of sleep are fairly well understood, little is known about what regulates the overall length of sleep. Researchers at University of Wisconsin have now identified a single gene mutation that has a powerful effect on the amount of time fruit flies sleep. The gene, called Shaker, produces an ion channel that controls the flow of potassium into cells, a process that critically affects electrical activity in neurons. The researchers believe that this potassium channel is critical to deep, non-REM sleep in fruit flies. Normal fruit flies require 9 to 15 hours of sleep a day. Flies with a mutated Shaker gene could get by with only 4 to 5 hours a day, and showed no ill effects except that their lifespan was around 2 weeks shorter than the 3 to 4 months for normal flies. Studies suggest that potassium channels are also involved in the generation of sleep in humans, and that sleep mechanisms in fruit flies may translate well to mammals including humans. [B][G][H]
Sleep and wakefulness By tracking which nerve cells in the mouse brain stimulate others, researchers in Japan and at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that a type of neuron responsible for keeping animals awake receives inhibitory signals from neurons active only during sleep, as well as reinforcing, positive signals from nerve cells that are very active during wakefulness. This strong feedback enables the brain to switch bistably between wakefulness and sleep without getting stuck in between. [B]
Caffeine and sleep loss US researchers have shown that the prolonged neural activity of being awake or of overworking mentally triggers the release of adenosine, which in turn slows down neural activity in the arousal centre areas. Because the arousal centres control activity throughout the entire brain, the process expands outward and causes neural activity to slow down everywhere in the brain, leading to drowsiness and encouraging sleep. Caffeine in coffee or tea prevents drowsiness by blocking the link between the prolonged neural activity and the increased levels of adenosine in cells. The researchers believe that failure of the adenosine mechanism may be a major factor in insomnia and chronic sleep loss. [B][H]
Sleep and metabolic syndrome A new mouse study suggests that a brain system that controls the sleep/wake cycle might also play a role in regulating appetite and metabolism. Mice with a mutation in a gene called "Clock," which helps drive circadian rhythm, ate significantly more and gained more weight. The finding could help explain why disrupted sleep patterns, particularly when combined with a high-fat diet, are associated with excessive weight gain and the onset of metabolic syndrome in some people. [B][H]
Origin of the human brain A comparative study of the human, gorilla and chimpanzee genomes has surprisingly shown that there is almost no difference between chimpanzees and humans in the genes associated with the brain that could explain apparent differences in brain form, function and power between humans and chimps. [B][G][H]
Male and female brains Research over the past decade using PET and fMRI has revealed an astonishing array of structural, chemical and functional differences between the brains of human males and females including differences in processing spatial and verbal information, in "people-centred" versus "machine-centred" attention, in memory, in the role of the left and right hemispheres, in the effect of stress on learning, in ability to handle acute and chronic stress, and in vulnerability to drug addiction. These differences are probably innate rather than cultural, and some have been proven to exist at birth. Research into these variations could lead to sex-specific treatments for a host of conditions, including depression, addiction, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress. [B][D][H][K][T]
Toxic neuron-neuron interactions Various familial brain diseases, including Huntington's disease (HD), involve mutant proteins. It was thought that the mutant protein arises within brain cells and then kills them. However, new research using mice with the human HD mutation strongly suggests that the proteins cause toxic interactions between brain cells and it is these interactions that provoke the brain disorder. The same mechanism may also apply in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. [B][G][H]
Preventing Alzheimer's Physical activity appears to inhibit Alzheimer's-like brain changes in mice, slowing the development of a key feature of the disease, according to a new study. The research demonstrated that long-term physical activity enhanced the learning ability of mice and decreased the level of plaque-forming beta-amyloid protein fragments. These results suggest that exercise in these mice may bring about a change in the way that amyloid precursor protein is metabolised. [B][H]
Pain therapy Despite remarkable discoveries during the past three decades leading to an unprecedented understanding of underlying mechanisms of pain, little of this has been translated into effective pain therapy. Rather than continuing to search for a single drug panacea, it may be better to focus on the differences in pain conditions and pursue multiple treatment approaches. Genomics and proteomics can help in characterising and treating the broad spectrum of pain experiences. [B][G][H][T] |
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| [H] Healthcare and medicine | |
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Induced hibernation Hydrogen sulphide puts biological cells into a state of dormancy in which the cell needs very little oxygen to survive. Researchers in Seattle have shown that hydrogen sulphide can induce suspended animation in a species of mouse which does not naturally hibernate. The animals' core body temperatures dropped from the normal 37°C to 15°C, and instead of requiring 150 breaths per minute, they were down to just a couple of really shallow breaths a minute. If the procedure also works on humans it might provide a new way to help prevent tissue damage and death in stroke or heart attack victims, and to preserve transplantable organs for longer. In the long term, it might also enable humans to hibernate on long space voyages. [H][A][B]
Happiness and health Many studies have shown that depression is associated with health problems. The “Whitehall II” study of thousands of civil servants has now tested the effects of feeling happy. The findings suggest that people who report feeling happy in their daily lives have healthier levels of key body chemicals. A sample of 216 middle-aged men and women from the Whitehall II study was asked to rate how happy they had been feeling in the last five minutes at about 33 points during their working or leisure days. At these points, their heart rates and blood pressures were also measured by an automated system. This showed that the happier people were, the lower was their level during the day of the stress hormone cortisol. For men, but not for women, the happier the happier they were the lower was their average heart rate. Each subject also undertook a mildly stressful task in the lab. Those individuals who said they were happy nearly every time they were asked had lower levels of a blood protein called fibrinogen following the stressful task, making them less likely to suffer future coronary heart disease. [H][B]
Regenerative heart therapy Heart attacks are very serious because, once killed, heart tissue does not regenerate, leaving the heart weakened and liable to further attacks. US researchers have now shown that an enzyme known as p38 MAP kinase suppresses the replication of heart-muscle cells and that inhibiting p38 enables these cells to proliferate. This might lead to regenerative heart therapy. [H][G]
Microbiological illnesses Some diseases like ulcers and certain types of cancer, once thought to be primarily related to lifestyle factors, are now known to be caused by microorganisms, and many more syndromes, including atherosclerosis, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and some psychiatric conditions, may have a connection to infection, according to a report by the American Academy of Microbiology. [H]
Controlling the immune system Researchers at Imperial College London and UCSD have identified an enzyme called IKKá, which can act as a 'brake' on an immune cell pathway responsible for regulating the body's response to infection and inflammation. Inhibiting IKKá activity increases the body's ability to fight off infection, and could prove very beneficial for treating MRSA and other drug resistant infections. Increasing IKKa activity could be used to inhibit the activation of immune cells and inflammation, and could lead to new ways of treating diseases such as arthritis. [H][G]
Training the immune system Babies who attend day-care during the first three months of life are much less likely to suffer childhood leukaemia when they grow older than those who did not mix with other infants, according to the results of a major new study. The finding supports the theory that childhood leukaemia is caused by a quite common fusion gene, found in 5 percent of children, that is subsequently triggered by an infection. If this theory proves correct, it might be possible to develop a prophylactic vaccine to immunise children against leukaemia by giving them the early exposure to infections needed to educate their immune systems. The study also found “absolutely no association” between electromagnetic fields and the risk of childhood leukaemia. [H][G]
Neonatal conditioning Babies who gain weight rapidly during their very first week of life may be more likely to be overweight as young adults, according to a new study. The research suggests that the first week may be a critical period for setting lifelong patterns of body weight. [H][G]
Statins Statins are not only powerful as cholesterol-lowering drugs, but may also halve the risk of developing several cancers, according to the results of a study of half a million US veterans. The study suggests that statins cut the risk of developing colon, liver, breast, prostate, lung, pancreatic and oesophageal cancers by about 50 percent. [H]
Medical ultrasound High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is used to destroy tumours through long and continuous exposures that raise the temperature inside cancerous cells, effectively "cooking" them. NIH research has now also shown that short pulses of HIFU can be used make tissue an order of magnitude more permeable so that cells take up genes and other therapeutic substances injected into the body. This may increase the effectiveness of gene therapy and chemotherapy against hard to treat tumours. [H][G][S] |
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| [G] Genomics, biotechnology and bioinformatics | |
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Cancer screening Research at Liverpool University has shown that breaks occur at fragile sites of cells' DNA very early in the carcinogenic process. Normally the cell can repair damaged DNA, but carcinogens can prevent effective repair. Detecting this DNA damage could identify those at risk of developing cancer at a much earlier stage than current screening processes allow. [G][H][S]
Cancer and telomerase The enzyme telomerase inhibits the process of telomere shortening that limits how many times a normal cell can divide. Cancer cells exploit telomerase in order to be able to keep dividing indefinitely. Research at the University of Central Florida has led to the potentially very significant discovery that a protein MKRN1 promotes the destruction of telomerase. The research has also shown that the effectiveness of MKRN1 is greatly increased by combining it with the drug geldanamycin, which has been shown in clinical trials to disrupt the formation of cancerous tumours by binding with protective proteins. [G][H]
DNA replication Dutch, French and US scientists have elucidated how the enzyme topoisomerase IB releases the torsion built up in DNA strands by the process of DNA replication during cell division. They were able to follow a single topoisomerase-enzyme molecule over time as it acted on a single DNA molecule, first clamping onto the DNA, then cutting through one of the two DNA strands, and then letting the DNA unwind before sticking the broken ends back together again. With the help of sensitive measuring devices, they measured parameters such as the friction of the rotating DNA in a cavity of the enzyme. [G][H][S]
Alternative gene splicing Through a natural process called "alternative splicing," information contained in genes is modified so that one gene is capable of making several different proteins. In this way the 20,000 to 25,000 genes in the human genome can make hundreds of thousands of different proteins in the human body. Errors in alternative splicing, however, can result in truncated or unstable proteins, some of which are responsible for human diseases such as prostate cancer and schizophrenia. They also help drive evolutionary change. Researchers have found that certain repeated DNA sequences called "tandem repeats" are highly correlated with the process of alternative splicing, and from this they can now predict which genes might splice improperly resulting in disease. [G][H]
Translating DNA into RNA Research at Michigan State University has shown that the way that a cell translates DNA into RNA has a lot in common with quality control on an industrial production line. The cell does not just pull in the amino acids to build the RNA. It pre-arranges them in the right sequence on a production line that feeds into the RNA assembly, and it has various quality checks to spot any errors. If an error occurs, the line can back up and correct it. [G][H][W]
Preventing HIV reproducing Most anti-HIV drugs work by targeting proteins produced by the HIV virus itself. Unfortunately, because HIV readily mutates, these viral proteins quickly evolve to become resistant to the drugs. Now researchers in Cambridge have shown that the replication of HIV can be prevented by blocking a cellular protein instead. The protein, ATM, is essential to the virus in order to replicate in the infected cell, but ATM is not essential to the survival of the cell itself. This may provide a powerful new way to treat multidrug-resistant HIV. ATM may be one of many cellular proteins that can be exploited in this way. Researchers have identified 130 host genes in yeast that affect the replication of a model retrovirus, and over half of these genes have at least one homolog in the human genome. [G][H]
Cell interaction How cells bind to each other and to implants is of great fundamental and practical significance, but is still poorly understood, at least for cell binding to foreign materials. Now, researchers from Georgia Tech have discovered how cells “sense” differences in biomaterial surface chemistry. These differences in communication between the cell and the biomaterial result in changes in cell behaviour. The findings are not only significant for developing materials to integrate and function better in the body, but also for controlling the differentiation of stem cells into mature, functional cell types. [G][B][H][M][N]
Neural stem cells Stem cells from the brain can form insulin-producing cells that mimic the islet cells missing in people with diabetes, according to research at Stanford University. The amount of insulin produced was insufficient to effectively treat diabetes, but the result indicates that neuronal stem cells have many potential uses beyond treating brain disease, and makes it more likely that stem cells can be used for islet replacement in the future. [G][B][H]
Mitochondrial DNA and ageing The free-radical theory of ageing, namely that inefficient mitochondria produce reactive oxygen species that in turn damage the mitochondria making them more inefficient, has been given support by experiments on transgenic mice. The mice were genetically engineered to produce higher-than-normal levels in their mitochondria of the antioxidant enzyme catalase, which converts hydrogen peroxide to water. These mitochondrion-catalase mice showed a 20 percent longer lifespan than normal mice, and they not only lived longer but also stayed healthy later in life than normal mice do. Significantly, mice engineered to have higher catalase levels in the cell nucleus and cytoplasm had only modest increases in lifespan, confirming that it is mitochondrial damage that is primarily important. [G][H][X]
Mapping gene interactions Whilst some diseases are caused by mutation of a single gene, far more result from combinations of genes. Understanding these disease-causing interactions is a key goal. Some researchers report that correlation-based statistical method based on network theory are powerful in mapping complex gene interactions. Some other researchers have invented a technique that organises the genetic information in the form of a wiring diagram resembling an electronic circuit board. They have used this to map the expanding library of known interactions between genes of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. From this they have predicted new functions for 343 yeast proteins based on their positions in the wiring diagram. Roughly 30 percent of mutated genes implicated so far in human disease have yeast homologs. [G][H][X]
Creating useful new proteins A major challenge in protein engineering is how to efficiently create new protein functions. Designing proteins bottom-up requires extensive knowledge of protein folding, structure, function and dynamics. At the same time, directed evolution that mimics natural evolution in a test tube may require the screening of an astronomical number of mutants for the creation of new protein functions. Researchers at the University of Illinois may have found a solution that combines both approaches. They build a bridge between the existing protein function to the target new function by adding some intermediate functions. This is followed by stepwise directed evolution of these intermediate functions. [G][M][N][W] |
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| [N] Nanotechnology and molecular technology | |
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Nanosensing Specially designed nanoparticles can reveal tiny cancerous tumours that are invisible by ordinary means of detection. The researchers demonstrated that very small human melanoma tumours growing in mice—indiscernible from the surrounding tissue by direct MRI scan—could be "lit up" and easily located as soon as 30 minutes after the mice were injected with the nanoparticles. [N][H][R]
Nanoparticle systemic siRNA delivery Short interfering RNA (siRNA) is very promising for silencing genes that cause cancer. A critical problem, however, is how to deliver the siRNA genetic material into all the tumour cells while avoiding it being degraded by body and cell defence mechanisms. US researchers have made important progress by demonstrating a novel delivery system that enable siRNA to be delivered systemically via the blood stream to all tumours. This uses a polymer that binds to and condenses the siRNA into nanoparticles, which can then enter the tumour cells and release the siRNA inside. The nanoparticles are coated with transferrin, which causes them to be delivered preferentially to tumour cells since these have high numbers of transferrin receptors. In tests in mice, the new delivery system was shown to enable siRNA to successful inhibit Ewing's sarcoma, a rare and often deadly bone cancer. The siRNA was designed to target a specific growth-promoting gene called EWS-FLI1 that is active only in Ewing's sarcoma. [N][G][H]
Nano-therapy Metal "nanoshells" - tiny spheres of silica coated with a thin layer of gold - can be used to detect and immediately destroy tumours. By exploiting the size dependent optical properties of the nanoshells, they can be engineered so that both the optical scattering and absorption peaks occur in the near-infrared (NIR) spectral region where light penetration through tissue is highest. The nanoshells are labelled so that they home in on specific markers on the surface of the target cells, such as a biomarker on the surface of a breast cancer cell. The scattering of light provides the optical signal to detect the cancer cells, and the absorption is used to heat and destroy the tumour cells. [N][G][H][S]
Bio-silicon Silicon nanowires are not toxic to cells and can promote bone growth. This means they might be used in situations where a gap between two pieces of broken bone is not healing. Applying an electrical bias to the nanowires promotes calcification and this allows electric-field modulated tissue regeneration. Other researchers have discovered and isolated a natural molecule that can be used to heal fractures and generate new bone. [N][H][S]
Synthetic biology By inserting engineered pieces of DNA into cells, researchers at Princeton and Caltech have made them behave in the same manner as digital circuits. The cells, for example, can perform basic mathematical logic and produce crisp, reliable readouts. The researchers have applied a similar techniques to a large population of cells by programming E. coli bacteria to emit red or green fluorescent light in response to a signal emitted from another set of E. coli. Eventually they hope to engineer cells to secrete materials that build physical devices such as antennas or transmitters in places that are hard for humans to reach. Cells might also be used for programmed tissue engineering to control the repair or construction of tissues within the body, possibly guiding stem cells to the locations where they are needed for the growth of new nerve or bone cells. [N][G][H][J][S]
Nano hazards Animal experiments are confirming the dangers from inhaling carbon nanotubes, and are also showing that inhaling nanospheres increases the risk of blood clots. [N][H]
Carbon nanotube components Researchers at UCSD have made carbon nanotubes that are bent in sharp predetermined angles. This could lead to use of the long, thin cylinders of carbon as tiny springs, as tips for atomic force microscopes, and as smaller electrical connectors in integrated circuits. [N][J][S] |
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| [J] Microelectronics, MEMS and spintronics | |
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Silicon nanowire circuits Harvard researchers have made high frequency circuits on glass substrates by using nanoscale crystalline wires of silicon. They applied the nanowires in solution and used standard photolithography to create circuits, including a 11.7 MHz ring oscillator. Because the technology requires only low temperature processing it may enable cheap high performance electronics and computers to be put on a wide range of substrates such as plastics, paper and even fabrics. The silicon nanowire devices had much higher performance than circuits based on carbon nanotubes, which typically have oscillation frequencies of only 5-220 Hz. [J][N]
Organic molecular switch Researchers at the Weizmann Institute have demonstrated a new kind of electrical switch formed of organic molecules and exploiting negative differential resistance. The switch might be used in the future in nanoscale electronic components, including memory and heat-sensing switches. At low voltage, the molecules pass current through chemical bonds between them, but at higher voltage, sulphur atoms at one end of the molecule loosen their chemical bond so that the interface becomes only a physical bond, causing a drop of current as the switchover occurs. The NDR was stable, reversible and reproducible at room temperature. [J][G][N][S]
Liquid gallium coolant Liquid gallium may provide a superior technology for cooling computer chips. Gallium melts at close to room temperature and boils at 2000 degrees C. It can also be pumped electromagnetically. [J][M]
Micro refrigerators Conventional refrigerators use a "two-phase" cooling system in which a liquid coolant absorbs heat, turns into a vapour and is then pressurised by a compressor and condensed back into a liquid to begin the cycle over again. Shrinking this down to the micro scale could provide a way to cope with the increasing power dissipation in electronic components by using micro-channel heat sinks. Fluids flow differently in micro-channels than they do in larger tubing, and bubbles form differently, which changes how heat is dissipated. [J][M][P]
Circuit simulation A new mathematical model, called the PSP model, describes the behaviour of the MOS transistor in a wide class of integrated circuits found in the majority of electronic devices from computers to digital watches to communications systems. The model makes it possible to now simulate accurately components including passive mixers used in mobile phones and current-ratio based circuits used in analog to digital converters. PSP has better RF capabilities than the existing models and accurately predicts transistor behaviour up to frequencies well above 50 GHz. All details of the PSP model are being made available on the Internet. [J][C][S] |
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| [F] Fundamental science | |
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New state of matter The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory has produced what appears to be a new state of matter. This may be a quark-gluon plasma, the state of matter that existed just after the big bang. A quark-gluon plasma was previously expected to be a gas of weakly interacting particles. High pressure should have crushed this gas into a sticky, viscous fluid. Instead the RHIC experimenters have observed an extremely low-viscosity fluid composed of strongly interacting particles. [F]
Dark matter and WIMPs Recent astrophysical data support the idea that dark matter may be made of as yet undetected weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), probably in the form of neutralinos. These are particles predicted by supersymmetry, which may be heavier than the heaviest stable atom, and might possibly be created in the Large Hadron Collider. Several experiments around the world, including three in the UK, are trying to detect WIMPs in the laboratory, most of them by looking for the small and extremely rare nuclear recoils that are expected to occur when a WIMP hits an ordinary atom in a detector target. However some new evidence indicates that when speeding fragments of dark matter meet in the cosmos, they do not collide but pass right through each other. [F][S][T] Quantum black holes General relativity predicts that if matter is sufficiently compressed, its gravity becomes so strong that it carves out a region of space, a black hole, from which nothing can escape. The smaller the hole, the greater the compression needed to create it. Stars somewhat bigger than the Sun achieve sufficient density by collapsing under their own gravity. Much smaller black holes may have formed in the first microsecond after the Big Bang, when the density of matter exceeded nuclear densities. If they exist, such primordial black holes, exploding at the end of their life, might be the source of some cosmic rays. It may also be possible to produce black holes in accelerators. String theory predicts that gravity becomes vastly stronger at tiny distances smaller than the curled up extra dimens | ||