Nanomotors that are controlled, for the first time, inside living cells
http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2014-news/Mallouk2-2014
>Penn State University chemists and engineers have, for the first time, placed tiny synthetic motors inside live human cells in a lab, propelled them with ultrasonic waves, and steered them magnetically.>The Penn State nanomotors are the closest so far to a “Fantastic Voyage” concept (without the miniature people).>The nanomotors, which are rocket-shaped gold rods ~300 nanometers in diameter and ~3 microns long, move around inside the cells, spinning and battering against the cell membrane.>The ability of nanomotors to affect living cells holds promise for medicine, Mallouk said. “One dream application of ours is Fantastic Voyage-style medicine, where nanomotors would cruise around inside the body, communicating with each other and performing various kinds of diagnoses and therapy. There are lots of applications for controlling particles on this small scale, and understanding how it works is what’s driving us.”Four new galaxy clusters discovered some 10 billion light years from Earth
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_12-2-2014-9-55-3
>An international team of astronomers led by Imperial College London has identified four new distant galaxy clusters — more than has previously been possible — using a new way of combining data from the two European Space Agency satellites, Planck and Herschel.>The researchers believe up to 2000 further clusters could be identified using this technique, helping to build a more detailed timeline of how clusters are formed.>Galaxy clusters are the most massive objects in the universe, containing hundreds to thousands of galaxies, bound together by gravity. While astronomers have identified many nearby clusters, they need to go further back in time to understand how these structures are formed. This means finding clusters at greater distances from the Earth.>The light from the most distant of the four new clusters identified by the team has taken over 10 billion years to reach us. This means the researchers are seeing what the cluster looked like when the universe was just three billion years old.Scientists achieve fuel gain exceeding unity in confined fusion implosion
http://www.llnl.gov/news/aroundthelab/2014/Feb/NR-14-02-06.html
>The milestone of achieving fuel gains greater than 1 has been reached at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF) — for the first time ever at any facility.>Ignition — the process of releasing fusion energy equal to or greater than the amount of energy used to confine the fuel — has long been considered the “holy grail” of inertial confinement fusion science.>“What’s really exciting is that we are seeing a steadily increasing contribution to the yield coming from the boot-strapping process we call alpha-particle self-heating as we push the implosion a little harder each time,” said lead author Omar Hurricane.>Boot-strapping results when alpha particles, helium nuclei produced in the deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion process, deposit their energy in the DT fuel, rather than escaping. The alpha particles further heat the fuel, increasing the rate of fusion reactions, thus producing more alpha particles. This feedback process is the mechanism that leads to ignition.Wearable ‘neurocam’ records scenes when it detects user interest
http://neurowear.com/projects_detail/neurocam.html
>Keio University scientists have developed a “neurocam” — a wearable camera system that detects emotions, based on an analysis of the user’s brainwaves.>The hardware is a combination of Neurosky’s Mind Wave Mobile and a customized brainwave sensor.>The users interests are quantified on a range of 0 to 100. The camera automatically records five-second clips of scenes when the interest value exceeds 60, with timestamp and location, and can be replayed later and shared socially on Facebook.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDgkX-JY_wMPhysicists create synthetic magnetic monopoles
http://www.kurzweilai.net/physicists-create-synthetic-magnetic-monopoles
>Nearly 85 years after pioneering theoretical physicist Paul Dirac predicted the possibility of their existence, scientists have created, identified and photographed synthetic magnetic monopoles.>The groundbreaking accomplishment, described by a paper in Nature, paves the way for the detection of the particles in nature, which would be a revolutionary development comparable to the discovery of the electron, according to the scientists.>The finding may lead to the development and understanding of entirely new materials, such as higher-temperature superconductors for the lossless transmission of electricity, said Hall. He also said that the team’s discovery of the synthetic monopole provides a stronger foundation for current searches for magnetic monopoles at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.Electrical ‘mind control’ shown in primates for first time
http://www.kuleuven.be/english/news/free-choice-in-primates-altered-through-brain-stimulation
>In an update to the legendary Jose Delgado experiment, researchers Wim Vanduffel and John Arsenault (KU Leuven and Massachusetts General Hospital) changed a monkey’s preferences for an image by stimulating a part of the brain called the ventral tegmental area with electrical pulses>The VTA is located in the midbrain and helps regulate learning and reinforcement in the brain’s reward system. It produces dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays an important role in positive feelings, such as receiving a reward.>This research has already been done in rodents, using electrical microstimulation and other very advanced technologies (e.g., optogenetics),” VanDuffel explained in an email interview. “However, we showed for the first time that by activating this structure in primates, it indeed leads to changes in choice behavior. It is still important to show this result in primates since the reward circuitry differs substantially between rodents and primates.A brain area unique to humans is linked to strategic planning/decision making/multitasking
http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2014/140128_1.html
>Oxford University researchers have identified a specific area of the human brain that appears to be unlike anything in the brains of some of our closest relatives.>MRI imaging of 25 adult volunteers was used to identify key components in the area of the human brain called the ventrolateral frontal cortex, and how these components were connected up with other brain areas. The results were then compared with equivalent MRI data from 25 macaque monkeys.>The ventrolateral frontal cortex area of the brain is involved in many of the highest aspects of cognition and language, and is only present in humans and other primates.>However, one area of the human ventrolateral frontal cortex had no equivalent in the macaque — an area called the “lateral frontal pole prefrontal cortex” that has been identified with strategic planning and decision making as well as multitasking.Using nanodiamonds to precisely detect neural signals
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2014/researchers-develop-new-method-to-control-nanoscale-diamond-sensors-0124.html
>A team in MIT’s Quantum Engineering Group has developed a new method to noninvasively measure how weak magnetic fields change over time, such as when neurons in the brain transmit signals to each other. >The method uses naturally occurring defects in diamonds called nitrogen-vacancy (N-V) centers, which are sensitive to external magnetic fields, much like compasses>One possibility would be to grow neurons on top of the diamond sensor, to allow it to measure the magnetic fields created by the “action potential,” or signal, they produce and then transmit to other nerves.>The diamond sensors can be used at room temperature, and since they consist entirely of carbon, they could be injected into living cells without causing them any harm, Cappellaro says.>The method could also enable researchers to more precisely measure the magnetic fields produced by novel materials such as the metamaterials used to make superlenses and “invisibility cloaks.Bitcloud developers plan to decentralise internet
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25858629
>Bitcloud aims to harness the same methods used to mine Bitcoins, to provide services currently controlled by internet service providers (ISPs) and corporations.>Individuals would perform tasks such as storing, routing and providing bandwidth, in return for payment.>"We will start by decentralising the current internet, and then we can create a new internet to replace it," they said.>"Adding the profit motive to the equation gives this project a chance to succeed where many others have failed in the past," reads the group\'s white paper.>"There are still many key decisions that need to be made in the Bitcloud protocol. We have a basic idea of how everything will work, but we need assistance from programmers and thinkers from around the world who want to help," they said.Scalable quantum computer
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2014/10112.html
>Scientists and engineers from an international collaboration led by Mark Thompson from the University of Bristol have, for the first time, generated and manipulated single photons on a silicon chip — a major step forward in the race to build a quantum computer, achieved by shrinking down key components and integrating them onto a silicon microchip, according to the researchers.>Previous attempts have required external light sources to generate the photons; this new chip integrates components that can generate photons inside the chip.>“Our device is the most functionally complex photonic quantum circuit to date, and was fabricated by Toshiba using exactly the same manufacturing techniques used to make conventional electronic devices. We can generate and manipulate quantum entanglement all within a single millimeter-sized microchip.”Pushing past Moore\'s Law with nano/minaturization
http://www.mitre.org/news/press-releases/mitre-harvard-teams-ultra-tiny-nanocomputer-may-point-the-way-to-further
>An interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers from The MITRE Corporation and Harvard University have taken key steps toward ultra-small electronic computer systems that push beyond the imminent end of Moore’s Law. They designed and assembled, from the bottom up, a functioning, ultra-tiny control computer (nanocontroller) that they say is the densest nanoelectronic system ever built.>The “nanoelectronic finite-state machine” (“nanoFSM”) or nanocomputer measures 0.3 x 0.03 millimeters. It is composed of hundreds of nanowire transistors, each an under-20 nanometers switch. The nanowire transistors use very little power because they are “nonvolatile” — the switches remember whether they are on or off, even when no power is supplied to them.>Together, the tiles route small electronic signals around the computer, enabling it to perform calculations and process signals that could be used to control tiny systems, such as miniscule medical therapeutic devices, other tiny sensors and actuators, or even insect-sized robots.How to monitor drug effects in real time
http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2014/013903/live-feed-our-bodies
>A device that can monitor the levels of specific drugs as they flow through the bloodstream may soon take the guesswork out of drug dosing and allow physicians to tailor prescriptions to their patients’ specific biology.>“Current dosing regimens are really quite primitive,” said Plaxco, professor of chemistry and of biomolecular science and engineering. They rely on a patient’s age or body weight and are unable to account for specific responses over time. Drug levels may be influenced by individual patients’ metabolisms, or even by the foods they eat or other drugs they might be taking.>Scientists could be one giant step closer to dispelling the uncertainty around patients’ biological responses as they receive these drugs with a device that is only a bit longer than a jumbo paperclip.> “The measurements were highly sensitive to doses that are clinically relevant and could be maintained for several hours. Further, we demonstrated exquisite selectivity and flexibility in that the device is only sensitive to the target even when administered a cocktail of drugs.”E-whiskers: highly sensitive tactile sensors for robotics and other applications
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/science-shorts/2014/01/20/e-whiskers/
>Researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California Berkeley have created tactile sensors from composite films of carbon nanotubes and silver nanoparticles similar to the highly sensitive whiskers of cats and rats.>The new “e-whiskers” respond to pressure as slight as a single Pascal, about the pressure exerted on a table surface by a dollar bill. Among their potential applications is giving robots new abilities to “see” and “feel” their surrounding environment.>“Our electronic whiskers consist of high-aspect-ratio elastic fibers coated with conductive composite films of nanotubes and nanoparticles. In tests, these whiskers were ten times more sensitive to pressure than all previously reported capacitive or resistive pressure sensors.”>In the future, e-whiskers could be used to mediate tactile sensing for the spatial mapping of nearby objects, and could also lead to wearable sensors for measuring heartbeat and pulse rate.36 viestiä ja 30 kuvia jätettiin pois.