There are pros and cons even to organic milk. Read about it in the New York Times.
Archives: 11/2005
MIT researchers writing in a recent Physical Review Letters discuss the role of conjugated polymers in making speedier actuators. This breakthrough can help manufacturing and transportation, and perhaps someday, make kung-fu robot fighters possibe:
In the past few years, engineers have made the artificial muscles that actuate, or drive, robotic devices from conjugated polymers. “Conjugated polymers are also called conducting polymers because they can carry an electric current, just like a metal wire,” says Xi Lin, a postdoctoral associate in Yip’s lab. (Conventional polymers like rubber and plastic are insulators and do not conduct electricity.)
Conjugated polymers can actuate on command if charges can be sent to specific locations in the polymer chain in the form of “solitons” (charge density waves). A soliton, short for solitary wave, is “like an ocean wave that can travel long distances without breaking up,” Yip adds…
…Scientists already knew that solitons enabled the conducting polymers to conduct electricity. Lin’s work attempts to explain how these materials can activate devices…
Lin discovered that adding the ions is unnecessary, because theoretically, shining a light of a particular frequency on the conducting polymer can activate the soliton. Without the extra weight of the added ions, the polymers could bend and flex much more quickly. And that rapid-fire motion gives rise to the high-speed actuation, that is, the ability to activate a device.
More from MIT’s Professor Sidney Yip…
Via Engadget…
CNN reports on a new Dutch initiative to warn & inform all cell phone users in a given radius about hazards, via text messaging:
The system, called Cell Broadcast, uses GSM technology to identify cell phone users in a particular area.
If a disaster occurs, a message is sent to all phones in the area, warning of the danger…
“This is a more instantaneous way of informing people about what is going on right now. It’s an extra medium to communicate directly with people during a disaster,” he said.
“If something happens in the center of The Hague, for example, we can select communication points from telecom companies and everyone who is within a few 100 meters can get the information.”
Other scenarios could include terrorist attacks, fires, explosions and leaks of toxic substances.
It’s a powerful thing to be able to broadcast to all nearby mobile phones. Potential for pranks or advertising abound. And we’re not sure we could trust a text message with giving lifesaving instructions, just yet. But Europeans have been a few years ahead of the US on SMS, so maybe we’ll come around.
Flashback: PDA’s get WISER
The National Science Foundation (NSF) says that researchers in the lab of Dr. Karl Grosh at the University of Michigan are developing a novel type of mechanical cochlea. The hydromechanical cochlea, based on a microelectromechanical system, can capture within the normal audio spectrum as well as audio frequencies well beyond those of normal human hearing. Consequently, the device, in addition to its clinical uses, is expected to be used in a wide range of industries:
“The machined cochlea Grosh and White developed fills a critical need for efficient acoustic sensing, as well as a need of the hearing-impaired. It could potentially offer a less-expensive substitute for some hardware in cochlear implants,” says Ken Chong, interim director of NSF’s Civil and Mechanical Systems (CMS) Division.
The hydromechanical cochlea is a microelectromechanical system, or MEMS, device, meaning that it is manufactured–and functions–at a scale of a few millionths of a meter. While it does not yet generate electrical signals, it accurately collects sound data at frequencies between 4,200 hertz and 35,000 hertz, overlapping much of the range for the human ear (20 hertz to 20,000 hertz)
The new device, while not the first of its kind, has three main benefits over existing artificial cochlea: the methods behind its construction are ideal for mass production; its 3-centimeter length is comparable to the unwound human cochlea, which is important for potential hearing aid applications; and because there are no moving parts, the sensor is incredibly efficient–a critical property for potential use on autonomous underwater vehicles such as unmanned military craft that rely on battery power…
In its simplest form, the new device consists of a rigid, micromachined Pyrex glass channel filled with silicone oil and topped by a thin, tapered-width membrane of silicon nitride. The membrane is sensitive to higher frequency vibrations at its skinniest end and gradually lower-frequency vibrations further along the widening structure.
A small, separate membrane of the same material, roughly 1 millimeter by 2 millimeters, provides another “window” to the fluid-filled chamber. This small piece of silicon nitride receives the initial sound waves and transmits them into the main chamber much like the stapes in the ear transmits sounds to a human cochlea.
If one generates a sound, the device resonates in specific locations in response to the vibrations produced. Each part of the membrane resonates with a specific frequency, so when a sound wave strikes the device, the membrane vibrates most excitedly at the location that corresponds to the incoming wave. That is the site where the sound wave “crests,” says White.
While the component can detect sounds, it is not yet configured to do anything with the information. The next step is to affix to the membrane sensors that can convert the vibration energy into electrical impulses a processor can recognize.
The NSF press release…
Dr. Grosh in his own words in this video…
The Colossal Colon is an educational project by Molly McMaster, a young survivor of colon cancer (dx’ed at age 23). Molly explains:
The Colossal Colon is an oversized model of a human colon that is forty feet long and four feet tall. It was built by Adirondack Scenic, Inc. a company that builds Broadway sets and Universal Studio sets, among other things. Visitors who crawl through the Colossal Colon will see examples of many colon diseases, including Chrohn’s disease, diverticulosis, ulcerative colitis, hemorrhoids, cancerous and non-cancerous polyps, and various stages of colon cancer. Actual colonoscopy footage was used to ensure that the Colossal Colon was as realistic as possible. Special thanks to Maggie Tierney with the Screen for Life program at the Glens Falls Hospital and Hannah Vogler, the cousin of Amanda, to whom the Colossal Colon is dedicated to.
My goal as a young colon cancer survivor and advocate has always been to raise awareness of the disease in younger people. The route I’ve always taken has been the craziest, most attention grabbing one I find. The sillier, the better. Colorectal cancer is a very serious disease, but no one wants to talk about it. Enter the Colossal Colon.
More…
(hat tip: Sherwin S.)
As part of its ambitious plan to offer a stent for every cylindrical structure in the human body, Boston Scientific this week acquired esophageal and tracheal stents from Willy Rusch.
The stents keep these vital passages open and clear when compressive tumors or stricture could lead to blockage. Boston Scientific was already the US distributor of the Polyflex stent, described below:
·The placement technique of the Polyflex Airway Stent requires rigid bronchoscopy
·Gentle, radial force helps the stent adapt to airway anatomy and maintain patency
·Full-length silicone coating is designed to seal tracheoesophageal and bronchoesophageal fistulae and help prevent tumor in-growth
·Engineered to elongate when stretched lengthwise which facilitates stent change or removal
·Radiopaque delivery system is designed to help facilitate precise positioning and controlled use by promoting visibility during placement and post-operative follow-up
·Polyester mesh structure on outer stent surface is designed to help reduce migration
·Thin wall diameter is engineered for greater airway patency
·Silicone edge reinforcement is designed to help reduce tissue granulation formation
·Smooth inner surface is designed to resist secretory encrustation
·Available in a broad range of widths and lengths to help facilitate placement in various patient anatomy
It looks like they’ve thought of everything.
More from Boston Scientific…
Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have discovered that the puny little worm H Polygyrus induces regulatory T cells and effectively suppresses the immune system. The plan now is to discover the mediator(s) responsible for this effect:
University of Edinburgh scientists have discovered that helminth parasites can exploit an ‘Achilles heel’ in our immune system, tricking the body’s defences into switching themselves off.
To find out how the worms do this, the team are focusing on the role played by ‘regulatory cells’, which fulfil a policing role that protects our bodies. These cells decide when to stop the immune system from attacking the body’s own proteins, and also prevent it from wasting time attacking harmless environmental molecules.
It is thought that helminths produce molecules that trigger a response in regulatory cells similar to the one that prevents autoimmunity, fooling the body into switching off the response that would otherwise kill the parasites.
If that is the case, then infections could be cured, not by vaccination or drug treatment, but by reactivating the immune system.
It is the first time such a concept has been explored to curb the tropical diseases caused by helminths – such as filariasis and schistosomiasis – which affect one in four of the global population.
The study – the first findings of which are reported in the Journal of Experimental Medicine – could also help growing numbers of people in the developed world who have autoimmune conditions such as diabetes, and allergies like asthma and hay fever.
Again, the key is identifying the molecules that helminths produce in order to influence regulatory cell activity. If scientists can understand how these molecules trigger suppression of the immune system, they might also employ the molecules to stop the immune system from attacking the body’s own cells – which is what happens in diseases caused by over-active immune responses.
Professor Rick Maizels, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Biological Sciences, has been awarded £1.3 million by the Wellcome Trust to conduct the research.
“Perhaps we can borrow a trick from parasites, and employ the molecules which suppress the immune system to treat these disorders,” he explains.
“The project therefore offers potential for new treatments of diseases in both the developed world and the disadvantaged countries of the tropics.”
The press release…
Brandon Keim over at Wired News reports on an extremely promising field of cancer nanotechnology. Go ahead, read the report, and skeptics among you will see that nanotechnology might just be the field that will make the big breakthrough.
We remember hearing about “organ printing” a long time ago. It sounded like a fanciful process of precisely layering different tissues, all while keeping the cells within oxygenated and happy.
Well, progress has been made. According to Deseret Morning News in Utah, organ printers now have a substrate, or bio-paper, with which to work.
The source is fuzzy on the details, but apparently the cells will be suspended in a thin hydrogel:
The cells and liquid hydrogel are put in the printer cartridge and then dropped into three-dimensional, 1-microliter dots that form layers as the hydrogel hardens. The cells form tissue that can be implanted into a damaged organ.
Forgacs said he uses Prestwich’s hydrogel because of its biocompatibility with other cells. Instead of disappearing, it becomes part of a matrix that is integral to the tissue.
More info about the bio-paper is available at the Prestwich Research Group. For more on the printer, check out the Organ Printing Lab…
(hat tip: Slashdot)
