SciTech Digest - 10/2017.
SciTech Digest - 10/2017.
Permalink here: http://www.scitechdigest.net/2017/03/handle-robot-thawing-cryopreserved.html
Handle the robot, Thawing cryopreserved organs, Complex nanoparticle crystals, Engineering a supersolid, 3D printed blood vessels, Nucleoskeleton structure, Machine learning earthquakes, DNA computing, Custom photoacoustics, 3D fog printing.
1. Boston Dynamics’ Handle
The most impressive demonstration of the week was undoubtedly Boston Dynamic’s Handle robot, a bipedal wheeled robot that attempts to make the best of both fixed limbs and wheels http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/boston-dynamics-handle-robot. The videos of Handle scooting, falling, and jumping up onto tables while in motion really do have to be seen. It can carry 45kgs and has a range of 24km. “Simply” providing bipedal robots with wheeled feet offers a much larger range of locomotive abilities and flexibility in navigating variable terrain at reduced energy cost.
2. Thawing Cryopreserved Organs
A new approach to rewarming frozen tissues involves first adding silica-coated iron oxide nanoparticles into solution to circulate through the tissues before being cryogenically frozen - when the tissue needs to be thawed it is placed in an external magnetic field that heats up the nanoparticles to generate uniform heat throughout the sample https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-03/aaft-wut022717.php. This appeared to avoid the tissue damage that can result from conventional warming and thawing. If it could be combined with a technique to freeze the tissue without ice crystal damage then cryogenic preservation takes a big step forward.
3. Complex Nanoparticle Crystal Designs
The most complex nanoparticle crystals ever produced have been created via DNA mediated self-assembly processes https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-03/nu-mcn022817.php. In this demonstration gold nanoparticle bipyramids complex crystal structures known as clathrates thanks to DNA sequences attached to their sides that direct the assembly process into an ordered geometric arrangement. Applications might include control of light, pollution capture, drug delivery - and really a whole range of new materials applications depending on the type of nanoparticles used.
4. Supersolid Created for First Time
Beginning with a Bose-Einstein condensate of sodium atoms researchers were able to use precise lasers to manipulate the motion and spin of the atoms to essentially create a mixture two Bose-Einstein condensates coupled one to the other, which realised the first ever supersolid state of matter http://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-researchers-create-new-form-matter-0302. This appears to be an elegant reduction to practice of pre-existing theory and hypotheses the predicted this state of matter. Of course, this doesn’t explain the mind-bending nature of this quantum state of matter, that of a solid that flows without viscosity.
5. Better 3D Printed Blood Vessels
In a step towards solving one of the biggest challenges in tissue and solid organ engineering, functional vasculature, biomimetic blood vessel networks have now been 3D printed http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=2142. The 3D printed vasculature network can integrate with the body’s own blood vessels to circulate blood, and the printed structures follow similar design principles by branching out from larger to many smaller vessels like capillaries. The custom 3D printing process uses UV light to cure or set a polymer solution into a desired, patterned polymer scaffold that encapsulates live cells that grow to become biological endothelial tissue, and animal tests in mice confirmed the structures and blood flow integrate with and merge successfully with the existing blood supply.
6. Nucleoskeleton Structure Revealed for First Time
3D electron microscopy has revealed the precise architecture of the lamina support for the nuclear wall at molecular resolution for the first time http://www.media.uzh.ch/en/Press-Releases/2017/structure-of-the-cell-nucleoskeleton.html. This molecular scaffold stabilises the cell nucleus and defects are often characteristic of certain diseases. Just beneath the nuclear membrane that houses the protein pores for shuttling molecules in and out of the nucleus lies the 14nm thick lamina and its delicate mesh network of 3.5nm thick laminin filaments that help stabilise the nuclear membrane and also contribute to structural and regulatory processes that control the cell’s DNA.
7. Machine Learning Attempts Earthquake Prediction
A new machine learning algorithm is able to predict that a laboratory earthquake to give way by listening to the sounds it emits under strain https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603785/machine-learning-algorithm-predicts-laboratory-earthquakes/. While the model laboratory system has many similarities to real-world fault lines, including the same size distribution of small and large slips, how it makes such accurate predictions is not known to the group that developed it and importantly real-world experiments need to be conducted before anyone can claim that the technique should be used in quake forecasting. In related news neural networks promise to produce the sharpest ever astronomical images https://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2950-neural-networks-promise-sharpest-ever-images.
8. DNA Computing
There were a couple of interesting advances in DNA computing this week. First, a new method to encode digital data in DNA sequences has produces the highest-ever large-scale data storage scheme ever invented, and capable in theory of storing 215 petabytes per gram of DNA http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/dna-could-store-all-worlds-data-one-room. Second, there is an interesting proposal for building a non-deterministic universal turing machine out of DNA that might provide an exponential speed boost over electronic and quantum computers, essentially replicating DNA and growing to process ever more paths and greater equivalent computational output for certain problems http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/scientists-reveal-new-super-fast-form-of-computer-that-grows-as-it-computes/.
9. Photoacoustic Ultrasound from Light
New 3D printed structures with specifically-designed surface profiles function as precise photoacoustic conversion interfaces - when a pulse of light strikes the material it is absorbed and produces a precisely shaped sound wave in response https://publishing.aip.org/publishing/journal-highlights/optical-generation-ultrasound-photoacoustic-effect. By tailoring the surface a sound wave of nearly any shape can be produced in response. An algorithm developed by the group can take a desired sound shape and produce the 3D surface structure necessary to produce it; applications include acoustic tweezers and channels for sample analysis.
10. 3D Printing with Nanoparticle Fog
A new 3D printing method employs a fog of microdroplets that contain silver nanoparticles that, as the liquid fog is evaporated, remain behind to be deposited at specific locations in order to build up complex delicate structures https://news.wsu.edu/2017/03/03/novel-3-d-manufacturing/. While silver was used in the proof-of-concept almost any nanoparticle could be used in the same way. A range of microscaffolds were engineered that might be used as porous anodes and cathodes for batteries, electronic interconnects, and perhaps biomaterials for implantation.
SciTech Tip Jar: http://www.scitechdigest.net/p/donate.html
Permalink here: http://www.scitechdigest.net/2017/03/handle-robot-thawing-cryopreserved.html
Handle the robot, Thawing cryopreserved organs, Complex nanoparticle crystals, Engineering a supersolid, 3D printed blood vessels, Nucleoskeleton structure, Machine learning earthquakes, DNA computing, Custom photoacoustics, 3D fog printing.
1. Boston Dynamics’ Handle
The most impressive demonstration of the week was undoubtedly Boston Dynamic’s Handle robot, a bipedal wheeled robot that attempts to make the best of both fixed limbs and wheels http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/boston-dynamics-handle-robot. The videos of Handle scooting, falling, and jumping up onto tables while in motion really do have to be seen. It can carry 45kgs and has a range of 24km. “Simply” providing bipedal robots with wheeled feet offers a much larger range of locomotive abilities and flexibility in navigating variable terrain at reduced energy cost.
2. Thawing Cryopreserved Organs
A new approach to rewarming frozen tissues involves first adding silica-coated iron oxide nanoparticles into solution to circulate through the tissues before being cryogenically frozen - when the tissue needs to be thawed it is placed in an external magnetic field that heats up the nanoparticles to generate uniform heat throughout the sample https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-03/aaft-wut022717.php. This appeared to avoid the tissue damage that can result from conventional warming and thawing. If it could be combined with a technique to freeze the tissue without ice crystal damage then cryogenic preservation takes a big step forward.
3. Complex Nanoparticle Crystal Designs
The most complex nanoparticle crystals ever produced have been created via DNA mediated self-assembly processes https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-03/nu-mcn022817.php. In this demonstration gold nanoparticle bipyramids complex crystal structures known as clathrates thanks to DNA sequences attached to their sides that direct the assembly process into an ordered geometric arrangement. Applications might include control of light, pollution capture, drug delivery - and really a whole range of new materials applications depending on the type of nanoparticles used.
4. Supersolid Created for First Time
Beginning with a Bose-Einstein condensate of sodium atoms researchers were able to use precise lasers to manipulate the motion and spin of the atoms to essentially create a mixture two Bose-Einstein condensates coupled one to the other, which realised the first ever supersolid state of matter http://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-researchers-create-new-form-matter-0302. This appears to be an elegant reduction to practice of pre-existing theory and hypotheses the predicted this state of matter. Of course, this doesn’t explain the mind-bending nature of this quantum state of matter, that of a solid that flows without viscosity.
5. Better 3D Printed Blood Vessels
In a step towards solving one of the biggest challenges in tissue and solid organ engineering, functional vasculature, biomimetic blood vessel networks have now been 3D printed http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=2142. The 3D printed vasculature network can integrate with the body’s own blood vessels to circulate blood, and the printed structures follow similar design principles by branching out from larger to many smaller vessels like capillaries. The custom 3D printing process uses UV light to cure or set a polymer solution into a desired, patterned polymer scaffold that encapsulates live cells that grow to become biological endothelial tissue, and animal tests in mice confirmed the structures and blood flow integrate with and merge successfully with the existing blood supply.
6. Nucleoskeleton Structure Revealed for First Time
3D electron microscopy has revealed the precise architecture of the lamina support for the nuclear wall at molecular resolution for the first time http://www.media.uzh.ch/en/Press-Releases/2017/structure-of-the-cell-nucleoskeleton.html. This molecular scaffold stabilises the cell nucleus and defects are often characteristic of certain diseases. Just beneath the nuclear membrane that houses the protein pores for shuttling molecules in and out of the nucleus lies the 14nm thick lamina and its delicate mesh network of 3.5nm thick laminin filaments that help stabilise the nuclear membrane and also contribute to structural and regulatory processes that control the cell’s DNA.
7. Machine Learning Attempts Earthquake Prediction
A new machine learning algorithm is able to predict that a laboratory earthquake to give way by listening to the sounds it emits under strain https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603785/machine-learning-algorithm-predicts-laboratory-earthquakes/. While the model laboratory system has many similarities to real-world fault lines, including the same size distribution of small and large slips, how it makes such accurate predictions is not known to the group that developed it and importantly real-world experiments need to be conducted before anyone can claim that the technique should be used in quake forecasting. In related news neural networks promise to produce the sharpest ever astronomical images https://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2950-neural-networks-promise-sharpest-ever-images.
8. DNA Computing
There were a couple of interesting advances in DNA computing this week. First, a new method to encode digital data in DNA sequences has produces the highest-ever large-scale data storage scheme ever invented, and capable in theory of storing 215 petabytes per gram of DNA http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/dna-could-store-all-worlds-data-one-room. Second, there is an interesting proposal for building a non-deterministic universal turing machine out of DNA that might provide an exponential speed boost over electronic and quantum computers, essentially replicating DNA and growing to process ever more paths and greater equivalent computational output for certain problems http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/scientists-reveal-new-super-fast-form-of-computer-that-grows-as-it-computes/.
9. Photoacoustic Ultrasound from Light
New 3D printed structures with specifically-designed surface profiles function as precise photoacoustic conversion interfaces - when a pulse of light strikes the material it is absorbed and produces a precisely shaped sound wave in response https://publishing.aip.org/publishing/journal-highlights/optical-generation-ultrasound-photoacoustic-effect. By tailoring the surface a sound wave of nearly any shape can be produced in response. An algorithm developed by the group can take a desired sound shape and produce the 3D surface structure necessary to produce it; applications include acoustic tweezers and channels for sample analysis.
10. 3D Printing with Nanoparticle Fog
A new 3D printing method employs a fog of microdroplets that contain silver nanoparticles that, as the liquid fog is evaporated, remain behind to be deposited at specific locations in order to build up complex delicate structures https://news.wsu.edu/2017/03/03/novel-3-d-manufacturing/. While silver was used in the proof-of-concept almost any nanoparticle could be used in the same way. A range of microscaffolds were engineered that might be used as porous anodes and cathodes for batteries, electronic interconnects, and perhaps biomaterials for implantation.
SciTech Tip Jar: http://www.scitechdigest.net/p/donate.html
Comments
Post a Comment