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NanoArt 2009 INTERNATIONAL ONLINE COMPETITION
4th Edition
FREE Entries - Open to All Artists and Scientists - Seed Images of 3 Nanosculptures are Provided for Further Artistic Creation
Submission deadline January 15, 2010
The worldwide competition NanoArt 2009 is open to all artists 18 years and older. The online exhibition will open for public on January 20, 2010.
Jurors: Dr. Pilar Irala (PhD, History of Art), world renowned photographer, expert on contemporary art, photography, and new technologies, and member of the International Association of Art Critics; apart from her activity as international photographer, Art critic and curator, she is currently Professor of Photography and Contemporary Art at San Jorge University (Spain) and co-director of the contemporary photography and music ensemble animAMusicae; Guillermo Muñoz, physicist and PhD candidate in Photonics, works in the field of Nanotechnology at Material Science Institute of Valencia University (Spain); he is part of the ”Piratas de la Ciencia“ science communication group and is working as moderator for the international Art and Science network Yasmin; recently, he curated the NanoArt exhibition ”Nanoconfluencias: miradas artísticas hacia lo infinitamente pequeño“.
For the 4th edition of this competition, nanoart21.org founded by artist and scientist Cris Orfescu (www.crisorfescu.com and www.absolutearts.com/nanoart) will provide 3 high resolution monochromatic electron scans (shown above) of nanosculptures created by him. The participating artists will have to alter the provided image(s) in any artistic way to finish the artistic-scientific process and create NanoArt work(s). The artists and scientists are strongly encouraged to participate with their own images as long as these visualize micro or nanostructures.
The artists can participate with up to 5 images (artworks). All submitted works will be exhibited on the nanoart21.org site until March 31, 2010, together with artist's name, a short description of the artistic process, and artist’s web site and e-mail. The top 10 artists will be exhibited on nanoart21.org site for one full year and will be invited to exhibit at the 3rd edition of The International Festival of NanoArt. The previous editions of the festival were held in Finland and Germany
NanoArt is a new art discipline at the art-science-technology intersections. It features nanolandscapes (molecular and atomic landscapes which are natural structures of matter at molecular and atomic scales) and nanosculptures (structures created by scientists and artists by manipulating matter at molecular and atomic scales using chemical and physical processes). These structures are visualized with powerful research tools like scanning electron microscopes and atomic force microscopes and their scientific images are captured and further processed by using different artistic techniques to convert them into artworks showcased for large audiences. To read more about NanoArt and Nanotechnology please visit http://nanoart21.org.
Contact
For more information, please visit the COMPETITION SITE or send e-mail to 2009@nanoart21.org
GLOBAL FEATURE- ISREAL
Measuring the Electron Transport Properties of DNA Molecules
Scanning probe microscopy and negative-stiffness vibration isolation
enables nano-level DNA research at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science.
”Schematic of the measuring system – DNA oligomer is attached to a gold electrode below, and hybridizes with a DNA attached to a gold nanoparticle which then forms the upper electrode for the double-stranded DNA. Current is measured by applying a bias between upper and lower electrodes with placement controlled by the AFM tip – Weizmann Institute“.
by Jim McMahon
DNA has been considered as a possibility for molecular electronics. Because DNA is able to recognize other molecules, other strands of DNA, and because it binds together with similar DNA strands in a very unique way scientists have suggested the possibility of using DNA as an electronic circuit without having to build in any other circuitry. The DNA would bind with other similar DNA strands which it recognizes, then use the connecting properties of the DNA to create a self-assembled biological wire for electrical conduction. Until recently, uncertainty existed about whether DNA could conduct at all, and if it could, then how well it could conduct. Scientific speculations ranged from DNA being a superconductor to a complete isolator. Recent research, however, by Dr. Sidney R. Cohen in collaboration with Dr. Ron Naaman and Dr. Claude Nogues of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Scanned Probe Microscopy Unit, in Rehovot, Israel, aided by the enabling technologies of ultra-high-resolution microscopy and negative-stiffness vibration isolation, has shed new light on the electrical transport properties of DNA, focusing on the capacity of single molecules of DNA to transport current along individual strands.
The Weizmann Institute’s Scanned Probe Microscopy Unit
The Weizmann Institute’s Scanned Probe Microscopy Unit provides research and imaging into nano-scale electrical and mechanical properties of materials and biological applications, such as with DNA. The lab includes facilities for sample preparation and testing involving ultra-high resolution microscopies and localized surface probing using scanned probe microscopies. The unit contains three separate scanning tunneling/scanning force microscopes (Digital Instruments Nanoscope, NT-MDT P47/LS and NTEGRA) that enable determination of surface topography and mechanical and electrical properties at resolutions ranging from tens of microns down to atomic scale. Liquid cells, heated and cooled stages, and a gas inlet allow working in different media and under controlled temperature and humidity.
The Weizmann Institute of Science is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to 2,600 scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
DNA Measurement Challenges
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA nanotechnology uses the unique molecular-recognition properties of DNA to create self-assembling branched DNA complexes with useful properties.
To measure the electronic properties of DNA, Dr. Cohen and his staff needed to connect a volt electrode to the end of a DNA molecule, which is only a few nanometers in length, using an AFM (atomic force microscope). The difficulty in measuring something this small is ensuring that a good electrical contact is made to the molecule – the researcher wants to measure the electrical properties of the molecule not the quality of the connection. To facilitate this bio-molecular connection, the lab attached a bio-link, a gold electrode, to a single strand of DNA, and then attached a very small gold ball (10 to 20 nanometers in size) to a complimentary DNA strand, after which these two strands were hybridized (linking of the two single strands, aided by genetic similarity between corresponding DNA sequences). If the strands are complementary, their matching cousin on the other strand will form a double-strand. Single strands of DNA do not conduct electricity. The double-strand does conduct for certain configurations, hence the instigation and use of the double-strand in the lab’s research.
DNA molecules are very easily destroyed. Hooking up these gold connectors and balls at the nano level without tearing them off or burning them out is quite challenging. This preparation method, developed by Dr. Nogues, is critical and somewhat time consuming, but is a fundamental aspect of this research model.
Using an AFM, with the DNA double-strand displayed on a flat surface, the researchers could then locate the gold ball, put the AFM tip on top of the ball, flow a current through the double-strand and view the current voltage characteristics.
Electron Transport Properties of DNA
”There are two possibilities when we talk about electrons flowing through a DNA molecule,“ explains Dr. Cohen. ”We can break it down into two different kinds of electron transport. One is called a ‘tunnelling process’, where the electron effectively shoots through the molecule without caring too much about the internal structure of the molecule. The other is called a ‘hopping process’ where the electron actually resides for small periods of time in certain positions along the molecule. In this case the electron will be affected by temperature.“
”DNA consists of a sequence of amino acids,“ continues Cohen. ”We found that variations in both the sequence and the composition of a strand’s amino acids can also affect the progress of electron transport through the strand. Similarly, amino acids which are very electron rich have better electron conductivity than those amino acids which have fewer available electrons. This is not solely academic, electronic behavior of DNA is very closely related to function. There are electrochemical processes which are mediated by these DNA biological molecules. For instance, radiation damage and mutation – how does the DNA deal with an extra electron or an absence of an electron located somewhere along its chain?“
The characteristics of electron conductivity in DNA also have implications in molecular electronics - which is trying to achieve devices that, instead of working on the standard silicon circuitry, function through innocuous molecules. Because of DNA’s facility to bind with similar types of DNA molecules, it is not necessary to physically place each molecule in a set location. DNA put into solution can be expected to organize itself in the right way and become a predictable medium for electrons.
Vibration Isolation Critical to DNA Research
The Weizmann Institute is one of the few research groups in the world that has actually managed to measure the electrical transport properties of a single molecule of DNA. One of the challenges that presents itself in nanoscale research is vibration isolation. Every laboratory measuring and imaging at the nano-level is dealing with problems of site vibration, which compromises to a greater or lesser degree the imaging quality and data sets which are acquired through ultra-high-resolution microscopy. A critical factor in the Weizmann Institute’s ability to consistently measure DNA electron structures at such extreme nano-level resolutions is the lab’s use of negative-stiffness vibration isolation systems, developed by Minus K Technology, which produced the ultra-stable environment that the AFMs needed to execute this research.
”Any lab site is subject to vibrations from machines, vibrations of the building itself and even from people walking around, in the range from less than 10 hertz to about 30 hertz,“ says Cohen. ”The lab has three separate AFM systems, each with several different modules that require very precise vibration isolation for all of our research, including our DNA electron transport studies. We have opted on negative-stiffness vibration isolation to provide the necessary low-noise environment.“
Negative-stiffness mechanism (NSM) isolators have the flexibility of custom tailoring resonant frequencies vertically and horizontally. They employ a completely mechanical concept in low-frequency vibration isolation. Vertical-motion isolation is provided by a stiff spring that supports a weight load, combined with a NSM. The net vertical stiffness is made very low without affecting the static load-supporting capability of the spring.
Beam-columns connected in series with the vertical-motion isolator provide horizontal-motion isolation. The horizontal stiffness of the beam-columns is reduced by the "beam-column" effect. A beam-column behaves as a spring combined with a NSM. The result is a compact passive isolator capable of very low vertical and horizontal natural frequencies and very high internal structural frequencies.
”We tried air tables but they did not do very well for us with the horizontal vibrations, continues Cohen. ”Then we compared active systems to the Negative-Stiffness isolator, measuring the frequency spectrum up to about 100 hertz, and the active systems did not perform as well as the negative-stiffness isolator.“
Transmissibility with negative-stiffness is substantially improved over air systems, which can make vibration isolation problems worse since they have a resonant frequency that can match that of floor vibrations. Transmissibility is a measure of the vibrations that transmit through the isolator relative to the input vibrations. The NSM isolators, when adjusted to 0.5Hz, achieve 93 percent isolation efficiency at 2Hz; 99 percent at 5Hz; and 99.7 percent at 10Hz. NSM transmissibility is also improved over active systems.
Because they run on electricity, active systems can be negatively influenced by problems of electronic dysfunction and power modulations, which can interrupt scanning. They also have a limited dynamic range – which is easy to exceed – causing the isolator to go into positive feedback and generate noise underneath the equipment. Although active isolation systems have fundamentally no resonance, their transmissibility does not roll off as fast as negative-stiffness isolators.
Leading the Way
The Weizmann Institute conducts original research into many diverse areas, including mechanical properties of materials and biological applications, such as with DNA. The methods for obtaining successful results from its research is a continuing process of improving and refining its protocols, procedures, equipment and systems. Dr. Cohen, together with Doctor Nogues and Doctor Naaman, continue to pioneer and lead the way to a better understanding of the electron transport properties of DNA molecules.
About Dr. Sidney R. Cohen
Dr. Sidney R. Cohen is Senior Staff Scientist and Director of the Scanned Probe Microscopy Unit, Surface Analysis Laboratory for Chemical Research Support at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, ISRAEL. He holds a B.A. in chemistry from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, an M.S. in chemistry from the University of California in Berkeley, California, and received his Ph.D. from Feinberg Graduate School at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Dr. Cohen has received wide recognition for his work, and has had his findings published in scores of periodicals. Dr. Cohen can be reached by contacting the Weizmann Institute of Science, Goldwurn Building, Rehovot 76100 ISRAEL; Phone 972-8-934-2703; email sidney.cohen@weizmann.ac.il; www.weizmann.ac.il.
About Minus K Technology, Inc.
Minus K® Technology, Inc. was founded in 1993 to develop, manufacture and market state-of-the-art vibration isolation products based on the company’s patented negative-stiffness-mechanism technology. Minus K products are used in a broad spectrum of applications including nanotechnology, biological sciences, semiconductors, materials research, zero-g simulation of spacecraft, and high-end audio. The company is an OEM supplier to leading manufactures of scanning probe microscopes, micro-hardness testers and other vibration-sensitive instruments and equipment. Minus K customers include private companies and more than 200 leading universities and government laboratories in 35 countries.
Dr. David L. Platus is the inventor of negative-stiffness mechanism vibration isolation systems, and President and Founder of Minus K Technology, Inc. (www.minusk.com). He earned a B.S. and a Ph.D. in Engineering from UCLA, and a diploma from the Oak Ridge School of (Nuclear) Reactor Technology. Prior to founding Minus K Technology he worked in the nuclear, aerospace and defense industries conducting and directing analysis and design projects in structural-mechanical systems. He became an independent consultant in 1988. Dr. Platus holds over 20 patents related to shock and vibration isolation.
For more information on negative-stiffness vibration isolation please contact Steve Varma, Minus K Technology, Inc.; 460 South Hindry Ave., Unit C, Inglewood, CA 90301; Phone 310-348-9656; Fax 310-348-9638; email sales@minusk.com; www.minusk.com.
Jim McMahon writes on instrumentation technology.
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Nano Energy Feature
Global
Green Nanoenergy Vision:
Turning the Greatest Energy Dream into Reality
Advances in nanotechnology can provide clean energy resources and sustaniable developement
Jamal Shrair,PhD
Budapest University of Technology and Economics,
Department of Electronic Devices
Advances in nanotechnology can provide clean energy resources and sustainable development
The greatest threat and the biggest technical challenge facing the world in this century is how to provide clean, affordable energy supply which is sustainable and universally available. The rate of growth in global energy demand runs the risk of outpacing affordable, stable supplies unless we can achieve breakthroughs not only in conservation and evolutionary improvements in terms of efficiency of existing resources, but also revolutionary new breakthroughs. Energy resources are vital to sustaining worldwide economic growth, progress, peace and global security in the 21st century. There is an urgent need for new technologies that can facilitate the development of cheaper, more efficient, and environmentally sound energy supplies.
By the middle of this century, global energy production will, at least, need to be doubled from its current level if we are to meet the demand of economic development. Without a major technological breakthrough, well over 1 billion people will still be without modern electricity in 2030. CO2 emission will also continue to increase by 14% for the next two decades unless the international agreements to cut the emission are implemented.
So the question is: can we achieve carbon-free energy supplies by the middle of the century that can meet our needs? This is an open question, but there are three potential ways to meet the 2050 carbon-free energy conditions? large-scale carbon sequestration, a broader use of nuclear power or the deployment of large scale renewable energy resources. Considering the carbon sequestration option, two thirds of the energy produced from fossil fuels worldwide will need to be sequestrated or 10,000 nuclear power plants will have to be built in order to meet our energy demand.
We have to think defiantly, deep and hard, invest in science and technology and remove all the barriers like politics and special interest groups which prevent the application of and the investment into new technologies. Even though some of the energy increase will come from renewable energy resources that can play a major role in energy independence, nevertheless, this contribution might be insufficiently small to meet the production magnitude needed for ten billion people that will inhabit the planet in the next four decades. In other words small, incremental changes will not be sufficient to satisfy the world's future energy needs. What we need is a technological breakthrough. Nanotechnology is the breakthrough that can bring orders of magnitude improvements. Nanotechnology has the greatest potential impact in the energy field. It offers some unprecedented opportunities in the creation of sustainable energy forms and greatly increasing the efficiency of transmission and generation of power. It offers new methods for extracting energy from different resources that are inexpensive and environmentally friendly. All current technologies that are used to extract energy are energy wasters, because most of the energy is used as heat. Two-thirds of gas in an automobile’s tank, for example, goes right out the radiator. Even the most efficient heat engines waste at least half the applied energy. Conventional batteries have low energy density and long recharge times.
Investment in nanotechnology should concentrate on new materials that can have profound and ramifying effects on energy efficiency, such as catalysts for energy generation or emissions scrubbing, membranes for fuel cells or huge storage capacitors, or new materials for strong, lightweight transmission lines and new kinds of lighting. Nanotechnology such as nanotubes, nanowires, and nanocomposites for batteries, will bring orders of magnitude improvements. Nanostructured membranes, nanohorn electrodes, and nanocatalysts will make fuel cells smaller and more affordable.
The impact of nanotechnology on the energy sector seems to be so large and diverse that most of it cannot be precisely described right now since nanotechnology is in the primary stage of development. But, from what we already know, it has the potential to revolutionize and transform the whole energy sector.
We know that in spite of great technological strides in the last three decades in the field of renewable energy, especially in solar energy, there are still serious obstacles to overcome before energy can be produced on a large scale from this source. That, of course, is due mainly to the problems of storage, production cost and efficiency.
Advances in nanotechnology can remove these obstacles and provide efficient, cost effective and scalable renewable energy resources. Experimental research has already shown that quantum dots (tiny nanoparticles only a few nanometers in size) are three times more efficient for solar energy conversion than the best material currently used for solar cells. And nanofoams showed to be very effective and improved isolation materials for energy saving.
As already mentioned above, one of the basic drawbacks with renewable energy, like solar energy, is that there is no effective storage devices that can store sufficient power usable at a later point in time, in addition of course to the high cost of the present storage systems.
Thus, an effective and reliable storage system is needed and it must have high power and high density to enable the devices to hold a large amount of energy, be able to deliver that energy at high power, and at the same time recharge rapidly.
Battery technology can be improved with nanotechnology (increasing output and decreasing size). There is already real progress with rechargeable batteries, both dry and wet that use nanostructured materials. Wet batteries use basically the same materials as for hydrogen storage, and are based on metal hydrides, where hydrogen is the chemical energy carrier, or carbon nanotubes. Different research groups have already demonstrated that those nanotech batteries can store energy several times more efficiently than conventional batteries. Nevertheless, there are still a few technical issues that have to be solved before perfect nanotech batteries can be made.
The benefits of nanotechnology for the development of an efficient energy storage system can be extended to hydrogen storage devices that will become increasingly important as several countries around the world are hoping to move towards a real application of the hydrogen economy in the coming years. The research in hydrogen storage technology has started in the 1960s and went through several trends. Since the 1990s most of the studies and researches are focusing mainly on nanostructured hydrides like carbon nanotubes, metal hydride-carbon nanocomposites…etc
However, one has to keep in mind that the transformation from one generation of energy technology to the next is a slow and gradual process. Nanotechnology will not be any different, therefore, the wise investment in the early stage of application of nanotechnology must be directed at making the existing resources, especially fossil fuels, more efficient rather than at the creation of entirely new supplies from solar and hydrogen based technologies.
According to certain studies the use of nanomaterials in energy saving technologies is expected to witness faster growth, around 80% of the market until the middle of the next decade, where the majority of the application will be in the transportation sector.
All energy sources can be improved and revolutionized with the application of this emerging technology, whether they be renewable or conventional sources. In other words, this new technology can reduce the waste, the cost, increases the efficiency of conventional energy sources by having better extracting methods and also save for both people and the environment. For instance, in the field of nuclear energy (nuclear fission) nanotechnology can help by improving the radiation resistance of materials. Primary energy sources that need to be transformed into heat, mechanical power or electricity can benefit from the application of nanotechnology because at present, there is no effective solution for the transformation of these energies. Fuel cells that transform hydrogen or other gases into electricity is well known, example. But there are other nanotechnology devices like catalysts and membranes for separating different types of gases. These can be used in fuel cells or other energy transforming technologies.
More importantly, however, I believe that new materials can be made that can allow the extraction of nuclear energy at low cost, low temperature and without the danger of radioactive waste. Nanotechnology is the right path for the realization of nuclear fusion. Proper nanostructured material is the vital ingredient in making the suitable nuclear fuel that will lead to the production of fusion energy at practical and much lower temperatures than fusion energy from ?thermonuclear reaction?, the illusionary dream that we have been chasing for 6 decades with no end in sight.
In spite of these great potentials and advantages for this emerging technology, it is not without its opponents, who are similar to the opponents of nuclear energy with their legitimate concerns about the radioactive waste, safety of nuclear reactors and nuclear proliferation. But in the case of nanotechnology most of the arguments of its critics who demand the suspension of its development are based on science fiction and pure speculations. Those people are mainly politicians and specialized researchers with a limited knowledge in a certain field of nanotechnology. In their debates they mainly use the issue of toxicology of nanoparticles.
Some types of nanoparticles have shown to be toxic in certain environments and this should not come as great surprise. We are in the initial stage of studying the characteristics of nanoparticles.
Toxicology is an important issue and it must be given the priority in any application of nanotechnology, but at the same time it must not be used as an excuse to delay the development of nanotechnology.
There are a few important things which the opponents of nanotechnology must understand. For a start, natural nanoparticles have always existed in nature. An interesting recent article in Nature magazine ? nanoparticles everywhere? explains this natural phenomenon: http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/?p=31 And in ancient times nanoparticles have already been used: ?Gold nanoparticles in ancient and contemporary ruby glass?. See Science Direct.
It is true we still do not have a clear understanding of the behaviors of some nanoparticles especially when they interact with biological cells or when some nanoparticles with specific sizes interact with certain materials. Therefore, research in the toxicology of nanoparticles is crucial and will lead to both clear and conclusive evidence about the harmful effects of types of nanoparticles and at the same time to the solution to these harmful effects based on a deeper understanding of the physical and chemical properties of those particles.
In his article "Nanotechnology - Good and Bad“ Mr. Karl Schwarz advised toxicology researchers to focus on the true effects of what current pollution has done to the environment and its toxicology on all life forms on this planet. "That is a far bigger threat to mankind than nanotechnology. Unlike our current technology, nanotechnology can be applied to reverse much of the harmful effects that the industrial and IT revolutions have left behind."
The opponents of nanotechnology would be more justified in their criticism to point out the danger of nanotech weapons on earth and in space. Nanotechnology has the potentials for creating the most evil and most destructive weapons imaginable. This technology has the potential to make all weapons of mass destruction more deadly. New generations of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons can be developed that are compact, undetectable and much more destructive.
Since the beginning of the 20th century and especially in the second half, we had so many scientific breakthroughs and inventions. Those technological breakthroughs and inventions have their technical drawbacks. Mainly the efficiency of engines and the energy conversion methods compare to projected capabilities of nanotechnology. But, even with that technology our world would have been a better place today, if the advanced nations of the world cooperated with each other and established a civilized economic order based on modern scientific tools and principles, humanitarianism and above all ecological considerations. That could have resulted in less people living in developing countries today and without those conflicts that are raging right now. Very few countries with small percentage of their population fully benefited from those scientific inventions, while most of them were exploited for military applications anyway, like uranium based weapons. Those few nations had to go to two devastating major wars in order to maintain their privileges. If that was not enough we just have to look to the stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that we have right now. Even small nations are now in a race against time to develop these weapons. It is only a matter of time before these weapons will be used, particularly if we consider the deteriorating economic environment and the rising geopolitical tensions over fossil fuel resources. We are living in an increasingly dangerous world not only because of these weapons but also because of increasing environmental deterioration. There are no words that can precisely describe the impact of pollutions in the atmosphere, on land or in the oceans that was caused mainly because of our economic and social backwardness rather than the backwardness of our technology. These are obvious facts to everybody and they show that any technological development is insufficient and in fact can be very dangerous without economic and social progress. Therefore, the real issue is not whether nanotechnology is good or bad but whether it is rationally used, serving social needs rather than corporate needs.
From a technical point view nanotechnology can provide clean energy resources and sustainable development. It has great potentials for transforming the technology of our present energy resources and creating new ones that are cleaner and saver. In a technical review paper I am currently writing - Green Energy Resources in the Age of Nanotechnology - those great potentials are explained in detail.
By taking a quick glance at our scientific and technological progress just over the last century, it is quite obvious the progress is moving with incredible speed. Our knowledge about life in general and the structure of matter in the universe is increasing every passing day. What is abundantly clear, however, from the analysis of our experiences and knowledge is that the whole nature of the universe and its fabrics is operating on the principle of good versus evil and as we move on and continue to discover these fabrics and engineer them in laboratory or try to form new materials from these fabrics, the decision to use these discoveries for evil purposes like making destructive weapons or good purposes like trying to achieve deeper understanding of life and our place in the universe will always be in our hands. That decision will be influenced by our educational level, social and economic development.
Therefore, scientific advances like nanotechnology cannot guarantee a bright future for mankind without deep social and economic reforms of our society.
Contact:
Email: Jamalshrair@yahoo.com; Jamal@eet.bme.hu
Nano for People
Nanoemulsion potent against superbugs that kill cystic fibrosis patients
A super-fine oil-and-water emulsion appears to quell the ravaging, often drug-resistant infections that cause nearly all cystic fibrosis deaths. Credit: University of Michigan Health System
University of Michigan scientists report highly encouraging evidence that a super-fine oil-and-water emulsion, already shown to kill many other microbes, may be able to quell the ravaging, often drug-resistant infections that cause nearly all cystic fibrosis deaths.
Cystic fibrosis is an inherited chronic lung disease that affects 30,000 children and adults in the United States. Patients have mucus-clogged lungs that leave them vulnerable to repeated, ever more serious respiratory infections.
"A key finding in the study is that we have a product that shows very good activity against a variety of bacteria that are very resistant to all known antibiotics. These really are superbugs," says John J. LiPuma, M.D., first and corresponding author of the study in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
The research is a collaboration between LiPuma, professor of pediatrics at the U-M Medical School, and James R. Baker Jr., M.D., director of the Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and Biological Sciences at U-M and the study's senior author. Nanoemulsions developed at Baker's institute consist of soybean oil, water, alcohol and surfactants forced by high-stress mechanical extrusion into droplets less than 400 nanometers in size.
These emulsions have already proved to be non-toxic, potent killers of bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, H. influenzae and gonorrhea, of viruses such as herpes simplex and influenza A, and of several fungi. Nanoemulsion treatments for cold sores and toenail fungus are in Phase 3 clinical trials.
"We have a product that looks like it could be safely administered to the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis," LiPuma says. If future trials show that patients can tolerate effective doses of the nanoemulsion, he adds, "This could be a major breakthrough in the treatment of cystic fibrosis."
The novel physical mode of action -- the nanoemulsion appears to kill bacteria by disrupting their outer membranes - makes developing resistance unlikely, LiPuma says.
"Given that this technology works differently from antibiotic drugs, it provides a potential alternative for treatment in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Since the material has already shown success in treating skin infections, we believe it has potential to treat antibiotic-resistant lung infections," says Baker.
If the technique proves safe and effective, people would inhale the nanoemulsion using a nebulizer and be able to reduce the severity and frequency of infections that spiral out of control due to resistance to current antibiotics.
Context
Increasingly, cystic fibrosis patients are receiving antibiotic treatments they inhale using a nebulizer, rather than taking them systemically. Localizing antibiotics to the lungs allows for higher concentrations, but resistance is still a major stumbling block. Antibiotic resistance is a bigger problem now than it was five or 10 years ago, and there are also more types of bacteria causing cystic fibrosis infections.
Not long ago, few people with cystic fibrosis lived to become adults. But improved treatments in recent decades now allow more people with the disease to survive into their 30s or 40s.
However, doctors have hit a wall in improving those prospects. About 95 percent of cystic fibrosis patients die as a result of uncontrollable infections. Drugs have trouble penetrating two barricades in the lungs: biofilms that bacteria form around them, and thick sputum present in the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis.
Research details
In cell cultures in the lab, the U-M scientists tested a nanoemulsion against 150 bacterial strains that attack cystic fibrosis patients. The emulsion proved effective at killing all of them, including one-third that are resistant to many antibiotics and 13 percent that resist all antibiotics.
They then tested the nanoemulsion against several bacterial strains grown in biofilms and sputum, to more closely simulate conditions in a patient's body. Antibiotics often can't penetrate biofilms and sputum unless given at high doses with unacceptable side effects.
"We saw, not surprisingly, that greater concentrations of nanoemulsion were required to kill the bacteria, but we saw no strains that were resistant," LiPuma says. Whether humans can tolerate those concentrations well remains to be seen.
LiPuma's lab, funded by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as a national reference lab, has collected more than 30,000 strains of bacteria from the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients. The lab receives samples from around the world for analysis.
What's next
The University of Michigan has filed for patent protection on the CF nanoemulsion, and licensed this technology to Ann Arbor-based NanoBio Corporation. Baker is a founder and equity holder of NanoBio. NanoBio and LiPuma's lab will cooperate in the next steps toward bringing the treatment to market. LiPuma is optimistic that if animal and human trials go well, a nanoemulsion treatment for cystic fibrosis infections could be available in as little as five years.
Citation: Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Jan. 2009, pp. 249-255.
Source: University of Michigan Health System
Global
Nanotechnology used to probe effectiveness of antibiotics
A group of researchers led by scientists from the London Centre for Nanotechnology, in collaboration with a University of Queensland researcher, have discovered a way of using tiny nano-probes to help understand how an antibiotic is effective against bacteria.
Bacteria such as MRSA (commonly known as Golden Staph) are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, posing a major community health problem.
Professor Matt Cooper, the Australian in the team, has this week joined the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at UQ on a $4 million Australia Fellowship.
Through the fellowship, he will establish a research program in the development of antibiotics and antifungals that are active against drug-resistant pathogens, in particular those responsible for hospital-acquired infections.
”It order to attack this problem we need to understand not only the ways in which bacteria develop and exhibit resistance to antibiotics, but also how new antibiotics can work to kill or slow the growth of resistant bacteria,“ Professor Cooper said.
To study antibiotic action, the London team made nano-probes coated with molecules found in bacterial cell walls from normal bacteria and bacteria resistant to antibiotics.
They then added doses of the ”last resort“ antibiotic, vancomycin, to the system and found that probes from normal bacteria were stressed and changed shape, whereas probes from resistant bacteria were only weakly affected. These bent probes could be detected with a laser, indicating that the antibiotic was applying a force to the surface.
This allowed the researchers to quickly assess the effectiveness of an antibiotic and propose new ways in which antibiotics may be acting to cause the bacteria to burst and die.
”This advance will help us to understand the mode of action of drugs targeted against resistant bacteria, and could also lead to rapid diagnostic tools and novel methods of investigating antibiotic action,“ Dr Cooper said.
”There is only a tiny molecular difference between resistant and non-resistant bacteria. We now know that these probes can detect that difference, and can do so within minutes.“
The system was able to detect that it is 1,000 times harder for vancomycin to attach to resistant bacteria than to non-resistant bacteria.
The team are now screening other novel antibiotics with the goal of finding a drug that is able to bind strongly to resistant bacteria and cause substantial structural weaknesses to the cell wall.
University College London researcher Dr Rachel McKendry, who led the team, said the findings had implications for improving the response to the bacteria.
”Investigating both these binding and mechanical influences on the cells’ structure could lead to the development of more powerful and effective antibiotics in future,“ Dr McKendry said.
The research was published late last year in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Provided by University of Queensland
NASA Invites Public to Choose Hubble's Next Discovery
Hubble Space Telescope
NASA is giving everyone the opportunity to use the world's most celebrated telescope to explore the heavens and boldly look where the Hubble Space Telescope has never looked before.
NASA is inviting the public to vote for one of six candidate astronomical objects for Hubble to observe in honor of the International Year of Astronomy. The options, which Hubble has not previously photographed, range from far-flung galaxies to dying stars. Votes can be cast until March 1. Hubble's camera will make a high resolution image revealing new details about the object that receives the most votes. The image will be released during the International Year of Astronomy's "100 Hours of Astronomy" from April 2 to 5.
Space enthusiasts can cast their vote at: http://YouDecide.Hubblesite.org
Everyone who votes also will be entered into a random drawing to receive one of 100 copies of the Hubble photograph made of the winning celestial body.
NASA also invites teachers and students to participate in an accompanying Hubble Space Telescope classroom collage activity that integrates art, science and language arts. Students in participating classes will select their favorite Hubble images and assemble them in a collage. Students in each class also will choose their favorite object from the image voting contest and write essays about why they made their selections.
The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, was designed so that it can be repaired in space by astronauts. The next servicing mission to the telescope is targeted to launch on space shuttle Atlantis May 12, 2009. Mission objectives include extending Hubble's operational life by five years, repairing its out-of-commission instruments and enhancing its scientific power. To do so, astronauts will replace gyroscopes and batteries on the telescope, repair the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Advanced Camera for Surveys and install two new instruments -- the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph.
For more information about the servicing mission, visit: http://hubble.nasa.gov/missions/sm4.php
For more information about the Hubble Space Telescope, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
Provided by NASA
Viscosity-Enhancing Nanomaterials May Double Service Life of Concrete
The barely visible blue-green area at the top of this X-ray image of concrete with the NIST nanoadditive shows that very few chloride ions (in green) penetrate into the concrete. Credit: NIST
Engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology are patenting a method that is expected to double the service life of concrete. The key, according to a new paper*, is a nano-sized additive that slows down penetration of chloride and sulfate ions from road salt, sea water and soils into the concrete. A reduction in ion transport translates to reductions in both maintenance costs and the catastrophic failure of concrete structures. The new technology could save billions of dollars and many lives.
Concrete has been around since the Romans, and it is time for a makeover. The nation’s infrastructure uses concrete for millions of miles of roadways and 600,000 bridges, many of which are in disrepair. In 2007, 25 percent of U.S. bridges were rated as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Damaged infrastructure also directly affects large numbers of Americans’ own budgets. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that Americans spend $54 billion each year to repair damages caused by poor road conditions.
Infiltrating chloride and sulfate ions cause internal structural damage over time that leads to cracks and weakens the concrete.
Past attempts to improve the lifetime of concrete have focused on producing denser, less porous concretes, but unfortunately these formulations have a greater tendency to crack. NIST engineers took a different approach, setting out to double the material’s lifetime with a project called viscosity enhancers reducing diffusion in concrete technology (VERDICT). Rather than change the size and density of the pores in concrete, they reasoned, it would be better to change the viscosity of the solution in the concrete at the microscale to reduce the speed at which chlorides and sulfates enter the concrete. ”Swimming through a pool of honey takes longer than making it through a pool of water,“ engineer Dale Bentz says.
They were inspired by additives the food processing industry uses to thicken food and even tested out a popular additive called xanthum gum that thickens salad dressings and sauces and gives ice cream its texture.
Studying a variety of additives, engineers determined that the size of the additive’s molecule was critical to serving as a diffusion barrier. Larger molecules such as cellulose ether and xanthum gum increased viscosity, but did not cut diffusion rates. Smaller molecules—less than 100 nanometers—slowed ion diffusion. Bentz explains, ”When additive molecules are large but present in a low concentration, it is easy for the chloride ions to go around them, but when you have a higher concentration of smaller molecules increasing the solution viscosity, it is more effective in impeding diffusion of the ions.“
The NIST researchers have demonstrated that the additives can be blended directly into the concrete with current chemical admixtures, but that even better performance is achieved when the additives are mixed into the concrete by saturating absorbant, lightweight sand. Research continues on other materials as engineers seek to improve this finding by reducing the concentration and cost of the additive necessary to double the concrete's service life.
A non-provisional patent application was filed in September, and the technology is now available for licensing from the U.S. government; the NIST Office of Technology Partnerships can be contacted for further details (Contact: Terry Lynch, terry.lynch@nist.gov, (301) 975-2691).
* D.P. Bentz, M.A. Peltz, K.A. Snyder and J.M. Davis. VERDICT: Viscosity Enhancers Reducing Diffusion in Concrete Technology. Concrete International. 31 (1), 31-36, January 2009.
Provided by NIST
New polymer coatings prevent corrosion, even when scratched
Illinois researchers Paul Braun, right, and Scott White have created self-healing coatings that automatically repair themselves and prevent corrosion of the underlying substrate. Photo by L. Brian Stauffer
Imagine tiny cracks in your patio table healing by themselves, or the first small scratch on your new car disappearing by itself. This and more may be possible with self-healing coatings being developed at the University of Illinois.
The new coatings are designed to better protect materials from the effects of environmental exposure. Applications range from automotive paints and marine varnishes to the thick, rubbery coatings on patio furniture and park benches.
"Starting from our earlier work on self-healing materials at the U. of I., we have now created self-healing coatings that automatically repair themselves and prevent corrosion of the underlying substrate," said Paul Braun, a University Scholar and professor of materials science and engineering. Braun is corresponding author of a paper accepted for publication in the journal Advanced Materials.
To make self-repairing coatings, the researchers first encapsulate a catalyst into spheres less than 100 microns in diameter (a micron is 1 millionth of a meter). They also encapsulate a healing agent into similarly sized microcapsules. The microcapsules are then dispersed within the desired coating material and applied to the substrate.
"By encapsulating both the catalyst and the healing agent, we have created a dual capsule system that can be added to virtually any liquid coating material," said Braun, who also is affiliated with the university's Beckman Institute, Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, department of chemistry, and Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory.
When the coating is scratched, some of the capsules break open, spilling their contents into the damaged region. The catalyst and healing agent react, repairing the damage within minutes or hours, depending upon environmental conditions.
The performance of the self-healing coating system was evaluated through corrosion testing of damaged and healed coated steel samples compared to control samples that contained no healing agents in the coating. Reproducible damage was induced by scratching through the 100-micron-thick polymer coating and into the steel substrate using a razor blade. The samples were then immersed in a salt solution and compared over time.
The control samples corroded within 24 hours and exhibited extensive rust formation, most prevalently within the groove of the scratched regions, but also extending across the substrate surface, the researchers report. In dramatic contrast, the self-healing samples showed no visual evidence of corrosion even after 120 hours of exposure.
"Our dual capsule healing system offers a general approach to self-healing coatings that operates across a broad spectrum of coating chemistries," Braun said. "The microcapsule motif also provides a delivery mechanism for corrosion inhibitors, antimicrobial agents, and other functional chemicals."
Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Nanotechnology and the Public
Nature Nanotechnology journal, through an advance online publication, has published three articles addressing nanotechnology and the public. The articles explore the public's reaction to nanotechnology and show how the reaction depends upon cultural predispositions, religiosity, and the specific application of the new technology. Each article was conducted by an independent group of researchers. The titles are as follows: Cultural Cognition of the Risks and Benefits of Nanotechnology; Deliberating the Risks of Nanotechnologies for Energy and Health Applications in the United States and United Kingdom; and, Religious Beliefs and Public Attitudes toward Nanotechnology in Europe and the United States. The articles can be viewed online at the link below.
http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html
Clothing with a brain: 'Smart fabrics' that monitor health
Researchers have developed a cost-effective procedure of making disease-detecting wearable fabrics, "smart fabrics." Above are microscopic images of the E-fibers. Credit: Credit: American Chemical Society
Researchers in United States and China are reporting progress toward a simple, low-cost method to make "smart fabrics," electronic textiles capable of detecting diseases, monitoring heart rates, and other vital signs.
A report on these straight-out-of-science-fiction-fibers, made of carbon nanotubes, is scheduled for the December 10 issue of ACS' Nano Letters.
In the new study, Nicholas A. Kotov, Chuanlai Xu, and colleagues point out that electronic textiles, or E-textiles, already are a reality. However, the current materials are too bulky, rigid, and complex for practical use. Fabric makers need simpler, more flexible materials to make E-fibers practical for future applications, they say.
The scientists describe development of cotton fibers coated with electrolytes and carbon nanotubes (CNT) — thin filaments 1/50,000 the width of a single human hair. The fibers are soft, flexible, and capable of transmitting electricity when woven into fabrics.
In laboratory tests, the researchers showed that the new E-fibers could light up a simple light-emitting diode when connected to a battery. When coated with certain antibodies, the fibers detected the presence of albumin, a key protein in blood — a function that could be used to detect bleeding in wounded soldiers. The fabrics could also help monitor diseases and vital signs, they say.
Article: "Smart Electronic Yarns and Wearable Fabrics for Human Biomonitoring made by Carbon Nanotube Coating with Polyelectrolytes", http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/jf8016095
Provided by American Chemical Society
Rolling out flexible displays for the mass market
OLEDS on packaging, for example, could show if it has been tampered with. Source: ROLLED
European researchers have developed a cost-effective method for manufacturing flexible displays in much the same way that newspapers are printed. Their work promises to revolutionise packaging, advertising and even clothing.
Ultra-thin and energy efficient displays that use organic compounds to emit light have been stirring up excitement in the consumer electronics industry for several years. Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) are already being used commercially in some high-end flat-screen televisions, offering superior image quality, wider viewing angles and lighter power consumption than the current generation of Liquid Cristal Display (LCD) and plasma flat-panel TVs. But OLEDs’ unique properties mean the displays using them can be put to a far wider range of uses, from electronic paper to adaptive clothing – so long as production costs can be brought down.
”Lowering production costs is extremely important if OLED devices are to become more widespread, and particularly if they are not just going to be restricted to high-end applications,“ explains Arto Maaninen, technical manager of the printed electronics department of the VTT Technical Research Centre in Finland.
Maaninen led the team of researchers behind the EU-funded ROLLED project, which developed a technique for manufacturing OLED devices at considerably lower cost than current methods.
Whereas the OLEDs now making their way into TV sets and some mobile devices are manufactured in a glass substrate, the ROLLED researchers print their OLEDs onto flexible protective films, a procedure known as roll-to-roll processing that allows thousands of devices to be rapidly and cost-effectively produced in a single ”print run.“
As part of their work, the researchers developed printable nano-particle indium tin oxide (ITO) coatings to form the anode, and they developed a new low-work function metal cathode, with the light-emitting organic layer sandwiched in between.
As an electric current passes from the anode to the cathode layer, the organic compound emits light that, depending on the application, can create a high-contrast TV image or a simple coloured sign. Each OLED sheet is just a fifth of a millimetre thick – equivalent to three or four sheets of paper.
”The biggest cost saving is on equipment. The equipment needed to print OLED displays is widely available, so the initial manufacturing costs are lower compared to other techniques. The material costs are about the same, but you can produce many more units in a much shorter period of time,“ Maaninen says. ”This brings down overall production costs three to five fold.“
Organic light everywhere
That opens the door to OLEDs finding their way into all manner of everyday items. The biggest of several markets for cheap, flexible OLED displays may be in product packaging. Sheets of them could, for example, be used to create more visible logos and more attractive promotional wrappings to differentiate products on supermarket shelves, or they could be used as part of ”smart packaging“ to improve product quality and safety.
”One demonstrator we developed consists of a two-colour OLED display: one showing a green tick, the other a red cross. It could be used on packaging to let consumers know if a product has been opened or tampered with,“ the ROLLED coordinator says.
The tiny amount of energy OLED devices need to operate mean they could be powered by a small watch battery, solar cells or even radio waves. ”It might be possible for a store to use its shelves as an RFID antenna that would power the OLEDs in the product packaging,“ Maaninen says.
The project team developed on that concept – an extension of Near Field Communication (NFC) – in another demonstrator that consisted of a simple business card showing the EU flag. A single-coloured OLED lit up the stars of the flag if a mobile phone with an RFID transmitter was placed near it.
Using flexible OLED displays in smart product packaging or even to replace paper billboard advertisements still remains some way off, however, as too does the vision of clothing embedded with OLEDs to display different messages, pictures or colours.
”Our flexible OLED devices could be used in clothes – the biggest barrier would be making them robust enough to survive being worn and put through a washing machine,“ Maaninen says.
Having developed the technical ability to produce flexible OLEDs roll to roll, the ROLLED project partners are now working to meet the needs and requirements of potential end applications. Their aim is to carry out the first market trials within the next two years.
ROLLED received funding under the ICT strand of the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme for research.
Link: http://www.vtt.fi/proj/rolled/index.jsp
Provided by ICT Results
Nano in Space:
Strange Clouds at the Edge of Space
August 25, 2008: When in space, keep an eye on the window. You never know what you might see.
Last month, astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) witnessed a beautiful display of noctilucent or "night-shining" clouds. The station was located about 340 km over western Mongolia on July 22nd when the crew snapped this picture:
Above: Noctilucent clouds photographed by the crew of the ISS: more.
Atmospheric scientist Gary Thomas of the University of Colorado has seen thousands of noctilucent cloud (NLC) photos, and he ranks this one among the best. "It's lovely," he says. "And it shows just how high these clouds really are--at the very edge of space."
He estimates the electric-blue band was 83 km above Earth's surface, higher than 99.999% of our planet's atmosphere. The sky at that altitude is space-black. It is the realm of meteors, high-energy auroras and decaying satellites.
What are clouds doing up there? "That's what we're trying to find out," says Thomas.
People first noticed NLCs at the end of the 19th century after the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. The Indonesian supervolcano hurled plumes of ash more than 50 km high in Earth's atmosphere. This produced spectacular sunsets and, for a while, turned twilight sky watching into a worldwide pastime. One evening in July 1885, Robert Leslie of Southampton, England, saw wispy blue filaments in the darkening sky. He published his observations in the journal Nature and is now credited with the discovery of noctilucent clouds.
Scientists of the 19th century figured the clouds were some curious manifestation of volcanic ash. Yet long after Krakatoa's ash settled, NLCs remained.
"It's a puzzle," says Thomas. "Noctilucent clouds have not only persisted, but also spread." In the beginning, the clouds were confined to latitudes above 50o; you had to go to places like Scandinavia, Siberia and Scotland to see them. In recent years, however, they have been sighted from mid-latitudes such as Washington, Oregon, Turkey and Iran:
Above: Noctilucent clouds over Mt. Sabalan, a 15,784 ft extinct volcano in northwestern Iran. Photo credit: Siamak Sabet.
"This year's apparition over Iran (pictured above) was splendid," says Thomas. The Persian clouds appeared on July 19th, just a few days before the ISS display, and were photographed from latitude 38o N. "That's pretty far south," he says.
The genesis and spread of these clouds is an ongoing mystery. Could they be signs of climate change? "The first sightings do coincide with the Industrial Revolution," notes Thomas. "But the connection is controversial."
NASA is investigating. The AIM satellite, launched in April 2007, is now in polar orbit where it can monitor the size, shape and icy make-up of NLCs. The mission is still in its early stages, but already some things have been learned. Thomas, an AIM co-Investigator, offers these highlights:
1. Noctilucent clouds appear throughout the polar summer, are widespread, and are highly variable on hourly to daily time scales. A movie made from daily AIM snapshots shows the 2007 NLC season unfolding over the north pole: watch it.
Above: A daily snapshot of noctilucent cloud activity over the North Pole in 2007. Credit: AIM/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.
2. There is a substantial population of invisible noctilucent clouds. Thomas explains: "NLCs are made of tiny ice crystals 40 to 100 nanometers wide—just the right size to scatter blue wavelengths of sunlight. This was known before AIM. The spacecraft has detected another population of much smaller ice crystals (< 30 nm) that don't scatter much sunlight." Clouds made of these smaller crystals are stealthy and hard to see, but a key part of the overall picture.
3. Some of the shapes in noctilucent clouds, resolved for the first time by AIM's cameras, resemble shapes in tropospheric clouds near Earth's surface. AIM science team members have described the similarities as "startling." The dynamics of weather at the edge of space may not be as unEarthly as previously supposed.
These findings are new and important, but they don't yet unravel the central mysteries:
Why did NLCs first appear in the 19th century?
Why are they spreading?
What is ice doing in a rarefied layer of Earth's upper atmosphere that is one hundred million times dryer than air from the Sahara desert?
AIM has just received a 3-year extension (from 2009 to 2012) to continue its studies. "We believe that more time in orbit and more data are going to help us answer these questions," says Thomas.
Meanwhile, it's a beautiful mystery. Just ask anyone at the edge of space.
For more photos visit:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/25aug_nlc.htm?list904253
Nano for Health
Nano-sized 'trojan horse' to aid nutrition
Researchers from Monash University have designed a nano-sized "trojan horse" particle to ensure healing antioxidants can be better absorbed by the human body.
Dr Ken Ng and Dr Ian Larson from the University's Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have designed a nanoparticle, one thousandth the thickness of a human hair, that protects antioxidants from being destroyed in the gut and ensures a better chance of them being absorbed in the digestive tract.
Antioxidants are known to neutralise the harmful effect of free radicals and other reactive chemical species that are constantly generated by our body and are thought to promote better health.
Normally our body's own antioxidant defence is sufficient, but in high-risk individuals, such as those with a poor diet or those at risk of developing atherosclerosis, diabetes or Alzheimer's disease, a nutritional source of antioxidants is required.
Dr Larson said orally delivered antioxidants were easily destroyed by acids and enzymes in the human body, with only a small percentage of what is consumed actually being absorbed.
The solution is to design a tiny sponge-like chitosan biopolymeric nanoparticle as a protective vehicle for antioxidants. Chitosan is a natural substance found in crab shells.
"Antioxidants sit within this tiny trojan horse, protecting it from attack from digestive juices in the stomach," Dr Larson said.
"Once in the small intestine the nanoparticle gets sticky and bonds to the intestinal wall. It then leaks its contents directly into the intestinal cells, which allows them to be absorbed directly into the blood stream.
"We hope that by mastering this technique, drugs and supplements also vulnerable to the digestive process can be better absorbed by the human body."
The research project will proceed to trials early in 2009.
Dr Ng said although the research was still in its early stages, the longer term aim of the project would be to include similarly treated nanoparticles into food items, similar to adding Omega-3 to bread or milk.
"For catechins – the class of antioxidants under examination and among the most potent dietary antioxidants -- only between 0.1 and 1.1 per cent of the amount consumed makes it into our blood. If we can improve that rate, the benefits are enormous."
Source: Monash University
Study shows increased education on nanotech, human enhancement increases public concerns
Educating the public about nanotechnology and other complex but emerging technologies causes people to become more "worried and cautious" about the new technologies' prospective benefits, according to a recent study by researchers at North Carolina State University.
A new study by researchers at North Carolina State University on public attitudes towards nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies shows that educating people about the new technologies results in those people becoming more concerned about the potential impact of the technologies.
The researchers, Dr. Michael D. Cobb, assistant professor of political science, and Dr. Patrick Hamlett, associate professor of science, technology and society and political science, gave questionnaires to study participants around the country to determine their position on emerging technologies with "human enhancement" applications – such as using nanotechnology to improve therapies for injuries and degenerative diseases. Nanotechnology is generally defined as technology that uses substances having a size of 100 nanometers or less (thousands of times thinner than a human hair), and is expected to have widespread uses in medicine, consumer products and industrial processes.
Cobb and Hamlett then put the participants through a deliberative forum in March 2008 that provided structured discussions and educational background on the technologies. The participants were then asked to fill out the same questionnaire they had been given before the deliberative forum and asked to provide policy recommendations on how to handle the emerging science.
In a recent presentation to the 10th Conference on Public Communication of Science, in Malmo, Sweden, Cobb noted that, compared to their pre-deliberation opinions, panelists "became more worried and cautious about the prospective benefits" of the human enhancement technologies. Prior to the deliberation, 82 percent of the participants were at least somewhat certain that the benefits of the technologies outweighed the risks – but that number dropped to 66 percent after the deliberation.
Cobb and Hamlett conducted the study, called the 2008 National Citizens' Forum on Human Enhancement, under a subcontract from the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University. The study was conducted at sites in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, New Hampshire and Wisconsin.
Cobb says the study is also important because it shows that deliberative forums are a viable tool for encouraging informed public engagement in the development of governmental policies. This is significant because there have been questions in the past about whether "ordinary citizens" are able to engage in useful deliberation – or whether collective opinions developed during group deliberation are worse than if the deliberation had never taken place.
The driver for the study was to develop a format for informed interaction about the trajectories of science and technology policies as those policies are being developed, Cobb says, so that the public's concerns are incorporated into the policy development process.
Source: North Carolina State University
Freeing light shines promise on energy-efficient lighting
The latest bright idea in energy-efficient lighting for homes and offices uses big science in nano-small packages to dim the future Edison's light bulb.
In the August issue of Nature Photonics, available online, scientists at the University of Michigan and Princeton University announce a discovery that pushes more appealing white light from organic light-emitting devices.
More white light is the holy grail of the next generation of lighting. The innovation in the paper "Enhanced Light Out-Coupling of Organic Light-Emitting Devices Using Embedded Low-Index Grids" describes a way to deliver significantly more bright light from a watt than incandescent bulbs.
"Our demonstration here shows that OLEDs are a very exciting technology for use in interior illumination," said Stephen Forrest, U-M professor of electrical engineering and physics and vice president for research. "We hope that white emitting OLEDs will play a major role in the world of energy conservation."
Forrest and co-author Yuri Sun, visiting U-M from Princeton University, have wrestled with a classic problem in the new generation of lighting called white organic light-emitting devices, or WOLED: Freeing the light generated, but mostly trapped, inside the device.
A lighting primer: Incandescent light bulbs give off light as a by-product of heat. The light is appealing, but inefficient, putting out 15 lumens of light for every watt or electricity.
The best fluorescent tube lights put out some 90 lumens of light per watt, but the light can be harsh, the fixtures are expensive, and the tubes lose their efficiency with age. And they rely on many environmentally unfriendly substances such as mercury.
WOLEDs show promise of providing a light that's much easier to manipulate, while being long lasting and able to provide in different shapes, from panels to bulbs and more. WOLEDs generate white light by using electricity to send an electron into nanometer thick layers of organic materials that serve as semiconductors. These carbon-based materials are dyes, the ones used in photographic prints and car paint, so they are very inexpensive, and can be put on plastic sheets or metal foils, further reducing costs.
The excited electron in these layers casts bright white light. The bad news, Forrest said, has been that some 60 percent of it is trapped inside the layers, much the way light under water reflects back into the pool, making the water surface seem like a mirror when viewed from underneath.
The Nature Photonics paper describes a tandem system of organic grids and micro lenses that guide the light out of the thin layers and into the air. The grids refract the trapped light, bouncing it into a layer of dome-shaped lenses that then pull the light out.
This process---all of which is packed into a lighting sandwich roughly the thickness of a sheet of paper---was shown to emit approximately 70 lumens from a single watt of power.
More light out means getting more bang for the electricity buck, a crucial question since 22 percent of the U.S. electricity consumption is lighting.
"If you can change the light efficiency by just a few percentage points, there's a few less coal plants you'll need," Forrest said.
Reducing the amount of coal-generated electricity and finding more efficient ways to power appliances and lighting is one of the focuses of U-M's Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, and the WOLED work is one example of how science can open new doors in conservation, said Gary Was, institute director.
"That energy efficient lighting can be made from the same materials as car paint and that they can be made in such thin, formable sheets boggles the mind," Was said. "This is one of many exciting creations that research is giving us in the pursuit of energy efficiency. This is also the kind of innovation that is required in the drive for energy sustainability.
Forrest said WOLED work isn't done yet. The fun part, he said, is that WOLEDs can be framed in different forms.
"Plugging into a wall at low voltage, putting it on a flexible metal foil, or on plastic that won't break when you drop it," Forrest said. "This is what makes it so fun because it's such a unique lighting source."
The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through a subcontract from the University of Southern California and by Universal Display Corp.
Forrest is part of the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, which develops, coordinates and promotes multidisciplinary energy research and education at U-M. He also is on the scientific advisory board of Universal Display Corp.
The next challenge, he said, is to reduce the cost, which currently is too high to be commercially competitive.
"You have to be able to do this dirt cheap, Forrest said. "People don't spend much for their light bulbs."
Provided by University of Michigan
An alternative to chemotherapy: Nanoparticles tackle pediatric brain tumors
An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, led by Karen L. Wooley, Ph.D., James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences, is a step closer to delivering cancer-killing drugs to pediatric brain tumors, similar to the tumor that Senator Ted Kennedy is suffering from.
Such tumors are often difficult to completely remove surgically; frequently, cancerous cells remain following surgery and the tumor returns. Chemotherapy, while effective at treating tumors, often harms healthy cells as well, leading to severe side effects especially in young children that are still developing their brain functions.
In an effort to solve this problem, the Wooley lab has developed polymeric nanoparticles that can entrap doxorubicin, a drug commonly used in chemotherapy, and slowly release the drug over an extended time period. By tuning the polymer composition, they were able to tailor the release rate of the drug and improve its solubility.
The work was published in Chemical Communications and supported by The Children's Discovery Institute of St. Louis Children's Hospital and by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health as a Program of Excellence in Nanotechnology.
With their approach, the Wooley lab was able to load more doxorubicin into the cores of the nanoparticles, compared with similar constructs.
" Typically, a polymeric micelle has three to four percent [drug] loading per nanoparticle mass. In our case, we achieved 18 to 19 percent for our nanoparticles," said Andreas Nystrom, Ph.D., a post-doctoral associate, supported by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, who worked on the project.
However, the nanoparticles carrying the doxorubicin were not as effective at killing cancer cells compared to the neat drug, because in these initial nanoparticles, no targeting groups were included and also the entire drug payload of the nanoparticle is not released. The identification and attachment of targeting ligands onto the nanoparticles and the rate and extent of drug release are now what the researchers will concentrate on and seek to improve. Ligands in this application are comprised of peptides and antibodies that bind to specific cell receptors over-expressed in cancer cells.
The cell studies were performed in vitro by Zhiqiang (Jack) Xu, Ph.D., a post-doctoral associate, together with Professor Jeff Leonard, M.D., in the Department of Neurological Surgery and Professor Sheila Stewart, Ph.D., in the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, each in the School of Medicine at Washington University. Ultimately, in vivo, the nanoparticles are expected to target the tumors through the use of active targeting ligands and also through passive diffusion, as particles are well known to be taken up selectively into tumors by a process called the enhanced permeability and retention effect. The amount of drug released from the nanoparticles "might be enough for the intended therapy, if side effects are limited by selective tumor targeting," Nystrom said.
For these drug-filled nanoparticles to be effective for treating brain tumors, one challenge remains—decorating the nanoparticles with signatures that direct them to the tumors and away from healthy cells, a process known as tissue specific targeting. Once attached to the tumor, the nanoparticles can release their deadly contents, killing the cancer cells and leaving the healthy cells unharmed.
"Everything depends on getting the nanoparticle to the tissue (tumor) of choice," said Nystrom.
Wooley agrees. "We have been studying these nanoparticles for some time now as a platform technology, achieving high radiolabeling efficiencies and demonstrating variable bio-distributions through a collaboration with the laboratory of Professor Mike Welch, in the Department of Radiology," she said. " Now, we are poised to take advantage of the progress made to develop the particles for diagnosis and treatment of several diseases.
"In this latest work, the nanoparticles were designed with thermally tunable core properties to serve as a host system that retains drug molecules at room temperature and then releases the cargo at physiological temperature, with a controlled drug release profile. The results are highly promising and are allowing us to move forward to a fully functional, tumor-targeted drug delivery device. The key to making this happen is the interdisciplinary team of investigators, each of whom brings a different chemical, biological or medical expertise."
Source: Washington University in St. Louis
Visual technology enables brain to learn in new ways
New technology at Tufts University's Center for Scientific Visualization is enabling researchers to translate the most abstract, complex scientific concepts into clearer, more precise 3-dimensional images than conventional visualization systems can create.
Funded by a $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Tufts' new 14-foot by 8-foot visualization display offers a combination of advanced features found nowhere else in New England and in only a few other installations in the country. Its application will further Tufts' research and educational programs in diverse disciplines, from mathematics and physics to human factors engineering, and even drama and dance.
Brain's Untapped Capacity for Visuals
"Users will be able to manipulate, simulate, touch and literally immerse themselves in data in a way they never have been able to before," said Amelia Tynan, vice president and chief information officer and co-principal investigator on the grant.
Visualization is built on the age-old premise -- borne out by modern cognitive science -- that pictures say as much as, or even more than, words.
The human brain has a powerful, often underutilized capacity to process visuals, noted Robert Jacob, computer science professor and co-principal investigator on the project. A large portion of the brain processes visuals, and visualization technology puts that ability to work. "The brain absorbs a lot more information when it's presented in pictures rather than in stacks of data from a computer," Jacob said. This, he says, enables researchers and students to recognize things more quickly and also develop insights about what's going on with the data.
Unusual Combination of Technologies
While visualization is widely used in science, Tufts' "VisWall" offers unusually robust capabilities by combining advanced features not typically found together.
Housed at Tufts' School of Engineering but available to the entire university, the seamless wall features a high resolution display system that uses rear projection in order to enhance the amount of detail that is visible. Most visualization systems use several projectors at once or multiple, tiled screens to display images. Tufts' uses just a single screen with close to 9 megapixels resolution (4,096 x 2,169 pixels) and two projectors (with overlapping fields of projection) to create high- resolution images and animation.
By using a single screen and two projectors, Tufts is able to produce ultra-high resolution images -- including 3-D images -- that appear smoother and without seams. Images projected at a higher resolution reveal fine, minute details that would be imperceptible on a screen with fewer pixels or tiled images. The VisWall's projectors are equipped with Infitec filters to minimize ghosting, in which an image appears to include elements of another image. Ghosting is a common drawback with conventional polarized filters.
In addition, the Tufts system can combine the sense of touch with that of sight through haptic devices that convey varying levels of resistance to the user when he or she touches graphical objects on the display wall. This also allows Tufts researchers to create virtual environments, such as the human body for surgical simulations that can be physically manipulated and transformed.
Order in Chaos
Tufts faculty have already discovered applications of the new technology. Mathematics Professor Boris Hasselblatt made a surprising find while viewing a mathematical model of butterfly populations as they fluctuated through successive generations. The model, used for research in dynamical systems theory, is based on a simple formula and is well-known to anyone familiar with chaos theory.
Visualizing the large population dataset with the 14-foot-wide, high-resolution graphical display enabled Hasselblatt to detect anomalies impossible to perceive with conventional displays: subtle traces of curving lines that he said indicated irregularities in variations in the population. The lines extended over different areas of the model and then converged at one distinct point.
Hasselblatt has looked at smaller images of this classic model many times during the last 20 years but had never recognized this convergence. He has not yet determined the implications of this discovery, but he said the pattern reflects order in what mathematicians have always thought to be a progression of chaotic cycles. "The pattern is so subtle that it's imperceptible but in this rendition the resolution is fine enough that I can easily see it," he said.
Bruce Boghosian, chairman of the mathematics department at Tufts and principal investigator on the NSF grant, said that the VisWall will benefit his study of fluid dynamics. Visualization capabilities can help him and his fellow researchers better understand fluid flow.
"You can go right up to streamlines in a fluid or dig into a reservoir and see which way it's flowing," said Boghosian. "That's the direction we would like to move in. You can imagine all kinds of other uses for something like that."
Virtual Surgery
The VisWall will also aid Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Caroline Cao. Her goal is to develop more robust laparoscopic surgical training systems in which 3-D computer simulations enable surgeons in training to feel as well as see.
She and her team, including senior Kyle Maxwell, have already developed software that enables users to remove a "tumor" during a simulated procedure. With the haptic device, these virtual surgeons receive force feedback when touching a hard surface, such as a tumor or bone, and a soft, deformable surface, such as tissue. The reaction is determined by the parameters provided by the model, which is based on real material properties.
Cao, who is director of the human factors program in the School of Engineering, said she wants to develop more anatomical features in the models. She also hopes to develop software that will simulate more complicated virtual procedures like heart surgery and colonoscopy. The VisWall's size, resolution and 3-D capability will greatly help in her work.
"Imagine the difference between simulating a virtual environment on a computer screen and one on a visualization wall -- the difference is tremendous," she said. "That's what large-scale visualization gives us, a capacity to create a richer immersion experience."
From Particle Physics to the "Lord of the Rings"
Similar benefits could be gained by physicist Austin Napier. His work in high energy physics relies on the ability to process huge streams of data from organizations like Switzerland's CERN, the world's largest particle physics laboratory. Tufts' VisWall will enable him to visualize on a single display what would otherwise require multiple computers.
Tynan said she expects the VisWall to become a resource for the broad range of academic disciplines at Tufts. She envisions scientists and engineers collaborating with faculty from the arts or humanities.
Boghosian brings up the example of the character Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings." Actor Andy Serkis' movements were tracked and translated to the digital rendering of the creature in the film. Similar technology is now available through the VisWall, which goes beyond traditional 3-D rendering to create a true virtual reality environment.
"Imagine taking the ability to do something like that and applying it to drama and dance," Boghosian mused. "Imagine taking the ability to do something like that and trying to use it for facial recognition or occupational therapy or many other fields. We haven't really even begun to explore those kinds of things yet."
Source: Tufts University
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