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New Pain Pills Made From Sea-Snail Spit Could Be More Powerful than Morphine

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:14:24 +0000

Call it a new form of rapture of the deep. Chemicals from sea snail saliva can be made into pain pills that work as well as morphine, but without the risk of addiction, a new study says.

Researchers have already used the saliva of marine cone snails as a potent painkiller, but it has to be injected into the spinal cord with a special implanted pump, which limits its use. Researchers led by David J. Craik of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Australia figured out how to make the peptide orally active, so patients could simply pop snail-saliva pills.

Snails' saliva contains conotoxins, which are peptide toxins that interrupt various biological functions. Snails inject it into their prey using needle-like teeth that shoot from their mouths like harpoons, according to a report on the findings by the American Chemical Society.

Although peptides can be very potent drugs, they're difficult to use as pharmaceuticals because they are unstable and not typically available orally. But Craik's group found that "cyclizing" larger peptides -- basically tying them into loops -- can make them functional in pill form.

The research is reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, published by the German Chemical Society.

Craik's team used a string of six amino acids to tie the peptide together, because the amino acids don't interfere with the peptide's function. When the team tested it in rats, they found even a tiny dose was as potent as gabapentin, the most popular drug for neuropathic pain.

Other work on peptide painkillers includes manipulating scorpion venom to numb specific kinds of pain.

Craik has worked on naturally occurring cyclized peptides, which he calls cyclotides, since the 1990s, ACS says. They exist in several examples in nature, but the cyclized snail saliva peptide marks a new step in bioengineering drugs.

The next step is to start testing the use of saliva pills as a drug, Craik says.

[Chemical & Engineering News]

Reducing Soot Might Be Shortcut to Reverse Climate Change, New Study Says

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:19:23 +0000

The quickest way to slow the melting of Arctic sea ice is through reducing soot emissions, according to a new study of soot's climate effects. Eliminating soot entirely could undo nearly a century of global warming, the study says.

Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson is the latest in a line of scientists to suggest reducing soot to slow global warming. He says it is second only to carbon dioxide in its ability to warm the climate -- it's even more powerful than methane, according to his models.

He found the combination of both types of soot is the second leading cause of global warming, and that if it disappeared tomorrow, the Earth would immediately start to cool off. Average global temperatures would drop within 15 years by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, he found.

Jacobson's latest models, honed over 20 years, included the effects of black and brown soot particles that absorb solar radiation. He analyzed the impacts of soot from fossil fuels and from solid biofuels, including wood, dung and other solid biomass used in home heating and cooking in the developing world.

It wouldn't be hard to reduce soot -- particle traps on vehicles and industrial equipment would be a quick fix, Jacobson says. His work is published this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres). Still, the debate is unsettled over soot's global warming potential -- a key metric for climate models.

In June, researchers from Princeton University published a study in PNAS that also assessed the climate effects of soot, and found that nations must take aggressive action to reduce it if they are to meet international climate policy goals.

But a different report in May by scientists at Georgia Tech, Caltech and Carnegie Mellon University found that soot can have both warming and cooling effects.

Soot consists of myriad particles, but its two main components are black carbon and organic carbon. Black carbon is dark and thus absorbs radiation, which warms the atmosphere and the Earth's surface when it falls on snow. This is especially problematic in the Arctic. On the other hand, organic carbon is lighter and reflective, so it has a cooling effect. Both types of carbonaceous aerosols can affect cloud formation, and that can have a cooling effect, too.

Jacobson's model is the first global model to use mathematical equations to describe the interactions of soot particles in cloud droplets. He says the net effect is that of warming.

The debate about soot's climate role has raged since at least 2003, when a NASA simulation claimed soot was responsible for 25 percent of the past century's observed warming.

Last year, a study in Nature Geoscience suggested that soot was to blame for almost half of a 3.4-degree Fahrenheit rise in average Arctic temperatures since 1890, Wired notes.

Wired's science blog quotes NASA climatologist James Hansen, one of the first scientists to study soot's climate role, who says reducing soot could help retain existing Arctic sea ice. But it's only a stopgap measure, Hansen says.

The debate is far from over. Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new rules for soot-forming emissions from power plants, and the agency is embarking on its own soot study soon.

[PhysOrg, Wired Science]

Strained Graphene Creates Pseudo-Magnetic Fields Stronger Than Any Before Seen

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:17:54 +0000

Graphene Nanobubble Graphene nanobubbles can create strong pseudo-magnetic fields, a new study says. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Putting the right kind of strain on a patch of graphene can make super-strong pseudo-magnetic fields, a new study says. The finding sheds new light on the properties of electromagnetism, not to mention the odd properties of graphene, according to researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. When graphene is stretched to form "nanobubbles," the stress causes electrons to behave as if they were subject to huge magnetic fields, the size of which have never been seen in a lab before. The study is published today in the journal Science.

Michael Crommie, a senior scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab and a physics professor at the University of California-Berkeley, says this is a completely new effect that has no counterpart in any other condensed matter system.

Since scientists began studying magnetic fields more than 100 years ago, no one has been able to sustain big magnetic fields for very long. The record is 85 tesla -- a measurement of electromagnetism named for Nikola Tesla -- and it only lasted a few thousandths of a second. Make it stronger than that, and the magnets blow themselves apart.

But in Crommie's study, electrons inside carbon atoms behaved as if they were subjected to 300 tesla. It has to do with the way graphene is constructed, which leaves one out of every four valence electrons free to hop around. The other three electrons form tight hexagonal chains. When graphene sheets are strained -- for instance, when they're rolled up into carbon nanotubes or stretched into nanobubbles -- the bond lengths between atoms change, and electrons hop differently.

The effect is so strong that it works at room temperature. Berkeley Lab's news site has a more detailed description here.

The finding could lead to better electronic and magnetic devices, Crommie says. Controlling where electrons exist and how they move is an essential feature of all electronic devices, he notes.

"New types of control allow us to create new devices, and so our demonstration of strain engineering in graphene provides an entirely new way for mechanically controlling electronic structure in graphene," he says.

[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]

IKAROS Solar-Sail Craft Successfully Steers With Strategically Placed LCDs, Using No Propellant

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:30:00 +0000

IKAROS's Attitude-Shifting LCD Scheme JAXA

Japan's IKAROS spacecraft is still solar sailing its way across the solar system in a proof of concept experiment that has gone, by all outward appearances, extremely well thus far. Marking another milestone for the mission, JAXA (Japan's space agency) announced earlier this week the completion of another successful experiment as IKAROS executed attitude control using thin LCD panel devices built into the edges of its membrane-like solar sail.

One thing that may go unnoticed when you look at static images of IKAROS is that the sail rotates as the spacecraft glides along, collecting photons from sunlight as it goes to keep its forward momentum. IKAROS usually corrects its attitude via onboard thrusters attached to its main body, but if long-term space sailing is to become reality mission handlers need a way to create a disparity between the thrust on one part of the sail's surface versus the rest of the sail.

To do this, JAXA researchers built eight blocks of thin liquid crystal panels into the edges of the solar sail, two on each edge. The panels are designed to be operated independently, so the LCDs can be activated on any part of the sail while on other parts they remain off. When activated, the LCDs reflect the incoming photons straight back, producing increased forward thrust; when deactivated, the incoming light is diffused, decreasing pressure on that portion of the sail.

In this way, mission controllers can keep sunlight pressure on a certain fixed spot by activating and deactivating LCDs even as the sail spins, causing a gradual shift in the craft's attitude. The experiment continues, but for now it seems that JAXA engineers have figured out how to control the direction of a solar sailing spacecraft without using up precious propellant. That brings us one step closer to serious deep space travel beyond the boundaries imposed on conventional spacecraft by their limited fuel capacities.

[JAXA]

A Homemade, Open-Source Scanning Tunneling Electron Microscope

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:11:27 +0000

Imagine being able to examine anything you want, at the atomic level, in your living room. If Sacha De'Angeli gets his way, a scanning tunneling electron microscope -- currently just the domain of research labs -- will be something you can order off the Web, as an easy-to-assemble, open-source kit, for about $1000.

Scanning tunneling electron microscopes -- or STMs, for short -- are sophisticated imaging tools used in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The heart of the device is a conductive tip, which is guided over the surface to be observed, at a very tiny distance. An applied voltage means that a current flows between the tip and the surface, and the variation of the current reveals clues about the structure of the surface. A computer hooked to the STM processes the data, generating an image of the sample.

De'Angeli, a 34-year-old tinkerer living in Chicago who runs a website called Chemhacker, came up with the idea for the open-source STM while experimenting with creating nanoparticles in his house. He began building the STM in October, at his home and at a nearby hack space called Pumping Station: One, with the assistance of his friends Jordan Bunker and Tim Saylor. "I was trying to make a ferrofluid, and I sort of built a cool recipe to do it, but I wasn't exactly sure if I made the actual nanoparticles," De'Angeli says. "You can't tell what they look like without an electron microscope. Obviously a $30,000 machine isn't something I can afford for a hobby. I found these projects where people had built scanning tunneling electron microscopes for really not very much money. I started this project I found, that dates back to 2003 by John Alexander, and I started to modernize it a bit."

Several homegrown recipes abound for building scanning tunneling electron microscopes. One such project, from a research group at the University of Muenster in Germany, is called the SXM; through their website, you can buy a construction kit for 985 euros. But many of these projects, designed by academics, rely on pricey external hardware -- like signal generators and oscilloscopes -- that the average person might not have. They also don't always use the most up-to-date technology, and while some have released schematics, none of them are open source. De'Angeli's project is designed to stand alone, and it is entirely open source, relying on the Arduino, the popular open-source microcontroller board, which is in active use for thousands of projects around the globe. A Python script takes the raw data and pulls it into an image file. D'Angeli's hope is that average folks -- people not affiliated with science departments at all -- will start making and using their own STMs at home.

De'Angeli is presenting his project this week at the Open Science Summit in Berkeley. He is careful to note that the open-source STM is still a work in progress, and its first images should be forthcoming within the next few months. "There's probably some big scary problem that I haven't been able to think about yet, that's probably going to come up and bite me," he says. Considering his tremendous progress so far, it should be finished any time now. "I don't know the limits of it," he says. "It's kind of exciting to see what people will make with it."

Tested: Pro-Style Interchangeable Lenses Squeeze onto Tiny Digicams

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:14:43 +0000

Even a great camera won't take memorable shots if it's so big that you tend to leave it at home. So companies are creating models that aim for a happy medium between pocketable point-and-shoots and higher-quality SLRs. This new breed can change lenses to suit a shot, like an SLR does, but ditches the optical viewfinder and the bulky mirror that sends it light. That means compromise: Autofocus isn't SLR-fast, there are fewer lenses, and point-and-shoots are still smaller. We tested which interchangeable-lens compacts (ILCs) hit the sweet spot.

Olympus E-PL1

BODY SIZE: 4.5 x 2.8 x 1.6 in.
THE FEATURES: The E-PL1 is one of the most compact cameras to use a format called Micro Four Thirds, which started the slimming ILC trend in late 2008. Its image sensor is smaller than most digital SLRs-about 7/10 the size-yet about nine times that of a point-and-shoot.
THE PICTURES: The small sensor still snaps outstandingly crisp, sharp photos. But it does generate a lot of image noise-grainy spots most apparent in low-light pics. In the end, the E-PL1 is mainly for users who put a premium on petite.
GET IT: $600 (with lens); olympusamerica.com

Samsung NX10

BODY SIZE: 4.8 x 3.4 x 1.6 in.
THE FEATURES: Samsung's first ILC uses the same size sensor as an SLR, outmeasuring the Olympus. Unfortunately, the camera is also larger, partly because it builds in an electronic viewfinder (a tiny LCD eyepiece to mimic an SLR's window) that, sadly, blurs when it moves quickly.
THE PICTURES: The larger sensor does the trick for eliminating grainy image noise. The NX10's overall image quality is on par with a similarly priced SLR. On the other hand, it's not much smaller, and its autofocus is slower.
GET IT: $700 (with lens); samsung.com

Editor's Pick: Sony NEX-5

BODY SIZE: 4.4 x 2.4 x 1.6 in.
THE FEATURES: The Sony combines the Olympus's small body with the Samsung's sensor size and adds some tricks. It takes 1080i high-def videos (the others do 720p) and autofocuses while filming. It fires seven shots per second, and its high-dynamic-range mode catches detail in bright scenes.
THE PICTURES: The photo quality is about the same as the Samsung's, and although the autofocus speed still lags behind an SLR's, it's close. That, plus its near-pocketability and fun features, makes it an exceptional camera-and the best of the bunch.
GET IT: From $650 (with lens); sony.com

Also see our guide to using vintage Leica lenses with the current generation of interchangeable lens digitals.

Bio-Scaffold Regenerates Rabbit Joints In Vivo While the Rabbits Run

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:18:49 +0000

Rabbit Joints Regenerated Using a scaffold inside a living rabbit, researchers were able to stimulate the rabbit's own stem cells to regrow injured joints. via Technology Review

Though artificial-joint tech is pretty advanced these days, with titanium hips and knees built to last a decade or more, they won't last forever -- and aging patients will have to go back under the knife for upgrades. Naturally re-growing their own bones would be a nice alternative.

For the first time, researchers have proven this can work, by stimulating the body's own stem cells to re-grow joint tissue around an implantable scaffold. In a study published this week in the journal Lancet, scientists report the technique successfully regenerated joints in living rabbits, even as the joints were being used.

Columbia University researchers, funded by the National Institutes of Health, removed forelimb thigh joints from 10 rabbits and made 3-D models of them. They added criss-crossed microchannels to serve as a scaffold, Technology Review reports.

They added a growth factor protein to the scaffolds and implanted them in the rabbits' forelegs, following the same surgical procedure used to implant titanium replacement joints. The growth protein drew the rabbits' own stem cells to the location of the missing joint, where they regenerated bone and cartilage.

Within four weeks, the rabbits were able to walk around normally, the researchers say.

The work simply proves the concept, and much more work needs to be done before this technique could be tried in humans, according to Columbia scientist Jeremy Mao, who led the research. Two-legged creatures place much more pressure on their leg joints, and people in need of joint replacement may have other medical issues that could affect joint regeneration.

Still, as Tech Review notes, the finding is promising. Re-growing cartilage and bone even while the joints are in use could mean a simpler and longer-lasting solution for joint replacement.

[Eurekalert, Technology Review]

This Week in the Future: A Compendium

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:42:40 +0000

39 Golden Greats Baarbarian

Our tireless This Week in the Future artist, Baarbarian, he who prognosticates so vividly with his pen here each Friday, is taking a well-deserved week off. It's a fine time to enjoy the magnificent weekly drawings he's been doing here for close to a year now.

So behold, 39 expert distillations of a week's futuristic news:

Click to launch the photo gallery

No contest this time--everyone who's won in recent weeks, you're prize is being processed.

Thanks as always for reading and have a great weekend, all.

The Army's New Robotic Tentacle Manipulator Uses Teams of Snakebots to Manipulate Objects

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:36:35 +0000

The Robotic Tentacle Manipulator T'Jae Gibson

Snake-like robots are nothing new -- for instance, Virginia Tech has developed some pretty amazing pole-climbing snakebots, and the Israeli military has a weaponized recon 'bot in the works -- but the U.S. Army Research Lab is taking military snakebots to a new level. Its Robotic Tentacle Manipulator is using snakebot tech to develop a scalable system in which several robots work in unison to manipulate objects.

Like many of its counterparts, the individual RTM snake can slither into tight spaces, climb impassible obstacles, or swim where soldiers cannot, all the while beaming back images to the soldier controlling it by remote. Each snake is equipped with a sensor array, not least of which is a LIDAR scanner that lets it render 3-D depictions of objects, landscapes, or faces.

But the snakes also work in groups, acting more like fingers or the tentacles of an octopus. Arranging several of them on a circular base creates an array that can gingerly pick up, rotate, and inspect an IED or possibly even open a door -- a seemingly simple task that falls outside the capabilities of most robotic platforms. Its touch sensitivity allows it to do delicate work -- you don't want to squeeze a live munition, for instance -- yet in tandem the snakes could be reasonably strong.

The developmental hardware that the RTM program is currently working with spun out of research into snakebots conducted in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and consists of three 9.5-inch tentacles and a large screen laptop for the operator. The master program runs advanced algorithms that are able to manipulate the motors in each link of the snakes to work in concert as though they belong to single organism. But the system is completely scalable, so a small custom array could be designed to give the Army's Warrior robot system a more dexterous "hand," while larger tentacle arrays could be fitted to larger vehicles or robots.

[U.S. Army via CNET]

World Population to Hit 7 Billion Next Year

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:59:39 +0000

The Population Reference Bureau has projected that in 2011, the planet Earth will be home to more than seven billion living humans. At current growth rates, we'll top 9 billion in 2050. By that year, the population of Africa is expected to double, and that of Asia to grow by 1.3 billion.

The world's population is growing unevenly too, the projection states. In a continuing trend, economically developing countries are growing faster, while the populations of developed nations are aging, and their workforces diminishing relative to their elderly populations.

[The New York Times]