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Issue no. 37, 2007 Published: Nov 16, 2007
Hydrogen brewing gets an electrical boost
Molecular 'amplifier' boosts DNA computing
Nanotube fibres toughen up
Dew-harvesting 'web' conjures water out of thin air
'Wormholes' could be made from exotic materials
Researchers turn to 'executable biology'
Paralysed man's mind is 'read'
Japan's melody roads play music as you drive

Hydrogen brewing gets an electrical boost
A new microbe-powered device can extract up to 99% of the available hydrogen from biological compounds that have stumped previous attempts to ferment fuel from plant waste. The secret is to give the bugs a helping hand with a kick of electric charge. The microbial electrolysis cells (MECs), developed by researchers from Pennsylvania State University, enable microbes to break down organic materials completely, to just water, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen. MECs are modified versions of microbial fuel cells, which are used to harvest electrons produced by metabolising microbes as they feed to generate electricity. The electrochemical reactions are balanced when the used electrons are combined oxygen and hydrogen ions also released by the microbes to form water. The MECs are like microbial fuel cells in reverse. Instead of charge being drawn out, it is pumped in, and the hydrogen ions combine with electrons alone to form hydrogen gas. Applying roughly 0.5 volts provides enough energy to drive thermodynamically unlikely chemical reactions that break down the dead-end products that limited previous attempts to ferment hydrogen.
New Scientist / PNAS Nov 12, 2007	back to top

Molecular 'amplifier' boosts DNA computing
DNA-based computing just got a big boost. A method of amplifying weak chemical signals in a way that can be tailored to specific molecules has brought DNA-based circuits closer to practical applications. In DNA-based circuits fragments of single-stranded DNA are the carriers of information encoding 1s and 0s as high and low concentrations of given fragments of DNA. Amplification is essential if DNA-based computing is to have practical applications. The team has shown how to perform amplification without the use of enzymes, making the process simpler and more configurable. The process makes use of the fact that complimentary stretches of DNA will bind together. A 'catalyst' strand of DNA is used to pull another strand free from several strand bound together. The catalyst strand does so by attaching to a fragment left exposed at one end, called the 'toehold'. It eventually attaches itself completely, 'unzipping' the other strand. Once the target strand has been freed, another strand is used to detach the catalyst through a similar process so that it can be reused. The end result of this is that a small amount of catalyst material released a large amount of the output molecule. The team showed that the concentration of the output molecule could be up to 900 times the concentration of the catalyst. The reaction is also programmable, in the sense that one can choose the exact sequences of the various molecules to fit the design of a particular DNA-based digital circuit.
New Scientist / Science Nov 15, 2007	back to top

Nanotube fibres toughen up
Physicists from the University of Cambridge, UK, are the first to make fibres from carbon nanotubes in a simple one-step process that could be adapted for commercial production. Carbon nanotubes are remarkably strong yet lightweight strands that could someday be made into fibres that could be woven into extremely durable fabrics. However, current techniques are not viable on an industrial scale. Now the researchers have come up with a much simpler one-step process. The team start with a hydrocarbon feedstock, such as ethanol, hexane, methane or diesel. They inject this into a furnace along with an iron-based catalyst called ferrocene. The feedstock breaks down into hydrogen and carbon and the carbon is then restructured on particles of iron catalysts as long, thin-walled nanotubes. The nanotubes grow very quickly in the furnace and form an aerogel-like structure. As the furnace is open at one end, the aerogel can be pulled out with a metal rod, which stretches the fibre into a fine thread that can be wound continuously. Winding is done at a rate of up to 50 metres per minute and several kilometres of the fibres can be made in a day. One of main applications for this new material is in super-strong bullet-proof vests. The fibres could also find use in bomb-proof bins and in blast protection for armoured vehicles. The nanotubes might even be collected as transparent conductive films for use in flat-panel displays and solar cells.
PhysicsWorld / Sciencexpress Nov 15, 2007	back to top

Dew-harvesting 'web' conjures water out of thin air
A portable dew-harvesting kit inspired by a spider's web is being developed by Israeli architects for use in areas where clean and safe water is scarce. In February 2007, UK engineering firm Arup and charity WaterAid held a competition aimed at finding new technologies to help people gain access to clean water in areas where it is scarce. This is a problem for about 1 billion people worldwide. The contest was won by Israeli architects Joseph Cory of company Geotectura and Eyal Malka of Malka Architects who suggested a dew-harvesting contraption. The pair were inspired by seeing drops of water caught on desert spiders' webs first thing in the morning. Their design, called WatAir, consists of an inverted pyramid of sheet material, which collects dew and channels it into a collector and filtration unit in the centre. The architects have now built and tested a prototype - a 10 metre square canopy of canvas attached to trees by rope. In this, dew was channelled into a gravity-driven filter and collecting tank hanging from the centre. The second prototype will have poles that snap together, so the whole thing can be packed inside the collection tank for carrying.
New Scientist Nov 15, 2007	back to top

'Wormholes' could be made from exotic materials
Imagine peering into a hole, only to see a distant object as though it were right next to you. No cameras, no elaborate periscopes are involved - instead you are gazing through an electromagnetic 'wormhole' created in a specially designed material. Researchers in the UK, US and Finland came up with the idea by building on the mathematical theory that gave us the invisibility cloak - a device that was realised for microwaves last year. Whereas in an invisibility cloak rays of light are guided around a cylindrical or spherical volume like water flowing around a stone, a wormhole would have light guided around a more elaborate, tubular shape. The device would appear solid at most wavelengths of light, but at cloaking wavelengths it would disappear, and light entering the tube at one end would emerge at the other with no visible tunnel in-between. In empty space, which has a uniform refractive index, light travels in straight lines according to cartesian co-ordinates. The trick to bending light around an invisibility cloak or a wormhole is to design a material with a non-uniform refractive index that transforms these cartesian co-ordinates into curved co-ordinates. The researchers say the device could be made by creating metamaterials - exotic, manmade materials with strong electromagnetic properties - that have the necessary non-uniform refractive index profile.
PhysicsWorld / Phys. Rev. Lett. Nov 09, 2007	back to top

Researchers turn to 'executable biology'
Scientists are using a new technique to study biological systems by mapping them as if they were computer programs. The Executable Biology process uses biological data as an executable set of instructions to create a computer program. Microsoft, which is backing the research, claimed that this method ensures that models and predictions are precisely testable and verifiable. Details of the process were published in the scientific journal Nature Biotechnology by Dr Jasmin Fisher, a biologist at Microsoft Research Cambridge, and Professor Tom Henzinger, a computer scientist at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. The technique enables biologists to model highly complex, highly parallel, dynamic and reactive biological processes, as well as the biological states and transitions that constantly occur at multiple levels in living organisms.
VNUnet UK / Nature Nov 09, 2007	back to top

Paralysed man's mind is 'read'
Scientists say they may be on the brink of translating into words the thoughts of a man who can no longer speak, into words after a pioneering experiment. Electrodes have been implanted in the brain of Eric Ramsay, who has been 'locked in' - conscious but paralysed - since a car crash eight years ago. These have been recording pulses in areas of the brain involved in speech. Now, they are to use the signals he generates to drive speech software. Although the data is still being analysed, researchers at Boston University believe they can correctly identify the sound Mr Ramsay's brain is imagining some 80% of the time. In the next few weeks, a computer will start the task of translating his thoughts into sounds.
BBC News Nov 15, 2007	back to top

Japan's melody roads play music as you drive
Motorists used to listening to the radio or their favourite tunes on CDs may have a new way to entertain themselves. A team from the Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute, Japan, has built a number of 'melody roads', which use cars as tuning forks to play music as they travel. The concept works by using grooves, which are cut at very specific intervals in the road surface. Just as travelling over small speed bumps or road markings can emit a rumbling tone throughout a vehicle, the melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes. Depending on how far apart the grooves are, a car moving over them will produce a series of high or low notes, enabling cunning designers to create a distinct tune. Patent documents for the design describe it as notches 'formed in a road surface so as to play a desired melody without producing simple sound or rhythm and reproduce melody-like tones'. There are three musical strips in central and northern Japan - one of which plays the tune of a Japanese pop song. Notice of an impending musical interlude, which lasts for about 30 seconds, is highlighted by coloured musical notes painted on to the road. According to reports, the system was the brainchild of Shizuo Shinoda, who accidentally scraped some markings into a road with a bulldozer before driving over them and realising that they helped to produce a variety of tones.
The Guardian Nov 13, 2007	back to top