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Researcher using the world’s most powerful optical microscope

Image: University of Manchester

Issue no. 9, 2011 Published: Mar 04, 2011
'Limitless' microscope to aid virus research
US team makes key memory cells in lab dish
Flying robots could help in disaster rescue
'Tractor beam' is possible with lasers, say scientists
'Frozen smoke' could boost robotic surgery, batteries
Sweat ducts make skin a memristor

'Limitless' microscope to aid virus research
An optical microscope that uses light and is so powerful that it can capture living viruses and be used to view the working biological machinery that keeps human cells alive has been invented by scientists at Manchester University The microscope exploits a new method of manipulating light so that there is, theoretically, no limit on the size of a living feature that can be seen by the human eye, the researchers said. Unlike the most powerful electron microscopes - which can see down to the scale of individual molecules - or fluorescent-based microscopes - which rely on the use of coloured dyes - the new light microscope does not need to interfere in any way with the living material it is used to study. The device overcomes a physical limitation on the use of light for microscopy and, in doing so, can capture details that are 20 times smaller than the tiniest objects seen by conventional light microscopes, which are limited by the physical wave length of light in the optical spectrum. Previously, optical microscopes could see down to a minimum scale of one micrometre. But by combining optical microscopy with a transparent 'microsphere' for extra magnification, the scientists were able to see down to a scale of just 50 nanometres, which is 20 times smaller than the previous limit of optical microscopy.
The Independent Mar 02, 2011	back to top

US team makes key memory cells in lab dish
Researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago have coaxed stem cells into becoming a type of brain cell that dies off early in people with Alzheimer's disease. The new technology would provide a ready supply of cells for use in testing new drugs or even transplants to help restore lost memory. While most Alzheimer's research is done in genetically modified mice, the new technique would allow researchers to study a key aspect of the disease in human cells. The team used embryonic stem cells to create the neurons, which are thought to be among the earliest brain cells lost in Alzheimer's disease. Stem cells are the body's master cells, the source of all other cells. Embryonic stem cells, taken from days-old human embryos, are especially pliable. When researchers implanted the newly grown nerve cells into the brains of mice, they functioned normally, producing nerve fibres called axons and making the brain chemical acetylcholine, used to retrieve memories from other parts of the brain. The researchers say the technique can produce an almost infinite number of these cells, giving other scientists the chance to study these cells. Currently, there are no drugs that keep the disease from progressing. Alzheimer's affects 26 million people in the world.
Reuters / Stem Cell Mar 04, 2011	back to top

Flying robots could help in disaster rescue
Swarms of flying robots inspired by insect behaviour could be used to establish emergency rescue networks following natural disasters, say Swiss researchers who plan to start testing their system from April. In the aftermath of earthquakes and other disasters, when communications infrastructure is damaged or overloaded, the first thing rescue teams do is set up temporary radio or mobile communication networks to coordinate the search for survivors. But these networks have limited data transmission capacity, take time and specialists to establish, and can suffer interference from existing commercial networks. Now a team of scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, has developed a quick way to establish a wireless network using 'swarming micro air vehicles' - flying robots. A fleet of vehicles would hover above a disaster zone with a module in the wing of each robot emitting a wireless signal to enable communication between rescuers. Each vehicle is made from lightweight, flexible polypropylene plastic, weighs less than half a kilogram and has a wing span of 80 centimetres. A battery-powered motor enables each vehicle to fly for up to half an hour before visiting a recharging station. The team is preparing a paper describing how it flew 10 robots - enough to establish and autonomously maintain a 1.5-kilometre communication line - to link up two rescuers on the ground. To distribute the vehicles effectively above a designated zone, the team took inspiration from the way ants leave chemical trails to guide colonies to sources of food. Some of the vehicles hover in small circles linked to the location of rescuers and the other vehicles navigate around these markers.
SciDev Mar 01, 2011	back to top

'Tractor beam' is possible with lasers, say scientists
A laser can act as a 'tractor beam', drawing small objects back toward the laser's source, scientists have said. It is known that light can provide a 'push', for example in solar sails that propel spacecraft on a 'wind of light'. Now, researchers from Hong Kong and China have calculated the conditions required to create a laser-based 'pull'. Rather than a science fiction-style weapon, however, the approach would only work over small distances. The effect is different from that employed in 'optical tweezers' approaches, in which tiny objects can be trapped in the focus of a laser beam and moved around; this new force would be one continuous pull toward the source, the researchers say. And it relies on directly impinging on an object. The trick is not to use a standard laser beam, but rather one known as a Bessel beam, that has a precise pattern of peaks and troughs in its intensity. Seen straight-on, a Bessel beam would look like the ripples surrounding a pebble dropped in a pond. If such a beam were to encounter an object at a glancing angle, the backward force can be stimulated. As the atoms or molecules of the target absorb and re-radiate the incoming light, the fraction re-radiated forward along the beam direction can interfere and give the object a 'push' back toward the source.
BBC News Mar 03, 2011	back to top

'Frozen smoke' could boost robotic surgery, batteries
A spongy material evocatively known as 'frozen smoke' could have a range of handy applications, according to researcher at the University of Central Florida. The substance, technically known as an aerogel, could be used to detect pollutants, improve robotic surgery techniques and store energy more efficiently. The new substance is made of carbon, belongs to the family of lightest solids and looks somewhat like packing material. With frozen smoke, even the tiniest of changes in pressure can be detected and tracked. Strips of the new aerogel could line robotic fingers and hands to make them supersensitive and give them the ability to distinguish between holding a power saw or a scalpel - a distinction obviously helpful while performing surgery, for example. The aergoel's carbon nanotubes also boast a large surface area. This characteristic allows great amounts of energy to be stored in the aerogel, which could increase the capacity of lithium batteries or supercapacitors that store renewable energy generated from the wind and sun. Combining the material's large surface area and electrical conductivity could also lead to sensors that can detect toxins capable of invading the food or water supply. Equipment capable of detecting trace amounts of explosives is yet another possibility.
MSNBC / ACS Nano Mar 03, 2011	back to top

Sweat ducts make skin a memristor
The missing link of electronics, which evaded discovery until 2008, was at our fingertips the whole time. Ordinary human skin behaves like a memristor, a device that 'remembers' the last current it experienced and varies its resistance accordingly. In 1971 Leon Chua of the University of California, Berkeley, came up with the notion of a resistor with memory. He showed that this memristor should be a fourth basic circuit element alongside the familiar trio of resistor, capacitor and inductor. But it wasn't until 2008 that a team at HP finally made one from a speck of titanium dioxide. Now, by re-examining data from the early 1980s on the electrical conductivity of human skin in response to various voltages, researchers at the University of Oslo in Norway have found that when a negative electrical potential is applied to skin on various parts of the arm, creating a current, that stretch of skin exhibits a low resistance to a subsequent current flowing through the skin. But if the first potential is positive relative to the skin, then a subsequent potential produces a current that meets with a much higher resistance. In other words, the skin has a memory of previous currents. The researchers attribute skin's memristor behaviour to sweat pores. A new understanding of skin's electrical properties could have implications for medicine. Resistance to alternating current is already used to diagnose skin abnormalities.
New Scientist / Physical Review E. Mar 02, 2011	back to top