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Issue no. 18, 2011
Published: May 20, 2011 |
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 Implant breakthrough helps paraplegic man stand | | Geographic profiling fights disease | | Liquid crystals could detect contaminated water | | New method 'confirms dark energy' | | Cosmic ray hunter installed on space station | | Static charge provides clue to age of fingerprints | | Polymers 'to help fake notes fight' | | Email bombardment makes staff rude and unproductive |
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| Implant breakthrough helps paraplegic man stand |
A team of scientists at the University of Louisville, UCLA and the
California Institute of Technology has achieved a significant
breakthrough in its initial work with a paralyzed male volunteer.
The man was completely paralysed below the chest after an accident in
2006. Today, he is able to reach a standing position, supplying the
muscular push himself. He can remain standing, and bearing weight, for
up to four minutes at a time. Aided by a harness support and some
therapist assistance, he can make repeated stepping motions on a
treadmill. He can also move his toes, ankles, knees and hips on command.
These unprecedented results were achieved through continual direct
epidural electrical stimulation of the subject's lower spinal cord,
mimicking signals the brain normally transmits to initiate movement.
Once that signal is given, the research shows, the spinal cord's own
neural network combined with the sensory input derived from the legs to
the spinal cord is able to direct the muscle and joint movements
required to stand and step with assistance on a treadmill.
The other crucial component of the research was an extensive regime of
Locomotor Training while the spinal cord was being stimulated and the
subject suspended over the treadmill. The individual's spinal cord
neural networks were retrained to produce the muscle movements necessary
to stand and to take assisted steps. |
| MedicalXpress / The Lancet
May 20, 2011 |
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| Geographic profiling fights disease |
The widely used criminology technique, called geographic profiling,
helps investigators narrow a search by pinpointing high-priority targets
among thousands of potential locations. Applying the technique to
infectious diseases could help focus interventions, perhaps preventing
the spread of disease while saving time and money.
When hunting criminals, geographic profiling uses the sites of connected
crimes to figure out where a criminal might live. The method is based on
a criminal's tendency to take a Goldilocks-like approach when selecting
where to commit a crime - a location that is not too close to home, not
too far, but just right.
The researchers applied geographic profiling to a recent malaria
outbreak in Cairo. Of 59 water bodies where mosquito larvae were found,
only eight contained those species that are the most dangerous carriers
of the disease. Knowing only the locations of the outbreak's 139 malaria
cases, geographic profiling correctly put six of these eight sites in
the most infectious 2% of the 59.
The team also used the technique on the 1854 London cholera outbreak,
from which doctor John Snow famously created a map of cholera deaths.
This led Snow to the Broad Street pump as a source of the disease, and
launched the modern field of epidemiology. Based on 321 deaths,
geographic profiling also ranked the Broad Street pump as the most
likely origin of the outbreak, the researchers report. |
| ScienceNews / International Journal of Health Geographics
May 18, 2011 |
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| Liquid crystals could detect contaminated water |
If you've ever dropped your mobile phone in dishwater, you can now claim
you were testing the water for bacterial contamination. It seems liquid
crystals, ubiquitous in electronic displays, are the best way to detect
water-borne toxins.
When suspended in water, the molecules in a liquid crystal droplet
normally form chains that wrap around the droplet like the lines of
longitude on a globe. But in the presence of endotoxins, disease-causing
molecules produced by E. coli bacteria, they rearrange to form a pattern
that radiates from the drop's centre.
Previously, coating a droplet's entire surface with toxins was thought
to be necessary to produce the change, called an 'ordering transition'.
Now researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have shown that
only the 'poles' of the droplet, where the longitudinal chains of its
molecules meet up, need to contact the toxins to produce the
realignment. That suggests liquid crystals can detect endotoxins at
concentrations 10 times as low as currently possible.
Liquid crystal droplets could one day help ensure the safety of saline
and other injectable medical fluids. |
| New Scientist / Science
May 19, 2011 |
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| New method 'confirms dark energy' |
First results from a major astronomical survey using a cutting-edge
technique appear to have confirmed the existence of mysterious dark
energy. The finding was based on studies of more than 200,000 galaxies.
Scientists used two separate kinds of observation to provide an
independent check on previous dark energy results. One type of
observation used by the astronomers involves measuring a pattern in how
galaxies are distributed in space. This pattern is known by the term
'baryon acoustic oscillations'. The second type of observation involves
measuring how quickly clusters of galaxies have formed over time. Both
of these techniques confirmed the existence of dark energy and the
acceleration in the expansion of the Universe.
Dark energy makes up some 74% of the Universe and its existence would
explain why the Universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating
rate. The concept of dark energy was first invoked in the late 1990s by
studying the brightness of distant supernovas - exploding stars. To
explain why the expansion of the Universe was speeding up, astronomers
had to either rewrite Albert Einstein's theory of gravity or accept that
the cosmos was filled with a novel type of energy.
The latest findings have come from a galaxy survey project called
WiggleZ, which began in 2006 and finished this year. WiggleZ used data
from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (Galex) space telescope and the
Anglo-Australian Telescope in Australia. The survey mapped the
distribution of galaxies in an unprecedented volume of the Universe,
looking 8bn years back in time - more than half the age of the Universe. |
| BBC News
May 19, 2011 |
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| Cosmic ray hunter installed on space station |
Shuttle Endeavour astronauts on Thursday attached a USD 2bn device to
the International Space Station that will conduct an ambitious survey
aimed at uncovering matter telescopes cannot see.
The astronauts used robotic cranes to pluck the 6,800 kg Alpha Magnetic
Spectrometer particle detector (AMS) from their ship's cargo hold and
install it onto the station's exterior metal truss, where it will
operate throughout the life of the station. Hours later, AMS was
churning out information about high-energy particles in cosmic rays.
The spectrometer is designed to parse through the river of high-energy
cosmic rays streaming through space for signs of dark matter, antimatter
and other phenomena that cannot be detected by traditional telescopes.
Scientists expect AMS will reshape their understanding of the universe,
much the same way that the Hubble Space Telescope pioneered new
frontiers in astronomy, including the startling discovery that the
universe's rate of expansion is speeding up.
AMS has a powerful magnet to shepherd cosmic rays through detectors that
can reveal electrical charges, energy levels and other information. Data
is taken at a rate of 25,000 times a second, processed by onboard
computers and relayed to scientists on the ground. |
| Reuters
May 19, 2011 |
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| Static charge provides clue to age of fingerprints |
Techniques for capturing a fingerprint are far from perfect. Besides the
well-known method of dusting, there are several more sophisticated ways
of detecting fingerprints, but all have limitations. Software analysis
and chemical agents can often enhance a fingerprint, but can sometimes
muddle the pattern instead. And while atomic force microscopy can pick
up fingerprint residues precisely, the technique scans such a small area
at a time that it can often take hours to assemble a single print.
Now researchers at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, have
developed a way to capture fingerprints by looking at the small amount
of static charge left behind when a finger makes contact with an
insulating surface such as plastic or glass. The team passed an
electrode over two fingerprints on a piece of plastic and measured the
change in voltage as it passed over the surface. Within 75 minutes, the
technique had revealed the prints with comparable quality to
conventional fingerprint images, according to the researchers.
By performing the same measurement each day for 14 days, the team was
also able to show how the charge decayed over time. While the method
still needs to be tested on different surfaces and under various
conditions, the researchers say it could be used to work out when a
fingerprint was made. The technique could therefore provide clues as to
when a crime was committed, or exclude people from an investigation if
their fingerprints were made before or after the crime is known to have
taken place. |
| New Scientist / Forensic Science International
May 19, 2011 |
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| Polymers 'to help fake notes fight' |
Scientists at the University of Sheffield, UK, have developed a material
which could help in the fight against counterfeit banknotes and
passports. The pigment-free, intensely-coloured polymer materials could
provide new anti-counterfeit devices on passports or banknotes because
they are difficult to copy.
The polymers do not use pigments but instead exhibit intense colour due
to their structure, similar to the way nature creates colour for beetle
shells and butterfly wings. The colour also changes depending on the
viewing angle and scientists believe the new system could have huge
advantages in terms of cost, processing and colour selection compared
with existing systems.
The complexity of the chemistry involved in making the polymer means
they are very difficult for fraudsters to copy, making them ideally
suited for use on passports or banknotes. The team used Diamond Light
Source, the UK's national synchrotron science facility in Oxfordshire,
to probe the ordered, layered structures using high power X-rays. This
helped them understand how the colours were formed, and how to improve
the appearance. |
| The Independent
May 18, 2011 |
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| Email bombardment makes staff rude and unproductive |
If you find yourself surrounded by rude and unproductive colleagues,
there is a good chance technology is to blame. Interruptions at work are
making employees ruder and less productive, according to research that
found 60% of work distractions involved technology. Email, social
networks, text messaging and instant messaging were all found guilty of
disrupting the concentration of employees.
Some 45% of workers surveyed said they can only work for up to 15
minutes without being interrupted and 53% said they waste at least one
hour a day due to distractions. Interruptions are also making the
workforce ruder as two out of three workers said they would disrupt a
group meeting to communicate with someone else digitally.
Email was the main threat to politeness with 48% of workers interrupting
a group meeting to send an email. Over a third, 35%, said they would
interrupt a meeting to answer a mobile phone and 12% would update their
status on a social network. Most workers, 85%, said they would only turn
their mobile phone off if directly asked to by their boss and 63% said
they would only turn their phones off during one-on-one meetings.
But an impolite workforce could be the least of employers' worries,
according to the survey. Digital distractions could have a negative
impact on the quantity and quality of work output, and even on client
relationships. A third of employees said interruptions make it harder
for them to produce work and a quarter said interruptions mean there is
no time for 'creative or deep thinking'. The research, commissioned by
harmon.ie, reported that the average annual cost of wasted productivity
caused by digital interruptions was EUR 7,560 per employee. |
| Silicon.com
May 19, 2011 |
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