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Haemoglobin

Image: Wikipedia

Issue no. 20, 2011 Published: Jun 10, 2011
Magnetic fields reduce blood viscosity
MIT researchers design new hybrid battery
'Artificial leaf' moves closer to reality
Why 13 and 25 are magic numbers for physicists
Newport firm stabilises Egypt's earthquake-hit pyramid
Fire-breathing dragon roars to life

Magnetic fields reduce blood viscosity
Researchers in the US claim that exposing a person to a magnetic field could reduce their risk of a heart attack by streamlining the flow of blood around their body. While the work currently remains just a proof-of-principle, the researchers believe that their technique could ultimately provide an alternative to drugs in treating heart conditions. Heart attacks and strokes can strike for a variety of reasons. But research suggests that all such vascular conditions are linked by one common symptom - high blood viscosity. Drugs such as aspirin are frequently prescribed to help lower blood viscosity, but these can have unwanted side effects often related to irritation of the stomach. Now, an alternative to drugs may be at hand following recent work by researchers at Temple University and the University of Michigan. In their experiment, the team showed that applying a 1.3 T magnetic pulse to a small sample of blood can significantly reduce it's viscosity. A blood sample with a viscosity of 7 centipoises (cp) - above healthy limits - was contained at body temperature in a test tube. The sample was then exposed to a magnetic field applied parallel to the direction of flow of blood via a coil around the edge of the test tube. After one minute of exposure to the field, the blood's viscosity had been reduced by 33% to 4.75 cp. With no further exposure to the field, the viscosity had only risen slightly to 5.4 cp after 200 min, which is still within healthy limits.
PhysicsWorld Jun 08, 2011	back to top

MIT researchers design new hybrid battery
Alternative vehicles are still 'alternative' in part because fuel cell and battery technologies still have many hills to climb - cost, efficiency and weight to name a few. A group of MIT researchers thinks they can pave the way. They recently combined the strongest aspects of traditional batteries and fuel cells to create a whole new kind of battery. The battery is similar to flow batteries that have been in existence for decades. However, unlike the low-energy batteries of the past, the new battery has a semi-solid flow system that relies on the flow of a concentrated energy-dense suspension of particles dubbed 'Cambridge crude'. Another key difference is that the battery separates the reactor from the reactants. This goo system has several advantages over fuel cell and regular lithium-ion battery technology. For one, it allows a larger percentage of the battery to store energy. The team also expects their battery will lower costs because its structure is simpler to manufacture and reduces the expensive components that do not carry energy. The electro-chemical fuel can be reused so drivers could feasibly swap out a spent tank for one that has been charged. Since the batteries decouple energy and power, fuelling stations could offer different types of electro-chemical fuel.
MSNBC / Discovery Channel Jun 08, 2011	back to top

'Artificial leaf' moves closer to reality
An important step toward realizing the dream of an inexpensive and simple 'artificial leaf', a device to harness solar energy by splitting water molecules, has been accomplished by two separate teams of researchers at MIT. Both teams produced devices that combine a standard silicon solar cell with a catalyst developed three years ago. When submerged in water and exposed to sunlight, the devices cause bubbles of oxygen to separate out of the water. The next step to producing a full, usable artificial leaf will be to integrate the final ingredient: an additional catalyst to bubble out the water's hydrogen atoms. In the current devices, hydrogen atoms are simply dissociated into the solution as loose protons and electrons. If a catalyst could produce fully formed hydrogen molecules (H2), the molecules could be used to generate electricity or to make fuel for vehicles. Ultimately, the researchers want to produce a low-cost device that could be used where electricity is unavailable or unreliable. It would consist of a glass container full of water, with a solar cell with the catalysts on its two sides attached to a divider separating the container into two sections. When exposed to the sun, the electrified catalysts would produce two streams of bubbles - hydrogen on one side, oxygen on the other - which could be collected in two tanks, and later recombined through a fuel cell or other device to generate electricity when needed.
MIT News Jun 09, 2011	back to top

Why 13 and 25 are magic numbers for physicists
If you think that adding ever more researchers to your group can only be a good thing, think again. Physicists have quantified how the increasing size of research groups in physics affects the quality of the work it can produce. They conclude that the best group size for experimental physicists is around 25 researchers, while in theoretical physics the number is 13. Adding more researchers to the group over these sizes does not result in an increase in research quality. Ralph Kenna from the University of Coventry and Bertrand Berche from the University of Nancy, France, used data collected for the UK's 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). The RAE was designed to deduce the quality of research being performed at all UK universities based on researchers submitting detailed data about their research groups, including their size and the output of each individual. Kenna and Berche looked at what impact a group's size has on the quality of its research. They plotted quality against quantity and fitted the data into a model that treats research groups as a complex system that takes interactions between researchers into account. The model indicates that research quality initially increases linearly with group size. However, above a certain limit - the upper critical mass - rather than continuing to increase, the dependency of quality on quantity stays flat. The upper critical mass is the maximum number of colleagues with whom a researcher can interact, so that when a group's size increases beyond this level it starts to fragment. The research also reveals a lower critical mass of two for the theorists and 13 for experimental physicists.
PhysicsWorld Jun 09, 2011	back to top

Newport firm stabilises Egypt's earthquake-hit pyramid
A UK engineering company is using 21st Century technology, including air bags, to help preserve one of Egypt's most imposing landmarks, dating back to 2,700 BC. The Pyramid of Djoser is Egypt's oldest step-built pyramid. But it was at risk of collapse after an earthquake in 1992. Newport specialist engineers Cintec, who have previously provided solutions to structural problems at landmarks such as the White House and Windsor Castle, were set the task of helping it last another 4,700 years. The team has now completed phase one of the work at the site. It involved using pressurised air-filled bags, in order to hold up the roof of the 60m high pyramid, while more permanent repairs are carried out. The air bag technology Cintec employed, was originally created to aid in the safer disposal of IEDs in Afghanistan. It works on the principal of surrounding an explosive with a bag, strong enough to withstand an explosion or collapse, but with such precise control over the pressure, that it only just kisses the surface of an object, without adding even greater forces to unstable materials. However in the case of the Pyramid of Djoser the company substituted a water filling for compressed air. Eleven air pillars now hold up the pyramid's roof, with another six, flatter, bespoke columns currently being manufactured to support the lower corners of the burial chamber. Once stable, the team will perform a permanent repair, threading the latest in thermo-dynamic steel rods diagonally through the steps of the pyramid, in such a way that the six levels will be knitted together without being visible. Their final task will be to reclaim as many of the fallen original rocks as possible, and re-point them with authentic 2,700 BC mortar.
BBC News Jun 09, 2011	back to top

Fire-breathing dragon roars to life
Virtual worlds wouldn't be complete without fire. But the sound of a blaze is notoriously hard to synthesise realistically because of the complex combination of high and low frequencies involved. Now researchers from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York have devised the first practical technique that can recreate the sound of fire based on its behaviour. The method uses a combination of two approaches to synthesise the sound of fire. Low frequencies are produced based on a physical model, where a simulator solves mathematical equations to determine what a flame is doing at each point in time. This requires a lot of computational power, making it too expensive to accurately capture high frequency phenomena. To get around this, the system uses recorded sound clips to fill in the high-pitched details, which are synchronised with low frequencies in the animation. One of the advantages of this method is that a user can control the final result by choosing an appropriate recording. The team thinks the method could soon be used to simulate fire in real time.
New Scientist Jun 08, 2011	back to top