European “Neutrino Factory” to Explore why Matter Exists By Shooting Particles Through the Earth
It’s the most fundamental question possible: Why is there something, instead of nothing?
When the universe was created, theory says that matter and antimatter should have been created in equal measure, and we know that when these two types of particles meet they react by annihilating one another. By all accounts, the universe should never have been able to get started, should have wiped itself out immediately. So, what happened? Was there less antimatter created than we predicted, or did we somehow avoid the annihilation process? Why does the universe contain matter at all?
One way of investigating these questions is to study neutrinos, and for several years the “EUROnu” project has been trying to decide the best way of doing so. This month, the commission presented its findings at CERN: they want to build the Neutrino Factory.
This refreshingly acronym-free device creates beams of neutrinos by smashing protons into a solid target, creating muons which reliably decay into neutrinos. The beam would be fired roughly downwards, traveling 2,000 kilometers or more to the receiving end.
The emitter will probably be at CERN, in Switzerland, though the receiver has been proposed to go anywhere from Japan to Italy to the UK. Regardless, upon arrival the beam of neutrinos will be analyzed for its content: what proportions of the three types of neutrinos are found, and how they compare to the proportions in the beam when it left the emitter.
Such investigations into the interconversion of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos could shed light on the nature of antimatter (among other things).
(via Proposed Neutrino Factory to answer one of the most fundamental questions of science | ExtremeTech)
Cold Fusion Device May Have Been Created
Against all probability, a device that purports to use cold fusion to generate vast amounts of power has been verified by a panel of independent scientists. The research paper, which hasn’t yet undergone peer review, seems to confirm both the existence of cold fusion, and its potency: The cold fusion device being tested has roughly 10,000 times the energy density and 1,000 times the power density of gasoline.
Even allowing for a massively conservative margin of error, the scientists say that the cold fusion device they tested is 10 times more powerful than gasoline — which is currently the best fuel readily available to mankind.
The device being tested, called by Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat for short), was created by Andrea Rossi. Rossi has been claiming for the past two years that he had finally cracked cold fusion, but much to the chagrin of the scientific community he hasn’t allowed anyone to independently analyze the device — until now.
While it sounds like the scientists had a fairly free rein while testing the E-Cat, we should stress that they still don’t know exactly what’s going on inside the sealed steel cylinder reactor. Still, the seven scientists, all from good European universities, obviously felt confident enough with their findings to publish the research paper.
(via Cold fusion reactor independently verified, has 10,000 times the energy density of gas | ExtremeTech)
Researchers Harness Evolution to Perfect Theraputic Viruses
The naturally occurring viruses that have been used to deliver therapy to the eye must be injected directly into the damaged retina, which can cause additional damage by detaching light-detecting photoreceptors from their supporting layer.
To build a better system, Schaffer and colleagues turned to what’s known as directed evolution.
The researchers produced millions of random variations of the adeno-associated virus, a harmless virus often used as a vector for gene therapy. From this vast pool, they ultimately identified the single strain that was the best at delivering new genes into damaged retinas…
Working with mice that had two different genetic forms of retinal disease, the Berkeley researchers injected the millions of viruses into the fluid that fills the main body of the eye… By removing the rodent retinas and examining them, the team was able to identify strains that with mutations that enabled them to reach the critical tissue.
Repeating the process led them to the strain that was most successful at reaching mouse photoreceptors.
(via Virus That Evolved in the Lab Delivers Gene Therapy into the Retina | MIT Technology Review)
![Researchers Applying Evolutionary Game Theory to The Treatment of Cancer
Ecologists have a powerful mathematical approach called evolutionary game theory for studying the delicate balances [of animal populations within an ecosystem].
This shows how certain combinations of creatures, a small number of predators among a large number of prey for example, settle down into evolutionary stable strategies but also how others form systems that are highly unstable. The key idea here is that the long-term outcome does not depend on the size of the populations is involved but on the way they interact.
Basanta and Anderson say that many lessons can be learnt from thinking about cancer in this way. “One crucial lesson, especially when used to understand cancer evolution, is that focusing on indiscriminately destroying as many cancer cells as possible is not necessarily the best thing to do for a patient,” they say. That’s especially if this approach leaves some of the cancer cells intact. The reason is that the total number of cancer cells is much less important than the way they interact–evolutionary game theory clearly shows a small populations can grow dramatically.
According to this idea, a better approach would be to change the way the cells interact with each other and their environment. One idea is that this could be used to allow a less aggressive form of cancer to evolve, which would be less harmful to the patient.
(via Game Theory and the Treatment of Cancer | MIT Technology Review)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/c9f78a7a184ebc40ba91d89bb4580ed7/tumblr_modv8acDxw1qgpcs1o1_500.png)
Researchers Applying Evolutionary Game Theory to The Treatment of Cancer
Ecologists have a powerful mathematical approach called evolutionary game theory for studying the delicate balances [of animal populations within an ecosystem].
This shows how certain combinations of creatures, a small number of predators among a large number of prey for example, settle down into evolutionary stable strategies but also how others form systems that are highly unstable. The key idea here is that the long-term outcome does not depend on the size of the populations is involved but on the way they interact.
Basanta and Anderson say that many lessons can be learnt from thinking about cancer in this way. “One crucial lesson, especially when used to understand cancer evolution, is that focusing on indiscriminately destroying as many cancer cells as possible is not necessarily the best thing to do for a patient,” they say. That’s especially if this approach leaves some of the cancer cells intact. The reason is that the total number of cancer cells is much less important than the way they interact–evolutionary game theory clearly shows a small populations can grow dramatically.
According to this idea, a better approach would be to change the way the cells interact with each other and their environment. One idea is that this could be used to allow a less aggressive form of cancer to evolve, which would be less harmful to the patient.
(via Game Theory and the Treatment of Cancer | MIT Technology Review)
Quantum Invisibility Cloak Hides Objects From Reality
Today, Jeng Yi Lee and Ray-Kuang Lee at the National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan take the idea of cloaking to its ultimate limit. These guys have worked out how to build quantum invisibility cloaks.
These are cloaks that shield objects from the quantum properties of the world outside. That’s not so much an invisibility cloak as a reality cloak.
The idea is simple in essence. Ordinary invisibility cloaks work by steering light around a region of space to make it look as if it weren’t there. The mathematical approach that describes this is called transformation optics. It starts with Maxwell’s equation which govern the behaviour of light as it passes through space…
The approach developed by Jeng Yi and Ray-Kuang is mathematically identical to this. But instead of starting with Maxwell’s equations, they start with the Schrodinger equation which governs the probability of an object being present in a region of space.
(via Quantum Invisibility Cloak Hides Objects from Reality | MIT Technology Review)
Human Embryo Clone Survives 8 Divisions
A new paper published in the journal Cell shares the work of a group of researchers in Oregon who have grown a human clone — at least up to a couple hundred cells. Given the nature of some of the manipulations involved, and the constitution of the resultant cell mass, it is not realistic to imagine that the amalgam they created would ever develop much beyond the stage they present.
They therefore do not call their achievement an “embryo” as such. The intended use of this finely-tuned cell bank is rather to provide personalized stem cell resources to those who have already wrought for themselves a conscious form, and wish to forestall its untimely dissolution.
Injectable Nanogel for Diabetics Monitors Blood Glucose Levels, Secretes Insulin as Needed
Injectable nanoparticles developed at MIT may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin.
The nanoparticles were designed to sense glucose levels in the body and respond by secreting the appropriate amount of insulin, thereby replacing the function of pancreatic islet cells, which are destroyed in patients with Type 1 diabetes. Ultimately, this type of system could ensure that blood-sugar levels remain balanced and improve patients’ quality of life, according to the researchers.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/injected-nanogel-can-help-fight-diabetes
(via laboratoryequipment)
MIT Engineers Use Bacteria to Compute Logarithms
MIT engineers have transformed bacterial cells into living calculators that can compute logarithms, divide and take square roots, using three or fewer genetic parts.
Inspired by how analog electronic circuits function, the researchers created synthetic computation circuits by combining existing genetic “parts,” or engineered genes, in novel ways.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/cells-can-be-living-calculators
(via laboratoryequipment, ht cyborgorgy)
Researchers Using Quantum “Squeezed Light” to Image The Insides of Cells
Conventional optical imaging is limited by the process of diffraction, the way light spreads out when it passes an object. The amount of diffraction depends, in part, on natural uncertainties in the position of the photons. Physicists think of this uncertainty as quantum noise.
In recent years, however, they’ve have worked out how to minimise the amount quantum noise by carefully manipulating the way photons are created. They call the resulting photons “squeezed light” and there has been no little excitement over their potential to beat the conventional diffraction limit in all kinds of applications.
One obvious use is in cellular imaging where squeezed light offers biologists a clear advantage for exploring cellular processes. Various groups have used squeezed light to make pioneering measurements inside cells. But the process of imaging to reveal spatial variations in the structure of a cell, has so far eluded them.
(via First Quantum-Enhanced Images of a Living Cell | MIT Technology Review)
Injectable Microbots, Steered by Magnets Deliver Drugs Exactly Where They’re Needed
Researchers from the Institute of Robotics in Zurich have recently developed an electromagnetically-controlled robot that can be delivered to the eye — by injection with a 23-gauge needle — and precisely positioned to sites where drug is needed.
…by coating the microbot with dye-containing nanospheres, the researchers have now repurposed the device to provide critical measurements of oxygen concentration in the eye to make quick diagnoses when vision unexpectedly fails. These new machines, and the apparatus which controls them, are part of a larger effort to deliver and control devices within several organ systems using remote power…
Steering is done by a device called the OctoMag control system (PDF). The OctoMag has three degrees of freedom (DOF) in positioning and two for pointing orientation. It is composed of eight DC-operated electromagnets arranged in a hemispherical configuration. It can create a maximum gradient of 1.5 Tesla per meter.
The microbots have a diameter less than 500um, and their length can be adjusted according to the size of drug reservoir needed. The researchers experimented with several materials for their microbot, but the best proved to be NdFeB (neodymium magnet). Most of the experiments thus far have been done in eyes from pigs or human cadavers.
(via Magnetically steerable, injectable microrobots could help treat blindness | ExtremeTech)
