Renewable Fuel

The CEO of Flagship Ventures in Cambridge, MA, Noubar Afeyan set out to invent the first ideal renewable fuel. "What we wanted to know is [if we] could engineer a system that could convert carbon dioxide directly into any fuel that we wanted" says Afeyan. According to Joule Biotechnologies, they say yes. For the first time ever, they have created photosynthetic microorganisms that use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into ethanol or diesel, quickly and efficiently. Each microorganism is equipped with their own genetic switch that will limit their growth. The switches allow scientists to multiply the microorganisms for a few days, and with a flip of a switch change the organism’s growth into fuel production. Both the Startup Synthetic Genomics and an academic group at the BioTechnology Institute at the University of Minnesota are looking to make fuels directly from carbon dioxide as well. If Afeyan is right in his experiments and studies, biofuels could become an alternative to petroleum and meet at least 26% of the worlds demand for transportation fuel. “I'm not saying it's easy or around the corner, because I've done this for a long time," Afeyan says. Afeyan is confident and believes that Joule is onto something big. They could create renewable fuel that could compete with fossil fuels on both cost and scale. He says, "We have the elements of a potentially transformative technology."

http://technologyreview.com/energy/25077/#afteradbody
http://eon.businesswire.com/portal/site/eon/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100421006860&newsLang=en

Mimicking human disease; Stem Cells

James ­Thomson's, director of regenerative biology at the Morgridge Institute at the University of Wisconsin, first isolated human embryonic stem cells in 1998. Isolating these cells, which are capable of maturing into any other type of cell, marked a landmark in biology. Although it was a landmark, it caused much controversy because the process destroys a human embryo. Then, in 2008 another milestone was reached. Thomson and Junying Yu developed a way to make stem cells from adult cells by adding four genes that are normally active only in embryos. iPS cells, or induced pluripotent stem cells may contain the function of replacing damaged or diseased tissue. Thomson thinks their most important contribution will be to provide an unprecedented window on human development and disease. Also, iPS cells may revolutionize toxicity testing for drugs. If their studies succeed, researchers hope to use iPS cells to study other disorders and develop drugs to treat them. These disorders include ALS, Down syndrome, spinal muscular atrophy and more. iPS cells also have the ability to become the go-to source of stem cells for modeling diseases more realistically, testing drugs and designing future therapies derived from cell lines matched to a patient’s immune system. Recently, Thomson and his team reached a milestone, they created iPS cells without using c-myc, a gene that promotes cancer. Of 26 mice in Yamanaka’s study derived from iPS cells, none died of cancer after 100 days, compared with six of 37 generated with c-myc.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=potent-alternative
http://technologyreview.com/energy/25082/

3-D Mobile Phones

The Samsung B710 Phone looks like a typical smart phone. However, turn it to the side, and the image changes from 2-D to 3-D. A technologist spent over 10 years creating software that converts 2-D content into 3-D content. This, fortunately, can solve the problem of always having to wear 3-D converting glasses. This software works by changing depth perception based on estimations. This is very similar to the 3 dimensional TV’s released in January. However, this will be used in smart phones, in the palm of your hand. This software was built into the Samsung B710, and was released in 2007 in South Korea. The applications that will be released can consist of mobile games and video. At the moment, there is very little 3D content available. This extraordinary phone contains a TV tuner, and a full 3D camera, as well as a normal camera, and even Picture in Picture feature, which allows you to watch two TV channels at once on one screen. Nobody knows if this phone will be released in other places around the world, however, it wouldn’t be surprising if this unique phone is released in the US as well as other countries.




http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/25081/
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/28072/samsung-sch-b710-3d-mobile-phone

Implantable Electronics

The next gen of implantable medical devices will rely on a high-tech material forged not in a factory, but in the belly of a worm. this new device is being developed at Tufts University by biomedical engineer Fiorenzo Omentteo, it is a flexible silicon electronics held together by a silk film. the devices would incorporate antibodies or enzymes into the film which will allow other medical devices to detect biomarkes; and the best part over time, the array will just dissolve away, eliminating the need for surgery to remove the implants. the implated electronics could provide a clearer picture of whats going on inside the body' like monitoring chronic diseases or progress after surgery, but there are still some problems with the biocompatility restrict their use because the materials used may cause a immune reactions when implanted.

Today's implantable devices must be surgically replaced or removed at some point, so its only worth using an implant for important devices such as pacemakers. Silk is biodegradable and soft, can carry light like optical glass or made into transistor or wire. this means that silk can sit right on top of tissues without irritation for years or just a instance.Soon we may have are health charts in our arm or legs. and our doctors can montior our health wireless and our own bodies tells us of a problems well bofore it happens.



http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25086/

Keeping Medical Data Private

People have always been concerned about the quite common, practice of storing thier medical information on computers into "private databases". "The problem is, stuff that's considered anonymous really isn't," says Michael Swiernik, director of medical informatics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Patients are wary of whether or not they are truly protected and with the development of a new algorithm, we may be on the way to better ensuring that medical data can be securely stored on computers. Researchers at Vanderbilt University have created an algorithm designed to protect the privacy of patients while maintaining researchers' ability to analyze vast amounts of genetic and clinical data to find links between diseases and specific genes or to understand why patients can respond so differently to treatments. The increasing availability of electronic medical records makes it easier to group patient files into huge databases where they can be accessed by researchers trying to find associations between genes and medical conditions--an important step on the road to personalized medicine. Though the patient records in the databases are "anonymous", they still have a numerical code called the the ICD, which can easily be tracked by a hacker. Bradley Malin and his colleagues found that they could identify more than 96 percent of a group of patients based solely on their particular sets of diagnosis codes.Researchers want to combine their clinical-code-protecting algorithm with other security mechanisms already in place, like protections for demographic information, to keep patient data as safe as possible. They also want to reach out to use more data outside of Vanderbilt, according to Grigorios Loukides, the study's lead author. "Generating data is expensive, and it's both good science and good etiquette to reuse data. The challenge is to do it while protecting people." says study author Malin.

Gold Nanosensors

Gold Nanosensors can now be implanted into the body to continuously monitor for blood clots. Gold Nanosensors are injected directly into the patient, allowing the doctor to measure protein concentrations by shining a laser light through the skin. This new technology will allow scientists to directly examine proteins and how they interact within a cell. Some of these proteins include ones that are involved in viral infections. 120 nanometers in diameter, the sensor consists of a silica core, encapsulated in a thin layer of gold. On top of the gold shell, are aptamers, or short strands of nucleic acids to bind to a specific molecule. When shining a laser on the aptamer, the molecule absorbs the light and will emit a characteristic spectrum allowing the doctor to view many different things. This new technology is not only cheap but it would provide easy monitoring for high-risk individuals and prevent clot-related deaths. Currently, research is being done at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Colin Campbell, a chemist at the University of Edinburgh leads the research. Researchers in Scotland have shown that the novel particles can accurately detect thrombin in blood samples, a biomarker for blood clots. For the time being there are not very many known aptamers that effectively target specific proteins. This is an area of medicine that would have to be further explored for the technology to gain more widespread application.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25031/page2/

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-04/gold-nanosensors-continuously-monitor-blood-clots

Robotic Planes Chase After Climate Data

NASA has newly begun to fly an unmanned aircraft, controlled completely by a robot and outfitted with scientific instruments that observe Earth's atmosphere with extensive detail. These newly fitted robo planes will help scientists and researchers on Earth to collect and analyze an even greater amount of data to help predict our climate and weather, more accurately. The three aircraft, have been named the Global Hawks, and can fly for up to 30 hours and travel for huge distances and at high altitudes; they can also gather more precise data than satellites and can be stationed to monitor an area for extended periods of time. They are able to obtain certian tymes of atmospheric and earth science data critical to helping us better understand nature's weather patterns. According to Robbie Hood, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration committee, "they could fly over a hurricane to monitor its intensity changes or fly over the arctic to monitor sea ice changes in higher detail". The planes will be equipped with 11 different instruments to take measurements and map aerosols and gases in the atmosphere, profile clouds, and gather meteorological data such as temperatures, winds, and pressures. The instruments onboard for the first mission include: a LIDAR instrument that uses a laser pulse to measure the shape, size, and density of clouds and aerosols; a spectrograph that measures and maps pollutants like nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and aerosols; an ultraviolet photometer for ozone measurements; a gas chromatograph to calculate greenhouse gases; a handful of other instruments that can accurately measure atmospheric water vapor and ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons ; and high-definition cameras to image the ocean colors and learn about their biological processes. NASA acquired the aircraft from the U.S. Air Force in 2007. They were originally developed for surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Now researchers are modifying them for their first extensive earth science missions. The researchers will also be able to sample parts of the atmosphere that they have not been able to reach or monitor for long durations--the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. That part of the atmosphere is "a crucial region that responds to and contributes to climate change at the surface, and we have come to realize that it is highly undersampled," says David Fahey, co-project scientist and a research physicist at NOAA's Earth Science Research Lab in Boulder, CO.
The planes are really robotic satellite-aircraft hybrids thatwill hopefuully revolutionize the way we do science. One of the eventual targets will be to study hurricanes in the Caribbean, and will include a new suite of instruments for the planes. These may be a critical component in helping us to better predict and prepare for future weather disasters.