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UCLA’s New Nano-Lens Microscopes Can Detect Viruses, Other Objects at Nanoscale

By Guest PostJanuary 28, 2013Scienceadenoviruses, ahmet f coskun, alon greenbaum, aydogan ozcan, california nanosystems institute, cea leti, cedric p allier, computational reconstruction techniques, electron microscopy, euan mcleod, france, H1N1, henry samueli school, human hair, influenza viral particles, led, light emitting diode, liquid lenses, microscopic objects, nanoscale lenses, nanoscale objects, onur mudanyali, optical microscopy method, optical microscopy platform, polystyrene nanoparticles, single viruses, sparse population, special liquid composition, square millimeters, ucla, volume of samples, wei luo, yves hennequin

By using tiny liquid lenses that self-assemble around microscopic objects, a team from UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has created an optical microscopy method that allows users to directly see objects more than 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Coupled with computer-based computational reconstruction techniques, this portable and cost-effective platform, which has a wide field of view, can detect individual viruses and nanoparticles, making it potentially useful in the diagnosis of diseases in point-of-care settings or areas where medical resources are limited. (more…)

Pushing Boundaries

By Guest PostJanuary 28, 2013Sciencecarbon nanotube fibers, cnt fiber, flexible composites, fuel cells

Engineers report research milestones in fuel cells, flexible composites

Faculty and students in the University of Delaware’s College of Engineering continue to blaze a trail of innovation, reporting recent research milestones in flexible composites and fuel cells. (more…)

In conversation: George Daniel Mostow, geometer of the Nth dimension

By Guest PostJanuary 27, 2013Scienceconcept of congruence, dynamical systems theory, ergodicity, grothendieck revolution, nth dimension, rigidity theorem

In awarding Yale’s George Daniel Mostow its 2013 Wolf Foundation Prize in mathematics — one of the field’s premier global awards — the foundation offered this crisp assessment: “Few mathematicians,” it said, “can compete with the breadth, depth, and originality of his works.” (more…)

Researchers Create Flexible, Nanoscale ‘Bed of Nails’ for Possible Drug Delivery

By Guest PostJanuary 27, 2013Sciencealuminum substrate, anatoli melechko, balloon, bed of nails, brain, bryan anderson, carbon nanofibers, drug delivery systems, elastic membrane, elastic silicone membrane, embedding carbon nanofibers, joseph tracy, justin railsback, liquid silicone polymer, mehmet sarac, nanofibers, nanoscale, needle like, north Carolina, ryan pearce, state university, technique, timothy mcknight

Researchers at North Carolina State University have come up with a technique to embed needle-like carbon nanofibers in an elastic membrane, creating a flexible “bed of nails” on the nanoscale that opens the door to development of new drug-delivery systems.

The research community is interested in finding new ways to deliver precise doses of drugs to specific targets, such as regions of the brain. One idea is to create balloons embedded with nanoscale spikes that are coated with the relevant drug. Theoretically, the deflated balloon could be inserted into the target area and then inflated, allowing the spikes on the balloon’s surface to pierce the surrounding cell walls and deliver the drug. The balloon could then be deflated and withdrawn. (more…)

Thawing ‘Dry Ice’ Drives Groovy Action on Mars

By Guest PostJanuary 27, 2013Sciencearizona, candice hansen, carbon dioxide sublimation, crism, dark fans, driving factor, dry ice, dynamic process, dynamic world, earth, frozen carbon dioxide, ganna portyankina, groovy action, hirise camera, ice cap, mars, mars reconnaissance orbiter, mars south pole, mars today, martian sand dunes, martian years, NASA, north polar, planetary science institute, seasonal changes, switzerland, thawing, transient grooves, tucson, university, university of bern

PASADENA, Calif. — Researchers using NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter see seasonal changes on far-northern Martian sand dunes caused by warming of a winter blanket of frozen carbon dioxide.

Earth has no naturally frozen carbon dioxide, though pieces of manufactured carbon-dioxide ice, called “dry ice,” sublime directly from solid to gas on Earth, just as the vast blankets of dry ice do on Mars. A driving factor in the springtime changes where seasonal coverings of dry ice form on Mars is that thawing occurs at the underside of the ice sheet, where it is in contact with dark ground being warmed by early-spring sunshine through translucent ice. The trapped gas builds up pressure and breaks out in various ways. (more…)

New Key to Organism Complexity Identified

By Guest PostJanuary 26, 2013Sciencegene pool, genetic message, metazoan evolution, split personality, transcription factor

Berkeley Scientists Find that a Critical Transcription Factor Co-exists in Two Distinct States

The enormously diverse complexity seen amongst individual species within the animal kingdom evolved from a surprisingly small gene pool. For example, mice effectively serve as medical research models because humans and mice share 80-percent of the same protein-coding genes. The key to morphological and behavioral complexity, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests, is the regulation of gene expression by a family of DNA-binding proteins called “transcription factors.” Now, a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley has discovered the secret behind how one these critical transcription factors is able to perform – a split personality. (more…)

A Material that Most Liquids Won’t Wet

By Guest PostJanuary 25, 2013Scienceelectrospinning, nanoscale coating, nanoscale cube, non newtonian liquids, superomniphobic surface

ANN ARBOR — A nanoscale coating that’s at least 95 percent air repels the broadest range of liquids of any material in its class, causing them to bounce off the treated surface, according to the University of Michigan engineering researchers who developed it. (more…)

Keepers of Prometheus: The World’s Oldest Tree

By Guest PostJanuary 25, 2013Nature, Sciencebristlecone pine researchers, dendrochronologists, keepers of prometheus, oldest bristlecone pine, study tree rings, tree called prometheus, tree ring research

After a nearly 5,000-year vigil upon a Nevada mountaintop, an ancient tree now finds its home in the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. A member of the long-lived Bristlecone pine species, the tree called Prometheus is the oldest individual ever known to have lived. Its age was not accurately known until a few years ago.

On a craggy, windswept peak in a lonely Nevada wilderness stands a grove of old-growth trees. Gnarled and twisted, shaped by the weather and whirling winds into erratic growth forms, their roots have clung to the pebble-strewn mountainside for literally millennia. (more…)

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