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Portable Diagnostics Designed To Be Shaken, Not Stirred

By Guest PostMay 12, 2012Scienceashutosh shastry, asymmetrical surface, audio speaker, blood, energy, hannah hickey, karl bohringer, lotus effect, lotus leaf, medical researcher, menlo park, Nanotechnology, portable diagnostics, rough surface, saliva, smartphone, todd duncombe, university of washington, vibration, vibration frequency, water sample, yegan erdem

As medical researchers and engineers try to shrink diagnostics to fit in a person’s pocket, one question is how to easily move and mix small samples of liquid.

University of Washington researchers have built and patented a surface that, when shaken, moves drops along certain paths to conduct medical or environmental tests.

“This allows us to move drops as far as we want, and in any kind of layout that we want,” said Karl Böhringer, a UW professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering. The low-cost system, published in a recent issue of the journal Advanced Materials, would require very little energy and avoids possible contamination by diluting or electrifying the samples in order to move them. (more…)

Cosmic Ray Mystery

By Guest PostApril 19, 2012Scienceactive galaxies, Antarctica, array of detector, australia, bakhtiyar ruzybayev, barbados, belgium, black hole, canada, charged particle, chris elliott, cosmic ray, cosmic ray protons, data, density of radiation, detector, earth, energy, fermi satellites, fireballs, francis halzen, gamma ray bursts, Germany, ghostly nature, glacial ice, grbs, greg sullivan, icecube, icetop, james roth, Japan, katie shirey, NASA, national science foundation, neutrinos, new zealand, nsf, production, proton, pyramid of giza, south pole, Sweden, swift, switzerland, telescope, thomas gaisser, universe, university of delaware, university of wisconsin, US

Massive detector homes in on cosmic ray production

IceCube, an international collaboration involving University of Delaware scientists, is shedding new light on cosmic ray production.

Although cosmic rays were discovered 100 years ago, their origin remains one of the most enduring mysteries in physics. Now, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a massive detector in Antarctica, is homing in on how the highest energy cosmic rays are produced. (more…)

U.S. Students Need New Way of Learning Science

By Guest PostApril 7, 2012Educationamerican students, atoms, cells, conservation of mass and energy, digital organisms, energy, forces, genomics, k 12 school, michigan state university, next generation, prom se, radiation, research project, Science, science standard, scientific fact, simon billinge, stephen pruitt, student assessment, synthetic biology, systems change, united states, variation, william schmidt

EAST LANSING, Mich. — American students need a dramatically new approach to improve how they learn science, says a noted group of scientists and educators led by Michigan State University professor William Schmidt.

After six years of work, the group has proposed a solution. The 8+1 Science concept calls for a radical overhaul in K-12 schools that moves away from memorizing scientific facts and focuses on helping students understand eight fundamental science concepts. The “plus one” is the importance of inquiry, the practice of asking why things happen around us – and a fundamental part of science. (more…)

Mapping Grasslands for Biofuel Potential

By Guest PostMarch 31, 2012Environmentalternative, america, biofuel crop, cell wall, cellulosic, energy, environmental impact, fertilizer, fossil fuel, grassland, irrigation water, marcia mcnutt, miscanthus, municipal wastes, nebraska, non food crop, north american, overgrazing, plant, platte river basin, prairie, switchgrass, tallgrass, united states, usgs, woody biomass

USGS scientists have developed a new method for mapping grasslands that demonstrate high potential for growing biofuel crops with relatively little energy input and environmental impact.

The pioneering investigation used remote sensing data from satellites to identify detailed areas of the Greater Platte River Basin (most of Nebraska, parts of adjacent states) that are best suited for producing cellulosic (from the cell walls of plants) biofuel derived from hardy switchgrass, a native plant that grows wild or is easily cultivated. (more…)

In Conversation: Sir Peter Crane

By Guest PostMarch 6, 2012Environment, Sciencebuckingham palace, Chicago, energy, England, environmental changes, environmental issues, epa, evolutionary biologist, field museum, ginkgo, glaciation, interdisciplinary component, j gustave speth, liquid natural gas, manhattan, nature conservancy, nuclear plant, peace corps, Prince Charles, royal botanic gardens, school of management, sir peter crane, som, state department, street trees, ted snyder, urban system, Wall Street, world wildlife fund

Evolutionary biologist Sir Peter Crane has been dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) since 2009. A former director of Chicago’s Field Museum and chief executive of England’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he recently spoke with Yale News about F&ES’ internationalism, the role of business in environmental management, and what it was like to be knighted at Buckingham Palace, among other topics. The following is an edited version of that conversation. (more…)

Molecular Duo Dictate Weight and Energy Levels, Yale Researchers Find

By Guest PostFebruary 29, 2012Scienceanthony van den pol, bill hathaway, brain control, cells, cellular mechanism, energy, energy balance, hypothalamic neurons, hypothalamus, journal of neuroscience, mch, melanin concentrating hormone, nervous system, neurons, neurotransmitter, thyrotropin releasing hormone, trh, xiaobing zhang, yale university

Yale University researchers have discovered a key cellular mechanism that may help the brain control how much we eat, what we weigh, and how much energy we have.

The findings, published in the Feb. 28 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, describe the regulation of a family of cells that project throughout the nervous system and originate in an area of the brain call the hypothalamus, which has been long known to control energy balances. (more…)

Yale Study: How Mitochondrial DNA Defects Cause Inherited Deafness

By Guest PostFebruary 21, 2012Scienceapoptosis, cascade, cell, cellular power plants, cellular respiration, cellular structure, chemical modification, disease, dna mutation, energy, enzyme, gene, gerald s shadel, hearing loss, helen dodson, inherited deafness, justin cotney, lei song, methylation, mitochondria, mitochondrial dna mutation, mitochondrial ribosomes, molecular pathway, mouse model, overexpression, programmed cell death, protein, rna, sharen e mccay, timothy e shutt, yale scientist

Yale scientists have discovered the molecular pathway by which maternally inherited deafness appears to occur: Mitochondrial DNA mutations trigger a signaling cascade, resulting in programmed cell death. The study is in the Feb. 17 issue of Cell.

Mitochondria are cellular structures that function as “cellular power plants” because they generate most of the cell’s supply of energy. They contain DNA inherited from one’s mother. Mitochondria determine whether a cell lives or dies via the process of programmed cell death, or apoptosis. (more…)

From Cancer Research to Energy Storage, Berkeley Lab Scientist Takes on Big Challenges

By Guest PostFebruary 3, 2012Scienceclean energy, CO2, energy, Environment, fossil fuel, hydrogen storage system, India, intel corporation, liquefied hydrogen, magnesium metal, metal hydride, molecular foundry, nanoparticle, optical spectroscopy, phase transition, plasmonic structures, rising star, rizia bardhan, Science, volumetric density

*Rizia Bardhan, a postdoc at the Molecular Foundry, selected to Forbes’ ’30 under 30′ list*

On a typical day, Rizia Bardhan walks through the doors of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Molecular Foundry and immerses herself in the tricky business of tweaking optical spectroscopy equipment to study phase transitions in metal hydrides.

It’s fair to say that what she does is difficult to grasp. Why she does it is easy: “I want to help solve big problems. That’s why I’m here,” she says. (more…)

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