#Bioadhesive Nanoparticles Help Protect Your Skin From the Sun Dermatologists from Yale university have developed a new sunscreen made with bioadhesive nanoparticles that doesn penetrate the skin,
eliminating serious health concerns associated with commercial sunscreens. Most commercial sunblocks are good at preventing sunburn,
but they can go below the skin surface and enter the bloodstream. As a result, they pose possible hormonal side effects
made with bioadhesive nanoparticles, that stays on the surface of the skin. Results of the research will appear in the September 28 online edition of the journal Nature Materials. e found that
the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical engineering. anoparticles are large enough to keep from going through the skin surface,
and our nanoparticles are so adhesive that they don even go into hair follicles, which are relatively open.
Using mouse models, the researchers tested their sunblock against direct ultraviolet rays and their ability to cause sunburn.
In this regard, even though it used a significantly smaller amount of the active ingredient than commercial sunscreens,
the researchersformulation protected equally well against sunburn. They also looked at an indirect and much less studied effect of UV LIGHT.
a chemical change triggers the generation of oxygen-carrying molecules known as reactive oxygen species (ROS). If a sunscreen agents penetrate the skin,
said co-author Michael Girardi, a professor of dermatology at Yale Medical school. n fact, the indirect damage was worse
Previous studies have found traces of commercial sunscreen chemicals in usersbloodstreams, urine, and breast milk. There is evidence that these chemicals cause disruptions with the endocrine system, such as blocking sex hormone receptors.
the researchers developed a nanoparticle with a surface coating rich in aldehyde groups, which stick tenaciously to the outer skin layer.
The nanoparticle hydrophilic layer essentially locks in the active ingredient, a hydrophobic chemical called padimate O. Some sunscreen solutions that use larger particles of inorganic compounds, such as titanium dioxide or zinc oxide,
By using a nanoparticle to encase padimate O, an organic chemical used in many commercial sunscreens,
Yang Deng, a postdoctoral associate in biomedical engineering, and Yale medical student Asiri Ediriwickrema were co-first authors of the paper.
who is in the Department of Biomedical engineering; and Julia Lewis, from the Department of Dermatology.
Saltzman and Girardi are affiliated with the Yale Cancer Center
#Neurologists Speed up Connectome Analysis by More than 10-Fold Unraveling the connectivity maps between nerve cells in brains is a huge scientific endeavor called connectomics.
The main limitation to mapping large parts of the brain is the analysis of the data obtained with electron microscopes.
Berning and colleagues from the Department of Connectomics at the Frankfurt-based Max Planck Institute for Brain Research developed a novel tool-set, called Segem,
which speeds up connectome analysis by more than 10-fold. Connectomics is a relatively new research field where researchers aim to reconstruct the neuronal connectivity in parts of the brain from measured datasets.
This first one is to increase the manpower and the second strategy is to develop new algorithms to reconstruct the brain tissue data in a more automated way.
Researchers at the Department of Connectomics are already working on increasing the number of participants by developing a platform where also non-qualified personnel (e g. students) can assist in the analysis of the connections between the neurons.
The research group already recruited large populations of students to help determine the connectome of a part of the mouse retina
and is currently developing the game Brainflight to have as many as people as possible participating in a similar project for the cerebral cortex.
a manual analysis would take up to 500.000 work hours and an investment of millions of Euros.
y using machine learning algorithms, we were able to develop a way to automatically classify brain tissue containing all the synapses.
bringing the analysis step closer to data generation. The researchers first trained their system with existing data sets from retina and cortex before performing an automated test of new data.
Helmstaedter: e were amazed that the new algorithm actually works extremely well for retinal and cortical data.
This is real breakthrough, and an important step towards making connectome analysis a ready-to-use technique in neuroscience labs around the world
researchers from the University of Montreal have taken a major step forward in the fight against age-related macular degeneration.
thanks to findings published today by Professor Gilbert Bernier of the University of Montreal and its affiliated Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital.
Professor Gilbert explained. ithin 45 days, the cones that we allowed to grow towards confluence spontaneously formed organized retinal tissue that was 150 microns thick.
The transplanted photoreceptors migrated naturally within the retina of their host. one transplant represents a therapeutic solution for retinal pathologies caused by the degeneration of photoreceptor cells,
offering hope that treatments may be developed for currently non-curable degenerative diseases, like Stargardt disease and ARMD. esearchers have been trying to achieve this kind of trial for years,
he said. hanks to our simple and effective approach, any laboratory in the world will now be able to create masses of photoreceptors.
ARMD is in fact the greatest cause of blindness in people over the age of 50
this accelerated aging of the retina affects nearly one in four. People with ARMD gradually lose their perception of colors
write, watch television or even recognize a face. ARMD is due to the degeneration of the macula,
This degeneration is caused by the destruction of the cones and cells in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE),
and less effective waste accumulates, forming deposits. ifferentiating RPE cells is quite easy. But in order to undertake a complete therapy,
we need neuronal tissue that links all RPE cells to the cones. That is much more complex to develop,
Indeed, bioinformatic analysis led him to predict the existence of a mysterious protein: COCO, a ecombinationalhuman molecule that is normally expressed within photoreceptors during their development.
In 2001, he launched his laboratory at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital and immediately isolated the molecule.
Beyond the clinical applications, Professor Bernier findings could enable the modelling of human retinal degenerative diseases through the use of induced pluripotent stem cells,
offering the possibility of directly testing potential avenues for therapy on the patient own tissues e
#A Light-Reflecting Balloon Catheter Repairs the Heart without Surgery Harvard-affiliated researchers have designed a specialized catheter for fixing holes in the heart by using a biodegradable adhesive and patch.
The team reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine that the catheter has been used successfully in animal studies to help close holes without requiring open-heart surgery.
Pedro del Nido, chief of cardiac surgery at Boston Children Hospital, the William E. Ladd Professor of Child Surgery at Harvard Medical school,
and the Karp Lab at Brigham and Women Hospital, which is affiliated a Harvard hospital, as is Boston Children.
While medical devices that remain in the body may be jostled out of place or fail to cover the hole as the body grows,
Their catheter device utilizes UV LIGHT technology and can be used to place the patch in a beating heart.
The catheter is inserted through a vein in the neck or groin and directed to the defect within the heart.
Once the catheter is in place, the clinician opens two positioning balloons: one around the front end of the catheter, passing through the hole,
and one on the other side of the heart wall. The clinician then deploys the patch and turns on the catheter UV LIGHT.
The light reflects off of the balloon shiny interior and activates the patch adhesive coating.
As the glue cures, pressure from the positioning balloons on either side of the patch help secure it in place.
Finally, both balloons are deflated, and the catheter is withdrawn. Over time, normal tissue growth resumes, and heart tissue grows over the patch.
The patch itself dissolves when it is needed no longer. his really is a completely new platform for closing wounds or holes anywhere in the body,
said Conor Walsh, a contributing author of the study, a Wyss Institute core faculty member, an assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering AT SEAS,
and founder of the Harvard Biodesign Lab AT SEAS. he device is a minimally invasive way to deliver a patch
and then activate it using UV LIGHT, all within a matter of five minutes, and in an atraumatic way that doesn require a separate incision. e
#Nanoscientists Improve the Stability of Perovskite Solar cells UCLA researchers have taken a step towards next-generation perovskite solar cells by using a metal oxide andwich.
The new design extends the cell effective life in air by more than 10 times, with only a marginal loss of efficiency converting sunlight to electricity.
UCLA professor Yang Yang, member of the California Nanosystems Institute, is renowned a world innovator of solar cell technology
whose team in recent years has developed next-generation solar cells constructed of perovskite, which has remarkable efficiency converting sunlight to electricity.
Despite this success the delicate nature of perovskite a very light, flexible, organic-inorganic hybrid material stalled further development toward its commercialized use.
When exposed to air, perovskite cells broke down and disintegrated within a few hours to few days.
The cells deteriorated even faster when also exposed to moisture, mainly due to the hydroscopic nature of the perovskite.
Now Yang team has conquered the primary difficulty of perovskite by protecting it between two layers of metal oxide.
This is a significant advance toward stabilizing perovskite solar cells. Their new cell construction extends the cell effective life in air by more than 10 times
with only a marginal loss of efficiency converting sunlight to electricity. The study was published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Postdoctoral scholar Jingbi You and graduate student Lei Meng from the Yang Lab were the lead authors on the paper. here has been much optimism about perovskite solar cell technology,
Meng said. In less than two years, the Yang team has advanced perovskite solar cell efficiency from less than 1 percent to close to 20 percent. ut its short lifespan was a limiting factor we have been trying to improve on since developing perovskite cells with high efficiency.
Yang who holds the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas, Jr. Endowed Chair in Engineering at UCLA, said there are several factors that lead to quick deterioration in normally layered perovskite solar cells.
The most significant, Yang said, was that the widely used top organic buffer layer has poor stability
and can effectively protect the perovskite layer from moisture in the air, speeding cell degradation. The buffer layers are important to cell construction
because electricity generated by the cell is extracted through them. Meng said that in this study the team replaced those organic layers with metal oxide layers that sandwich the perovskite layer,
protecting it from moisture. The difference was dramatic. The metal oxide cells lasted 60 days in open-air storage at room temperature
retaining 90 percent of their original solar conversion efficiency. ith this technique perfected we have enhanced significantly the stability.
The next step for the Yang team is to make the metal oxide layers more condensed for better efficiency and seal the solar cell for even longer life with no loss of efficiency.
Yang expects that this process can be scaled up to large production now that the main perovskite problem has been solved.
This research is a joint project with National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U s. Air force Office of Scientific research and the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan n
#Researchers Use a Small Electric charge to Control the Bubbles of Boiling Water For the first time, scientists from MIT have found a way to control the boiling process.
The system could improve the efficiency of electric power generation and other processes. Boiling water, with its commotion of bubbles that rise from a surface as water comes to a boil,
is central to most electric power plants, heating and cooling systems, and desalination plants. Now, for the first time, researchers at MIT have found a way to control this process, literally with the flick of an electrical switch.
The system which could improve the efficiency of electric power generation and other processes, is described in a paper by Department of Mechanical engineering Professor Evelyn Wang, graduate student Jeremy Cho,
and recent graduate Jordan Mizerak 4, published in the journal Nature Communications. This degree of control over the boiling process, independent of temperature, Wang says,
has not previously been demonstrated despite the ubiquity of boiling in industrial processes. Other systems have been developed to control boiling using electric fields,
but these have required special fluids rather than water, and a thousandfold higher voltages, making them economically impractical for most uses.
The new feat was accomplished by adding surfactants to water essentially creating a soapy liquid. The surfactant molecules
which carry an electrical charge, can be attracted to, or repelled by, a metal surface by changing the polarity of the voltage applied to the metal.
This switches the metal surface between being hydrophilic and hydrophobic, Wang explains. Adding the surfactant causes the surface to become more hydrophobic,
which increases the rate of nucleation to form bubbles. But reversing the charge on the surface causes the surface to become hydrophilic,
and inhibits the formation of bubbles. The researchers found that they could achieve a tenfold change in the rate of bubble formation simply by switching the charge.
which rely on the creation of precise kinds of nanoscale textures on the surface, this system makes use of the tiny irregularities that naturally exist on a metal surface
in turn, allows control over the rate of heat transfer between the metal and the liquid.
That could make it possible to make more efficient boilers for powerplants or other applications, since present designs require a substantial safety margin to avoid the possibility of hot spots that could seriously damage the equipment.
While most such power plants operate at a steady rate most of the time being able to control the heat transfer rates dynamically could improve their efficiency
Similarly, liquid cooling for high-performance electronics also could be made more efficient by being able to control the rate of bubbling to prevent overheating in hotspots,
he says. aving a boiler that can respond to quick changescould provide extra flexibility to the electric grid,
Wang says this work has demonstrated hat you can actively modify the rate of nucleation. It has not been shown previously that this is possible.
Power plant operators are rightly conservative about making changes, Cho says, since people depend on their output,
But don think there are any huge barriersto building such a demonstration he says. n theory,
says Satish Kandlikar, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Rochester Institute of technology, who was involved not in this research. uch control strategies will dramatically alter the heat transfer paradigm in many applications,
especially in the electronics cooling industry to cool hot spots. Such strategies can be applied effectively through simple electric controls using the new technology.
#Daimler unveils first self-driving truck approved for U s. highway testing The future of self-driving commercial vehicles is unclear,
but the lure of fewer accidents, reduced fuel costs not to mention less human error have generated excitement in the trucking industry as well as the transportation safety sector.
The Daimler Inspiration Truck will be tested rigorously on Nevada roads as the company gathers data about the truck performance
Daimler is the parent company of Council Lead Partner Mercedes-benz, which also is working on next-generation vehicles,
including hybrid electrics intended for city use. What different about Daimler truck? Self-driving work rigs are not new.
You can see them on farms in the form of grain harvesters and planters; and mining operations use them too.
But those vehicles aren't designed to operate alongside other cars and trucks on the highway.
The Inspiration Truck has been licensed by the state of Nevada to do just that share the roads.
Autonomous trucks could provide several advantages for the trucking industry. They could dramatically reduce the chance for human error,
which is said to cause the great majority of accidents. The savings in fuel costs would come from the truck's ability to accelerate
and decelerate more gradually than humans normally do. Also, they would be well-suited to convoys
because they would be able to communicate with each other. Patrick Vogel of the Free University in Berlin
Germany, was quoted as saying: car never gets tired. It doesn't have any emotions when it's driving home from a breakup with its girlfriend.
It doesn't get drunk or old and slow.""The combination of a camera that interprets lane markings
and monitors to locate other vehicles on the road enables the Inspiration Trucks to remain in their lane,
the Inspiration Truck is not quite riverless. There is a human driver on board ready to make lane changes
As Peter Stone, a University of Texas computer scientist put it, efore it became clear that the technical issues could be addressed,
Oregon-based writer specializing in technology and energy. Follow@smartccouncil on Twitter. Related articlesercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion Research Vehicle World premiere (video) Mercedes-benz rolling out a lineup of city-friendly hybrid EVS c
#6 new signs the world is getting smarter about energy There no doubt that the energy world is changing fast.
It wasn long ago that the electrical grid was one-way delivering power to homes and businesses, not receiving power from them.
Today, the electrical grid is two-way. And renewable energy, which is subject to more fluctuations than more traditional sources,
is not only here, it becoming an increasingly large source of power for many communities. These trends are forcing cities
and utilities to look at energy in new ways. Here are six new projects in communities that are getting smarter about energy.
Managing unprecedented network load Within the next decade the United kingdom is forecast to have more than 10 million homes with solar panels and more than 6 million with electric vehicles,
making the country energy network increasingly difficult to manage. Council Lead Partner Schneider Electric is participating in a trial project that will help with changing energy network patterns
while boosting local capacity. The project involves installing high-performance power electronic converters at individual homes and offices.
By doing this, utilities can increase the voltage sent over local networks to give customers more flexibility.
For instance, the system can deliver consistent power for household needs while delivering stronger voltage to recharge an electric car.
All the data in one placesmart meters and growing grids create a lot of data. Schneider Electric is also helping Spain Iberdrola keep better track of 11 million smart meters and advanced monitoring devices.
Through the project, the utility gains a single platform to remotely manage and analyze data from the meters.
This gives the utility better data faster. Customers also get more timely information about their energy usage,
which helps them conserve and better manage their utility bills. System-wide management and consistencysnohomish County PUD, a utility north of Seattle that ranks as one of the largest in the U s.,is upgrading
and streamlining its management systems in a project with Council Lead Partner Alstom Grid. The project aims to improve reliability
while making the grid easier to manage. Once the upgrade is complete management staff will have only one main system to learn.
The project will integrate a new outage management system with a distribution management system and an updated energy management system.
All three are made by Alstom and will give the utility a single, integrated platform to monitor
and operate its electric grid. By having a single interface that consistent across transmission and distribution control rooms,
the utility expects to reduce operational costs by simplifying controls and enhancing situational awareness. Modernizing Latin america largest gridthe Brazilian utility Eletrobras--the largest power utility in Latin america--is working with Council Lead Partner Itron to modernize its grid.
It using Itron Openway Riva to combine two different communications technologies on the same network. Itron adaptive technology automatically routes data over the best communications system--radio frequency or power line carrier--at the time for the data and the requirements of the application.
This effort will improve outage detection, transformer load management, and allow for smart and remote metering,
remote disconnect and provide other efficiencies. Giving renewable energy generation a boostenel, a Council Lead Partner, is making a big investment to boost the amount of energy generated from renewable sources in emerging markets,
including Chile, Mexico and Brazil. It investing $9. 9 billion to add 7. 1 GW of new capacity,
coming close to doubling the amount of energy it currently generating. Enel says those three countries are set to be renewable energy hotspots
and its efforts not only provide more power, but also help them achieve their renewable energy goals. The new capacity will go online this decade.
Enel also has its sights set on South africa where more than 6 GW of renewable energy capacity will eventually be auctioned.
Integrating renewable energy sourcesthe need for more timely information is driving a transmission project in Italy that does more to incorporate renewable energy while improving reliability.
Council Lead Partner GE is helping Terna Rete Italia, Italy transmission system operator, gather real-time data in an effort to prevent outages.
By being able to view and analyze data in real-time, the project will effectively give the company an early warning-system system.
When potential faults, oscillations or other disturbances are detected, the transmission operator can balance different energy sources to maintain consistent power.##
###Kevin Ebi is a staff writer and social media coordinator for the Council. Follow@smartccouncil on Twitter.
Get the Smart cities Readiness Guide Ready to upgrade your electrical grid? Get your free copy of the Smart cities Readiness Guide,
which offers case studies and best practices for reducing energy operating costs, reducing reliance on nonrenewable energy sources, lowering costs for citizens and improving reliability and resilience.
It free for registered members of the Smart cities Council. Download your copy today p
#New Memristors Could Usher in Bionic Brains Last month we saw researchers in the US push the envelope of nonvolatile memory devices based on resistance switching to the point where they are now capable of mimicking the neurons in the human brain.
Now researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of technology (RMIT) in Australia have built on their previous work developing ultra-fast nanoscale memories.
They used a functional oxide ultra-thin film to create one of the world first electronic multi-state memory cells.
The researchers claim that the memristive devices they have developed mimic the brain ability to simultaneously process
and store multiple strands of information. The research which was published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials,
involved chemically manipulating amorphous strontium titanate memristors by adding faults to the material that both tuned
The researchers believe that these nanoscale memory devices promise a future of artificial intelligence network that could enable a so-called bionic brain.
Nili suggests that one of the potential applications for these nano-memory devices could be in replicating the human brain outside of the human body.
which can lead to better understanding of neurological conditions
#A Computer That Can Sniff out Septic Shock Dr. David Hagar treats dozens of patients each day at the intensive care unit at John Hopkins Hospital in Maryland.
One of his patients was almost perfectly healthy except for having low blood pressure. Within four hours, the patient died of septic shock.
A group of computer scientists at John Hopkins University partnered with Hagar, and created an algorithm that can predict septic shock
and give clinicians more time to treat someone at risk. Septic shock, which is the third level of sepsis,
is difficult to predict. Sepsis is a severe immune system response triggered by an infection. If untreated
inflammation spreads throughout the body and can clot vessels. This blocks the blood flow to organs which can cause failure.
Physicians treat septic shock by contracting vessels or giving the patient fluids to maintain normal blood pressure and supply blood back to vital organs.
The warning symptoms of an attack can progress over weeks or hours. The computer system sifted through a dataset of over 16,000 patient electronic health records,
which includes a historical profile of blood pressure, heart rate, and other physiological measurements. The algorithm combined 27 of the most common measurements used to diagnose septic shock
and generated a targeted real-time warning score, or TREWSCORE. If a patient TREWSCORE indicated that he
or she was at risk for septic shock, an alert was sent to a doctor who could then take action
when the sepsis was relatively easy to counteract. The study found that TREWSCORE identified 61 percent of the septic shock patients before one of its competitors,
Modified Early Warning Score did. Not only can TREWSCORE predict septic shock sooner, it is also more accurate.
000 people in the United states develop severe sepsis and septic shock each year; for 40 percent of them, the condition is ultimately fatal,
One hurdle that needs to be overcome is that electronic health data can be challenging to work with,
explains the study lead computer engineer, Suchi Saria. Part of the difficulty is that there may be systematic bias in the medical information recorded.
For instance, a patient who is treated successfully will appear as low-risk in the electronic health records
These cases hurt the algorithm performance. Current computerized clinical decision support (CDS) models that utilize electronic health records do not account for this kind of censored information.
Saria and her team address this problem by modifying pattern recognition algorithms so the computer can avoid mistaking high-risk patients for low-risk ones.
This computer system can be tailored to many different medical conditions including acute lung injury, pneumonia, and post-rehabilitation illnesses like neuropathy. e are at a very exciting time,
says Saria. ore and more data is being collected on the electronic health records, and now our algorithms are reaching a point where they can be a real aid to clinicians. t
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