#The eaves of death for malaria mosquitoes EU-funded researchers have developed three new tools to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
They are now working to bring their low-cost innovations to market quickly a boost to the global battle against this deadly disease.
Over the past two decades global efforts to prevent malaria and treat its victims have contributed to reduce infection dramatically
and save millions of lives. Even so, each year around 200 million people catch malaria, and 600 000 die from the disease, mostly children and women in Africa, according to the World health organization.
Prevention through insecticide-treated bednets and indoor sprays, is one of the best ways to win the battle.
But mosquitoes are becoming resistant to insecticides potentially reversing the gains made so far. In response, the EU-funded MCD project has developed three new weapons against them a special coating that transfers insecticides effectively to mosquitoes landing on it,
insecticide-laced ave tubesto direct them to the coating, and a bednet patch. The project began work in December 2012
and is now negotiating with a manufacturer in Tanzania to mass produce these low-cost devices
and distribute them, says project coordinator Bart Knols of In2care. The netherlands-based research company specialises in developing products to control disease-transmitting insects. have been working in the field of malaria research for the past 22 years,
says Knols. have seen never an idea move so fast from early research in the lab to field testing in the real world to potential commercialisation.
This is simply amazing. Tubular protection In2care and CTF2000, another project partner, originally developed netting for trapping pollen.
This has been repurposed for mosquito control using the netting coated with insecticide at one end of tubes that are placed in the walls of the households.
The tubes are to be inserted into the walls under a building roof, its eaves, so they are called'eave tubes'.
'Hungry malaria mosquitoes looking to feed on blood tend to enter such openings, naturally following the scent of humans
and the trail of carbon dioxide they breathe out. The mosquitoes end up on the netting, and make contact with the insecticide.
Eave tubes are potentially more effective than indoor spraying, says Knols. They better prevent mosquitoes from entering a house.
For indoor spraying to work, mosquitoes must first enter a house and land on a wall covered with insecticide,
leaving them time to infect a person. ith these tubes, insecticide is applied only to a small area the netting,
he explains. his means a major reduction in insecticide use, by about 95, %which is better for people health and for the environment.
The team initially tested the eave tubes in 2013 in large outdoor cages in Tanzania.
Within a night, two-thirds of the mosquitoes released were killed after contact with the tube netting.
In November 2013, MCD outfitted 20 houses with eave tubes in Igombati, a small Tanzanian village.
To date, six months later, the coating has remained an effective mosquito killer and it can be considered a competitive alternative to indoor spraying,
which in addition needs to be done twice a year, says Knols. Recently the team has started to modify another 1 100 houses with eave tubes as part of a larger test.
The researchers have developed also an alternative to the eave tubes the'eave brick, 'where the plastic with the insecticide-coated netting replaces a brick removed from a wall.
The team calculates a typical household would spend about#1 per person per year over three years for the'eave tubes or bricks'.
'ee close to becoming competitive with bednets, especially when taking into consideration that eave tubes protect everyone in the house and not just those sleeping under a net,
Knols adds. Smart patches Moreover, MCD has developed also the mart patchfor bednets. The team research found that a mosquito first point of contact on a bednet is usually just above the head and torso of a sleeping person.
The researchers have created a piece of insecticide-treated netting, a patch that, placed on this area of the bednet, would kill 62%of the mosquitoes in the room within a night,
as shown in experiments in a large outdoor cage in Tanzania. Using such a patch, about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, can turn an untreated net into one that starts killing mosquitoes without the need to coat the whole bednet with insecticide.
Since the patch is placed on top of a bednet, people are less likely to come into contact with insecticide.
This opens the way for more powerful alternatives to be used insecticides that remain effective against mosquitoes.
The project partners made up of three small and medium-sized European companies, a health institute in Tanzania and a US university plan to commercialise the eave tubes
the coating, and the smart patch before the end of the project in November 2015.
Negotiations are currently underway with a manufacturer in Tanzania. Knols says the team is also looking for additional funding to conduct a field test of the eave tubes
and bricks on up to 7 000 houses one that would yield solid scientific evidence that these tools can be deployed broadly to reduce the burden of malaria.
Article Nederlandse vinding doodt malariamug in Nieuwsuur (in Dutch) Project details Project acronym: MCD Participants:
Netherlands (Coordinator), Germany, Belgium, Tanzania, United states FP7 Proj. N°306105 Total costs:##6 576 806 EU contribution:#
#5 212 772 Duration: December 2012-November 201 o
#Euro-Indo collaboration develops new photodetector Photodetectors that analyse scattered light in the ultraviolet (UV) range of the spectrum are used often in situations where the rapid detection of hazardous biological
and chemical agents in air is required. Each type of material demonstrates a sort of optical fingerprint; this can be shown, for example, by laser excitation.
To this end, photodetectors with an extremely narrow bandwidth are required, which only respond to particular wavelengths.
Enter European and Indian scientists, who teamed up to offer the world an innovative solution. Their work was published in the journal Applied Physics Letters in February 2007.
An international consortium of scientists, which includes the Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics (PDI) in Berlin,
Germany and colleagues from Spain and India, has developed such a detector for UV radiation. This particular detector has a bandwidth of only six nanometres (nm.
This means its bandwidth is five times narrower than that of a comparable photodetector. The device is also sensitive to polarised light,
which helps to reduce the scattered background radiation. Prof. Dr Holger T. Grahn from the PDI headed the team of researchers,
who developed the detector using a photosensitive layer of nonpolar gallium nitride (Gan) on a substrate of lithium aluminate (Lialo2).
The active Gan layer is 0. 4 micrometres thick. To give you some idea of the size,
it is 10 times smaller than the diameter of the average dust particle. The Gan layer was produced at the Paul Drude Institute by Oliver Brandt,
while the photodetector was produced at the Universidad Polotécnica de Madrid in Madrid, Spain by Carlos Rivera, Jose Luis Pau and Eliaz Munoz.
The new device is suitable for the identification of airborne chemical and biological agents in real time.
The detector is used then to extract the optical fingerprint from the scattered light. A large number of photodetectors, with very narrow bandwidths, is necessary so as to simultaneously detect as many different substances as possible.
This requires each device being sensitive to a particular wavelength. The photodetector developed by the international consortium is merely the size of a pin head
#Biofuels to be processed by oil refineries EU research seeks to run yesterday's refineries on next-gen fuels.
Luigi Chiesabio-mass processing is highly innovative resulting in the production of energy and oxygenated chemicals.
%and cannot be refined in conventional refinery units. The de-oxygenation processes currently employed are expensive due to their high hydrogen consumption and costs.
The new processing route uses European biomass as feedstock which will help to secure and increase the internal EU energy supply.
It will also enhance the competitiveness of European industry by providing business opportunities. Jobs will be created for the whole value chain from the initial biomass feedstock producers to the final end users.
The project will develop renewable energy sources and promote in particular the use of lignin a by-product of wood pulp production.
BIOCOUP will also help to make a significant contribution to the reduction of CO2 EMISSIONS in the transportation sector through the efficient utilisation of biomass material.
and food from existing industries and the processing of upgraded biomass-derived liquids in existing mineral oil refineries.
This will encourage the acceptance of biomass and further the technological development of biomass production routes.
It can take years of exposure to arsenic before clear symptoms may appear, such as pigmentation changes, yperkeratosis'(patches of thickening skin), neurological side effects and signs of possible cancers in major organs (skin
By this time, the chronic disease arsenicosis has set in. Prevention is the only way to stop it, the experts lament.
Thankfully, European researchers and their international partners at UNESCO's Institute for Water Education (IHE) in Holland have perfected a simple, efficient and importantly low-cost water filtration device
which removes arsenic from contaminated drinking water. The filter uses iron oxide-coated sand which absorbs the arsenic from water at the oint of use
Potential users of the new filter are not only in the world's poorest nations. Families on farms or not connected to town water in countries
What's more, UNESCO-IHE tests indicate the resulting arsenic-covered sand will percolate (leach naturally) back into the environment,
UNESCO-IHE is active in education, training and capacity building in organisations, knowledge centres and other institutions active in the fields of water, the environment and infrastructure, with emphasis on developing countries and countries in transition.
For this reason, it has decided consciously not to patent the family filter. t is our hope that the absence of a patent will enable the technology to spread unfettered throughout the developing world,
energy security and turning possibly a greenhouse gas into a useful resource. Researchers have demonstrated for the first time successfully the entire production chain for renewable kerosene,
using concentrated light as a high-temperature energy source. The project is still at the experimental stage,
and water to synthesis gas (syngas) in a high-temperature solar reactor containing metal-oxide based materials developed at ETH Zürich.
or even plastics. Fischer-Tropsch derived fuels are certified already and can be used by existing vehicles and aircraft without modifications of their engines or of fuel infrastructure.
Background The four-year SOLAR-JET project was launched in June 2011 and is receiving#2. 2 million of EU funding from the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7).
The SOLAR-JET project brings together research organisations from academia and industry (ETH Zürich, Bauhaus Luftfahrt, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR),
In the next phase of the project, the partners plan to optimise the solar reactor and assess
sustainable sources of energy will remain a priority under Horizon 2020, the seven-year EU research and innovation programme launched on Jan 1, 2014.
In the call Competitive Low-Carbon Energy published on December 11 last year, the Commission proposed investing#732 million over two years in this area.
Applications for this kind of materials mix can be found in diverse domains such as the pharmaceutical industry, the food and processing industry, energy production or systems biology.
Everyday products such as coffee, corn flakes, nuts or fertilizer all depend on this field of knowledge known as multi-physics.
This is because controlled experiments often involve inaccessible or hostile environments such as the combustion of hazardous waste.
These atural barriershave so far prevented scientists from gaining deeper knowledge that could be used to improve design and production processes.
the AMST project is developing a new generation of software. AMST stands for Advanced Multi-physics Simulation Technology, a type of software that can be used for a wide range of such complex processes.
Besides its versatile use, the software main advantage is its independence from any experimental conditions. Despite this, it has proven its ability to predict very detailed results.
Scientists and engineers then analyse the data obtained in great detail in order to unveil the underlying physics of the processes Involved with these theoretical insights complementing the empirical knowledge our understanding of multi-physics has been broadened considerably.
From here, many different application domains are encountered. A first investigation deals with gasification of wood. The predicted results include both the pyrolysis process of individual particles and the tar concentration in the gas as a response to the interaction between hot air and wood particles.
These results enable the operation to be estimated for a particular reactor and allow access to details that could not have been gained through measurements alone.
A detailed analysis of results enables engineers to improve reactor design for higher energy efficiency. Such reactors not only improve operating conditions
but also allow for a more sustainable use of resources. These outstanding results were possible thanks to a partnership between Prof.
Bernhard Peters as the principal investigator at the University of Luxembourg, and the German SME inutech with its complementary expertise in designing software for multi-physics applications.
Strategic partners from the academic and industrial sectors, namely FLSMIDTH (Germany), the Lithuanian Energy Institute (Lithuania) and Paul Wurth (Luxembourg), also made significant contributions thanks to their expertise
and because of the industry-relevant applications that they brought on board. Therefore, the AMST project was able to close a large technological gap for research and industry
but instead of printing with plastics, it deploys edible ingredients squeezed out of stainless steel capsules:""It's the same technology,
"but with plastics there's just one melting point, whereas with food it's different temperatures, consistencies and textures.
Also, gravity works a little bit against us, as food doesn't hold the shape as well as plastic."
"The Barcelona-based startup behind the machine says it's the only one of its kind capable of printing a wide range of dishes, from sweet to savory."
pointing out that at least in the initial stage the printer will be targeted mostly at professional kitchen users,
and that it promotes healthy eating by requiring fresh ingredients prepared before printing. Nevertheless, the company is working with major food manufacturers to create prepackaged plastic capsules that can just be loaded into the machine to make food,
even though they assure these will be free of preservatives, with a shelf life limited to five days. The printing process is slow
"There's a touchscreen on the front that connects to a recipe site in the cloud,
so it's an internet-of-things, connected kitchen appliance,"said Kucsma. Users will also be able to control the device remotely using a smartphone,
and share their recipes with the community. That is, if people don't balk at the idea of eating printed food."
"Take the microwave oven, for example: in the 70s, people were a bit fearful about it, they thought food could be poisoned with radiation or something,
000 mph cardigital nose can sniff out cancerthe race is on for flying car r
#The Netflix of China muscles in to U s. market (CNN) When I describe Letv as the Netflix of China,
Letv launched its Internet video streaming service three years before Netflix (2004 versus 2007. It was producing original movies and series long before Netflix rolled out House of cards.
It sells TV settop boxes and smart TVS--devices that can help you watch all that video."
"We want to control the screens too, "says Li, the ex-Googler who is head of data analytics at Letv, a company with a $12 billion market cap.
What's more, the company soon will move into the United states, encroaching on Netflix. Li will lead the effort,
bringing Letv's video streaming service, its original programming, its Apple-TV-like settop boxes, its smart TVS,
and, now, smartphones. Letv announced its entry into the Chinese smartphone market in April, and according to Li and his colleague JD Howard, the company plans to offer phones in the United states by year's end."
"We're going to be building a big presence here, "says Howard, a former executive with Chinese computer marker Lenovo, referring to the west coast of the United states. Read:
The deadly global war for sandit's an audacious move, given the dominance of Apple
and Google in the stateside smartphone market--and the limited track record of Chinese tech companies in the United states. But as Li and Howard explain it,
Letv isn't a smartphone company. It's an Internet video company. The phones are a way of delivering video."
"What's going to be critical, "Howard says, "is what you use your smartphone for.""The company joins a wave of Chinese Internet companies eying the United states. E-commerce conglomerate Alibaba recently debuted on Wall street (its market cap the day of its IPO exceeded that of Facebook, Amazon,
and IBM), and it has invested in a handful of companies that operate in the United states. Search giant Baidu has an R&d center in Silicon valley.
And Tencent, another sprawling Chinese Internet company, now has a U s. partner to offer ebooks stateside.
So many questions hang over the American aspirations of these Chinese companies --and Li admits as much.
But he and Howard aim to enter the U s. market with a certain blend of patience and audacity.
They will respect the unique nature of the market, they say, but also offer tools no one else has offered."
"There is room for innovation, "Howard says, "for offering a very different experience.""Read: What cities would look like
if lit only by the starsat the moment, Li and Howard say, their aims are modest.
Basically, they see their phones as a way of delivering Chinese video to Chinese speakers in the United states. Then they may do much the same for people who've immigrated to the United states from other countries."
"If you want to have a little taste of your home, "Howard says, "you can have that."
"But the hope is that they can eventually reach the broader market. In addition to opening an office in Silicon valley,
Letv is setting up shop in L a. to be close to the creators of the content its screens are made for.
Still, the hurdles to entering the highly competitive U s. smartphone market are enormous.""This is probably more work than they expect,
"says Dan Miller, the founder of research firm Opus Research, who closely follows the market."
Getting room on retail shelves. As you go down the list, it becomes such a formidable task."
"Offering phones based on the Android operating system, Letv could face legal action from companies like Apple and Microsoft.
And U s. consumers may be wary of using devices that connect to machines in China. Many assume that Chinese companies freely share online data with the Chinese government,
and the recent demand that Western tech companies provide Chinese authorities backdoor access to their hardware
and software is hardly reassuring. Read: Why humans care more about pets than other humansbut Li says that Letv will run its online services from servers in the United states,
if need be.""We will do what is necessary to make the consumers feel like their rights are being protected,
"he says. And he points out that the company will offer more than phones, including settop boxes and smart TVS.
In China, the company has said even it will offer electric cars. People watch TV SHOWS and movies in cars too.
It's the video, Li says, that will carry the company's devices forward. That may or may not offer a path to success. Remember:
Amazon, another stateside company that does streaming online video, recently tried and failed to crack the smartphone market (its tablets
and e readers do okay). But Letv's arrival shouldn't be discounted out of hand. The company is playing the long game.
Given its success in China, it has the resources to do so. And the same could be said for more than one Chinese tech giant on the edge of the U s. market.
American consumers--and companies--are used to their gadgets being made in China. Chinese brands may not be far behind.
Now, a 3d printed estate featuring a swimming pool, jacuzzi, car port and 2, 400 square foot house could be coming to a sleepy plot of land in upstate New york. The ambitious project is being undertaken by New york city architect Adam Kushner,
alongside partners including 3d printing pioneer Enrico Dini and his D-Shape firm. Kushner told CNN that surveying has begun already with excavation work also set to commence soon.
The swimming pool and jacuzzi are penciled in to be completed by December 2015 while construction of the house is expected to continue until the end of 2017,
he says. But the project hinges on getting the giant 3d printer, which will be used to produce the digitally designed building blocks of the estate on-site, into the country.
The device is currently in Italy after it was originally being built for a project partly funded by the Italian defense agencies.
Military clearance is required now before the green light is given to export the printer to the United states,
"We are now waiting (for) permission to borrow the printer (from the military), "Dini says."
"If I had another printer I'd send it there tomorrow, but unfortunately we don't have and must wait."
"Whatever the import-export issues, Kushner says he sees the estate project as a test of D-Shape's printer technology and its distinctive method.
and mixing them with a magnesium-based binding agent to produce the 3d printed building blocks required to piece the estate together.
According to literature on the D-Shape website, the material produced by the printer is"similar to marble"in its constitution.
If D-Shape can prove its technology works and is efficient for a project of this size,
"If we can build a simple pool house, I can print thousands of refugee housings.
If I can build a pool, I can print underwater reefs (which he says D-Shape has done already before) to repair bridges, piers and infrastructures."
"Integrating progressively more advanced 3d printing methods into the construction industry has been a topic that has generated many eye-catching headlines in recent years.
The process of contour crafting--where large 3d printers are assembled on a building site (much like what will happen on Kushner's estate)
and programmed to construct pre-designed concrete structures and their relevant sub-components--was put forward by Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of Southern California as far back as 2009.
Khoshnevis told industry website 3dprint. com earlier this year that the first printers large enough for his version of contour crafting should become available within the next two years.
He added that the method could even be used to build high-rise structures within ten years.
Chinese firm Winsun seemed to take inspiration from Khoshnevis'methods when they claimed to have 3d printed a mansion and six-story tower block in the city of Suzhou, eastern China earlier this year.
Meanwhile, in The netherlands, DUS Architects continue to piece together a 3d printed house using its"Kamermaker"machine.
Other experts, however are more cautious about the immediate potential of 3d printing technology in the construction industry.
In an interview with CNN in 2014 Dr. Phil Reeves, managing director of UK-based 3d printing consultancy and research firm Econolyst, described 3d printing a house on site like that planned by DUS as counter to existing building techniques
which are already relatively efficient. Then there are other fast-developing building methods like prefabricated construction
which entails manufacturing components in a factory before transporting and rapidly piecing them together on a building site.
Chinese firm Broad Sustainable building claimed to have used this method to piece together a 57-story skyscraper in just 19 days earlier this year.
For Kushner, however, the benefits of large-scale 3d printing are many and will likely increase as the technology becomes more advanced."
"I think it's as important as the automobile was in changing the design of cities or how the printing press altered communication.""
The base price was set at ¥198, 000 ($1, 600) with an additional ¥24, 600 ($200) monthly data and insurance fees.
and weighing 61 pounds, Pepper is designed to read emotions as well as recognize tones of voice and facial expressions in order to interact with humans.
With his array of cameras, touch sensors, accelerometer and other sensors in his"endocrine-type multi-layer neural network,"Pepper has the ability to read your emotions as well as develop his own.
He isn't a work robot, but more of an emotional companion for people. Pepper has his own evolving emotions
and collective wisdom gained through collected cloud data. Pepper currently has the ability to speak English, French, Japanese and Spanish.
but expect the robot to bring in profits by the fifth year and become a major force in revenues 20 to 30 years in the future.
Company officials stated that they want to keep Pepper affordable, and compared the price of the robot to that of a pet dog in Japan, according to a press event held last week.
Softbank also plans to launch"Pepper for Biz"in the fall, making the robot available for businesses
Pepper has already been used to sell Nestle coffee machines in Japanese stores. Interested in buying your own Pepper robot?
Softbank will be releasing information about additional sales on their website in July J
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