a novel wind lidar called Aladin incorporating two powerful lasers, a large telescope and very sensitive receivers.
Both lasers have now been delivered to Airbus Defence and Space in Toulouse, France, ready to be integrated into the rest of Aladin.
the team spirit and motivation has remained always high. ow that the lasers are both safely in the hands of Airbus in France we wish them well with integrating them into the Aladin instrument
Giuseppe Pulella, Programme Manager for the laser transmitter at the Selex-ES factory near Florence, added, e have been working at the forefront of optics
We still have some important work to complete including testing the life of the spare laser,
The Aladin team at Airbus have had the first laser since last year and have carried already out some important tests on its optics.
who have overcome major technology issues along the way. he contributions of Airbus Defence and Space,
#Renal failure: location signals for cell division For the kidneys to function flawlessly, millions of cells must be arranged precisely according to a specified blueprint.
The kidneys continuously filter waste and toxic substances from the blood, which are removed then from the body via the urine.
a bundle of protein threads that pull the chromosomes towards the opposite poles of the cell and distributes them equally between the new cells.
In this way they influence the orientation of the spindle apparatus and control the spatial arrangement of the new cells. s in a GPS SYSTEM
there are antennas that receive signals. This function is assumed by the plexin B2 receptor, which receives a location signal from neighbouring cells,
Through genetic manipulation, Worzfeld Group switches off individual semaphorins in mice. As a result, the epithelial cells no longer arrange themselves correctly
meaning the antenna, says Worzfeld. In both cases, the damaged kidney was unable to regenerate,
It involves a fundamental mechanism by which the kidneys heal following renal failure. The scientists now want to investigate
whether plexin B2 and the semaphorins also play a role in the repair of other organisms and in diseases such as cancer
The work was led by Professor John Sader at the University of Melbourne School of Mathematics and Statistics and Professor Michael Roukes of the California Institute of technology.
Prof Sader says this technique revolutionises molecule detection for biologists or indeed anyone who wants to measure extremely small objects.
known as a nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) resonator. ne standard way to tell the difference between molecules is to weigh them using a technique called mass spectrometry.
Prof Sader said. his technology is built on a new mathematical algorithm that we developed, called inertial imaging.
so that an electromagnetic field can interact with them. This interaction is measured then, which gives vital information on the molecule mass-to-charge ratio.
It a lot like attaching a drop of solder on the string of a guitar it changes its vibration frequency
A common way to decipher molecular structures is to use x-ray crystallography. This complicated method involves purifying and crystallising the molecules
because the structure of a molecule in its natural environment can be different. California Institute of technology Professor Michael Roukes says NEMS
and inertial imaging could prove very useful for biological scientists. ou can imagine situations where you don know exactly what you are looking for,
where you are in discovery mode, and you are trying to figure out the body immune response to a particular pathogen, for example,
Prof Roukes said. his new technique adds another piece of information to aid our identification of molecules,
which could prove useful in biomedical applications, among other uses. i
#More power to the mitochondria: Cells'energy plant also plays key role in stem cell development Researchers at NYU Langone Medical center have discovered that mitochondria, the major energy source for most cells,
also play an important role in stem cell development a purpose notably distinct from the tiny organelle traditional job as the cell main source of the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) energy needed for routine cell metabolism.
Specifically, the NYU Langone team found that blocking the action of the mitochondrial ATP synthase enzyme stalled egg cell development from stem cells in experiments in fruit flies,
one of the main organisms used to study cell biology. In further experiments with the flies
The study findings are to be published in the journal Nature Cell biology online April 27. ur study results showed that ATP synthase has a new function during stem cell development
says senior study investigator and cell biologist Ruth Lehmann, Phd, the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Cell biology at NYU Langone and a Howard hughes medical institute investigator.
Moreover, Lehmann says that because ATP synthase energy production is common among all cells that have a nucleus,
it is highly likely that its structural role in early mitochondrial development is the same for all mammals,
Indeed, Lehmann, who also serves as director of NYU Langone Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine and chair of its Department of Cell biology,
not just for outlining a new role for the mitochondria beyond energy production, but also because it appears that ATP synthase role in stem cell development is independent of its power-generating role, first described in the 1960s and subject of the 1997 Nobel prize in Chemistry.
Blocking other enzymes involved in ATP production prior to the work of ATP synthase however, did not damage egg development. ur team plans further investigations into precisely how ATP synthase biologically controls cristae development,
a potential boon for diabetics The 340 million diabetes sufferers in the world have plenty to worry about:
Engineering professor Jeffrey La Belle use of biomarkers in saliva could replace current tests that require individuals with TYPE II DIABETES to draw blood samples each day.
ASU Engineering professor Jeffrey La Belle use of biomarkers in saliva could replace current tests that require individuals with TYPE II DIABETES to draw blood samples each day.
Most diabetics need to prick their fingers multiple times a day to draw blood samples
Now, research from an ASU professor is being used in the quest for a noninvasive alternative. Arizona State university engineering professor Jeffrey La Belle use of biomarkers measurable indicators of wellness or disease in body fluids to diagnose
and monitor individualshealth is finding a new application through a commercialization agreement with a United kingdom-based technology development company.
This noninvasive alternative would be a significant benefit in convenience, comfort and treatment compliance for the more than 340 million people living with diabetes.
The device collects trace fluid samples from a biological surface for electrochemical analysis to detect glucose,
La Belle is an assistant professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, one of ASU Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.
who graduated from ASU in 2009 with a degree in biomedical engineering. Bishop is now cofounder and chief innovation officer of Qualaris Healthcare Solutions, a Pittsburgh-based medical-product development company.
Tekcapital seeks out university research that can fill client and market needs. Dr. Clifford M. Gross, Tekcapital executive chairman, said the company is excited about the potential of La Belle work. he self-monitoring of blood glucose is a significant industry,
and we look forward to commercializing this technology with one or more leading medical device companies that can benefit by making it easier and painless for diabetics to measure glucose,
Gross said. e appreciated the professionalism, speed and efficiency with which Azte (Arizona Technology Enterprises) was able to negotiate
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin,
Hyperglycemia, or elevated blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of the body systems
Earlier this year, Advanced Tear Diagnostics, a medical-products company based in Birmingham, Alabama, licensed the same technology to improve
and expand the use of tear fluid as a means of detecting various ocular (eye) disorders by measuring certain biomarkers it contains.
That project led to research collaborations and funding support from Mayo Clinic in Arizona. The measurements would help in the diagnosis
and treatment of a variety of ocular surface disorders particularly in detecting and differentiating between bacterial and viral infections,
including one of the most common infections, conjunctivitis, also called pinkeye. Advanced Tear Diagnostics is providing $496,
000 for the project over a year time and plans to commercialize the final product.
Both licensing agreements were negotiated by Arizona Technology Enterprises, ASU exclusive intellectual property management and technology transfer organization.
Azte works with ASU faculty, post-docs and graduate students to help move university inventions from the lab to commercial application. have had many interactions with the very efficient and professional staff at Azte
Azte really is a helpful resource we have here at ASU. r. La Belle promising technology has the potential to improve the diagnosis
monitoring and treatment of a wide range of medical conditions, said Yash Vaishnav, Azte vice president of business development for life sciences. ekcapital is also a great partner.
#The Quake that Shook Mt everest The earthquake, which wreaked havoc in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal on Saturday about noon local time,
The large quake triggered a major avalanche on the south slopes of Mt everest which devastated the base camp,
where hundreds of climbers were waiting for a break in the weather to ascend the worlds highest peak.
More than a dozen people are feared to have died in the avalanche. Mt everest lies 140 miles east of the epicenter.
The earthquake caused huge cracks to open in the streets of Kathmandu. The Nepalese capital lies in a sediment filled basin,
Image credit: EMSCTHE worst damage reported so far occurred in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, where many buildings collapsed
and at least 524 people lost their lives. Police sources spoke of 1000 more deaths in the rural areas of Nepal. 50 more people were killed in northeastern India,
and China also reported at least twelve fatalities as a consequence of the quake. One of the reasons for the quake ssestructive power was its shallow depth.
Calculations by all major earthquake monitoring agencies in the US and Europe put the depth between 7 and 10 miles.
During the shaking of an earthquake such sedimentary basins tend to amplify the ground motion
The worst historic effect of this kind led to the huge destruction in Mexico city during an earthquake in 1985.
The cause for Saturdays earthquake is the northward movement of the Indian Plate. It crawls with a speed of about 2 inches per year, roughly the same rate with which the Pacific Plate slides past North american in our area.
This plate collision also causes some of the most devastating earthquakes in the world. In the last 125 years, this eastern section of the Himalayan Front alone has seen at least three quakes of magnitude 8 or greater.
This quake destroyed a quarter of all buildings in Kathmandu. In 1998 an international group of seismologists and experts on disaster preparedness got together
and evaluated the seismic risk for the Kathmandu Valley. The report they published one year later on the likely earthquake scenario makes very eerie reading,
because it describes pretty much in detail what happened when the real temblor struck this Saturday. Source:
Many interesting and important structures in biological cells and computer chips have features smaller than that.
From several pictures under different illuminations, a single high-resolution image is constructed in the computer. So far, scientists have selected carefully the clearest glass optics for such imaging.
In many materials random scattering takes place. NEW METHOD Randomly scattered laser light appears as a finely grained speckle pattern as a result of interference of many scattered light paths.
Researchers at the MESA+Institute of the University of Twente in The netherlands have developed a new and powerful approach to use these fine speckles for high resolution imaging.
In the new method, the object you want to see for instance a biological cell is placed on the substrate of the scattering material
and the laser light is shone upon the scattering surface. The lens creates a speckle pattern that can be scanned on the object.
Multiple low resolution images of the object are combined then in the computer which leads to a clear image. he resolution improvement looks like the fog has clearedsays Hasan Yilmaz,
The speckle illumination method is surface-specific and robust to environmental noise. The new high-resolution imaging method, called Speckle Correlation Resolution Enhancement (SCORE) is reported in the Optical Society (OSA) new high-impact journal Optica
Professor Dietmar Hutmacher Professor Dietmar Hutmacher In an article published in Nature Communications, the biomedical engineers outlined how they had reinforced soft hydrogels via a 3d printed scaffold.
Professor Dietmar W. Hutmacher, from QUT Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said nature often used fibre reinforcement to turn weak structures into outstanding mechanically robust ones. uch
is the case with articular cartilage tissue, which is formed by stiff and strong collagen fibres intertwined within a very weak gel matrix of proteoglycans,
Professor Hutmacher said. y bringing this natural design perspective of fibre reinforcement into the field of tissue engineering (TE),
in order to achieve composite materials with enhanced mechanical properties for engineering body parts. Professor Hutmacher said hydrogels were favoured
because they had excellent biological properties, however, the hydrogels currently available for tissue regeneration of the musculoskeletal system couldn meet the mechanical and biological requirements for successful outcomes. ur international biofabrication research team has found a way to reinforce these soft hydrogels via a 3d printed scaffold structure
so that their stiffness and elasticity are close to that of cartilage tissues. Professor Hutmacher said the team had introduced organised high-porosity microfiber networks that are printed using a new technique called elt electrospinning writing e found that the stiffness of the gel/scaffold composites increased synergistically up to 54 times,
compared with hydrogels or microfiber scaffolds alone, he said. omputational modelling has shown that we can use these 3d printed microfibres in different hydrogels and a large range of tissue engineering applications.
Source: Queensland University of Technolog a
#Nepal earthquake on the radar Radar imagery from the Sentinel-1a satellite shows that the maximum land deformation is only 17 km from Nepal capital, Kathmandu,
which explains the extremely high damage experienced in this area. By combining Sentinel-1a imagery acquired before and after the quake,
changes on the ground that occurred between the two acquisition dates lead to rainbow-coloured interference patterns in the combined image,
Combining two Sentinel-1a radar scans from 17 and 29 april 2015, this interferogram shows changes on the ground that occurred during the 25 april earthquake that struck Nepal.
Copyright Contains Copernicus data (2015)/ ESA/Norut/PPO. labs/COMETSA SEOM INSARAP study Combining two Sentinel-1a radar scans from 17 and 29 april 2015,
this interferogram shows changes on the ground that occurred during the 25 april earthquake that struck Nepal.
Copyright Contains Copernicus data (2015)/ ESA/Norut/PPO. labs/COMETSA SEOM INSARAP study Sentinel-1a swath width of 250 km over land surfaces
Products ensuring a full coverage of the affected area prior to the earthquake were available to all scientists under the Copernicus free and open data policy,
Interferogram over Kathmandu, Nepal, generated from two Sentinel-1a scans on 17 and 29 april 2015 before and after the 25 april earthquake.
Copyright Contains Copernicus data (2015)/ ESA/DLR Microwaves and Radar Institute/GFZ/e-GEOS/INGVSA SEOM INSARAP study Interferogram over Kathmandu,
Nepal generated from two Sentinel-1a scans on 17 and 29 april 2015 before and after the 25 april earthquake.
Copyright Contains Copernicus data (2015)/ ESA/DLR Microwaves and Radar Institute/GFZ/e-GEOS/INGVSA SEOM INSARAP study Sentinel-1a is the first satellite for the Copernicus environment-monitoring programme led by the European commission.
Its all-weather, day-or-night radar imagery is suited particularly to support impact assessment for many types of geohazards.
Sentinel-1a interferogram over Kathmandu, Nepal, showing deformation induced by the 25 april 2015 earthquake. Eastest ringescross the city, with each coloured fringe corresponding to 2. 8 cm of ground displacement (both uplift and subsidence.
Contains Copernicus data (2015)/ R. Grandin/IPGP/CNRS Sentinel-1a interferogram over Kathmandu, Nepal, showing deformation induced by the 25 april 2015 earthquake.
Eastest ringescross the city, with each coloured fringe corresponding to 2. 8 cm of ground displacement (both uplift and subsidence.
Contains Copernicus data (2015)/ R. Grandin/IPGP/CNRS The Copernicus EMS was activated on the day the earthquake struck,
Partner Agencies of this initiative have been providing data and products over the area to relief organisations p
Image credit: Keiichi Nakagawa/University of Tokyospeed of the camera is hard to grasp. But, in comparison, it is more than one thousand times faster than conventional high-speed cameras.
Conventional cameras are limited by the speed of their mechanical and electrical components, which take some time to process information
STAMP splits an ultra-short pulse of light into a barrage of different coloured flashes that hit the imaged object in rapid-fire succession.
These separate colour flashes are analysed and form a moving picture of what the object looked like over the time it took the dispersed light pulse to travel through the STAMP.#
STAMP splits images into a barrage of different coloured flashes, achieving several frames per shot.
Image credit: Keiichi Nakagawa/University of Tokyoin the first attempts to capture an ultra-fast images frames per shot were limited to six.
However, now researchers are working on improving the device to make it able to acquire 25 sequential images.
and lattice vibrations in a crystal of lithium niobate and to observe how a laser focused onto a glass plate creates a hot, rapidly expanding plume of plasma.
OS e
#Against the Stream Scientists have created microbe-sized beads that can utilize energy in the environment to self-propel upstream by purely physical means.
Life is hard to define, but metabolism, mobility and replication are agreed three commonly elements. The beads are not alive,
but they meet two of these three requirements. iving systems change their behavior according to their environment,
a professor of physics who joined the University of California, San diego this year. o the question was,
can we design a particle that can sense its environment with no neural system or biological parts.
Palacci and colleagues wrapped pale polymer around tiny cubes of hematite, a dark mineral of iron and oxygen that protrudes from the spherical beads as a reddish dot.
Under blue light the hematite conducts electricity and when bathed in hydrogen peroxide will catalyze a chemical reaction to split oxygen from hydrogen.
The polymer beads surf forward on those flows in the direction of their hematite protrusions.
It an important step toward the realization of biomimetic microsystems with the ability to sense
and respond to environmental changes. Migration along a gradient, called a taxis, is found all over nature.
and it the way many microbes find food. f you can design particles that can feel their environment
#Researchers find bitter taste receptors on human hearts A team of University of Queensland researchers is investigating the surprising discovery that smell
The School of Biomedical sciences team was able to observe the presence of the receptors as part of their ongoing research into the growth of human hearts during disease.
and Head of the School Professor Walter Thomas said the team would investigate the phenomenon,
which was discovered originally by former UQ Phd student Dr Simon Foster. Dr Foster findings are published in The Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental biology here. r Foster was able to show that around 12 taste receptors,
particularly those that respond to bitter compounds, were expressed in human hearts, Professor Thomas said. his is quite remarkable,
as the human genome only has 25 of these bitter taste receptors, and we wanted to find out why half of them were located in the heart. hen we activated one of the taste receptors with a specific chemical that we all taste as bitter,
the contractile function of the heart was inhibited almost completely. hile the underlying physiology behind this phenomenon remains unclear,
The research team primary focus is on how the heart grows normally as well as abnormally in disease. fter hypertension or a heart attack
Professor Thomas said. ut a common end result of this compensatory growth is eventual heart failure, a major cause of death in Australia. uring laboratory tests,
Professor Thomas said the project progressed from animal studies to human investigations through collaborations with the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane. sing heart tissue from humans undergoing heart surgery
#Alzheimer pathology and neural activity An international research group including the University of Tokyo, Stanford university and Washington University has discovered that neuronal activity augments the accumulation of amyloid ß that is observed in the brains of patients with Alzheimer disease (AD).
The accumulation of deposits of a protein fragment termed amyloid ß is thought to be the cause of the development of dementia in AD brains.
Neurons in the brain are connected through junctions termed synapses and function by transmitting electrical activity (i e.,
Professor Takeshi Iwatsubo, graduate students Kaoru Yamamoto and Zen-ichi Tanei, Assistant professor Tadafumi Hashimoto and Professor Haruhiko Bito at the University of Tokyo Graduate school of Medicine, Professor
and Professor David Holtzman at Washington University chronically increased the activity of a neuronal pathway projecting to the hippocampus,
This study was made possible by the use of a cutting-edge experimental technology termed optogenetics that enables the control of neuronal activity using light.
affiliated with the University of Montreal, have identified a way to use a an openerto force the virus to open up
This breakthrough, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, opens a new path in the fight against HIV
and could ultimately lead to the design of a vaccine to prevent transmission of the virus. This innovative approach could also be part of the solution for one day eradicating the virus. Despite recent advances,
35 million people are infected with HIV-1 worldwide. e found that people infected with the HIV-1 virus have naturally occurring antibodies that have the potential to kill the infected cells.
We just have to give them a little push by adding a tiny molecule that acts as a can opener to force the viral envelope to expose regions recognized by the antibodies,
which forms a bridge with some cells of the immune system, initiating the attack, says study lead author Andrés Finzi, researcher at the CRCHUM and a professor at the University of Montreal.
Outwitting HIV bodyguards In an earlier study also published in 2015 (Veillette et al. 2015), the same team of researchers showed that the serum of patients infected with HIV-1 facilitated the elimination of infected cells when two proteins specific to the virus,
Nef and Vpu, were deactivated by gene mutation. The experiments were conducted with serum samples from the AIDS and Infectious diseases Network (SIDA-MI) cohort of the Fonds de recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ.
In real life, however, wild-type HIV-1 virus, responsible for the vast majority of infections in the world, still contains these proteins,
which act like bodyguards. So how can we outwit them? By adding a tiny molecule to the cell surfaces of infected patients called JP-III-48
which imitates a protein called CD4. CD4 proteins are located at the surface of T lymphocytes and allow immune system cells to be infected by HIV. he virus has to get rid of the CD4 proteins to protect itself.
Adding the small molecule forces the viral envelop to open, like a flower. The antibodies that are naturally present after the infection can then target the infected cells
so they are killed by the immune system, explains Jonathan Richard, postdoctoral researcher at the CRCHUM and lead author of the study.
The JP-III-48 molecule was developed by researchers at Harvard university and the University of Pennsylvania;
however, this is the first time it has been tested successfully on patients infected with HIV. For decades, scientists have been trying to devise a vaccine to block HIV infection,
which causes AIDS. Antiretroviral drugs can slow the spread of the virus, but it remains hidden dormant in cells and returns when the treatments cease.
then kill the infected cells with this molecule and the already present antibodies, argues Finzi,
The discovery by Finzi team could help develop a two-part vaccine to prevent HIV infection:
through antibodies that are easy to generate and using this new family of molecules. Furthermore, this discovery opens the way for the development of strategies to eliminate the viral reservoirs of individuals already infected.
#Promising new X-ray microscope poses technical challenges You may think the aisles in your neighborhood convenience store are crowded,
and the inner wall of the Target Bay has created unique design, logistic and engineering challenges.
and our current detectors have resolutions of about 10 microns or so at best, Pickworth said. e really need better than that to see what going on inside the hot spot. This microscope is going to provide much better resolution by using X-ray optics,
and the (Target Bay) wall, said system manager Jay Ayers. o get the magnification we need (more than 10. 5x) we needed an additional one meter of space,
what we call the quads. There are four channels, each comprised of X-ray optics that are pitched to one another
he said. andy Hill deserves special credit for his creative design solutions for the precision flexures,
said Tommaso Pardini of the PLS X-ray Optics Group. he interesting thing about this project is incorporated that we this vintage technology into a very difficult environment,
and Todd and Randy had to do to make sure that it actually works. When extended the telescoping snout locates the KBO mirrors at the end of a Diagnostic Load Package (DLP),
and a replaceable debris window that can be exchanged easily between shots. Like the KBO itself
the design of the debris window was bounded by multiple constraints: the necessary clearance from laser beampaths, the high velocity of the debris ind,
Experimental flexibility will be provided by swapping mirror packs with different energy responses. Extensive simulations and off-line testing of the system optics and other components have produced good results
with detector resolution and a lot more throughput than other imaging systems. n
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