#Big Day for Microsoft; Launched Hololens 3d headset at Windows 10 Event On Windows 10 event,
Microsoft introduced its Hololens 3d headset which can be used to interact with holographic images and allowing its users to play video games and build 3d models.
Microsoft Hololens headset was the most eye-catching thing at the event when Windows 10 was showcased,
which a major OS release from Microsoft. The company said the headset would be available around the same time that Windows 10 is released,
which is expected to be this year. Microsoft chief executive, Satya Nadella said ur industry progress is punctuated by moments of category creation.
Windows and holographic computing is one such moment. Hololens is a bit different from the virtual reality headset that has been focused by Samsung, Sony and many others.
The headset is part of the emerging category augmented reality, in which virtual 3-D objects appear to be inserted into the real world.
The Hololens headset is see-through so that people who wear it can continue to see the physical environment around them, unlike virtual reality headsets that completely envelope people with 3-D imagery.
Microsoft employee demonstrated it by designing a model of drone with the hand gesture to manipulate tools that were visible to her with the help of headset.
Microsoft did revealed not key details about the headset; including the most important question that how much it will cost.
Most of the event was dedicated to the Windows, which is in fact the biggest engine of the Company profit.
Microsoft announced a free one-year upgrade to its users. So for the Windows users it is a good time to upgrade to Windows 10,
if they are using Windows 7 or Windows 8, 8. 1 on PC or phones. This would help Microsoft to get hundreds of millions of users running the older versions of Windows to upgrade quickly to the newest version.
Executive vice president at Microsoft Terry Myerson said indows 10 is so much more than the latest version of Windows.
Windows 10 changes the rules of the game and redefines the relationship between us and our customers.
Another good thing announced was the addition of Cortana, a sri-like software, to Windows 10 that was previously available only for Windows phone o
#Researchers developed hydrophobic metals using laser Engineers have spent decades studying super-hydrophobic surfaces because of the plethora of real-life applications.
And while some of this research has resulted in commercial products that keep shoes dry or prevent oil from building up on bolts,
scientists are also aiming to uncovering characteristics that might lead to large-scale solutions for society.
Researchers from the University of Rochester have developed a method to make metals hydrophobic or waterproof when they are treated with lasers.
Researchers have found that repetitive laser blasts on the metal surface develop specific patterns that repel water efficiently.
A closer look at the surface reflects micro and nanoscale structures which causes water to bead effectively. he material is so strongly water-repellent the water actually gets bounced off.
Then it lands on the surface again, gets bounced off again, and then it will just roll off from the surface, Chunlei Guo,
a professor of optics at Rochester, explained in a recent news release. These laser treated surfaces are highly absorbent of heat
and light as well. Researchers say that this could be useful in the creation of rust-free solar panels that capture the sun energy
and don have to be cleaned as often. ome potential applications for anti-icing surfaces include protection of aerofoils, power transmission lines,
pipes of air conditioners and refrigerators, and radar or telecommunication antennas, the researchers wrote about their findings.
Guo and his colleagues were also the ones who have designed previously materials that are hydrophilic able to absorb water extremely quickly and efficiently d
#Device delivers drugs to brain by remote control A new wireless device the width of a human hair can be implanted in the brain
and activated by remote control to deliver drugs. The technology, demonstrated for the first time in mice, may one day be used to treat pain, depression, epilepsy,
and other neurological disorders in people by targeting therapies to specific brain circuits. Published online in the journal Cell,
the research is a major step forward in pharmacology and builds on earlier work in optogenetics, a technology that makes individual brain cells sensitive to light
and then activates those targeted populations of cells with flashes of light. Because it not yet practical to re-engineer human neurons
researchers made the tiny wireless devices capable of delivering drugs directly into the brain, with the remote push of a button.
ACTIVATED WITH LIGHT n the future, it should be possible to manufacture therapeutic drugs that could be activated with light,
says co-principal investigator Michael R. Bruchas, associate professor of anesthesiology and neurobiology at Washington University in St louis. ith one of these tiny devices implanted,
we could theoretically deliver a drug to a specific brain region and activate that drug with light as needed.
This approach potentially could deliver therapies that are targeted much more but have fewer side effects. Previous attempts to deliver drugs or other agents
such as enzymes or other compounds, to experimental animals have required the animals to be tethered to pumps
and tubes that restricted their movement. But the new devices were built with four chambers to carry drugs directly into the brain.
By activating brain cells with drugs and with light, the scientists are getting an unprecedented look at the inner workings of the brain.
RESS OF A BUTTONOW, we literally can deliver drug therapy with the press of a button,
says Jordan G. Mccall, a graduate student in the Bruchas lab. ee designed it to exploit infrared technology,
similar to that used in a TV remote. If we want to influence an animal behavior with light or with a particular drug,
we can simply point the remote at the animal and press a button. he device embeds microfluid channels and microscale pumps,
but it is soft like brain tissue and can remain in the brain and function for a long time without causing inflammation or neural damage,
Jeong adds. OTHER PARTS OF THE BODY, TOO As part of the study, the researchers showed that by delivering a drug to one side of an animal brain
they could stimulate neurons involved in movement, which caused the mouse to move in a circle.
In other mice, shining a light directly onto brain cells expressing a light-sensitive protein prompted the release of dopamine,
and demonstrated an implantable, cellular-scale microfluidic and micro-optical interface to biology, with application opportunities not only in the brain but in other parts of the nervous system and other organs as well, says the study other co-principal investigator, John A. Rogers, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois. For now,
the devices contain only four chambers for drugs, but in the future, the researchers hope to incorporate a design much like a printer ink cartridge
so that drugs can continue to be delivered to specific cells in the brain, or elsewhere in the body, for as long as required without the need to replace the entire device.
marijuana use has risen in past decadesarticularly among black teens. ur analysis shows that public health campaigns are workingewer teens are smoking cigarettes,
says Stephanie Lanza, professor of biobehavioral health, and scientific director of the Methodology Center at Penn State. owever, we were surprised to find the very clear message that kids are choosing marijuana over cigarettes.
Lanza and colleagues analyzed data collected from US high school seniors between 1976 and 2013. Nearly 600,000 students took a survey over this time period as part of the project Monitoring the Future
a long-term ongoing epidemiological study conducted by the University of Michigan. Lanza and her team focused on information reported about the rates of use of three different substanceslcohol, cigarettes,
and marijuanaver the course of 37 years. They report their results today in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Students were asked about their use of these three substances in the 30 days prior to taking the survey.
Students were more likely to use marijuana if they also smoked cigarettes than if they did not, and vice versa.
The researchers intend to continue analyzing teen substance use data. They are interested particularly in looking into a potential correlation between the recent rise of adolescent marijuana use and its legalization in several states.
Additional researchers from Penn State and University of North carolina at Chapel hill also collaborated on this research.
The National Institute on Drug abuse and the National Cancer Institute supported this work r
#Tiny laresshow when RNA goes off track A new technology called ticky-flaresoffers the first real-time method to track
such as mental disability, autism, and cancer. Sticky-flares have the potential to help scientists understand the complexities of RNA better than any analytical technique to date
and observe and study the biological and medical significance of RNA misregulation. Previous technologies made it possible to attain static snapshots of RNA location
a nanomedicine expert at Northwestern University and corresponding author of the study. e hope that many more researchers will be able to use this platform to increase our understanding of RNA function inside cells.
Mirkin is professor of chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and professor of medicine, chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering.
Sticky-flares are tiny spherical nucleic acid gold nanoparticle conjugates that can enter living cells and target and transfer a fluorescent reporter or racking deviceto RNA transcripts.
the scientists explain how they used Sticky-flares to quantify ßctin mrna in Hela cells (the oldest and most commonly used human cell line) as well as to follow the real-time transport of ßctin mrna in mouse embryonic fibroblasts.
which was the first genetic-based approach that is able to detect live circulating tumor cells out of the complex matrix that is human blood.
Nanoflares have been very useful for researchers that operate in the arena of quantifying gene expression. Aurasense, Inc.,a biotechnology company that licensed the Nanoflare technology from the university,
and EMD-Millipore, another biotech company, have commercialized Nanoflares. There are now more than 1, 700 commercial forms of Nanoflares sold under the Smartflare name in more than 230 countries.
The Sticky-flare is designed to address limitations of Smartflares most notably their inability to track RNA location and enter the nucleus. The research team believes Sticky-flares are poised to become a valuable tool for researchers who want to understand the function of RNA in live cells.
The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin diseases and the Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence initiative of the National institutes of health supported the work.
The findings could forge the way for the creation of tem cell factories? the mass production of human embryonic (pluripotent) stem cells that could provide an off-the-shelf product for clinical use in the treatment of the heart, liver, and brain.
For example, the damage from a major heart attack could cost you around five billion heart cells. Future stem cell treatments will require this number
researchers have been searching for polymers on which human pluripotent stem cells can be grown and differentiated in vast numbersillions at a time. he possibilities for regenerative medicine are still being researched in the form of clinical trials,
says Morgan Alexander, professor of biomedical surfaces at University of Nottingham. hat we are doing here is paving the way for the manufacture of stem cells in large numbers
when those therapies are proved to be safe and effective. sing a high throughput materials discovery approach,
researchers discovered the human-made material, free from possible contamination and batch variability. he field of regenerative medicine has snowballed in the last five years
and over the coming five years a lot more patients will be receiving stem cell treatments, says Chris Denning,
professor of stem cell biology. linical trials are still in the very early stages. However with this kind of product,
University of Nottingha c
#Pair of compounds could hockhiv Highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) has helped millions of people survive HIV.
Unfortunately, HIV has a built-in survival mechanism, creating reservoirs of latent, inactive virus that are invisible to both HAART and the immune system.
The study appears in PLOS Pathogens. e are excited to have identified an outstanding candidate for HIV reactivation
says lead author Satya Dandekar, who chairs the department of medical microbiology and immunology at University of California,
Davis. his molecule has great potential to advance into translational and clinical studies. hile HAART has been quite successfuleducing HIV infection in newborns,
and lowering viral loads to virtually undetectable levelshese therapies cannot cure the disease alone. Once treatment is discontinued,
and the infection comes roaring back. As a result, patients must remain on treatment indefinitely,
posing the risk of long-term toxicity. ee made great progress, but at the end of the day you still have more than 30 million people walking around with HIV,
and showed low toxicity. However, HIV is complicated a virus and, as clinicians have discovered with HAART,
which works synergistically with PEP005 to maximize HIV activation. PEP005 when combined with JQ1 increased HIV activation up to 15-fold. single treatment is not enough,
researchers are mindful that hockonly works when it followed by ill.?First, we need to identify the best combination of latency-activating agents,
which will go a long way toward clearing the virus. She also believes HIV vaccines in development could give patients an extra edge.
Even a vaccine that isn 100 percent effective at preventing transmission could boost a patient ability to destroy reactivated virus. However,
it also works beautifully with other latency reactivating agents, is less cytotoxic, and doesn cause a major immune response. ther authors are from UC Davis, UC San francisco,
and Williams College. The NIH; a UC Davis Research Investments in Science and Engineering (RISE) grant;
a postdoctoral fellowship from CAPES/Brazil; and The swiss National Science Foundation supported the work. Source:
UC Davi
#RNA insecticide could leave oodbugs alone An insecticide currently in development targets a specific gene
so it kills only those bugs that threaten crops and avoids collateral damage to beneficial insects.
Though the technology is still in its infancy, the RNA-based insecticide can be effective for at least 28 days
when sprayed on a leaf. That finding dispels concerns that the genetic material will quickly degrade in rain and sunlight.
In the proof-of-principle study researchers wanted to answer whether an RNA-insecticide spray would be stable enough to use in agriculture.
They matched double-stranded (ds) RNA to an actin gene in the Colorado potato beetle a leading potato pest that costs North american farmers $100 million per year and also damages tomato and other plants.
Pest control breakthrough Actin genes produce actin proteins that are essential for many cellular functions and prevalent in eukaryotic cells,
the ds actin-RNA insecticide was highly effective on potato beetles that ate the leaves. he major problem with conventional insecticides is they affect non-target organisms,
a professor of Cornell entomology and a coauthor of the study in Pest Management Science. his is an insecticide that is based on a specific gene.
Crop protection RNA, ribonucleic acid, is present in all living cells. Mainly, it acts as a messenger carrying instructions from DNA for controlling the synthesis of proteins.
Geneticists have used the technique to silence specific genes examine what functions are lost and hence learn that gene purpose.
The idea for crop protection was born out of this technology. As part of the study, Scott and Keri San miguel put a film of ds RNA on plate glass
More work needed The researchers also experimented on whether the ds RNA moved around the plant.
and the stalk is placed in solution with RNA insecticide, and potato beetles ate that leaf, mortality occurred but it wasn as high.
the RNA did not transfer internally to other leaves. The insecticide needs more work before it is ready to market
Scott says. For example, the cost of making RNA insecticide is currently much higher than conventional insecticides.
Also, for insects need to eat sprayed leaves for it to work so insects that don eat leaves, such as houseflies,
or those that suck sap, such as aphids, won be harmed. Also, some insects are unaffected simply, perhaps due to gut enzymes that break down the ds RNA. he technology is really at its infancy,
Scott says. t may take some tweaking but its potential to be specific is going to be hard to beat.
The Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and Hatch funds supported the work c
#Crop attack discovery lets team bounce back When disease-causing bacteria invade disease-resistant rice, a small protein produced by the bacteria betrays the invader.
When the rice plant recognizes the protein, it senses that a microbial attack is underway
and mounts an immune response to fend off infection, researchers report. Identification of the tiny protein, called Raxx, holds promise for developing more disease-resistant crop varieties and therapeutic treatments for blocking microbial infections in both plants and animals, say the researchers,
who found particular satisfaction in this discovery, two years after retracting the announcement of a similar find.
Results of the new study appear in Science Advances. Disease protection for our food In this new study
researchers discovered that the Raxx protein was present in at least eight species of the disease-causing Xanthamonas bacteria that are known to attack ricehe staple food for half of the world populations well as maize, cassava, sugar cane, tomatoes, peppers
, wheat, alfalfa, onions, banana, and citrus. ur research team is delighted to announce the discovery of the Raxx protein,
a new class of microbial signaling molecules, says Pamela Ronald, a professor of plant pathology at University of California, Davis,
who directed the study. Ronald notes that her laboratory is currently investigating the role of Raxx during bacterial infection of rice in the absence of the immune receptor.
The researchers have noticed that Raxx closely resembles a class of plant signaling factors that promote growth
In the long term, the researchers hope to use this information to develop new strategies to prevent infection in various crops.
because it brings the research team full circle in correcting unintentional errors that led the Ronald lab in 2009 to misidentify the protein now known to be Raxx.
Pruitt and Schwessinger both worked on the new study as postdoctoral scholars in the Ronald lab
and Schwessinger is now an independent research fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.
Ronald laboratory has been studying rice genetics and disease resistance for more than two decades and in 1995 announced that a gene called Xa21 confers resistance to the bacterial blight pathogen.
Bacterial blight, one of the worst bacterial plant diseases in the world, has been found in virtually every crop species including rice.
The discovery of Xa21 was acclaimed widely by the scientific community and sparked further research into other key parts of the disease-resistance puzzle.
Researchers were confident that if Xa21 produced a eceptorin the plant cell that was capable of recognizing
which their research indicated was the protein that triggers the immune response by the Xa21 plant receptor.
they discovered that a bacterial strain had been mislabeled in the previous work and that one of the tests used in the earlier study turned out to be quite variable.
Ronald and her laboratory colleagues have prepared a new posting for the Scientific American blog, which tells the story of the new discovery
University of Tübingen, Germany; University of Texas at Austin; UC Irvine; and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India.
The US National institutes of health, the US Department of energy, the European Molecular biology Association, the Human Frontiers Science Program, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in India, the Welch Foundation,
and Monsanto Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program supported the work s
#Rare case uncovers missing clue to Fragile X Fragile X syndrome may not only be a problem of receivers in the brain letting in too much information.
A new study finds that transmitters may be sending out too much data, as well. The findings raise the possibility that drugs recently tested as treatments for fragile X may be ineffective, at least in part,
because they only dialed down the brain receivers, presumably leaving transmitters on overdrive. Scientists made the discovery by studying the case of someone who doesn even have the disordernly two of its classic symptoms.
In patients with fragile Xhe most common cause of inherited intellectual disability key gene is disabled completely
which eliminates a protein that regulates electrical signals in the brain and causes a host of behavioral, neurological,
and physical symptoms. GENE NEW ROLE In contrast, the patient in the new study has only a single error in the gene and exhibits only two classic traits of fragile Xntellectual disability and seizures.
This allowed the researchers to parse out a previously unknown role for the gene. his individual case has allowed us to separate two independent functions of the fragile X protein in the brain,
says co-senior author Vitaly A. Klyachko, associate professor of cell biology and physiology at Washington University School of medicine in St louis. y finding the mutation,
even in just one patient, and linking it to a partial set of traits, we have identified a distinct function that this gene is responsible for
Like radio transmitters and receivers, brain cells send and receive transmissions in fine-tuned ways that separate the signals from the noise.
Until recently, most fragile X research has focused on problems with overly sensitive receivers, those that allow in too much information.
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that fragile X likely also causes overactive transmitters that send out too much information. he mechanisms that researchers have thought long were the entirety of the problem with fragile X are obviously still very much in play,
GENETIC ERROR Fragile X syndrome results from an inherited genetic error in a gene called FMR1.
so the syndrome affects males more often and more severely than females, who may be able to compensate for the genetic error
One of the mysteries of the syndrome is how loss of a single gene can lead to such a variety of effects in different patients.
anxiety, and impulsive behavior. Typical physical symptoms include enlarged heads, flat feet and distinctive facial features.
Almost one-third of patients with fragile X also show symptoms of autism spectrum disorders.
the researchers genetic sequencing data from more than 900 males with intellectual disabilities but without classic fragile X syndrome.
They looked for mutations in the FMR1 gene that might impair the protein but not eliminate it entirely.
although this individual has intellectual disability and seizures, his physical features are not typical of the syndrome,
and he is not autistic. To see what effect this mutation might have, geneticist Stephen T. Warren and colleagues at Emory University replicated it in mouse brain cells
and tested it for the widely known functions of FMRP. To their surprise, this mutated FMRP appeared to work normally.
In other words, the patient brain cells had entirely normal receivers, which appeared to work in ways that were indistinguishable from those in healthy people. his single point mutation does not seem to affect the classical,
well-known functions of FMRP, says Klyachko, who is also an associate professor of biomedical engineering. his patient presents a case of partial fragile X syndrome associated with mutated, rather than absent, FMRP.
As far as I know, this is the only known case of this. It a unique opportunity to parse out the functions of FMRP.
What does this mutation impair to cause only two symptoms of fragile X? To find out, Warren replicated the mutation in fruit flies.
Surprisingly, the fruit fly studies indicated that this single mutation increased the number of transmitters in brain cells, implicating a fundamental problem in
which the brain cells send out too many signals. To verify the mechanism in mammals, they turned to Klyachko lab,
which has expertise in understanding how brain cells regulate the sending of electrical signals. In past work Klyachko has shown that total loss of FMRP in mice disrupts the normal process by
which brain cells send signals, causing transmitters to send out too much information. In the new study researchers were able to verify the same effect from just the mutation and link it to human disease.
This single mutation in FMRP has the same overactivating effect on transmissions as the total loss of the protein.
The scientists say they can rule out the possibility that additional problems also are caused by this mutation
and are present in fragile X . But the research specifies at least one additional dysfunction not previously recognized.
Further studies of patients with different partial symptoms of fragile X and different mutationsf any can be foundight identify more.
#Bacteria build#coat#for medical implants Artificial implants, like pacemakers, can spark the body defenses and cause complications, even rejection.
To address this problem, researchers have found a way to make pre-structured cellulose materials to cover
or coat medical implants in 3d micro-structures, which can make the implants more biocompatible.
Researchers had discovered already that cells interact better with rough or structured surfaces than with smooth ones and can cling to them more effectively.
Until now, however, it hasn been possible to apply these surface structures to one of the most promising materials in the field of medicine:
A research team led by ETH Zurich Professor Dimos Poulikakos and Aldo Ferrari at the Laboratory of Thermodynamics in Emerging Technologies, has succeeded now in creating bacterial cellulose with a controlled surface structure.
The process uses a silicon mold with a three-dimensional optimized geometry (such as a line grid) on a micrometer scale,
which then floats on the surface of a nutrient solution in which the cellulose-producing bacteria grow.
producing a cellulose layer together with a negative replica of the line grid. LIKE RAILLEFOR CELLS The line grid also enables the bacteria to produce an increased number of cellulose strands in approximate alignment with the grid. n principle
human cells have the ability to identify fibers, such as endogenous collagen, as part of the connective tissue, explains Ferrari.
The cellulose strands and the grid pattern provide cells with an orientation along predetermined paths that they can sense. his is of major benefit to wound dressings.
Skin cells could grow over a wound more effectively if they moved in accordance with structured cellulose.
The material also has a sort of memory: the structure is retained even when the cellulose is dried for storage purposes
and moistened again just before use. Poulikakos explains that in the production of cellulose surfaces,
but also help to minimize the body rejection reaction to an artificial implant. In studies using mice
In addition, researchers working with Poulikakos and Ferrari have founded the spin-off Hylomorph to make the method market-ready. e are planning to apply the structured cellulose as part of the urich Heartproject at the new Wyss Translational Center,
and can cause complications. ur aim is for artificial implants to be accepted by the patient body without inflammation
or rejection, explains Ferrari. As part of the Zurich Heart project, the researchers are, in effect, helping to design the packaging
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