#New method for rapid authentication of edible oils and screening of gutter oils Researchers in Hong kong have developed a new method for rapid authentication of edible oils and screening of gutter oils.
The Food safety and Technology Research Centre under the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology of The Hong kong Polytechnic University (Polyu) has developed a new method for rapid authentication of edible oils and screening
Authentication of edible oils has been a long-term issue in food safety, and becomes particularly important with the emergence and widespread use of gutter oils in recent years.
identification of gutter oils mainly involves detection of certain food residue markers or toxic and carcinogenic chemicals in the sample.
a universal strategy to screen gutter oils is not available at present. Polyu researchers have developed a simplified method for direct analysis of edible oils using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS). In the new MALDI-MS
automatic data acquisition and simple data processing are involved. High quality and highly reproducible MALDI-MS spectra results can be obtained using this method
and a preliminary spectral database of labeled edible oils available in the market has been set up.
the authenticity of an edible oil sample can then be determined within five minutes by comparing its MALDI-MS spectrum with those of its labeled oil in the established database.
#Discovery could lead to personalized colon cancer treatment approach A UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center discovery of just how a certain tumor suppressor molecule works to prevent tumor growth could lead to a personalized treatment
In a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers reported that the tumor-suppressing protein AIM2,
or Absent in Melanoma 2, helps prevent colon cancer by restricting a signaling molecule called Akt.
With this finding, the researchers believe theye found a possible drug target for colon cancer patients who lack the tumor suppressor AIM2. everal studies
and clinical evidence suggest AIM2 functions as a tumor suppressor, but until now, wee had very little direct evidence to explains how this occurs,
said Justin E. Wilson, Phd, the study first author and a postdoctoral fellow at UNC Lineberger,
the UNC School of medicine Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Department of Genetics. e found that AIM2 inhibits tumorigenesis in multiple animal models of colorectal cancer by restricting the pro-survival signaling molecule, Akt,
which is commonly hyperactive in many human cancers. The study builds on previous findings suggesting that AIM2 limits cancer cell growth in colon cancer cell lines,
but we have identified a possible personalized therapeutic strategy to help them, said Jenny Ting, William R. Kenan Jr.
Distinguished Professor in the UNC School of medicine Department of Genetics and a UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center member.
And in mouse models lacking AIM2, the researchers found that they had smaller tumors and precancerous colon polyps when blocked Akt.
Wilson said the researchers believe their findings mean that drugs used to inhibit Akt could be used as a personalized therapy for people who don have AIM2. ur research paves the way for future clinical trials that screen for AIM2 expression in colon cancer
and possibly other cancers to identify patients who may potentially benefit from personalized anti-Akt therapy,
#Ultrasonic fingerprint sensor may take smartphone security to new level A new ultrasonic fingerprint sensor measures 3-D image of your finger's surface
and the tissue beneath it--enhancing biometrics and information security for smartphones and other devices. Fingerprint sensor technology currently used in smartphones like the iphone 6 produces a two-dimensional image of a finger's surface,
which can be spoofed fairly easily with a printed image of the fingerprint. A newly developed ultrasonic sensor eliminates that risk by imaging the ridges and valleys of the fingerprint's surface,
and the tissue beneath, in three dimensions.""Using passwords for smartphones was a big security problem,
so we anticipated that a biometric solution was said ahead David A. Horsley, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California,
Davis. He is a director of the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, which is located on the campuses of UC Davis and the University of California,
Berkeley and is directed co by Professor Bernhard Boser at UC Berkeley.""After Apple announced a fingerprint sensor in their new iphone in 2013,
it was inevitable that more would follow, "said Horsley. He and his colleagues describe their new technology this week,
in a story appearing on the cover of the journal Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing.
The origins of the new technology began to come together in 2007, when the teams at the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center collaborated to initiate research into piezoelectric-micromachined ultrasonic transducers (PMUTS)."
"We developed arrays of PMUTS, along with a custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and the supporting electronics,"Horsley said."
"Our work was so successful that we spun off Chirp Microsystems, in 2013, to commercialize it."
"Shortly before then, in 2011, while exploring other uses for their PMUT technology, they quickly realized that fingerprint sensing was an ideal fit."
"Luckily, we recruited a group of exceptional students to realize our vision, as well as partners within the industry--our co-authors at Invensense Inc
. and a few other companies--who funded the work and fabricated our designs, "Horsley said. The basic concepts behind the researchers'technology are akin to those of medical ultrasound imaging.
They created a tiny ultrasound imager, designed to observe only a shallow layer of tissue near the finger's surface."
"Ultrasound images are collected in the same way that medical ultrasound is conducted, "said Horsley.""Transducers on the chip's surface emit a pulse of ultrasound,
and these same transducers receive echoes returning from the ridges and valleys of your fingerprint's surface."
"The basis for the ultrasound sensor is an array of MEMS ultrasound devices with highly uniform characteristics,
and therefore very similar frequency response characteristics. To fabricate their imager, the group employed existing microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology,
which smartphones rely on for such functions as microphones and directional orientation. They used a modified version of the manufacturing process used to make the MEMS accelerometer
and gyroscope found in the iphone and many other consumer electronics devices.""Our chip is fabricated from two wafers--a MEMS wafer that contains the ultrasound transducers
and a CMOS wafer that contains the signal processing circuitry, "explained Horsley.""These wafers are bonded together,
then the MEMS wafer is thinned'to expose the ultrasound transducers."("CMOS, or complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor, is based the silicon technology used to make transistors in microchips.
Horsley's group views ultrasound as the next frontier for MEMS technology.""Because we were able to use low-cost,
high-volume manufacturing processes that produce hundreds of millions of MEMS sensors for consumer electronics each year,
our ultrasound chips can be manufactured at an extremely low cost, "he said. The imager is powered by a 1. 8-Volt power supply,
using a power-efficient charge pump on their ASIC or application-specific integrated circuit.""Our ultrasound transducers have high sensitivity
and the receiver electronics are located directly beneath the array, which results in low electrical parasitics,"Horsley noted."
"Using low-voltage integrated circuits will reduce the cost of our sensor and open up myriad new applications where the cost, size,
and power consumption of existing ultrasound sensors are currently prohibitive.""Within the realm of biometrics and information security, the group's work is particularly significant,
Horsley said.""Our ultrasonic fingerprint sensors have the ability to measure a three-dimensional, volumetric image of the finger surface and the tissues beneath the surface--making fingerprint sensors more robust and secure."
"Beyond biometrics and information security purposes, the new technology is expected to find many other applications, including"low-cost ultrasound as a medical diagnostic tool or for personal health monitoring,
"he added..The group also made arrays of MEMS ultrasound devices with highly uniform characteristics,
which allowed them to verify that the PMUTS have very similar frequency response characteristics s
#Biodegradable, flexible silicon transistors Now researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have come up with a new solution to alleviate the environmental burden of discarded electronics.
They have demonstrated the feasibility of making microwave biodegradable thin-film transistors from a transparent, flexible biodegradable substrate made from inexpensive wood, called cellulose nanofibrillated fiber (CNF).
This work opens the door for green, low-cost, portable electronic devices in future. Array"We found that cellulose nanofibrillated fiber based transistors exhibit superior performance as that of conventional silicon-based transistors,
"said Zhenqiang Ma, the team leader and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UW-Madison."
"And the bio-based transistors are so safe that you can put them in the forest,
and fungus will quickly degrade them. They become as safe as fertilizer.""Nowadays, the majority of portable electronics are built on nonrenewable, non-biodegradable materials such as silicon wafers,
which are purified highly, expensive and rigid substrates, but cellulose nanofibrillated fiber films have the potential to replace silicon wafers as electronic substrates in environmental friendly, low-cost, portable gadgets or devices of the future.
Cellulose nanofibrillated fiber is a sustainable, strong, transparent nanomaterial made from wood. Compared to other polymers like plastics,
the wood nanomaterial is biocompatible and has relatively low thermal expansion coefficient, which means the material won't change shape as the temperature changes.
All these superior properties make cellulose nanofibril an outstanding candidate for making portable green electronics.
To create high-performance devices Ma's team employed silicon nanomembranes as the active material in the transistor--pieces of ultra-thin films (thinner than a human hair) peeled from the bulk crystal
and then transferred and glued onto the cellulose nanofibrill substrate to create a flexible, biodegradable and transparent silicon transistor.
But to make portable electronics, the biodegradable transistor needed to be able to operate at microwave frequencies,
which is the working range of most wireless devices. The researchers thus conducted a series of experiments such as measuring the current-voltage characteristics to study the device's functional performance,
which finally showed the biodegradable transistor has superior microwave-frequency operation capabilities comparable to existing semiconductor transistors."
"Biodegradable electronics provide a new solution for environmental problems brought by consumers'pursuit of quickly upgraded portable devices,
"said Ma.""It can be anticipated that future electronic chips and portable devices will be much greener and cheaper than that of today."
"Next, Ma and colleagues plan to develop more complicated circuit system based on the biodegradable transistors s
#New method of quantum entanglement packs vastly more data in a photon A team of researchers led by UCLA electrical engineers has demonstrated a new way to harness light particles,
or photons, that are connected to each other and act in unison no matter how far apart they are--a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement.
In previous studies, photons have typically been entangled by one dimension of their quantum properties--usually the direction of their polarization.
In the new study, researchers demonstrated that they could slice up and entangle each photon pair into multiple dimensions using quantum properties such as the photons'energy and spin.
This method called hyperentanglement, allows each photon pair to carry much more data than was possible with previous methods.
Quantum entanglement could allow users to send data through a network and know immediately whether that data had made it to its destination without being intercepted or altered.
With hyperentanglement, users could send much denser packets of information using the same networks. The research, published today in Nature Photonics,
was led by Zhenda Xie, a research scientist in the lab of Chee Wei Wong, a UCLA associate professor of electrical engineering who was the research project's principal investigator.
Researchers from MIT Columbia University, the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology were also part of the team.
Albert Einstein famously described quantum entanglement as"spooky action at a distance"because it seems so improbable that
what happens to one particle in an entangled pair also happens instantly to the other particle, even over great distances.
The phenomenon exceeds the speed of light. In the new study, researchers sent hyperentangled photons in a shape known as a biphoton frequency comb, essentially breaking up entangled photons into smaller parts.
In secure data transfer, photons sent over fiber optic networks can be encrypted through entanglement. With each dimension of entanglement
the amount of information carried on a photon pair is doubled, so a photon pair entangled by five dimensions can carry 32 times as much data as a pair entangled by only one.
The result greatly extends from wavelength multiplexing, the method for carrying many videos over a single optical fiber."
"We show that an optical frequency comb can be generated at single photon level, "Xie said."
"Essentially, we're leveraging wavelength division multiplexing concepts at the quantum level.""Potential applications for the research include secure communication and information processing, in particular for high-capacity data transfer with minimal error.
This could be useful for medical servers, government data communications, financial markets and military communication channels, as well as quantum cloud communications and distributed quantum computing."
"We are fortunate to verify a decades-old theoretical prediction by Professor Jeff Shapiro of MIT,
that quantum entanglement can be observed in a comb-like state, "Wong said.""With the help of state-of-the-art high-speed single photon detectors at NIST and support from Dr. Franco Wong, Dr. Xie was able to verify the high-dimensional and multi-degrees-of-freedom entanglement of photons.
These observations demonstrate a new fundamentally secure approach for dense information processing and communications.""Co-authors on the paper are Sajan Shrestha, Xinan Xu and Junlin Liang, prior students and postdoctoral scientists at Columbia with Wong;
Tian Zhong, professors Jeffrey Shapiro and Franco N c. Wong of MIT; Yan-Xiao Gong of Southeast University in Nanjing, China;
and Joshua Bienfang and Alessandro Restelli, affiliated with both the University of Maryland and the NIST.
The work was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency y
#Chemists characterize 3-D macroporous hydrogels Arraythe 3dom hydrogels contain a network of interconnected pores with uniform size.
The configuration of these pores allows the materials to hold a large amount of liquid, and influences the material's properties.
However, while the materials are made easily using a process called colloidal crystal templating, their nature has made it difficult for scientists to characterize the exact internal structure of the 3dom hydrogels."
"The porous structure that makes these materials so useful is also what makes them so hard to characterize,
"said Hongkun He, a doctoral student in Matyjaszewski's lab."The pores can hold large amounts of water,
but if you remove this water to study them, the pores collapse and you can't map them."
He also was able to resolve the structure of hydrated 3dom hydrogels using nanoscale resolution X-ray microscopy (ZEISS Xradia 800 Ultra.
"said Matyjaszewski, the J. C. Warner University Professor of Natural sciences.""Well-defined 3dom hydrogels provide a versatile platform for a wide variety of functional materials."
They have been able to make further chemical modifications to the pores of the 3dom hydrogels by grafting with organic compounds and polymers.
such as responsive materials, organic-inorganic composites and bioactive hydrogels for digestion or separation of bio (macro) molecules s
when they are separated from one another on a chip. This research could contribute to the creation of futuristic quantum networks operating using quantum teleportation,
which could allow information contained in quantum bits-qubits-to be shared between many elements on chip,
who carried out the work, says,"We set out to demonstrate that spin-entangled electrons could be produced reliably.
Electrons, by contrast, are affected profoundly by their environment. We chose to try to show that electrons can be entangled through their spin, a property that is relatively stable."
Deacon and his collaborators began the painstaking work of creating a tiny device, just a few hundred nanometers in size.
The idea was to take a Cooper pair--a pair of electrons that allows electricity to flow freely in superconductors
while tunneling--a quantum phenomenon--across a junction between two superconductor leads, to pass through two separate"quantum dots"--small crystals that have quantum properties."
"If we could detect a superconducting current, this would mean that the electrons, which can be used as quantum bits--the qubits,
when they have been separated between the quantum dots. We confirm this separation by measuring a superconducting current that develops
"The quantum dots, each around 100 nanometers in size, were grown at random positions on a semiconductor chip.
This chip was examined painstakingly using an atomic force microscope to discover pairs of dots that were close enough that they might function properly."
the team was able to show clearly that the spin of the electrons remained entangled as they passed through the separate quantum dots."
albeit more complex, device to prepare entangled electron pairs to teleport qubit states across a chip."
"According to Seigo Tarucha, leader of the laboratory that conducted the work, "This discovery is very exciting,
as it is relatively free from the environment and lasts comparatively long. It could be combined with photons,
"The work, published in Nature Communications, was done by RIKEN in collaboration with the University of Tokyo, University of Osaka,
and was funded by JST and DFG G
#New storage cell for solar energy storage, nighttime conversion The innovation is an advancement over the most common solar energy systems that rely on using sunlight immediately as a power source.
Those systems are hindered by not being able to use that solar energy at night or when cloudy conditions exist.
an assistant professor in the Materials science and engineering Department who led the research team.""As renewable energy becomes more prevalent,
the ability to store solar energy and use it as a renewable alternative provides a sustainable solution to the problem of energy shortage.
It also can effectively harness the inexhaustible energy from the sun."The work is a product of the 2013 National Science Foundation $400,
000 Faculty Early Career development grant awarded to Liu to improve the way solar energy is captured, stored and transmitted for use.
Arraykhosrow Behbehani, dean of the College of Engineering, said the groundbreaking research has the potential to positively impact on the way we generate
and consume energy.""Dr. Liu and his colleagues are working to help us shape a more sustainable future
and use one of the larger sources of energy available to us--the sun, "Behbehani said.
said a major drawback of current solar technology is the limitation on storing energy under dark conditions."
#Stretchy mesh heater for sore muscles If you suffer from chronic muscle pain a doctor will likely recommend for you to apply heat to the injury.
Korean Scientists at the Center for Nanoparticle Research, Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Seoul,
along with an international team, have come up with an ingenious way of creating therapeutic heat in a light, flexible design.
Unlike their predecessors, the team at IBS stayed away from things like carbon nanotubes and gold and looked at a more utilitarian option for their build material:
thin slivers of silver nanowires. The silver nanowires are tiny, averaging#150 nm in diameter and#30 m in length (a human hair ranges from 17 to 181 m). The nanowires were mixed into a liquid elastic material
which is both soft and stretchy when dry. To ensure that the material remains tight on the target area while heating,
the team devised a 2-D interlocking coil pattern for the mesh structure. To make the mesh,
while deformed and under stress on knee and wrist joints. It is lightweight, breathable and generates heat over the entire surface area of the material.
Commercially available electric heating pads are sufficient for applying heat to an injured area but their cords need to be attached to an A c outlet to work.
This is where the new technology trumps the old. The mesh maintains a constant temperature instead of cooling down during use
and is powered battery so it doesn't need an outlet. Beyond thermotherapy the applications are endless.
or as a hyper-efficient seat warmer in a car. Although only flat mesh connected into a tube has been made so far,
it isn't a stretch to imagine creating more intricate designs like the shape of a hand with detailed fingers f
#Faster detection of hidden objects by terahertz sensor Called'Q-Eye',the invention senses radiation across the spectrum between microwaves and infrared, known as the Terahertz (THZ) region of the spectrum
It works by detecting the rise in temperature produced when electromagnetic radiation emitted by an object is absorbed by the Q-Eye sensor, even down to the level of very small packets of quantum energy (a single photon).
The device could help address the weaknesses reported earlier this month in America's airport security,
where mock weapons and explosives were smuggled through airports, undetected in 95%of cases. It may also prove useful in discovering concealed goods in the retail industry or for non-destructive monitoring, for example quality control in drugs or food.
Professors in Warwick's Nano-Silicon Group, Physics department, Evan Parker and Terry Whall, led the team
Professor Parker commented, "We were surprised very when our first very crude prototype showed such impressive speed
and detection performance and our initial calculations indicated world-beating detector capability--all this and using silicon."
large numbers of detector chips containing designs matched to a particular application can easily be fabricated on large (300mm) wafers with great uniformity,
This revolutionary e-cooling process is the secret to Q-Eye sensor's exceptional performance
Professors Parker and Whall are currently working on a demonstrator of the device, having been awarded a £100,
The work is moving out of academic research into the commercial world, offering opportunities for partnership
and Investment companies involved in the personnel screening market have expressed already interest in the Q-Eye device.
Warwick Ventures, Warwick's technology transfer business, has helped the professors to create a spin out company, Q-Eye Ltd,
and raise funding to develop the first commercial prototypes. Melody Stokes adds:""We're delighted to have distinguished Warwick alumnus Phil O'Donovan advise the team.
and encrypt data. a
#Producing biodegradable plastic just got cheaper, greener Biodegradable drinking cups or vegetable wrapping foil: the bioplastic known as polylactic acid (PLA) is already a part of our everyday lives.
And yet, PLA is considered not yet a full alternative to traditional petroleum-based plastics, as it is costly to produce.
Researchers from the KU Leuven Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis now present a way to make the PLA production process more simple and waste-free.
Their findings were published in Science. The bioplastic PLA is derived from renewable resources, including the sugar in maize and sugarcane.
Fermentation turns the sugar into lactic acid, which in turn is a building block for polylactic acid. PLA degrades after a number of years in certain environments.
If it is collected and sorted correctly, it is both industrially compostable and recyclable. In addition, PLA is biocompatible and thus suitable for medical use, for instance in absorbable suture threads.
PLA is also one of the few plastics that are suitable for 3d printing. However, PLA is not yet a full alternative for petroleum-based plastics due to its cost.
The production process for PLA is expensive because of the intermediary steps.""First, lactic acid is fed into a reactor and converted into a type of pre-plastic under high temperature and in a vacuum,
"Professor Bert Sels explains.""This is an expensive process. The pre-plastic--a low-quality plastic--is broken then down into building blocks for PLA.
In other words, you are first producing an inferior plastic before you end up with a high-quality plastic.
And even though PLA is considered a green plastic, the various intermediary steps in the production process still require metals and produce waste."
"The KU Leuven researchers developed a new technique.""We have applied a petrochemical concept to biomass,
"says postdoctoral researcher Michiel Dusselier.""We speed up and guide the chemical process in the reactor with a zeolite as a catalyst.
Zeolites are porous minerals. By selecting a specific type on the basis of its pore shape,
we were able to convert lactic acid directly into the building blocks for PLA without making the larger by-products that do not fit into the zeolite pores.
Our new method has compared several advantages to the traditional technique: we produce more PLA with less waste
and without using metals. In addition, the production process is cheaper, because we can skip a step."
"Professor Sels is confident that the new technology will soon take hold.""The KU Leuven patent on our discovery was sold recently to a chemical company that intends to apply the production process on an industrial scale.
Of course, PLA will never fully replace petroleum-based plastics. For one thing, some objects, such as toilet drain pipes, are meant not to be biodegradable.
And it is not our intention to promote disposable plastic. But products made of PLA can now become cheaper and greener.
Our method is a great example of how the chemical industry and biotechnology can join forces
#Fundamental beliefs about atherosclerosis overturned"The leading cause of death worldwide is complications of atherosclerosis,
and the most common end-stage disease is when an atherosclerotic plaque ruptures. If this occurs in one of your large coronary arteries,
it's a catastrophic event, "said Gary K. Owens, Phd, of UVA's Robert M. Berne Cardiovascular Research center."
"Once a plaque ruptures, it can induce formation of a large clot that can block blood flow to the downstream regions.
This is what causes most heart attacks. The clot can also dislodge and cause a stroke if it lodges in a blood vessel in the brain.
As such, understanding what controls the stability of plaques is extremely important.""Until now, doctors have believed that smooth muscle cells--the cells that help blood vessels contract
and dilate--were the good guys in the body's battle against atherosclerotic plaque. They were thought to migrate from their normal location in the blood vessel wall into the developing atherosclerotic plaque,
where they would attempt to wall off the accumulating fats, dying cells and other nasty components of the plaque.
The dogma has been that the more smooth muscle cells in that wall--particularly in the innermost layer referred to as the"fibrous cap"--the more stable the plaque is and the less danger it poses.
UVA's research reveals those notions are woefully incomplete at best. Scientists have misjudged grossly the number of smooth muscle cells inside the plaques,
the work shows, suggesting the cells are involved not just in forming a barrier so much as contributing to the plaque itself."
"We suspected there was a small number of smooth muscle cells we were failing to identify using the typical immunostaining detection methods.
It wasn't a small number. It was 82 percent, "Owens said.""Eighty-two percent of the smooth muscle cells within advanced atherosclerotic lesions cannot be identified using the typical methodology
since the lesion cells down-regulate smooth muscle cell markers. As such, we have underestimated grossly how many smooth muscle cells are in the lesion."
"Suddenly, the role of smooth muscle cells is much more complex, much less black-and-white. Are they good or bad?
Should treatments try to encourage more? It's no longer that simple, and the problem is made all the more complicated by the fact that some smooth muscle cells were being misidentified as immune cells called macrophages,
while some macrophage-derived cells were masquerading as smooth muscle cells. It's very confusing, even for scientists,
and it has led to what Owens called"complete ambiguity as to which cell is which within the lesion."(
"The research also shows other subsets of smooth muscle cells were transitioning to cells resembling stem cells and myofibroblasts.
Researcher Laura S. Shankman, a Phd student in the Owens lab, was able to overcome the limitations of the traditional methodology for detecting smooth muscle cells in the plaque.
in order to see where those cells were later in disease.""Further, Shankman identified a key gene, Klf4,
and exhibited features indicating they were more stable--the ideal therapeutic goal for treating the disease in people.
Of major interest, loss of Klf4 in smooth muscle cells did not reduce the number of these cells in lesions
but resulted in them undergoing transitions in their functional properties that appear to be beneficial in disease pathogenesis. That is,
Shankman's findings raise many critical questions about previous studies built on techniques that failed to assess the composition of the lesions accurately.
Moreover, her studies are the first to indicate that therapies targeted at controlling the properties of smooth muscle cells within lesions may be highly effective in treating a disease that is the leading cause of death worldwide.
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