In findings that may lead to new treatments for cognitive disorders, researchers at MIT Picower Institute for Learning and Memory zero in on how the brain forms memories of
the Picower Professor of Neuroscience, showed that dramatic changes occur in the primary visual cortex when mice learn to distinguish novel from familiar visual stimuli.
and patterns are features of a number of neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism and schizophrenia. With these new findings, e now have an opportunity to investigate how gene mutations that cause
or increase the risk for these disorders disrupt the mechanisms of visual recognition memory, says Bear,
a Howard hughes medical institute investigator. e anticipate that this knowledge will suggest entirely novel approaches to treating these diseases.
To understand the physical basis of memory, researchers seek to identify where and how the brain changes as learning occurs something that has been very difficult to achieve.
The study lead author, Picower Institute research scientist Samuel F. Cooke, working with postdoctoral fellows Robert W. Komorowski and Jeffrey Gavornik and graduate student Eitan
and memory storage. he study points to the visual cortex as a tool of learning and memory in its own right,
MIT/Picower Institute for Learning and Memor t
#3d printed Heart Model Makes Surgery Safer and Less Dangerous Three-dimensional printing technology has just found yet another use, this time it heart surgery.
When planning for an invasive procedure, surgeons are limited often to two-dimensional MRI and CT (computerized tomography) images,
which can lead them to form a widely inaccurate view of their patient physiology. Although three-dimensional images are also now available,
these can still fail to capture all of the relevant details. Confronted with a rare and particularly difficult case of congenital heart failure, Richard Kim, MD,
from the Children Hospital of Los angeles (CHLA) took a step forward and ordered a fully-3d model of his patient heart. s useful as scans are for visualizing structural defects,
there nothing like holding a life-sized, three-dimensional replica in your hands, said Jon Detterich, MD, who gathered both 2d
Kim patient Esther Perez was born with a ventricular septal defect (a physical hole in the wall which divides the left and right ventricles of the heart muscle) a fairly common heart condition.
and complex surgery, currently performed at only a handful of pediatric hospitals in the US.
Studying the heart model allowed Kim to accurately plan the procedure thereby increasing safety and making follow-up surgery unnecessary. nstead of opening the chest
and making a decision about how to proceed, I could immediately begin fixing the problem,
who is also an Assistant professor at the Keck School of medicine at the University of Southern California. 3d model allowed
me to plan the surgery in advance, which meant Esther spent less time in surgery and received less anesthesia,
making the procedure safer. Frank Ing, MD, Chief of Cardiology and co-director of the Heart Institute at CHLA, thinks that
since only a small number of 3d models have been used for heart surgery, the jury is still out
whether they actually improve surgical outcomes, but added that? our experience suggest that using models saves time in the OR,
which means increased safety and decreased costs. The use of 3d models is also likely to translate into a need for fewer surgeries
and allow children to spend less time recuperating in intensive care. Thanks to this innovative technique, Esther made a speedy recovery
and is expected to live a life free of medical complications. Otherwise she would have required multiple surgeries during the first years of her life.
In addition to surgical planning, 3d printing has also been used for other medical applications according to a recent article on Med Device Online
oncologists were able to use a 3d printed model that mimics the density of organs in a patient body,
which allowed to more accurately determine an appropriate dose of radiation. As 3d printing becomes cheaper,
medical professionals are hoping to include 3d printers into their regular toolset i
#New high-speed 3-D microscope gives deeper view of living things Opening new doors for biomedical and neuroscience research, Elizabeth Hillman,
associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering and of radiology at Columbia University Medical center (CUMC), has developed a new microscope that can image living things in 3d at very high speeds.
In doing so, she has overcome some of the major hurdles faced by existing technologies, delivering 10 to 100 times faster 3d imaging speeds than laser scanning confocal, two-photon,
and light-sheet microscopy. Hillman new approach uses a simple, single-objective imaging geometry that requires no sample mounting or translation,
Her study is published in the Advance Online Publication (AOP) on Nature Photonics website on January 19,
2015. he ability to perform real-time 3d imaging at cellular resolution in behaving organisms is a new frontier for biomedical
The emergence of fluorescent proteins and transgenic techniques over the past 20 years has transformed biomedical research,
even delivering neurons that flash as they fire in the living brain. Yet imaging techniques that can capture these dizzying dynamic processes have lagged behind.
acquiring enough of these layers to form a 3d image at fast enough rates to capture events like neurons actually firing has become a frustrating road-block.
Hillman and her collaborators have used already the system to observe firing in 3d neuronal dendritic trees in superficial layers of the mouse brain.
SCAPE can also be combined with optogenetics and other tissue manipulations during imaging because, unlike other systems,
Hillman and her students built their first SCAPE system using inexpensive off-the-shelf components. Her hamoment came when
After several years of trial and error, Hillman and graduate student Matthew Bouchard came up with a configuration that worked,
including Randy Bruno (associate professor of neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience), Richard Mann (Higgins Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics), Wesley Grueber (associate professor
of physiology and cellular biophysics and of neuroscience, Department of Physiology & Cell Biophysics), and Kimara Targoff (assistant professor of pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics), all of whom are starting to use the SCAPE system in their research. eciphering the functions of brain
and mind demands improved methods for visualizing, monitoring, and manipulating the activity of neural circuits in natural settings,
says Thomas M. Jessell, co-director of the Zuckerman Institute and Claire Tow Professor of Motor neuron Disorders,
the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia. illman sophistication in optical physics has led her to develop a new imaging technique that permits large-scale detection of neuronal firing in three-dimensional
#New laser could upgrade the images in tomorrow#s technology A new semiconductor laser developed at Yale has the potential to significantly improve the imaging quality of the next generation of high-tech microscopes laser projectors photo
lithography holography and biomedical imaging. Based on a chaotic cavity laser the technology combines the brightness of traditional lasers with the lower image corruption of light emitting diodes (LEDS.
The search for better light sources for high-speed full-field imaging applications has been the focus of intense experimentation and research in recent years.
and biomedical engineering and diagnostic radiology. his chaotic cavity laser is a great example of basic research ultimately leading to a potentially important invention for the social goodsaid co-author A. Douglas Stone the Carl A. Morse Professor
and chair of applied physics and professor of physics. ll of the foundational work was motivated primarily by a desire to understand certain classes of lasers random and chaotic with no known applications.
The problem is LEDS are not bright enough for high-speed imaging. The new electrically pumped semiconductor laser offers a different approach.
It produces an intense emission but with low spatial coherence. or full-field imaging the speckle contrast should be less than 4%to avoid any disturbance for human inspectionexplained Hui Cao professor of applied physics
and of physics who is the paper corresponding author. s we showed in the paper the standard edge-emitting laser produced speckle contrast of 50
%while our laser has the speckle contrast of 3%.So our new laser has eliminated completely the issue of coherent artifact for full-field imaging. o-author Michael A. Choma assistant professor of diagnostic radiology pediatrics
and biomedical engineering said laser speckle is a major barrier in the development of certain classes of clinical diagnostics that use light. t is tremendously rewarding to work with a team of colleagues to
Lee and Huang grew the laser semiconductor wafer via molecular beam epitaxy and helped in fabrication and testing.
and is working with Redding to apply the laser for full-field imaging at Yale School of medicine.
#Tattoo-like sensor can detect glucose levels without a painful finger prick Scientists have developed the first ultra-thin flexible device that sticks to skin like a rub-on tattoo
The sensor reported in a proof-of-concept study in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry has the potential to eliminate finger-pricking for many people with diabetes.
Joseph Wang and colleagues in San diego note that diabetes affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Many of these patients are instructed to monitor closely their blood glucose levels to manage the disease.
The researchers conclude that the device could potentially be used for diabetes management and for other conditions such as kidney disease e
#Microfluidic device allows researchers to predict behavior of patientsblood cells Patients with sickle cell disease often suffer from painful attacks known as vaso-occlusive crises during
Blood transfusions can sometimes prevent such attacks but there are currently no good ways to predict when a vaso-occlusive crisis which can last for several days is imminent. ou don know exactly
or how to reliably predict it is comingsays Ming Dao a principal research scientist in MIT Department of Materials science and engineering.
Now Dao and colleagues including Subra Suresh president of Carnegie mellon University former dean of MIT School of engineering
and Vannevar bush Professor of Engineering Emeritus have developed a tiny microfluidic device that can analyze the behavior of blood from sickle cell disease patients.
It could also help researchers test the efficacy of new drugs for sickle cell disease which occurs in about 300000 newborns per year more than 75 percent of them in Africa.
The best drug now available hydroxyurea works for only about two-thirds of patients. The research team also includes the paper lead author E (Sarah) Du a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University;
Monica Diez-Silva a former research scientist in MIT Department of Materials science and engineering; and Gregory Kato of the Department of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
People with sickle cell disease an inherited genetic disorder have a variant form of hemoglobin that causes their red blood cells to take on a characteristic sickle shape when in low-oxygen conditions.
Patients now have an average life expectancy of 45 to 50 years in the United states up from only 14 years as recently as 1973.
Disease severity varies among patients depending on how much abnormal hemoglobin is present in their cells. Sickle cells can squeeze through most blood vessels
but they can encounter problems when they enter very small capillaries (less than 20 micrometers in diameter or about one-fourth the diameter of a human hair).
He and his colleagues designed their microfluidic device to mimic the conditions inside a blood vessel as oxygen leaves the Blood cells flow through a narrow channel that wraps around a compartment containing oxygen.
and may lead to improved treatments for those with sickle cell disease. Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT (with footage from Ming Dao) Using this device to measure blood samples from 25 sickle cell disease patients the researchers were able to determine how deoxygenation affects red blood cellssickling rates;
their rate of getting stuck in capillaries; and how quickly they regain their usual shape
if the device can be used to reliably predict individual patientsrisk of a vaso-occlusive crisis. his technique represents a major advance to further our understanding and treatment of vaso-occlusion due to sickle cell disease.
and treating other diseases where the deformability of blood cells is affectedsays Guruswami Ravichandran a professor of aeronautics
and they also plan to pursue it as a tool to test potential new drugs for sickle cell disease.
To demonstrate the device usefulness for evaluating new drugs the researchers analyzed a drug called Aes-103 now in phase II clinical trials to treat sickle cell disease
#Scientists discover viral#Enigma machine#Researchers at the University of York are part of a team
which has cracked a code that governs infections by a major group of viruses including the common cold and polio.
which had been hidden in plain sight in the sequence of the ribonucleic acid (RNA) that makes up this type of viral genome.
and the University of Leeds unlocks its meaning and demonstrates that jamming the code can disrupt virus assembly.
and therefore prevent disease. Professor Peter Stockley Professor of Biological Chemistry in the Faculty of Biological sciences at Leeds, who led the study,
said: f you think of this as molecular warfare, these are encrypted the signals that allow a virus to deploy itself effectively. ow, for this whole class of viruses,
we have found the nigma machine? the coding system that was hiding these signals from us.
We have shown that not only can we read these messages but we can jam them and stop the virusdeployment.
However, they are still among the most potent and damaging of infectious pathogens. Rhinovirus (which causes the common cold) accounts for more infections every year than all other infectious agents put together (about 1 billion cases),
while emergent infections such as chikungunya and tick-borne encephalitis are from the same ancient family.
Other single-stranded RNA VIRUSES include the hepatitis C virus HIV and the winter vomiting bug norovirus.
This breakthrough was the result of three stages of research. In 2012, researchers at the University of Leeds published the first observations at a single-molecule level of how the core of a single-stranded RNA VIRUS packs itself into its outer shell remarkable process
because the core must first be folded correctly to fit into the protective viral protein coat. The viruses solve this fiendish problem in milliseconds,
and the question was did how they this. University of York mathematicians Dr Eric Dykeman and Professor Reidun Twarock, working with the Leeds group
then devised mathematical algorithms to crack the code governing the process and built computer-based models of the coding system.
In this latest study, the two groups have unlocked the code. The group used single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy to watch the codes being used by the satellite tobacco necrosis virus, a single stranded RNA plant virus.
Dr Roman Tuma, Reader in Biophysics at the University of Leeds, said: e have understood for decades that the RNA carries the genetic messages that create viral proteins,
hidden within the stream of letters we use to denote the genetic information, is a second code governing virus assembly.
Professor Reidun Twarock, of the Departments of Mathematics and Biology at York, said: he Enigma machine metaphor is apt.
We have now proved that those computer models work in real viral messages. The next step will be to widen the study into animal viruses.
University of Yor v
#Single brain peptide could be the clue to improving fertility post-stress Infertility is a growing problem in the developed world,
Increasing childbearing age and complex effects of our environment are likely to blame, and so can be the overall hectic lives that many of us lead.
Quite naturally, stress can have a negative effect on the libido but it has been linked to delayed pregnancy success in couples highly motivated to conceive,
But what may be the molecular reasons behind lasting effects of stress on fertility? A joint team of researchers at University of California and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research have set out to answer this very question their findings were published last week on elife.
According to their study, a single hypothalamic peptide RFRP3, which activated under stress, could be to blame for lasting negative effects on infertility in healthy females.
RFRP3 is a hypothalamic hormone common across mammals, including rodents, nonhuman primates and humans. While its precise mode of action is unknown,
the researchers were able to preserve all aspects of reproductive health in post-stress mice, thus suggesting a single molecular target that could help alleviate a range of stress-induced fertility problems. t is possible that manipulation of RFRP3 signaling in humans may relieve stress-related reproductive dysfunction,
including decreased sex drive, impaired fertility, and increased miscarriages the researchers said. Currently, as many as 630%of couples under 30 years of age are unable to conceive within 3 months of trying and 15%remain disappointed within 1 year.
which experience significant reproductive disadvantage linked to stress. Written by Egle Marija Ramanauskaite
#Robots Learn by Watching Videos Imagine having a personal robot prepare your breakfast every morning.
because it learned all the necessary steps by watching videos on Youtube. It might sound like science fiction,
but a team at the University of Maryland has made just a significant breakthrough that will bring this scenario one step closer to reality.
Researchers at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) partnered with a scientist at the National Information Communications technology Research Centre of Excellence in Australia (NICTA) to develop robotic systems that are able
The work will be presented on Jan 29, 2015, at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial intelligence Conference in Austin,
artificial intelligence, or the design of computers that can make their own decisions; computer vision, or the engineering of systems that can accurately identify shapes and movements;
and natural language processing, or the development of robust systems that can understand spoken commands. Although the underlying work is complex,
the team wanted the results to reflect something practical and relatable to people daily lives. e chose cooking videos
said Yiannis Aloimonos, UMD professor of computer science and director of the Computer Vision Lab, one of 16 labs and centers in UMIACS. ut cooking is complex in terms of manipulation,
In fact, this is precisely what distinguishes their work from previous efforts. thers have tried to copy the movements.
The work also relies on a specialized software architecture known as deep-learning neural networks. While this approach is not new
while for computing technology to catch up. Similar versions of neural networks are responsible for the voice recognition capabilities in smartphones
and the facial recognition software used by Facebook and other websites. While robots have been used to carry out complicated tasks for decadeshink automobile assembly lineshese must be programmed carefully
and calibrated by human technicians. Self learning robots could gather the necessary information by watching others,
which is the same way humans learn. Aloimonos and Fermüller envision a future in which robots tend to the mundane chores of daily life
Aloimonos. e will have smart manufacturing environments and completely automated warehouses. It would be great to use autonomous robots for dangerous worko defuse bombs
and clean up nuclear disasters such as the Fukushima event. We have demonstrated that it is possible for humanoid robots to do our human jobs.
In addition to Aloimonos and Fermüller, study authors includedyezhou Yang, a UMD computer science doctoral student, and Yi Li, a former doctoral student of Aloimonos and Fermüller from NICTA.
Source: UM d
#Perovskites provide big boost to silicon solar cells Stacking perovskites onto a conventional silicon solar cell dramatically improves the overall efficiency of the cell,
according to a new study led by Stanford university scientists. The researchers describe their novel perovskite-silicon solar cell in this week edition of the journal Energy
& Environmental science. ee been looking for ways to make solar panels that are more efficient and lower cost,
said study co-author Michael Mcgehee, a professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford. ight now, silicon solar cells dominate the world market,
but the power conversion efficiency of silicon photovoltaics has been stuck at 25 percent for 15 years.
One cost-effective way to improve efficiency is to build a tandem device made of silicon and another inexpensive photovoltaic material,
he said. aking low-cost tandems is very desirable, Mcgehee said. ou simply put one solar cell on top of the other,
and you get more efficiency than either could do by itself. From a commercial standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to use silicon for the bottom cell.
Until recently, we didn have a good material for the top cell, then pervoskites came along.
Perovskite is a crystalline material that is inexpensive and easy to produce in the lab. In 2009,
scientists showed that perovskites made of lead, iodide and methylammonium could convert sunlight into electricity with an efficiency of 3. 8 percent.
Since then, researchers have achieved perovskite efficiencies above 20 percent, rivaling commercially available silicon solar cells and spawning widespread interest among silicon manufacturers. ur goal is to leverage the silicon factories that already exist around the world,
said Stanford graduate student Colin Bailie, co-lead author of the study. ith tandem solar cells, you don need a billion-dollar capital expenditure to build a new factory.
Instead, you can start with a silicon module and add a layer of perovskite at relatively low cost.
Sunlight to electricity Solar cells work by converting photons of sunlight into an electric current that moves between two electrodes.
Silicon solar cells generate electricity by absorbing photons of visible and infrared light, while perovskite cells harvest only the visible part of the solar spectrum where the photons have more energy.
Microscopic cross-section of a tandem solar cell made with two photovoltaic materials, perovskite stacked on top of CIGS (copper indium gallium diselenide).
COURTESY: Colin Bailie, Stanford bsorbing the high-energy part of the spectrum allows perovskite solar cells to generate more power per photon of visible light than silicon cells,
Bailie said. A key roadblock to building an efficient perovskite-silicon tandem has been a lack of transparency. olin had to figure out how to put a transparent electrode on the top
so that some photons could penetrate the perovskite layer and be absorbed by the silicon at the bottom,
Mcgehee said. o one had made ever a perovskite solar cell with two transparent electrodes. Perovskites are damaged easily by heat and readily dissolve in water.
This inherent instability ruled out virtually all of the conventional techniques for applying electrodes onto the perovoskite solar cell
so Bailie did it manually. e used a sheet of plastic with silver nanowires on it, he said. hen we built a tool that uses pressure to transfer the nanowires onto the perovskite cell, kind of like a temporary tattoo.
You just need to rub it to transfer the film. Remarkable efficiency For the experiment, the Stanford team stacked a perovskite solar cell with an efficiency of a 12.7 percent on top of a low-quality silicon cell with an efficiency of just 11.4 percent. y combining two cells
with approximately the same efficiency you can get a very large efficiency boost, Bailie said.
The results were improved impressive. e the 11.4 percent silicon cell to 17 percent as a tandem, a remarkable relative efficiency increase of nearly 50 percent,
Mcgehee said. uch a drastic improvement in efficiency has the potential to redefine the commercial viability of low-quality silicon.
In another experiment, the research team replaced the silicon solar cell with a cell made of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS.
The researchers stacked a 12.7 percent efficiency perovskite cell onto a CIGS cell with a 17 percent efficiency.
The resulting tandem achieved an overall conversion efficiency of 18.6 percent. ince most, if not all of the layers in a perovskite cell can be deposited from solution,
it might be possible to upgrade conventional solar cells into higher-performing tandems with little increase in cost,
the authors wrote. A big unanswered question is the long-term stability of perovskites, Mcgehee added. ilicon is a rock,
he said. ou can heat it to about 600 degrees Fahrenheit shine light on it for 25 years
and nothing will happen. But if you expose perovskite to water or light it likely will degrade.
We have a ways to go to show that perovskite solar cells are stable enough to last 25 years.
My vision is that some day wel be able to get low-cost tandems that are 25 percent efficient.
That what companies are excited about. In five to 10 years, we could even reach 30 percent efficiency. i
#Huge 3d Displays without 3d Glasses Public screenings have become an important part of major sports events.
In the future we will be able to enjoy them in 3d thanks to a new invention from Austrian scientists.
A sophisticated laser system sends laser beams into different directions. Therefore different pictures are visible from different angles.
The angular resolution is so fine that the left eye is presented a different picture than the right one creating a 3d effect.
The highly interdisciplinary project was carried out together with the Vienna University of Technology. A Start-up Company and a Universitytogether Trilite and TU Vienna have created the first prototype.
Currently it only has a modest resolution of five pixels by three but it clearly shows that the system works. e are creating a second prototype
which will display colour pictures with a higher resolution. But the crucial point is that the individual laser pixels work.
Scaling it up to a display with many pixels is not a problemsays Jörg Reitterer (Trilite Technologies and Phd-student in the team of Professor Ulrich Schmid at the Vienna University of Technology.
Every single 3d-Pixel (also called rixel consists of lasers and a moveable mirror. he mirror directs the laser beams across the field of vision from left to right.
During that movement the laser intensity is modulated so that different laser flashes are sent into different directionssays Ulrich Schmid.
To experience the 3d effect the viewer must be positioned in a certain distance range from the screen.
If the distance is too large both eyes receive the same image and only a normal 2d picture can be seen.
Seen from different angles the display shows different pictures. Hundreds of Images at Once3d movies in the cinema only show two different pictures one for each eye.
The newly developed display however can present hundreds of pictures. Walking by the display one can get a view of the displayed object from different sides just like passing a real object.
For this however a new video format is required which has already been developed by the researchers. oday 3d cinema movies can be converted into our 3d format
but we expect that new footage will be created especially for our displays perhaps with a much larger number of camerassays Franz Fiedler CTO of Trilite Technologies.
Trilite) Compared to a movie screen the display is very vivid. Therefore it can be used outdoors even in bright sunlight.
Electronic Billboards could display different ads seen from different angles. aybe someone wants to appeal specifically to the customers leaving the shop across the street
and a different ad is shown to the people waiting at the bus stopsays Ferdinand Saint-Julien CEO of Trilite Technologies.
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