#Building a Better Grunt: New Technology to Lighten Marinesloads Modern-day warfighters face heavyiterallydds on the battlefield,
as they often carry more than 100 pounds of gear, including body armor, weapons and night-vision technology.
Such loads can slow them down, reduce agility and result in fatigue, joint sprains or long-term ailments like arthritis or chronic back problems.
To remedy this, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has presented the Marine corps with a 3-D computer simulation program that measures equipment weight, distribution and effects on body mechanics and individual warfighter performance.
The programalled ETOWL (Enhanced Technologies for Optimization of Warfighter Load) nd its companion software is being delivered to the Gruntworks Marine Expeditionary Rifle Squad
which focuses on individual mobility. Gruntworks serves as a orkshopto test existing and emerging equipment that would help infantry Marines.
Once given to the Marine corps, ETOWL will be renamed Gruntsim. TOWL fits perfectly within ONR mission to develop groundbreaking technologies that enhance the resilience,
physical superiority and overall warfighting performance of U s. Marines, said Vice Chief of Naval Research Brig.
Gen. Kevin Killea. ETOWL calls to mind popular combat-themed video games such as all of Duty. Users can create a Marine avatar,
load it with as much or as little equipment as desired and run it through a virtual obstacle course featuring different warfighting scenarios.
Using a color-coded system ETOWL measures the stress placed on each avatar joints as well as its balance, flexibility and center of gravity.
Green is good and red is dangerous. The 3-D simulation program features seven different male and female Marine corps body types.
The benefits of ETOWL are said numerous ONR Program Manager Dr. Peter Squire. For example, the Marine corps can use data from the virtual tests to quickly design real-world prototypes for testing by live Marines.
Squire believes this will prevent future injuries and reduce the time and financial cost of unnecessary field trials.
In addition military vehicle manufacturers can improve their product designs to enable Marines to fit better in seats
and through escape hatches. t very exciting to see ETOWL transition from ONR prototype to a technology that will enhance human load
and performance for the Marine corps, said Squire, who works in ONR Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare and Combating Terrorism department. his is the kind of research that very rewarding
because it provides a direct benefit to our nation warfighters. he ETOWL program was developed by the Center for Computer aided design at the University of Iowa.
Once the future Gruntsim is handed off to the Marine corps its design software (called the SANTOS human simulation environment) will be made available to the academic community to access free of charge from the center website. his will allow for further research
and potential improvement of ETOWL and future programs like it, said Squire. TOWL has been an important part of ONR mission
which emphasizes mobility and adaptability within irregular warfare as key components of warfighter performance. Source:
#Ultrafast heat conduction can manipulate nanoscale magnets Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have uncovered physical mechanisms allowing the manipulation of magnetic information with heat.
These new phenomena rely on the transport of thermal energy, in contrast to the conventional application of magnetic fields, providing a new,
and highly desirable way to manipulate magnetization at the nanoscale. This is a schematic, cutaway view of the geometry used to generate currents of spin from currents of heat.
Image credit: Alex Jerez, Imaging Technology Group, The Beckman Institutee use the spin current created by ultrafast heat conduction to generate spin transfer torque.
and enables the manipulation of nanomagnets with spin currents rather than magnetic fields, explained Gyung-Min Choi,
who recently completed his Phd in materials science and engineering at Illinois. pin transfer torque has often been realized by passing electrical currents through magnetic layers.
University of Illinoi S
#Small changes have large benefits for crop breeding Researchers from The University of Western australia have developed a new method for breeding crops that will improve the potential for long-term, sustainable genetic improvement.
In a world first, Professor Wallace Cowling from The UWA Institute of Agriculture and his team have taken the breeding model commonly used by animal breeders,
and implemented it in self-pollinating crops. Self-pollinating crops, or elfingcrops, are plants that are normally fertilised from their own pollen.
Self-pollinating crops such as rice, wheat and other cereals, soy beans and certain vegetable-derived oils
account for more than 60 per cent of world food calories for human consumption. Farmers are used to saving the seed of wheat and other crops such as lupin,
field pea and chickpea, knowing that the harvested seed is identical to the sown seed as a result of selfing.
New varieties are ure linesthat have been tested for several generations and shown to be superior to previous varieties.
Animal breeders have developed a method of breeding that takes into account information from all relatives across all generations.
The combined analysis of data across generations as proposed in Professor Cowling model for selfing crops,
means there can be more accurate selection and shorter generation intervals with more sustainable long-term genetic improvement.
Professor Cowling said crossing and recombination in self-pollinating crops normally occurs after selfing and selection of pure lines. n our research we changed the breeding process to allow rossing before selfingrather than elfing before crossing,
he said. he method should help retain additive genetic variance in breeding populations, which is lost permanently with elfing before crossinghis relatively minor change in the practice of plant breeding has accelerated genetic gain
and improved the potential for long-term and sustainable genetic improvement. oupled with new genomic technology, the new breeding method could speed up genetic improvements for desirable traits such as grain quality and yield.
Source: University of Western Australi
#Scientists invent a new method to synthesize highly valuable amines Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have created a new method for synthesizing minesa class of organic compounds prominent in drugs and other modern products.
Using new method valuable exotic compounds can be created in a very inexpensive process. New reaction is already being called modern alchemy
and it is hard to overestimate its meaning for modern science. New method to manufacture amines is already being called odern alchemy However,
Image credit: Science museum London/Science and Society Picture Library) via Wikimediaamines are related to relatively simple molecule ammonia (NH3),
and putting it all in a blender and ending up with goldxcept that the amines we can make with this new method are often worth much more than their weight in gold mines are very useful for making drugs.
However amines with particularly desirable propertiesuch as a resistance to breakdown by enzymes in the bodyre hard to make using current standard methods.
#Decades of research yield natural dairy thickener with probiotic potential Microbiologists at Oregon State university have discovered
and commercialize a new type of dairy or food thickener, which may add probiotic characteristics to the products in
The global market for polymers such as this approaches $7 billion, and there are estimates the U s. spends up to $120 billion a year on probiotic products such as yogurt, sour cream and buttermilk.
beginning in the early 1990s when a novel polymer with an ability to rapidly thicken milk was discovered by an OSU microbiologist.
The polymer is known as Ropy 352 and produced by a non-disease-causing bacterium. his is one of many naturally occurring,
non-disease-causing bacterial strains my research program isolated and studied for years, said Janine Trempy,
an OSU microbiologist. e discovered that this bacterium had a brand-new, never-before reported grouping of genes that code for a unique polymer that naturally thickens milk.
In basic research, wee also broadened our understanding of how and why non-disease-causing bacteria produce polymers.
This polymer appears to give fermented foods a smooth thick, creamy property, and may initially find uses in sour cream, yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, cream cheese and artisan soft cheeses.
Composed of natural compounds, it offers a slightly sweet property and may improve the sensory characteristics of low-fat or no-fat foods.
And unlike other polymers that are used now commonly as thickeners, it may add probiotic characteristics to foods,
non-disease-causing bacterial strains that produce unique polymers with characteristics desirable and safe for food products,
Trempy said. n the case of a dairy thickener, for instance, a bacterium such as Ropy 352 ferments the sugar in the milk and produces a substance that changes the milk properties.
These are driven chemical processes by naturally occurring bacteria that do not cause disease in humans, Trempy said,
but instead may contribute to human health through their probiotic potential. One of the most common polymers, xanthum gum, has been in use
since 1969 and is found in a huge range of food products, from canned foods to ice cream, pharmaceuticals and beauty products.
Xanthum gum is recognized enerally as safeby the FDA, but is derived from a bacterium known to be a plant pathogen
and suspected of causing digestive distress or being yrogenic, or fever-inducing. Trempy research program has determined the new polymer will thicken whole and nonfat milk,
lactose-free milk, coconut milk, rice milk, and other products designed for use in either dieting
or gaining weight. Beyond that, the polymer may have a wide range of applications such as thickening of pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, fruit juices, cosmetics and personal care products.
In their broader uses, microbial polymers are used for food production, chemical production, detergents, cosmetics, paints, pesticides, fertilizers, film formers, lubricants, explosives, pharmaceutical production and waste treatment.
OSU recently agreed to a non-exclusive license for the patented Ropy 352 technology to a global market leader for dairy starter cultures.
It also available for further licensing through OSU Office of Commercialization and Corporate Development n
#Surfaces get smooth or bumpy on demand An MIT team has developed a way of making soft materials,
using a 3-D printer, with surface textures that can then be modified at will to be perfectly smooth,
Polymer material produced by a 3-D printer includes soft, flexible material (clear or lighter tone) with particles of hard material (black) embedded, in predetermined arrangements.
Felice Frankelthe process, developed using detailed computer simulations, involves a material that is composed of two different polymers with different degrees of stiffness:
More rigid particles are embedded within a matrix of a more flexible polymer. When squeezed, the material surface changes from smooth to a pattern determined by the spacing and shapes of the implanted harder particles;
when released, it reverts back to the original form. The findings, which the researchers say could lead to a new class of materials with dynamically controllable and reversible surface properties,
are reported in a paper in the journal Advanced Functional Materials co-authored by MIT graduate student Mark Guttag and Mary Boyce,
a former MIT professor of mechanical engineering who is now dean of engineering at Columbia University. epending on the arrangement of the particles,
or its reflectivity. But by arranging the distribution of the hard particles, it can also be used to produce highly complex surface textures for example,
creating microfluidic channels to control the movement of liquids inside a chemical or biological detector,
the same design principles could be used to modify materials using other stimuli such as through application of an electric charge,
The initial development of the system was done using computer simulations which were validated then by making 3-D-printed versions of several of the designs.
Guttag says. his is the first-of-its-kind work to create materials with reconfigurable surface texture,
a professor of civil and environmental engineering and mechanical engineering at Northwestern University who was involved not in this work.
he potential practical impact of this work is huge. It can be used in many applications that benefit from the change of surface
Huang compares this to the development of 3-D printing, saying nce the method is developed,
#Petri dish tumor test could personalize drug therapy for cancer patients In a highly successful, first-of-its-kind endeavor,
a multidisciplinary team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has created a umor in a dish:
The advance could mean a giant step forward in efforts to tailor medical treatment plans to individual patients.
Led by Shigeki Miyamoto, a professor of oncology at UW-Madison, and David Beebe, the John D. Macarthur Professor and Claude Bernard professor of biomedical engineering at UW-Madison, the researchers published news of the advance May 1, 2015, in the Royal Society
of Chemistry journal Integrative biology. ee taking the first steps toward mimicking the body in a dish,
Beebe says. Much of the research was led by Chorom Pak who previously was a graduate student working in Miyamoto lab. Pak
and Edmond Young (now at the University of Toronto) and the other researchers produced an assay,
or testing process, which involves co-culturing multiple myeloma tumor cells with their surrounding nontumor cells, all from the same patient, in a microscale petri dish.
The researchers then treated the tumor cells with bortezomib, a drug commonly used in multiple myeloma therapy.
And after only three days, the researchers could determine whether the drug was effective or not.
They compared the results of their ex vivo tests with the success or failure rates of actual patients who had received the drug
Multiple myeloma is a universally fatal cancer. Rising in the blood marrow due to an accumulation of abnormal,
or cancerous, plasma cells, myeloma is treatable but incurable. he median survival rate has improved, but is only about five to seven years,
Pak says. The new assay could save many multiple myeloma cancer patients the psychological stress of having to try multiple drugs until they find the most effective one.
The assay reduces cliniciansneed for this trial-and-error approach while treating a patient, and it also lowers the cost of treatment.
The fundamental idea behind the research was to focus on everything surrounding a tumor not just the tumor itself.
These surroundings can include bone marrow stromal cells, macrophages and other immune cells, all of which represent an integral part of the tumor environment.
By including these components in a microfluidic petri dish a device developed by Beebe and Miyamoto lab a few years ago the researchersability to accurately gauge results increased dramatically.
Beebe says scaling down the testing environment in the group research is akin to moving from a lake to a bathtub:
The researchers essentially created a miniaturized external model of an individual cancer, says Pak. She has founded a service-based company called Lynx Biosciences based on these findings,
and the company was recently a finalist in the 2015 Wisconsin Governor Business plan Contest. Pak and fellow researchers are looking to conduct a prospective trial,
In addition, they are starting to consider what this discovery means for other cancer types and other drugs.
The researchersresults could have interesting and wide-ranging implications for the future of cancer treatment and therapy,
although their work is far from over. his is only one type of cancer, one particular drug,
#First functional, synthetic immune organ with controllable antibodies created by engineers Cornell University engineers have created a functional,
synthetic immune organ that produces antibodies and can be controlled in the lab, completely separate from a living organism.
The engineered organ has implications for everything from rapid production of immune therapies to new frontiers in cancer or infectious disease research.
The first-of-its-kind immune organoid was created in the lab of Ankur Singh, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering,
The work was published online June 3 in Biomaterials and will appear later in print. Study PDF and images:
https://cornell. box. com/immuneorganthe synthetic organ is inspired bio by secondary immune organs like the lymph node or spleen.
It is made from gelatin-based biomaterials reinforced with nanoparticles and seeded with cells, and it mimics the anatomical microenvironment of lymphoid tissue.
Like a real organ, the organoid converts B cells which make antibodies that respond to infectious invaders into germinal centers,
mature and mutate their antibody genes when the body is under attack. Germinal centers are a sign of infection
and are not present in healthy immune organs. The engineers have demonstrated how they can control this immune response in the organ
get activated and change their antibody types. According to their paper, their 3-D organ outperforms existing 2-D cultures and can produce activated B cells up to 100 times faster.
is a soft, nanocomposite biomaterial. The engineers reinforced the material with silicate nanoparticles to keep the structure from melting at the physiologically relevant temperature of 98.6 degrees.
The organ could lead to increased understanding of B cell functions, an area of study that typically relies on animal models to observe how the cells develop and mature.
the organ could be used to study specific infections and how the body produces antibodies to fight those infections from Ebola to HIV. ou can use our system to force the production of immunotherapeutics at much faster rates,
he said. Such a system also could be used to test toxic chemicals and environmental factors that contribute to infections or organ malfunctions.
The process of B cells becoming germinal centers is understood not well, and in fact, when the body makes mistakes in the genetic rearrangement related to this process,
blood cancer can result. n the long run, we anticipate that the ability to drive immune reaction ex vivo at controllable rates grants us the ability to reproduce immunological events with tunable parameters for better mechanistic understanding of B cell development and generation of B cell tumors,
as well as screening and translation of new classes of drugs, Singh said g
#New drug triggers tissue regeneration: Faster regrowth and healing of damaged tissues Research focuses on select tissues injured through disease, surgery and transplants,
but early findings indicate potential for broad applicationsthe concept sounds like the stuff of science fiction:
take a pill, and suddenly new tissues grow to replace damaged ones. Researchers at Case Western Reserve and UT Southwestern Medical center this week announced that they have taken significant steps toward turning this once-improbable idea into a vivid reality.
In a study published in the June 12 edition of Science, they detail how a new drug repaired damage to the colon,
liver and bone marrow in animal models even going so far as to save the lives of mice who otherwise would have died in a bone marrow transplantation model. e are excited very,
the Ingalls Professor of Cancer Genetics at the university School of medicine and a medical oncologist at University Hospitals Case Medical center Seidman Cancer Center. e have developed a drug that acts like a vitamin for tissue stem cells,
which suggests to us that it may have applications in treating many diseases. he institutions collaborating on this work next hope to develop the drug now known as W033291for use in human patients.
they first would focus on individuals who are receiving bone marrow transplants, individuals with ulcerative colitis, and individuals having liver surgery.
The goal for each is the same: to increase dramatically the chances of a more rapid and successful recovery.
Markowitz and University of Kentucky Professor Hsin-Hsiung Tai earlier had demonstrated that a gene product found in all humans,
Markowitz, also a Harrington Discovery Institute Scholar-Innovator, and James K. V. Willson, MD, a former Case Western Reserve colleague now at UT-Southwestern, hypothesized that inhibiting 15-PGDH would increase PGE2 in tissues.
the pair began searching for a way to inactivate 15-PGDH on a short-term basis. The preliminary work began in test tubes.
Zhang then traveled to UT Southwestern Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center where Willson serves as director.
The third finding came through collaboration between Markowitz and Stanton L. Gerson, MD, director of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, UH Seidman Cancer Center,
and the National Center for Regenerative medicine, as well as the Asa and Patricia Shiverick-Jane Shiverick (Tripp) Professor of Hematological Oncology.
Case Western Reserve research associate Amar Desai, Phd, worked between the Markowitz and Gerson laboratories to determine the effect of SW033291 on mice that had received lethal doses of radiation
and then received a partial bone marrow transplant. Without SW033291, the animals died. With it they recovered.
From there, more detailed studies showed that mice given SW033291 recovered normal blood counts six days faster than mice that were transplanted without receiving SW033291.
Neutrophils battle infection, platelets prevent bleeding, and red blood cells deliver oxygen throughout the body. In addition, Desai work showed that
When investigators treated mice with other diseases the SW033291 drug again accelerated tissue recovery. For example, the investigators teamed with Fabio Cominelli, MD, Phd, a Case Western Reserve Professor and Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Liver disease,
to study a mouse model of ulcerative colitis. SW033291 healed virtually all the ulcers in the animalscolons
and prevented colitis symptoms. In mice where two-thirds of their livers had been removed surgically, SW033291 accelerated regrowth of new liver nearly twice as fast as normally happens without medication.
Because bone marrow, colon, and liver are significantly different tissues, the investigators believe the pathway by which SW033291 speeds tissue regeneration is likely to work as well for treating diseases of many other tissues of the body.
However the next stages of the research will concentrate on three diseases where SW033291 already shows promise to provide dramatic improvement.
In bone marrow transplants, for example, effects of SW033291 in accelerating tissue growth would provide the body the cells required to fight off the two most common and sometimes fatal complications, infection and bleeding.
For those suffering the debilitating impact of colitis, accelerating tissue growth could heal colon ulcers more quickly,
which in turn could allow patients to take lower dosages of other medications that treat colitis some
of which have serious side effects. Finally, the promise of tissue growth could increase survival rates for patients with liver cancer;
in some cases today, physicians are unable to perform surgery because the amount of the liver to be removed would be so great as to pose severe risk to the patient.
But having a drug to accelerate the liver regrowth could make surgery a viable option.
The team next step will be to complete studies showing safety of SW033291-related compounds in larger animals, a required part of the pathway to secure approval from the U s. Food and Drug Administration
for trials in humans. If the drugs prove safe and effective in those clinical trials
It helps put us on the map as a place where new drugs get invented. arkowitz added that this research received crucial financial assistance from Case Western Reserve University School of medicine Council to Advance Human Health (CAHH
from the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals, and from multiple National institutes of health grants that included the Case GI SPORE,
and the National Center for Accelerating Innovation at the Cleveland Clinic. Additional support was received from the Marguerite Wilson Foundation;
the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas; Inje University; and the Korean National Research Foundation.
Generous major gifts also came from the Leonard and Joan Horvitz Foundation and the Richard Horvitz and Erica Hartman-Horvitz Foundation.
Markowitz and Willson, former director of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center and now director of the Simmons Cancer Center at UT Southwestern, initiated the project to study the potential of inhibiting 15-PGDH as a tissue
at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, originally discovered 15-PGDH and tested SW033291 as a 15-PGDH inhibitor.
Lead authors Yongyou Zhang, Amar Desai, Sung Yeun Yang, Ki Beom Bae, Monika I. Antczak, Stephen P. Fink and Shruiti Tiwari contributed equally to the scientific investigation.
Desai, Case Western Reserve, performed experiments that showed that SW033291 works in bone marrow transplantation in mice.
Yang and Bae, now at Inje University in Korea, worked in the Markowitz laboratory on studies of colitis (Yang) and on liver regrowth after surgery (Bae.
Fink and Tiwari, both of Case Western Reserve, completed the work on the colitis mouse model.
who played a role in the success of the colitis experiments in mice, and Mark Chance, who contributed proteomics expertise for studies that showed how SW033291 works.
Other participating investigators also contributed substantially: Joseph E. Willis, Dawn M. Dawson, David Wald, Wei-Dong Chen, Zhenghe Wang, Lakshmi Kasturi, Gretchen A. Larusch, Lucy He, Luca Di
Zora Djuric, University of Michigan, Ann arbor; Ginger L. Milne, Vanderbilt University, Nashville; and Noelle S. Williams, Jacinth Naidoo,
and Shuguang Wei, all at UT-Southwestern, Dallas. n impressive number of individuals contributed to the discovery of this 15-PGDH inhibitor drug,
#Centimeter-long origami robot At the recent International Conference on Robotics and Automation, MIT researchers presented a printable origami robot that folds itself up from a flat sheet of plastic
Its motions are controlled by external magnetic fields. he entire walking motion is embedded into the mechanics of the robot body
says Cynthia R. Sung, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science and one of the robot co-developers. n previous origami robots,
they had to design electronics and motors to actuate the body itself. oining Sung on the paper describing the robot are her advisor, Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in MIT Department of Electrical engineering and Computer science;
first author Shuhei Miyashita, a postdoc in Ruslab; Steven Guitron, who just received his bachelor degree in mechanical engineering from MIT;
and Marvin Ludersdorfer of the Technical University of Munich. Fantastic Voyagethe robot design was motivated by a hypothetical application in
navigate to an intervention site, fold themselves up, and, when they had assigned finished their tasks, dissolve.
The middle layer always consisted of polyvinyl chloride, a plastic commonly used in plumbing pipes, which contracts when heated.
In the acetone-soluble prototype, the outer layers were polystyrene. Slits cut into the outer layers by a laser cutter guide the folding process.
If two slits on opposite sides of the sheet are of different widths then when the middle layer contracts, it forces the narrower slit edges together,
the proper application of a magnetic field to the permanent magnet on its back causes its body to flex.
The friction between the robot front feet and the ground is great enough that the front feet stay fixed while the back feet lift.
Then, another sequence of magnetic fields causes the robot body to twist slightly which breaks the front feet adhesion,
Outside controlin their experiments, the researchers positioned the robot on a rectangular stage with an electromagnet at each of its four corners.
Inspired by earlier work from Rus and Miyashita, the researchers envision that a tiny, conductive robot could act as a sensor.
Contact with other objects whether chemical accretions in a mechanical system or microorganisms or cells in the body would disrupt a current passing through the robot in a characteristic way,
and bolt them together, says Hod Lipson, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University, who studies robotics. t a challenging angle of robotics,
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