and more effective toxicity tests for airborne chemicals scientists from Rice university and the Rice spinoff company Nano3d Biosciences have used magnetic levitation to grow some of the most realistic lung tissue ever produced in a laboratory.
and department chair of physics and astronomy at Rice. This is the first time anyone has arranged these four cell types in the same way that they are found in lung tissue.
Killian and fellow scientists from Rice and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center co-founded Nano3d Biosciences in 2009 after creating a technology that uses magnetism to levitate
Growing realistic lung tissues in vitro is a particular challenge said study co-author Jane Grande-Allen professor of bioengineering at Rice.
when Rice bioengineering graduate student Hubert Tseng joined the research team as an intern. Tseng was already a student in Grande-Allen's lab one of Rice's leading laboratories for tissue-engineering research.
Hubert's and Jane's expertise in tissue engineering was invaluable for tackling this problem Souza said.
Another collaboration that paid off big was a partnership with a group of undergraduate students at Rice's Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen.
Study co-authors include Robert Raphael professor of bioengineering at Rice and cofounder of Nano3d Biosciences;
#New company applies regenerative medicine to corneal transplantsocular Systems Inc. OSI) Wake Forest Baptist Medical center
The company formed by OSI the sponsor and initial funder of the project Wake Forest Baptist Medical center
and scaffolds can theoretically be applied to almost any tissue in the body said Anthony Atala M d. director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
Ph d. PTRP president and Chief Innovation Officer at Wake Forest Baptist. This project is an example of the innovation that can be sparked in a research-park environment.
Shay Soker Ph d. professor of regenerative medicine at Wake Forest Baptist is the lead scientist for the project.
and Wake Forest Baptist Department of Ophthalmology physicians Craig Greven M d. chair Matthew Giegengack M d. assistant professor and Keith Walter M d. associate professor.
Wake Forest Baptist Medical center and Keith Walter M d. receive royalties from OSI from sales of the Endoserter device
The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest Baptist Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length t
and the climate shows that without new climate policies expanding the current bounty of inexpensive natural gas alone would not slow the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions worldwide over the long term according to a study appearing today in Nature.
but greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow in the absence of climate policies that promote lower carbon energy sources.
Because gas emits far less carbon dioxide than coal some researchers have linked the natural gas boom to recent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the United states
but we were surprised how little difference abundant gas made to total greenhouse gas emissions even though it was dramatically changing the global energy system said James Jae Edmonds PNNL's chief scientist at JGCRI.
Swapping out coal for natural gas in a simple model would cut greenhouse gas emissions a result many people expected to see.
Consequently the entire energy pie gets bigger. â#¢The main component of natural gas methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
#Automated imaging system looks underground to help improve cropsplant scientists are working to improve important food crops such as rice maize
and beans to meet the food needs of a growing world population. However boosting crop output will require improving more than
and Basic Research to Enable Agriculture Development (BREAD) the Howard Buffett Foundation the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Center for Data analytics at Georgia Tech.
Beyond improving food crops the technique could also help improve plants grown for energy production materials and other purposes.
In collaboration with a research team led by Jonathan Lynch a professor of plant sciences at Penn State the system has been evaluated in South africa with cowpea and maize plants.
With its ability to quickly gather data in the field it was possible to evaluate a complete cowpea diversity panel.
Penn State collaborator James Burridge compiled a novel cowpea reference data set that consists of approximately 1500 excavated root systems.
#Cow behavior changes in response to deterioration in healthwhen a cow develops mastitis her behaviour changes
and the quality of its milk deteriorates. The stockperson can detect the signs of inflammation in the milk
when the cow is milked but is it possible to recognise the signs of this diseases in other ways and even earlier?
A dairy cow becomes restless four hours after it contracts bacterial mastitis. Simultaneously the other symptoms of a steadily progressing inflammation such as increased body temperature
and swelling of the udder become evident. However an attentive stockperson may be able to detect the signs of an incipient inflammation in milk two hours before this shows the doctoral dissertation of Jutta Kauppi head of Animal Production Research at MTT Agrifood
Research Finland. The study showed that it is in the milk that the first symptoms of a disease can be detected
while changes in a cow's behaviour acted as an indicator for a change in the cow's health says Jutta Kauppi summing up the results of her study.
However it is difficult to detect behaviour changes and alterations in milk quality early enough.
At a conventional milking stall mastitis is detected often as late as during a milking session
when a cow has failed to enter the robot for milking or when it has failed several milking attempts in its history.
Kauppi's doctoral dissertation sought to identify critical points in cow behaviour pointing to deterioration in the cow's health.
Changes in cow behaviour including restlessness proved promising indicators for an incipient change in health status. To our surprise changes in milk composition were identifiable before such symptoms were evident
The study also investigated alterations in cow behaviour in relation to successful completion of robotic milking procedure as well as in dairy management practices
Technology provides extra set of eyes for the stockpersonin addition to the stockperson's good eye for cattle technology is used heavily in the modern cowshed in feeding cattle in ensuring a successful completion of milking and in monitoring cows'health and activity levels.
Because some cows are naturally more active than others technology alone is insufficient detect decreasing health status of a cow.
and production technology at our disposal but it is the stockperson who knows its cattle
and a well-functioning interaction between the stockperson the cow and technology become pronounced she continuesresearch on animal welfare
This will enable the launch of preventive measures at an earlier stage than before affecting the process of a cow contracting a disease and shortening the recovery time.
Mastitis is extremely harmful for both the farmer and the cow. When an inflammation has gained a footing the cow is seriously ill.
The milk extracted from the cow is also unsuitable for the food chain causing substantial loss due to treatment with antibiotics
because it goes literally down the drain. With regard to the cow's well-being and the financial impact caused by the disease warning signals should be intercepted as early
and comprehensively as possible Jutta Kauppi concludes. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by MTT Agrifood Research Finland.
#Femme fatale emerald ash borer decoy lures, kills malesan international team of researchers has designed decoys that mimic female emerald ash borer beetles
and successfully entice male emerald ash borers to land on them in an attempt to mate only to be electrocuted
what the U s. Department of agriculture Forest Service claims to be the most destructive forest pest ever seen in North america said Michael Domingue postdoctoral fellow in entomology Penn State.
According to the Forest Service the emerald ash borer was introduced to the United states from China in 2002.
and two Canadian provinces and killed tens of millions of otherwise healthy native ash trees. Early detection of the pest in traps such as ours can help in coordinating management strategies to slow its spread
and engineers at Penn State the Hungarian Academy of Sciences the Forest Research Institute in Matrafured Hungary and the USDA--created the decoys using a bioreplication process with nanoscale fidelity.
and shape of emerald ash borers but did not attempt to duplicate the surface texture of the insects.
and 3d printed decoys as well as dead female emerald ash borers onto leaves in forests in Hungary to see which of them best attracted wild males.
In the same forests the team also placed traps configured with decoys bearing a 4000-volt charge to electrocute
Ultimately we have gained new insights into how to manipulate the behavior of emerald ash borers
The researchers said their next step will be to further improve the traps to maximize their potential as part of an early detection tool for emerald ash borers.
and we will be working to couple this research with our ash-borer detection technique so that activity of the pest can be reported
of which are aggressive feeders on oak trees in Central europe and might threaten North american oaks in urban
and forest landscapes much as the emerald ash borer destroyed ash trees. We have made progress in our research so far in Hungary these past few summers
and it looks like our decoys can be refined to attract and detect these other new and potentially invasive pest species effectively said Domingue.
In a presentation today at the Association for Computing Machinery's Mobicom 2014 conference in Maui Hawaii researchers from Rice's Wireless Network Group will unveil a multiuser multiantenna transmission scheme for UHF a portion
The holy grail of wireless communications is to go both fast and far said lead researcher Edward Knightly professor and chair of Rice's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Rice's technology combines several proven technologies that are used already widely in wireless data transmission. One of these is multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) a scheme that employs multiple antennae to boost data rates without the need for additional channels or transmitter power.
or vice versa said Rice graduate student Narendra Anand the lead author of the new study. Imagine that the Wifi access point in your home
Knightly Anand and Rice graduate student Ryan Guerra designed the first open-source UHF multiuser MIMO test system.
Based on Rice's wireless open-access research platform or WARP the system allowed the team to perform a side-by-side comparison of multiuser MIMO for UHF and for both 2. 4 gigahertz and 5. 8 gigahertz Wifi.
and also the average size of each fire ballooning the number of on-call U s. Forest Service firefighters
If a fire began in the forest where would the perimeter be in two hours four hours or six hours?
With funding from the U s. Department of agriculture's U s. Forest Service Division Dr. Mahalingam and his collaborator UAH Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering faculty member Dr. Babak Shotorban are currently supervising four doctoral
or small tree that are prevalent in southern California have been the focus of Dr. Mahalingam's research:
manzanita which can grow as a bush or small tree; and scrub oak a small tree.
A. Dahale; S. Ferguson; B. Shotorban; S. Mahalingam Effects of Distribution of Bulk Density and Moisture Content on Shrub Fires International J. Wildland Fire 22 (5) pp. 625-641 2013
Dr. Mahalingam studied that more closely in association with the U s. Forest Service while at the University of California Riverside.
and tree crown burning. That work continued after he came to UAH in 2010 and started collaborating with Dr. Shotorban.
D. R. Weise Numerical investigation of influence of moisture content on thermal behavior of heated wood Paper 070fr-0208 presented at the 8th U s. National Combustion
The environment surrounding the atom-thick carbon material can influence its electronic performance according to researchers at Rice
Because it's so easy to accidently introduce impurities into graphene labs led by physicists Junichiro Kono of Rice
It was made possible by the Rice-based Nanojapan program through which American undergraduates conduct summer research internships in Japanese labs. Even a single molecule of a foreign substance can contaminate graphene enough to affect its electrical and optical properties
The Rice and Osaka labs are continuing to collaborate on a project to measure the terahertz conductivity of graphene on various substrates he said.
The paper's authors include Rice alumna Mika Tabata who conducted research as a 2012 Nanojapan participant in the Tonouchi lab and graduate student Minjie Wang;
and Robert Vajtai a senior faculty fellow and Pulickel Ajayan the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering professor of materials science and nanoengineering and of chemistry and chair
of the Department of Materials Science and Nanoengineering both at Rice. The National Science Foundation (NSF;
#Tricking plants to see the light may control most important twitch on Earthcopious corn growing in tiny backyard plots?
One of the biggest moves in agriculture Vierstra says is to be able to grow plants at higher density allowing producers to plant more crops in a given area thus saving space and other resources.
and stalks rather than fruits and seeds becoming long and leggy as they reach for the sky.
or to flower and make fruit. Based on the light available the phytochrome cycles between an inactive and active state.
He hopes the research team's findings become the scaffold for a toolkit others can use--one that might fundamentally alter agriculture.
Through the use of a simple efficient and low cost technique involving a focused laser beam two NUS research teams led by Professor Sow Chorng Haur from the Department of physics at the NUS Faculty of science demonstrated that the properties of two
Said Prof Sow â#oein our childhood most of us are likely to have the experience of bringing a magnifying glass outdoors on a sunny day
To address this technological challenge Prof Sow Dr Lu Junpeng a postdoctoral candidate from the Department of physics at the NUS Faculty of science
Hidden images â#drawnâ##by focused laser beam on silicon nanowires could improve optical functionalitiesin a related study published in the journal Scientific Reports on 13 may 2014 Prof Sow led
To develop materials with properties that can cater to the industryâ##s demands Prof Sow together with his team of researchers will extend the versatile focused laser beam technique to more nanomaterials.
Nesting on lowland heath such as parts of Sherwood forest and Thames Basin Heath it can be affected by development such as housing
This study has implications for a range of other species including black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) and woodlark (Lullula arborea.
First discovered five years ago Rice's silicon oxide memories are a type of two-terminal resistive random-access memory (RRAM) technology.
In a new paper available online in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters a Rice team led by chemist James Tour compared its RRAM technology to more than a dozen competing versions.
Tour is Rice's T. T. and W. F. Chao Chair in Chemistry and professor of mechanical engineering and nanoengineering and of computer science.
The key ingredient of Rice's RRAM is its dielectric component silicon oxide. Silicon is the most abundant element On earth and the basic ingredient in conventional microchips.
and Rice postdoctoral researcher Gunuk Wang showed that using a porous version of silicon oxide could dramatically improve Rice's RRAM in several ways.
Study co-authors--all from Rice--include postdoctoral researcher Yang Yang; research scientist Jae-Hwang Lee;
and Edwin Thomas the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Rice's George R. Brown School of engineering professor in mechanical engineering and materials science and in chemical and biomolecular engineering.
#New persimmon milkshake with high antioxidant potential created by scientistsa team of researchers of the Universitat Politã cnica de Valã ncia have made a new persimmon milkshake with high antioxidant potential.
Persimmons are an important source of antioxidant compounds due to their content of carotenoids and tannins.
According to the tests developed in the laboratories one of these shakes could contain the same quantity of carotenoids as a whole persimmon.
The key to making a drink with these properties is used a technique in fruit processing:
This technique increases the lifespan of persimmons and produces a new food with high nutritional value.
HHP is a nonthermal technology that keeps the quality attributes of the persimmon and facilitates the extraction of bioactive compounds from cells such as carotenoids
The persimmon is a seasonal fruit that cannot be consumed throughout the year. This technique allows us to go beyond its seasonal nature
and preserve all the properties of the product so we can consume the fruit alone or as an ingredient of shakes like those we have made in our laboratories says Amparo Quiles.
Researchers are continuing that tradition by designing robots to work in a deep-space habitat tending gardens and growing food for astronaut explorers.
This includes growing fruits and vegetables. We're hoping to take advantage of what these and other students are developing
A year ago the University of Colorado student team demonstrated a gardening system with plants robotically tended on a Lazy susan-like device.
In their new system a Remotely Operated Gardening Rover or ROGR travels around the habitat tending to a fleet of Smartpots or SPOTS
and the SPOTS have the ability to monitor their fruit's or vegetables'soil humidity
and issue watering requests. The SPOTS also can measure air and water temperature lighting provided by LEDS (light emitting diodes) as well as levels of humidity nutrient levels
and grasp a fruit or vegetable. If an astronaut requests tomatoes for a salad the system decides which specific plants have the ripest tomatoes
and assigns parallel harvesting tasks to ROGR. While living in a space habitat is basically residing in a mechanized environment Hava says humans by their makeup still need to be around nature.
Who doesn't love to pick a fresh strawberry? For Daniel Zukowski who is also working on a master's in computer science the X-Hab Challenge is an opportunity to use terrestrial-based know-how
The team's project will focus on designing a Deployable Greenhouse for Food Production for deep-space missions.
I see myself as potentially being the first Mars space gardener. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by NASA.
Their discovery should help biologists better understand how the steadily increasing levels of CO2 in our atmosphere (which last spring for the first time in recorded history remained above 400 parts per million) are affecting the ability of plants and economically important crops to deal with heat stress and drought.
and crops that can deal with droughts and high temperatures like those now affecting the Southwestern United states. â#oefor each carbon dioxide molecule that is incorporated into plants through photosynthesis plants lose about 200 hundred molecules of water
and shares many of the same genes as other plants and crops he and his team of biologists discovered that the proteins encoded by the four genes they discovered repress the development of stomata at elevated CO2 levels.
and EPF2 could be used to engineer crop varieties which are better able to perform in the current and future high CO2 global climate where fresh water availability for agriculture is dwindling. â#The discoveries of these proteins
and genes have the potential to address a wide range of critical agricultural problems in the future including the limited availability of water for crops the need to increase water use efficiency in lawns as well as crops
and concerns among farmers about the impact heat stress will have in their crops as global temperatures
#Reorganization of crop production, trade could save Chinas water supplychina's rapid socioeconomic growth continues to tax national water resources--especially in the agricultural sector--due to increasing demands for food.
And because of the country's climate and geography irrigation is now widespread burdening rivers and groundwater supplies.
One solution to these growing problems however might be to reorganize the country's crop production
These provinces all use large volumes of water to produce crops that are exported later to wetter regions.
If balanced with more water-efficient irrigation systems locally restructuring these regions could reduce national water use
In particular corn production and trade at the domestic level might be an area to target as changes could significantly reduce national water use for irrigation.
Of China's industries agriculture is the most water-intensive in terms of production and covers most of the country's northern provinces.
Crops like corn rice and wheat thrive best in these drier regions but rainfall is limited
and used for irrigation more rapidly than it is replenished. Water used during crop production is referred to as virtual water.
Through food trade these water resources are transferred across borders in what's called a virtual water trade.
While growing crops in the wetter regions would be more water efficient land in those places is either urban or industrial or difficult geographically (mountainous terrain etc.
The researchers looked at domestic and international trade of corn rice soy and wheat along with such livestock products as ruminant (animals like cattle goats and sheep that subsist on plant matter) pork and poultry.
These products accounted for 93 percent of China's domestic food supply in 2005 the last year with available data.
and irrigation sources--and determined how much water was transferred between provinces through food trade. To obtain estimates of these water transfers the researchers analyzed how much food was traded between provinces
The researchers found that irrigation accounts for about 25 percent of water used to produce crops
However those numbers skyrocket in Xinjiang Ningxia and Inner Mongolia where irrigation water is used predominantly for crop production (85 percent 69 percent and 49 percent respectively.
They found that domestic corn trade leads to significant losses of irrigation water resources (such as rivers reservoirs and groundwater.
However the provinces of Hubei Henan Jiangsu and Anhui produce wheat quite efficiently and their exports lead to large national water savings for both rainfall and irrigation water.
Our work highlights opportunities for addressing water scarcity in China by adjusting where water intensive crops are grown
and how they are traded said Mauzerall. Policies which encourage such adjustments can help conserve water
#New technologies will bring health benefits of oats and barley to a greater number of foodsnew technologies may help food manufacturers more broadly utilize the many healthful benefits of oats
and barley in a greater range of food products according to a June 24 panel discussion at the 2014 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expoâ in New orleans. Oats and barley are ancient food
crops known for their durability versatility and healthful attributes. Both grains have high levels of protein fiber and beta-glucan.
There is now evidence that oats and barley significantly reduce cholesterol levels and that they moderate blood glucose concentrations following a meal according to a presentation by Susan M. Toth Phd research scientist Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
In addition there is also research to support that oat and barley foods increase satiety after meals a sensation of feeling full after meals
which may aid in weight maintenance. In China barley and oats are used in a variety of products from cereals
and noodles to beverages and flat bread said Bo Jiang Phd professor of food science and executive director of the State Laboratory of Food Science and Technology at Jiangnan University in China.
Oats are now the third largest food staple in China growing in popularity as that country deals with rising rates of cancer diabetes heart disease and intestinal issues.
In the U s. barley and oats are used primarily for animal feed since they are difficult to break down
or fractionalize into edible and easy to use food components said Keshun Liu Phd research chemist United states Department of agriculture (USDA) National Small Grains and Potato Germplan Research Unit.
Food uses of barley and oats are limited rather due to lack of palatability of whole grain foods
and the functionality of milled flour from these grains and a poor public image said Liu.
In addition the U s. has ample and affordable supplies of other grains such as rice and wheat
which are more palatable and versatile. And yet recent discoveries of the varied health benefits of oats and barley have spurred food scientists to develop new
and more efficient methods of breaking down the components and nutrients in these grains to make oats
and barley easier and more appealing to eat and for use as food additives. If we can improve the processing of barley
and oats we can improve public health said Liu. Many researchers have worked on processing barley or oats into value-added fractions enriched with nutrients some with commercial success said Liu.
The USDA has developed improved dry and wet methods to more quickly easily and affordably transform barley and oats into functional ingredients.
However added Liu food scientists and engineers have more work to do to commercialize these methods
and to educate consumers about the health benefits of beta-glucan and these two grains.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Institute of Food Technologists (IFT. Note:
Materials may be edited for content and length g
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