Applied Physics
MIT engineers have used ultraviolet light to sculpt three-dimensional microparticles that could have many applications in medical diagnostics and tissue engineering. For example, they could be designed to act as probes to detect certain molecules, such as DNA, or to release drugs or nutrients.
The new technique offers unprecedented control over the size, shape and texture of the particles. It also allows researchers to design particles with specific chemical properties, such as porosity (a measure of the void space in a material that can affect how fast different molecules can diffuse through…
The biological pathway that powers sperm to swim long distances could be harnessed to nanotech devices, releasing drugs or performing mechanical functions inside the body, according to a presentation at the American Society for Cell Biology’s 47th Annual meeting.
The work by researchers at Cornell’s Baker Institute of Animal Health may be the first demonstration of how multistep biological pathways can be assembled and function on a human-made device.
Mammalian sperm have to delivery energy to the long, thin, whip-like tails that power their swimming. Sperm meet the challenge, in part, by…
Water chemistry and mineralogy are scientific fields that have been around long enough to develop extensive knowledge and technologies. The boundary of water and rock, however, is not a thin wet line but the huge new field of nanoparticle science.
Scientists are discovering that aquatic nanoparticles, from 1 to 100 nanometers, influence natural and engineered water chemistry and systems differently than similar materials of a larger size. “Nanoparticles are in an awkward intermediate state, between elements dissolved in water and minerals that you can hold in your hand,” said Michael Hochella…
Even after more than a year of maintaining a normalized body weight, young women who recovered from anorexia nervosa show vastly different patterns of brain activity compared to similar women without the eating disorder, Walter H. Kaye, M.D., professor of psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and colleagues report in the December issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Studying these differences in brain function could lead to a better understanding of why some young women, who are typically worriers and perfectionists in childhood, are at greater risk of developing…
Researchers at UCLA, the California NanoSystems Institute, the David Geffen School of Medicine, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have modeled the structure of the largest cellular structure ever crystallized, suggesting ways to engineer the particles for drug delivery. The study focuses on newly engineered nanomaterial vaults for use as a drug therapy vehicle.
Vaults are large barrel-shaped particles that are found in the cytoplasm of all mammalian cells, which may function in innate immunity. As naturally-occurring nano-scale capsules, vaults may be useful objects to engineer as…
Stanford University scientists say they can make wind power a steady, dependable source of electricity but it will require connecting wind farms throughout a given geographic area with new transmission lines, always a difficult sell for people who live in the affected area. The findings are published in the November Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.
Wind is the world’s fastest growing electric energy source, say Cristina Archer and Mark Jacobson. but because it is intermittent it is not used to supply baseload electric power today. Baseload power is the amount of steady and…
Doctored photos of past public events can influence what people think they remember of the incident, as well as altering their attitudes and any subsequent responses, according to research published today in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.
Three researchers, UC Irvine psychologist Elizabeth Loftus and University of Padua researchers Franca Agnoli and Dario Sacchi, came to this conclusion after showing either original or digitally doctored images to 299 people aged 19-84. The images were of two different protests, one in 1989 in Tiananmen Square, the other 2003 in Rome. After seeing…
As the U.S. continues to fall behind countries such as China and India in producing high-level scientists, one immediate and obvious solution would be to take advantage of the many women who have obtained doctoral degrees in science but have been passed over in their attempts to rise to the position of tenured professor, according to an editorial in DNA and Cell Biology.
Co-authors Jo Handelsman, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Editor-in-Chief of DNA and Cell Biology, and President of the Rosalind Franklin Society, and Robert Birgeneau,…
The technology that makes a cell phone vibrate is the same technology that provides more natural movements to prosthetic limbs. A University of Houston research team is working on recreating and enhancing this technological effect, which, if successful, could result in better prosthetic movements and also provide instant electrical power for soldiers and others through the simple act of walking.
Pradeep Sharma, a UH mechanical engineering professor, is leading the team to create a “piezoelectric on steroids.” Piezoelectricity is the ability of some materials to generate an electric charge…
Whereas most birds are sole proprietors of their nests, some tropical species “time share” together – a discovery that helps clear up a 150-year-old evolutionary mystery, says Queen’s University Biology professor Vicki Friesen.
The Queen’s-led international study confirms one of Charles Darwin’s more controversial theories – first put forward in 1859 and since disputed by many experts – that different species can arise, unhindered, in the same place. Others believe that a geographic barrier such as a mountain or a river is required to produce two separate species.
Although focused on how…