NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

Mussels Inspire Sensitive Tooth Treatment

If you have sensitive teeth, it's usually because the enamel and dentin on the surface is worn away, exposing the tissues -- and nerves.

Going sugar-free can help a bit, and there are toothpastes and mouth rinses that help alleviate the sensitivity. But enamel isn’t made up of living cells, so once it’s gone from a tooth, it’s gone for good.

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Quan-Li Li, Chun Hung Chu and a team at the Anhui Medical University and University of Hong Kong may have hit on a way to rebuild enamel and dentin even after enamel wears away completely. They used a substance similar to the one mussels use to stick onto rocks -- dopamine.

Teeth are layered. The outer part is the enamel and underneath is the dentin, which is the white part. To restore enamel that has worn off, it’s necessary to get minerals to stick to the dentin. That’s where the dopamine comes in.

Most people think of dopamine as a chemical in the brain, but it also works as a strong glue for mussels.

The researchers dipped bits of human teeth in an acid solution to wear away the enamel. Then they put them in a solution of dopamine. After they dried them off, they immersed the tooth bits in a solution of calcium carbonate, phosphate and fluoride. The result was restoration of the enamel surface after a week of immersion in the calcium carbonate mixture.

The dopamine, as it happened, allowed the minerals to bond to the dentin better and restored some of the hardness of the teeth, though not all of it.

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There is still some work to do on checking whether there is any toxicity -- the researchers say it shouldn't be too much of a problem, though, since the amounts are small. Thus far the tests have been on pieces of tooth in the lab rather than in a mouth. But if it works it could end up being a relatively simple treatment for all those folks for whom drinking hot tea or eating sugar is painful.

The team’s results were published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Via American Chemical Society.

Credit: Albert Bridge / Wikimedia Commons

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2012: Science Fiction Dreams That Came True

As a longtime reader of science fiction, it's always interesting to see how the visions of writers eventually become real. Take Arthur C. Clarke's letter to Wireless World in 1945, which details the geostationary communications satellite network everyone uses today. The satellites are in what is called the "Clarke Orbit." And Isaac Asimov wrote frequently about humanoid robots, which are becoming more common in research labs -- although we have yet to see R. Daneel Olivaw from Asimov's Robot series.

So inspired by these writers and others, I decided to take a look at 2012 and the futuristic technologies that are materializing before our eyes.

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Bionic Limbs
The term "cyborg" was coined in 1960 by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline, in an article they wrote for the journal Astronautics. Since then bionic limbs have been a trope in many pieces of fiction -– The Six Million Dollar Man of the 1970s, the Borg of the Star Trek franchise, and even Darth Vader. In 2012 for the first time, a paralyzed woman was able to control a robotic limb and feed herself directly with her brain. Continuing work with primates demonstrated that it's possible to make the brain-computer interface efficient enough to design more realistic movement into the limbs. The bionic limbs so far don't look anything like their fictional counterparts, as they are still connected via external electrodes to the skull. But that dream seems to be a lot closer than it was even a decade ago.

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Quantum Teleportation and Communication
While it's not possible -- yet -- to "beam" an object around as in Star Trek, new records for zapping photons instantly from one place to another were set this year. Quantum teleportation has been done in the lab for some time, but the distances were on the order of a few yards. In 2012 the new record was 89 miles. In addition to teleporting, scientists built the first quantum Internet. It's only a beginning, but teleporting photons for miles would enable communications that can't be hacked or eavesdropped.

Genetic Disease Prevented
Genetic engineering for "better" humans is a theme that's appeared repeatedly ever since Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in 1931 -- although at that point nobody knew what DNA really was. Later, films such as Gattaca and novels such as Beggars in Spain explore the implications of widely available genetic alterations. In 2012, we saw a proof-of-concept for mitochondrial diseases. About one in 200 people are born with a disorder of the mitochondria, the energy factories of cells. For the first time scientists were able to transfer the nuclear DNA of one human egg cell to another. Two groups independently found a way to transplant nuclei between human egg cells, leaving behind the mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mother to child. The finding means that mitochondrial disorders could be cured before a child is born. Such techniques won't cure something like Down's syndrome, which involves nuclear DNA. But it shows that some manipulation of the human genome is not only possible, but happening. 

ANALYSIS: Ray Bradbury's Visions

The Universal Translator
Most of the time when intrepid explorers in fiction meet aliens, they always seem to speak perfect English. Doctor Who's TARDIS generates a field that allows travelers to be understood, while the crew of the Enterprise never seem to need a dictionary. Kim Stanley Robonson's Mars Trilogy features one, but he didn't think it would appear until late in the 21st century (the novels were written in the 1990s). While they won't let you talk to aliens, in the last year several speech-to-speech translators have managed to reach real consumer devices -- and even one type that uses your own voice. Most of the apps require an internet connection, though some, such as Jibbigo, can store their dictionaries locally. (If they ever add Klingon I'm taking it to the next ComicCon).

Head-mounted Computer Glasses
Readers of Charles Stross' novel Accelerando would have eagerly anticipated Google Glasses -- the Internet giant's foray into augmented reality. In the novel, "venture altruist" Manfred Macx carries his data and his memories in a pair of glasses connected to the Internet. Google Glasses allow the wearer to access data, the Internet and capture life via a head-mounted digital camera. Memories will have to wait.

Private Space Flight
In many science fiction stories, space travel is private. In Ridley's Scott latest movie, Prometheus, the Weyland Corporation funds an expedition to follow a star map to the distant moon LV-223. In real life, Elon Musk's SpaceX launched the first of a dozen planned missions to the International Space Station. The Dragon capsule is designed to resupply the ISS, but Musk, who made his fortune as founder of PayPal, has bigger plans: a colony on Mars. Is 2013 going to be the year human spaceflight becomes an enterprise like railroads? We won't know that for a while, but SpaceX is a heck of a start.

This list isn't comprehensive, and it isn't meant to be the last word on anything; readers, if you think there's something I missed, please sound off in the comments!

Credit: Colin Anderson/Blend Images/Corbis

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Virus Used As Biological Pacemaker in Heart

George Dvorsk, iO9

 

Biological pacemakers have been created before, but this is the first time that a single gene was shown to directly convert the heart muscle cells to pacemaker cells. Credit: Tarhill Photos Inc./CORBIS

Our heartbeats are triggered by a steady stream of electrical signals, which cause our heart muscles to contract with a regular rhythm. For some people, however, the ‘pacemaker cells' responsible for generating these pulses can fail, resulting in an erratic heartbeat. Normally, this problem is addressed by surgery and the insertion of an electric pacemaker device.

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But as a recent breakthrough at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute now shows, it may be possible to convert ordinary heart cells into genuine pacemaker cells -- and it can be done with a known gene and a modified virus.

There are fewer than 10,000 pacemaker cells in the heart (out of billions of other heart cells), an astoundingly small number considering how important they are to critical biological function.

Worse, as age and disease takes its toll on the heart, these cells, also referred to as SAN cells (as they are clustered in the sinoatrial node -- SAN -- of the heart's right upper chamber), start to degrade, which can result in a cardiac arrest.

Pacemakers certainly provide a viable solution to the problem, but they're clunky, they break easily, they often lead to infections and they're limited by their finite battery life.

But this new idea appears to offer a much more elegant solution.

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Researchers Nidhi Kapoor, Hee Cheol Cho, and their colleagues injected a genetically modified virus carrying the crucial Tbx18 gene into guinea pigs. This caused ordinary heart cells to transform into the SAN cells; once infected, the heart cells became smaller, thin, and tapered, thus acquiring the exact characteristics of the pacemaker cells.

Tbx18 is the gene that's responsible for pacemaker cell development during the embryonic stage of development. But in this context, the gene directly reprogrammed the pre-existing heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) to the SAN cells.

Of the seven guinea pigs treated, five eventually developed heartbeats that were being driven by their new biologically endowed pacemaker.

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Biological pacemakers have been created before, but this is the first time that a single gene was shown to directly convert the heart muscle cells to pacemaker cells. And in fact, the new cells -- redubbed iSAN cells (induced SAN cells) -- were indistinguishable from native pacemaker cells. Previous attempts resulted in cells that were not true pacemaker cells.

Moreover, by avoiding the use of embryonic stem cells to derive pacemaker cells, the researchers have reduced the risk of cancerous cells emerging.

Once safety and efficacy can be proven in humans, the therapy will likely involve a direct injection of the virus into the patient's heart, or through the creation of pacemaker cells in the lab for eventual transplantation.

Read the entire study online at Nature Biotechnology.

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Hagfish Slime Makes Super-Clothes

 

Threads of hagfish slime, which the animals secrete when aggravated, could be woven to produce a material with the strength of nylon or plastic. Credit: randon D. Cole/CORBIS

One of the world’s creepiest creatures may be the source of new kinds of petroleum-free plastics and super-strong fabrics, according to research by scientists in Canada studying the hagfish, a bottom-dwelling creature that hasn’t evolved for 300 million years and produces a sticky slime when threatened. The gooey material is actually a kind of protein that turns into choking strands of tough fibers when released into the water.

A research team at Canada’s University of Guelph managed to harvest the slime from the fish, dissolve it in liquid, and then reassemble its structure by spinning it like silk. It’s an important first step in being able to process the hagfish slime into a useable material, according to Atsuko Negishi, a research assistant and lead author on the paper in this week’s journal Biomacromolecules.

“We’re trying to understand how they make these threads and how we can learn from that to make protein-based fibers that have excellent mechanical properties,” Negishi said. “The first step is can we harvest the threads. It turns out that is doable.”

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Negishi has been working with the hagfish for about four years in the laboratory, trying to understand some of the physical and chemical properties of the slime. The fish produces a protein which it releases into the water from glands along the side of its snake-like body. This video by researchers in New Zealand document how the hagfish is able to repel 14 attacks by predators, including several kinds of sharks.

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Negishi says the slime can be difficult to handle and there are plenty of reasons why most people, and fishermen, avoid them.

“They’re not the prettiest fish, they have big whiskers, they don’t have eyes,” Negishi said. “They don’t smell particularly nice either. They are wet clammy and wiggly. But they you appreciate what they are capable of doing and you respect them.”

As for the slime itself, Negishi says it smells like dirty seawater and has the consistency of snot.

“It feels like mucous but a little bit more wet,” she said. “If you hold the slime up into the air, the water will drip out of that and what you have leftover is something that is threadlike.”

The threads are made of intermediate filament, a protein in the same family as bone and nails. The hagfish threads are 100 times smaller than a human hair and have given the creature an evolutionary advantage as a unique defense mechanism. Negishi works in the laboratory of professor Douglas Fudge, director of the comparative biomaterials laboratory at the University of Guelph. Fudge says he thinks the hagfish slime threads could be woven to produce a material with the strength of nylon or plastic.

“What we’d like to see is synthetic petroleum-based fibers replaced by more sustainable ones,” he said.

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Fudge says it isn’t likely that the slime will be harvested from hagfish in large quantities. A better idea would be to figure out a way to transplant the slime-making genes into bacteria which can be cultured on an industrial scale. Researchers have been doing something similar with the protein that makes spider silk.

The research in Fudge’s lab is promising, according to Markus Buehler, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and expert in biological materials.

“It’s exciting to see that they have been able to go from studying the natural system to actually take it apart and reassemble them,” Buehler said. Still, obstacles remain. “Scaling it up to where you can make engineering products is still a way to go.”

One Step Closer To Efficient Robotic Limbs

A device that would allow paralyzed people to use their thoughts to move robotic limbs fluidly and realistically is now one step closer to reality.

A team of scientists from Harvard, MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital led by Ziv Williams have found two groups of cells in one area of the monkey brain that allow the animals to remember a sequence of two movements at once. The team was then able to program a computer to interpret those brain patterns, in turn moving a cursor on a screen in the planned sequence.

The development is an improvement over current brain-machine interfaces, which focus on translating a single thought into a single movement in an external device.

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Most real-world actions are multi-faceted. When planning to take a sip from a cup or play a song on a piano, for example, people imagine the fluid behavior, not each individual movement required to get it done.

To bring technology closer to the goal of fluid and efficient movements, the researchers trained two male rhesus monkeys to move a cursor on a computer screen to two targets that had previously flashed in front of them, one after the other. During each round, the researchers recorded activity in 281 neurons in two areas of the prefontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for planning complex actions.

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Using the information collected, the team reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, they were then able to program computers to turn the activity of just a small number of monkey neurons into a two-stage action on the screen with an accuracy rate of more than 70 percent.

The findings could eventually lead to robotic limbs that will move more quickly, flexibly or efficiently.

The development of [brain-machine interfaces] that can perform and potentially execute sequential motor function more effectively in this way will require substantial technological innovations,” the researchers wrote. “But as a key initial step, it is necessary to consider a concurrent BMI architecture in which the elements of a planned motor task are decoded in parallel (at once).”

Credit: Victor Habbick Visions/Science Photo Library/Corbis

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Freshwater Ecosystem Lives Off Seawater

Over half of the world's population lives and works within 120 miles from a coastline. Regardless of your views on climate change, it's safe to say that rising sea levels would present nothing short of a catastrophe. 

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In the event that the ivory towers of denial do start to surround with sea water, detractors will be happy to know that Studiomobile won't leave you high and dry.

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Billing themselves as makers of art and technology for architecture and urban research, the firm came up Networking Nature, an ecosystem that lives off seawater and produces fresh drinking water.

Glass tanks anchored near the coast would fill with seawater where a series of solar-powered stills would extract fresh water. Heat produced by small lamps would evaporate the saltwater and convert the condensed steam into fresh water. That water would then be collected in reservoirs near the coast and distributed to those who need it.

Here's how Studiomobile explains it:

However, water is not produced in isolated systems under central control. The new model provides for a large ecological infrastructure as well as small local production units connected to a network able to integrate the production of fresh water and to supply it where needed. It's a Smart Water Network controlled by sensors that read the local lack of water and, through an Arduino board, activate the pumps providing the water where there is a peak of demand. The Smart Water Network will be a layer of the ecological network as well as the Smart Power Grid and the communications network. This strategy not only gives response to the preservation of the environment, but it is also a radically new model that ensures free and democratic access to the resources to everybody.

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Networking Nature was created for the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale.

via Inhabitat

credit: Studiomobile

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Rinse Cycle Turns Clothing into Pollution Buster

Steadfast environmentalists determined on saving the planet with their greener-than-thou efforts usually wear their heart on their sleeves. But why limit the heart to just the sleeve, especially now that it can be worn on every part of one's clothing?

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Catalytic Clothing has been working on pollution-eating clothing prototypes for a while now, but their new laundry additive is set to hit retail stores soon, although the deal is pending.

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Put the additive in the final rinse cycle of your wash and it'll coat your clothes in nano-sized particles of titanium dioxide that trap and convert nitrogen oxide pollutants in the air into harmless byproducts that can be easily washed away on laundry day.

According the company, one person wearing clothes coated with the additive could remove approximately five grams of nitrogen oxides from the air over the course of a day. That may not sound like a planet-saving number, but considering that's roughly twice the amount that a passenger vehicle gives off in a typical day, I'd gladly step into a wardrobe coated in this stuff.

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The pollution-gobbling threads will be on display at the Manchester Science Festival in Manchester, England from October through November 4.

via Yahoo!

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Clear Soil Could Improve Crops

Artificial soil-like materials have been developed to help scientists image the secret world of plant roots. The view could help biologists, chemists and physicists improve crops and identify ways to prevent the outbreak of plant-based diseases.

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The clear soil was developed by theoretical biologist Lionel Dupuy at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee, Scotland. It's is made of a synthetic material known as Nafion. The compound can be modified to mimic the chemistry of natural soils. It's not transparent at first, but when watered in a customized liquid solution, the particles bend light, making the solution clear.

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Dupuy and his colleagues used the soil to analyze how E. coli bacteria, certain strains of which can be harmful to humans, interacts with lettuce roots. By using a genetically modified version of E. coli that carried a green fluorescent protein from jellyfish, the scientists could see through the clear soil how the bacterium formed micro-colonies in the root zone.

"If we understand better the contamination route, then we can develop strategies to limit the transfer of E. coli to the food chain," Dupuy told Inside Science. "We don't really understand how E. coli enters the food chain, particularly for fresh produce."

The researchers published their study in the journal PLOS.

via Inside Science

Credit: Lionel Dupuy, Ken Loades, and Helen Downie

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Levitation May Improve Drugs VIDEO: DNews Nugget

Levitation May Help Make Better Drugs: Levitation, it's not just for Harry Potter anymore.

The Argonne National Laboratory has found a way to make drugs that don't sit in petri dishes, test tubes, or on any surface at all, really.

These droplets of potential pharmacuticals are suspended in the air, not by magic, but by sound waves.

The device, called an Acoustic Levitator, was "developed for NASA to simulate microgravity conditions," says PhysOrg.

It works by shooting inaudible sound waves from two juxtaposed speakers. When the speakers are precisely aligned, the waves collide and create "nodes" where the effect of gravity is essentially cancelled out. Without gravity, these small drops can be left to float at these nodes, and scientists can experiment with the drugs without any outside contact. via PhysOrg

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Cockroaches Strapped With Steering Wheels

Finally, someone has designed a way to convert one of the world's biggest pests into something useful.

Using an electronic interface, a group of researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a method to steer and remotely control cockroaches. Rejoice.

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"Our aim was to determine whether we could create a wireless biological interface with cockroaches, which are robust and able to infiltrate small spaces," Alper Bozkurt said, according to Physorg.com.

Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at NC State, was co-author of the project's paper, presented recently at the International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in San Diego, Calif.

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"Ultimately, we think this will allow us to create a mobile web of smart sensors that uses cockroaches to collect and transmit information, such as finding survivors in a building that's been destroyed by an earthquake," he said.

"Building small-scale robots that can perform in such uncertain, dynamic conditions is enormously difficult," Bozkurt added. "We decided to use biobotic cockroaches in place of robots, as designing robots at that scale is very challenging and cockroaches are experts at performing in such a hostile environment."

To do so, the researchers used a cheap, lightweight computer chip with a wireless receiver to transmit a signal to the roaches. Imagine the roaches strapped with a tiny backpack and you get the picture. The device weighs only 0.7 grams and includes a microcontroller that monitors the interface between implanted electrodes and tissue so the roach's nervous system doesn't fry.

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The device is also wired to the cockroach's antennae and cerci, its sensory organs in the abdomen. The cerci detect movement in the air to detect predators and cause roaches to scurry. However, by using wires to stimulate the cerci, researchers were able to trick the roach into thinking something was sneaking up on it, thus causing it to move.

Wires attached to the antennae are essentially reins that feed small charges into the roach's neural tissue, which fool the roach into thinking there is something they need to steer clear of. In doing so, researchers were able to steer the roach along a curved line.

via PhysOrg

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