Category Archives: Research

Neuroengineers Use Light to Silence Overactive Neurons

MIT neuroengineers’ pulsing light silences overactive neurons:

The work takes advantage of a gene called halorhodopsin found in a bacterium that grows in extremely salty water, such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah. In the bacterium, Natronomas pharaonis, the gene codes for a protein that serves as a light-activated chloride pump, which helps the bacterium make energy.

When neurons are engineered to express the halorhodopsin gene, the researchers can inhibit their activity by shining yellow light on them. Light activates the chloride pumps, which drive chloride ions into the neurons, lowering their voltage and silencing their firing.
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The group also plans to use the new method to study neural circuits. Last year, Boyden devised a technique to stimulate neurons by shining blue light on them, so with blue and yellow light the researchers can now exert exquisite control over the stimulation and inhibition of individual neurons. Learning more about the neural circuits involved in epilepsy could help scientists develop devices that can predict when a seizure is about to occur, allowing treatment (either shock or light) to be administered only when necessary, Boyden said.

Virus Traps

Scientists Explore Ways to Lure Viruses to Their Death by Carl Zimmer:

Viruses invade a cell by latching onto certain proteins on its surface. Once attached, they can slip inside the cell and manipulate it into making new copies of themselves. But viruses cannot infect red blood cells. Unlike most other cells in the body, as red blood cells develop in bone marrow they lose their DNA. If a virus ends up inside a red blood cell, there are no genes it can hijack to replicate itself.

“It occurred to us that if a virus bound to a red blood cell, that was a dead end,” said Dr. Robert W. Finberg, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
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To test the model, the scientists mixed normal bacteria with different levels of mutant traps and then infected them with viruses. After letting the viruses replicate, the scientists took a small sample to start a new colony. They discovered there was indeed a trap threshold above which the virus population could not survive. Above that threshold, the viruses disappeared by the time the scientists started the third round of colonies.

Biologists Solve B-12 Vitamin Puzzle

MIT biologists solve vitamin puzzle

B12, the most chemically complex of all vitamins, is essential for human health. Four Nobel Prizes have been awarded for research related to B12, but one fragment of the molecule remained an enigma–until now. The researchers report that a single enzyme synthesizes the fragment, and they outline a novel reaction mechanism that requires cannibalization of another vitamin.
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Vitamin B12 is produced by soil microbes that live in symbiotic relationships with plant roots.
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BluB catalyzes the formation of the B12 fragment known as DMB, which joins with another fragment, produced by a separate pathway, to form the vitamin. One of several possible reasons why it took so long to identify BluB is that some bacteria lacking the enzyme can form DMB through an alternate pathway, Walker said.

One of the most unusual aspects of BluB-catalyzed synthesis is its cannibalization of a cofactor derived from another vitamin, B2. During the reaction, the B2 cofactor is split into more than two fragments, one of which becomes DMB. Normally, the B2-derived cofactor would assist in a reaction by temporarily holding electrons and then giving them away. Such cofactors are not consumed in the reaction.

Researchers Learn What Sparks Plant Growth

Researchers Learn What Sparks Plant Growth:

“How do organisms decide when to grow and when to stop growing? These questions are especially important in plants because they are rooted in the ground and must alter their shape and size in response to their local environment. Thus, it’s a question of survival,” added Chory. “It took us 10 years to develop the tools to ask the question. It is very satisfying for me to see the results.”
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“It’s been a matter of some debate for a very long time if one of these tissue layers controls plant growth or if all three layers have to work together,” Chory said. “Our paper shows very clearly that the epidermis is in control—in both driving and restricting growth. In addition, our studies show that the cells in the epidermis “talk” to the cells in the inner layers, communicating that they too should expand.”

In January we had a long stretch of warm weather. Shoots for early blooming flowers sprouted in my front yard. Then we had about 6 weeks of winter weather. I was wondering how the flowers would do (they do fine with a few days of freezing weather after sprouting – since they have evolved to bloom early). They did fine, photo above (by John Hunter, March 11th).

Magnetic Switching Data Storage

New Magnetic Switching Method Could Dramatically Speed Up Data Storage

Scientists of the Research Centre JÃ¼lich, Germany, have found a fundamentally new magnetic switching method which achieves the fastest speed ever reported by applying an external magnetic field. The results that are presented in a current article in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters could introduce new possibilities for future data storage applications with ultimate speeds.
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Besides its extremely high speed, a remarkable aspect of this finding is that it unfolds automatically: The applied field only perturbs the magnetization, which then under-goes these complicated changes as it recovers equilibrium. “These findings represent a promising leap towards smaller length scales and shorter time scales in magnetic data storage applications”, affirms Prof. Claus M. Schneider, director at the IFF

Open Access Journal Wars

Open Access Launches Journal Wars

The $10 billion science publishing industry hasn’t heard the last of a bill that would make publicly funded studies available for free. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has pledged this year to resurrect the Federal Research Public Access Act (S.2695), which would require federally funded research to become publicly available online within six months of being published.

“When it’s the taxpayers that are underwriting projects in the federal government, they deserve to access the very things they’re paying for,” said Cornyn spokesman Brian Walsh. “This research is funded by American taxpayers and conducted by researchers funded by public institutions. But it’s not widely available.”

Great. The idea that people will actually buy some crazy excuse like: “It’s inappropriate for the government (to interfere).” as a reason that publicly funded research should be kept from the public is frustrating. And even more so because some people actually might buy it. But for those that can think, I believe it confirms that they have no good arguments against proposal. If the best argument for opposition to open access requirements is trying to confuse people into thinking something that makes no logical sense they must not have any good reasons.

Is there any part of “you must make the research openly available” that is interfering with the science involved? Interfering with an outdated business model maybe, but that is all. And really not even that because you can retain that business model if you want. I can’t see how anyone can sensibly argue that it is in the interest of science to keep information inaccessible.

Particles and Waves

Science team shows light is made of particles and waves:

Work completed by a visiting research professor at Rowan University, physics professors and a student from the institution shows that light is made of particles and waves, a finding that refutes a common belief held for about 80 years.

Shahriar S. Afshar, the visiting professor who is currently at Boston’s Institute for Radiation-Induced Mass Studies (IRIMS), led a team, including Rowan physics professors Drs. Eduardo Flores and Ernst Knoesel and student Keith McDonald, that proved Afshar’s original claims, which were based on a series of experiments he had conducted several years ago.

An article on the work titled “Paradox in Wave-Particle Duality” recently published in “Foundations of Physics,” a prestigious, refereed academic journal, supports Albert Einstein’s long-debated belief that quantum physics is incomplete. For eight decades the scientific community generally had supported Niels Bohr’s ideas commonly known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.
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“The important new contribution is that light carries both wave and particle aspects at all times, and future experiments will further clarify the nature of each component.” Afshar said.

Attacking Bacterial Walls

Bacterial Walls Come Tumbling Down:

Penicillin and many newer antibiotics work by blocking a piece of the machinery bacteria use to construct their durable outer walls. Without these tough, protective coatings, bacteria die. The enzymatic machinery (known as PBP2) studied by Strynadka’s group has two main parts: One end assembles long sugar fibers; the other end stitches them together with bits of protein to form a sturdy interlocking mesh shell.
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“This enzyme is an awesome target for antibiotics,” said Strynadka. “We have a totally new understanding of how the enzyme works and how a very good animal antibiotic inhibits the enzyme.” Although moenomycin is poorly absorbed by the human body, the new understanding of exactly how it interferes with bacterial enzyme function should help scientists design modified versions that are more suitable for use in people.

Understanding the structure of this enzyme should also speed up screening and design of new antibiotics, which are in constant demand as microbes continually evolve new ways to evade the drugs that researchers design to thwart them. The time it takes for bacteria to develop resistance to new antibiotics has been as short as one year for penicillin V and as long as 30 years for vancomycin.

Use the Force

What geek wouldn’t want to be a Jedi?

Behold Project Epoc, a wireless headset developed by Australian start-up Emotiv Systems. The electrodes embedded in the set read your brain waves, figure out what you’re thinking and, yes, allow you to bend objects on the screen to your omnipotent will.
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Let’s be clear, though: Epoc isn’t anywhere near as easy as picking up a control pad and learning to play a game. The software uses adaptive learning to figure out what your brains’ electrical signals look like when you’re thinking about lifting, pushing, or rotating objects. That takes time (which is why Dave used the headset and not me).

Still, I think I’d be willing to sacrifice an hour of my life for a taste of the Jedi’s power. The effect is amazing, after all – c’mon, this is mind-control people!

Ok, this is not yet available and needs quite a bit more to make consumers demand them – but if it can do what they say that is interesting start. Project Epoc

Engineering a Better Blood Alcohol Sensor

Scott McCain - Duke Student

Scott McCain Aims for Better Blood Alcohol Sensor:

If third-year engineering graduate student Scott McCain gets his way, the fight against drunk driving may soon be waged with a new, non-invasive blood alcohol sensor that could make standard blood or breath sample tests obsolete. The St. Louis native’s interdisciplinary research – a combination of engineering, physics and computer science – aims to build a small and inexpensive optical device capable of using harmless light to pass through skin and directly determine blood alcohol concentration.

“The device uses light at wavelengths at which skin essentially becomes transparent,” McCain said. “We shine a laser through tissue where it interacts with blood. By analyzing the scattered light that comes back out, we can determine much about the blood’s chemical content.”
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Similar devices hold promise for determining other constituents of blood. For example, they could measure cholesterol or blood sugar in a matter of minutes, McCain said. Ultimately, the goal is to have a sensor that could report a medical reading in less than 10 seconds.
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“We don’t yet know if our blood alcohol sensor will really work,” said McCain. “It wouldn’t be research if we knew what it was all about.”