Category Archives: Research

Nanoscale Images Using an X-ray Laser

Scientists capture nanoscale images with short and intense X-ray laser

Using the free-electron laser at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, Livermore scientists, as part of an international collaboration led by LLNL’s Henry Chapman and Janos Hajdu of Uppsala University, were able to record a single diffraction pattern of a nanostructured object before the laser destroyed the sample. A Livermore-developed computer algorithm was then used to recreate an image of the object based on the recorded diffraction pattern. This “lensless” imaging technique could be applied to atomic-resolution imaging because it is not limited by the need to build a high-resolution lens. The flash images could resolve features 50 nanometers in size, which is about 10 times smaller than what is achievable with an optical microscope.

Nanotechnology Research

Brave nano world by Nate Birt:

At the federal level, the National Nanotechnology Initiative has requested more than $1 billion for nanotechnology research and development in 2007. The initiative is a network of 25 federal organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense, that fund nanotechnology research at their own labs and at universities around the country, including MU.

Former President Bill Clinton started the initiative in 2000, and it became a part of the federal budget in fiscal 2001. Back then, the federal government spent an estimated $464 million on nanotechnology

Sea Urchin Genome

Sea Urchin photo

Sea Urchin Genome Reveals Striking Similarities to Humans by Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News:

The scientists identified more than 23,000 genes in the 814 million base pairs, or “letters,” of DNA code taken from the sea urchin.

The sea urchin represents the first sequenced genome from the echinoderms, which are the closest known relatives of the chordates, the group that includes vertebrates, animals with spinal columns. The genome includes analogs to many essential human genes that were previously thought to be exclusive to vertebrates.
…
The eyeless sea urchin also has genes associated with taste, smell, hearing, balance—and surprisingly, even vision.

How Our Brain Resolves Sight

Brain Pathway Brings Order to Visual Chaos

The world you see around you appears perfectly stationary, even though your eyes dart back and forth two to three times every second in little hops called saccades. For more than a century researchers have assumed that the brain must keep track of the impulses that cause these tiny motions, so as to subtract their effect from our visual awareness. Now researchers have identified a circuit in the monkey brain that seems to play this role.

Web Science

MIT and University of Southampton launch World Wide Web research collaboration:

The Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) will generate a research agenda for understanding the scientific, technical and social challenges underlying the growth of the web. Of particular interest is the volume of information on the web that documents more and more aspects of human activity and knowledge. WSRI research projects will weigh such questions as: How do we access information and assess its reliability? By what means may we assure its use complies with social and legal rules? How will we preserve the web over time?

Commenting on the new initiative, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and a founding director of WSRI, said, “As the web celebrates its first decade of widespread use, we still know surprisingly little about how it evolved, and we have only scratched the surface of what could be realized with deeper scientific investigation into its design, operation and impact on society.

Tim Berners Lee continues to show great insight. Continue reading →

Physicists Observe New Property of Matter

Physicists Observe New Property of Matter by Kim McDonald

Physicists at UC San Diego have for the first time observed the spontaneous production of coherence within “excitons,” the bound pairs of electrons and holes that enable semiconductors to function as novel electronic devices.

Scientists working in the emerging field of nanotechnology, which is finding commercial applications for ultra-small material objects, believe that this newly discovered property could eventually help the development of novel computing devices and provide them with new insights into the quirky quantum properties of matter.
…
“What is coherence and why is it so important?” said Butov. “To start with, modern physics was born by the discovery that all particles in nature are also waves. Coherence means that such waves are all ‘in sync.’ The spontaneous coherence of the matter waves is the reason behind some of the most exciting phenomena in nature such as superconductivity and lasing.”

Programing Bacteria

Duke Packard Fellow to Examine Processing Speed of “Reprogrammed” Bacteria:

research into the development of synthetic gene circuits, carefully designed combinations of genes that can be “loaded” into bacteria or other cells, directing their activity in much the same way that a basic computer program directs a computer. Such re-programmed bacteria might eventually serve in a wide variety of applications, including biocomputing, medical treatments, and environmental cleanup
…
The research now, however, is in its very early stages, You said. So far, E. coli bacteria have been programmed to grow in numbers until a certain population size is reached. The bacteria then kill themselves off, growing again only after their numbers dwindle sufficiently.

The relatively simple program takes advantage of bacteria’s ability to communicate with one another, a process known as “quorum sensing,” and essential genetic pathways that control cell death.

Educating Scientists and Engineers

Business Week has an articles discussing what business would like to see from graduates, Biotech’s Beef:

The problem is a disconnect between what universities are teaching and what biotech wants. “The focus of academia is getting basic and theoretical knowledge in place,”
…
There are several weaknesses. First, recent grads lack the technical knowledge to carry out applied research in areas that straddle engineering, math, and computers. Second, job candidates have little awareness of what the Food & Drug Administration is looking for when it considers whether or not to approve a drug. Recent grads simply aren’t familiar with issues such as quality control and regulatory affairs.

This general idea is not new. But, as always (and probably more so if the nature of what is needed is changing faster today than in the past) the changing environment does require universities (and students, at least those that want to work in industry) to adapt.

But with H-1B quotas filling up earlier every year, Invitrogen has chosen to do more drug development in Japan, China, and India. It may also open facilities in Korea and Singapore, says Rodney Moses, Invitrogen’s vice-president of talent acquisition. Compensation in China and India is lower than in the U.S., but that’s not what motivates the move offshore, says Moses. “If the talent is located in Singapore, it’s just easier for us to go there.”

U.S. colleges take the problem seriously. State university systems in California, Wisconsin, and elsewhere are adding more industry-oriented classes.

Antibiotic Research

anti-microbial ‘grammar’ posits new language of healing

“In the last 40 years, there have been only two new classes of antibiotic drugs discovered and brought to the market,” said graduate student Christopher Loose, lead author of a paper on the work that appears in the Oct. 19 issue of Nature. “There is an incredible need to come up with new medicines.”
…
focusing their attention on antimicrobial peptides, or short strings of amino acids. Such peptides are naturally found in multicellular organisms, where they play a role in defense against infectious bacteria.

See previous post on the paucity of new antibiotic discoveries