AL | Science News
Te new energy-harvesting technology takes advantage of “reverse electrowetting”—a phenomenon pioneered in 2011 by Krupenkin and senior scientist J. Ashley Taylor. With this method, as a conductive liquid interacts with a nanofilm-coated surface, the mechanical energy is directly converted into electrical energy.
While usable power is generated using this approach, it requires an energy source with a reasonably high frequency, such as a mechanical source that’s vibrating or rotating quickly. Te researchers developed what they call the “bubbler” device, which combines reverse electrowetting with bubble growth and collapse, and consists of two flat plates separated by a small gap filled with a conductive liquid. Rapid, repetitive growth and collapse of bubbles pushes the conductive fluid back and forth, generating an electrical charge.
Te harvester could directly power various mobile devices through a charging cable, or it could be integrated with a broad range of electronic devices embedded in a shoe, such as a Wi-Fi hot spot that acts as a “middleman” between mobile devices and a wireless network. Te latter requires no cables, dramatically cuts the power requirements of wireless mobile devices, and can make a cellphone battery last 10 times longer between charges.
Study Predicts That Transatlantic Flights Will Be Impacted by Climate Change
A new study determined that airplanes flying between Europe and North America will spend an extra 2000 hours in the air every year due to the effects of climate change, which will worsen the environmental impact of aviation and add millions of dollars to airline fuel costs. By accelerating the jet stream, climate change will speed up eastbound flights and slow down westbound flights, the study found.
Dr. Paul Williams, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Reading, said, “Te aviation industry is facing pressure to reduce its environmental impacts, but this study shows a new way in which aviation is itself susceptible
to the effects of climate change. Te bad news for passengers is that westbound flights will be battling against stronger headwinds. Te good news is that eastbound flights will be boosted by stronger tailwinds, but not enough to compensate for the longer westbound journeys. Te net result is that roundtrip journeys will significantly lengthen.”
The study predicted that the average jet-stream winds along the flight route between Heathrow Airport in London and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York will be 15% faster, increasing from 48 to 55 mph. As a result, London-bound flights will be twice as likely to take under five hours, while New York-bound flights will be twice as likely to take over seven hours.
Due to the extra time spent in the air, trans- atlantic flights will burn an extra $22 million worth of fuel annually and emit an extra 70 million kg of CO2
.
Researchers Transform Common Cells Into Master Heart Cells
A research team has transformed mouse fibroblasts—cells found mostly in connective tissue such as skin—into primitive master heart cells called induced cardiac progenitor cells. Te new approach could lead to a scalable method for making an almost unlimited supply of the three major types of cells in the heart.
Te researchers found that 11 genes that play a critical role in embryonic heart development could be used to reprogram the fibroblasts, and then narrowed the number of essential genes to five. Tey also determined the conditions needed to culture the transformed cells in the laboratory. Using these five genes, the scientists could push the fibroblast cells back in developmental time to become the cardiac progenitor cells that make cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells, the workhorse cells that make up the organ. Te induced cardiac progenitor cells are capable of making billions of the critical heart cells, providing ample material to study heart disease in the laboratory dish, equip high- throughput screens to test various compounds
AMERICAN LABORATORY 10 MARCH 2016
for safety and efficacy, and ultimately treat heart disease by replacing diseased cells with healthy ones.
“We’re learning from what happens in the embryo during cardiac development,” said postdoctoral fellow Pratik A. Lalit of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “What does it take to make a normal heart?”
A key advantage of the engineered cardiac progenitor cells, noted cardiologist Timothy J. Kamp, is that, unlike all-purpose pluripotent stem cells, which can become any of the 220 different kinds of cells in the human body, the induced progenitor cells made from fibroblasts are faithful only to the cardiac lineage—a desired feature for cardiac applications. One potential drawback of cell transplants derived from all-purpose stem cells is the small but very real possibility of creating a teratoma, a tumor from tissue other than the intended cell lineage. “With cardiac progenitor cells, you can reduce the risk of tumor formation as they are more committed to the heart lineages and are unlikely to form a tumor,” said Kamp.
Chip Decodes, Compresses and Transmits Brain Signals Wirelessly
A small, low-power chip can be combined with neural implants for efficient, wireless transmission of brain signals. Neural implants have to be connected by wires to an external device outside the body. For a prosthetic patient, the neural implant is connected to a computer that decodes the brain signals so that the artificial limb can move. External wires are not only cumbersome, but the permanent openings that allow the wires into the brain increase risk of infection.
A new smart chip developed at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) decodes the brain’s signal to the hand and fingers with 95% accuracy. According to Professor Arindam Basu, the chip “can process data, analyze patterns and spot the difference.” Moreover, he said, “It is about a hundred times more efficient than current processing chips on the market. It will
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