Month: February 2015

Scientists find ‘strongest’ natural material

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February 19, 2015

Limpet teeth might be the strongest natural material known, with biological structures so strong (3.0 to 6.5 GPa tensile strength) they could be copied to make future cars, boats, and planes, a new study by researchers from the University of Portsmouth has found.

The research was published (open access) Wednesday Feb. 18 in the Royal Society journal Interface.

“Until now, we thought that spider silk was the strongest biological material [at ~4.5 GPa] because of its super-strength and potential applications in everything from bullet-proof vests to computer electronics,” noted Professor Asa Barberfrom the university’s School of Engineering.

The limpet teeth strength is also comparable to that of the strongest man-made fibers, such as high-performance Toray T1000G carbon fibers, which also have a tensile strength of 6.5 GPa, the paper noted.

Munching rock

Barber found that the teeth contain a hard mineral known as goethite, which forms in the limpet as it grows.

“Limpets need high-strength teeth to rasp over rock surfaces and remove algae for feeding. We discovered that the fibers of goethite are just the right size to make up a resilient composite structure. This discovery means that the fibrous structures found in limpet teeth could be mimicked and used in high-performance engineering applications such as Formula 1 racing cars, the hulls of boats, and aircraft structures.”

The research also discovered that limpet teeth strength is scale-independent (not affected by size). “Generally a big structure has lots of flaws and can break more easily than a smaller structure, which has fewer flaws and is stronger. The problem is that most structures have to be fairly big so they’re weaker than we would like. Limpet teeth break this rule as their strength is the same no matter what the size.”

The study determined the tooth properties by using atomic force microscopy to pull apart the material down to the atomic level. “The testing methods were important as we needed to break the limpet tooth. The whole tooth is slightly less than a millimeter long but is curved, so the strength is dependent on both the shape of the tooth and the material.

 

http://www.kurzweilai.net/scientists-find-strongest-natural-material

New algorithms locate where a video was shot from its images and sounds

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Could help recognize locations of missing people or terrorist executions in the future
February 18, 2015

Researchers from the Ramón Llull University (Spain) have created a system capable of geolocating some videos by comparing their images and audio with a worldwide multimedia database, for cases where textual metadata is not available or relevant.

In the future, this could help to find people who have gone missing after posting images on social networks, or even to recognize locations of terrorist executions by organizations such as ISIS.

All of the data obtained is merged together and grouped in clusters so that, using computer algorithms developed by the researchers, they can be compared with those of a large collection of recorded videos already geolocated around the world.

In their study, published in the journal Information Sciences, the team used almost 10,000 sequences as a reference from the MediaEval Placing task audiovisual database, a benchmarking assessment of algorithms for multimedia content to detect the most probable geographical coordinates.

This allows for locating 3% of videos within a ten-kilometer radius of their actual geographical location, and in 1% of cases it is accurate to one kilometer — four times more accurately than achieved previously, according to the researchers.

Another application for the system is to facilitate geographical browsing in video libraries such as YouTube. For example, the search for  “Manhattan” (the city) could be disambiguated from “The Manhattans” 70s band and the Woody Allen film “Manhattan,” the researchers suggest.

The researchers recognize that their method will require a much larger audiovisual database to apply it to the millions of videos on the Internet.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-algorithms-locate-where-a-video-was-shot-from-its-images-and-sounds

New molecular shape for electronic circuits discovered

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February 18, 2015

Corannulene — a carbon molecule with molecular shape similar to fullerene (C60) — has properties that could be ideal for building molecule-size circuits, a team of scientists fromSISSA, the University of Zurich, and the University of Nova Gorica in Slovenia has found in theoretical studies.

Imagine taking a fullerene sphere and cutting it in half like a melon. What you get is a corannulene (C20H10) molecule.

The study has just been published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

Fullerene is formed of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal network, shaped like a hollow sphere. Fullerene is known to contain “buckybowl superatom states” (BSS), which are capable of accepting electrons (needed for electronic circuits), but these states are found at very high energies, making them difficult to exploit in electronic devices.

Corannulene molecules can function at almost ten times lower energy than fullerene, making them attractive candidates for nanoscale electronic circuits, the researchers note.

 

http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-molecular-shape-for-electronic-circuits-discovered

A new roadmap: Scientists reveal ‘epigenome’ that highlights how genes spur health

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February 18, 2015 11:30 PM

NEW YORK, Feb 18 — Scientists for the first time have mapped out the molecular “switches” that can turn on or silence individual genes in the DNA in more than 100 types of human cells, an accomplishment that reveals the complexity of genetic information and the challenges of interpreting it.

Researchers unveiled the map of the “epigenome” in the journal Nature today, alongside nearly two dozen related papers. The mapping effort is being carried out under a 10-year, US$240 million (RM840 million) US government research programme, the Roadmap Epigenomics Programme, which was launched in 2008.

The human genome is the blueprint for building an individual person. The epigenome can be thought of as the cross-outs and underlining of that blueprint: If someone’s genome contains DNA associated with cancer but that DNA is “crossed out” by molecules in the epigenome, for instance, the DNA is unlikely to lead to cancer.

As sequencing individuals’ genomes to infer the risk of disease becomes more common, it will become all the more important to figure out how the epigenome is influencing that risk as well as other aspects of health. Sequencing genomes is the centrepiece of the “precision medicine” initiative that US President Barack Obama announced this month.

“The only way you can deliver on the promise of precision medicine is by including the epigenome,” said Manolis Kellis of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who led the mapping that involved scientists in labs from Croatia to Canada and the United States.

Drug makers including Merck & Co Inc, the Genentech unit of Roche Holding and GlaxoSmithKline Plc are conducting epigenetics research related to cancer, said Joseph Costello of the University of California, San Francisco, director of one of four main labs that contributed data to the epigenome map.

Epigenetic differences are one reason identical twins, who have identical DNA, do not always develop the same genetic diseases, including cancer.

But incorporating the epigenome in precision medicine is daunting.

“A lifetime of environmental factors and lifestyle factors” influence the epigenome, including smoking, exercising, diet, exposure to toxic chemicals and even parental nurturing, Kellis said in an interview. Not only will scientists have to decipher how the epigenome affects genes, they will also have to determine how the lives people lead affect their epigenome.

Book of life 

The human genome is the sequence of all the DNA on chromosomes. The DNA is identical in every cell, from neurons to hearts to skin.

It falls to the epigenome to differentiate the cells: As a result of epigenetic marks, heart muscle cells do not make brain chemicals, for instance, and neurons do not make muscle fibres.

The epigenome map published today shows how each of 127 tissue and cell types differs from every other at the level of DNA. Because scientists involved in the Roadmap project have been depositing their findings in a public database as they went along, other researchers have been analysing the information before the map was formally published.

One of the resulting studies show, for instance, that brain cells from people who died with Alzheimer’s disease had epigenetic changes in DNA involved in immune response. Alzheimer’s has never been seen as an immune-system disorder, so the discovery opens up another possible avenue to understand and treat it.

Other researchers found that because the epigenetic signature of different kinds of cells is unique, they could predict with nearly 90 per cent accuracy where metastatic cancer originated, something that is unknown in 2 per cent to 5 per cent of patients.

As a result, epigenetic information might offer a life-saving clue for oncologists trying to determine treatment, said co-senior author Shamil Sunyaev, a research geneticist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

There is much more to come. Instead of the epigenome map being the end, said Kellis, “I very much see (it) as beginning a decade of epigenomics.” — Reuters

– See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/features/article/a-new-roadmap-scientists-reveal-epigenome-that-highlights-how-genes-spur-he#sthash.0Thse69F.dpuf

Ocean acidification mapped, revealed by satellite

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BY / FEBRUARY 18, 2015

A new initiative led by the University of Exeter has mapped and revealed the extent of ocean acidification through the use of data gathered by satellite, revealing some bad environmental news.

Ocean waters act as a carbon “sink” in that they absorb as much as 25 percent of carbon dioxide given off by human industry on an annual basis according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This has led to a much-needed brake on the slow but inexorable increase of global temperatures that will bring about climate change, but there’s a downside to the ocean’s carbon absorption; the more CO2 the world’s oceans absorb the more acidic they become.In fact, NOAA says that ocean surface PH levels have turned 30 percent more acidic since the tail end of the Industrial Revolution.

Mapping the overall acidity of the world’s oceans has been problematic because the distribution has never been even. Studies have had to rely upon data gathered by buoys and research vessels – an expensive and unreliable endeavor indeed. However, the University of Exeter has led an international team of researchers in creating global ocean acidity maps through satellite data in order to show exactly where the world’s oceans are the most acidic.

University of Exeter senior lecturer Jamie Shutler, the lead researcher for the study, remarked that these techniques are being pioneered in order to monitor large swathes of global ocean. Doing so will allow Shutler and his colleagues to swiftly and easily pinpoint areas around the world that are most at risk from the kinds of high acid levels that can destroy fragile ecosystems.

The scientists used information from satellites currently in orbit such as the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity sensor from the European Space Agency and the Aquarius satellite placed in orbit by NASA. Global acidification levels were calculated by combining salinity data with thermal camera imagery. The results show that open ocean waters are more adept at absorbing carbon, as they’re naturally less acidic; meanwhile more shallow coastal waters are naturally more acidic than deeper waters, leading to possibly negative effects in these regions.

http://www.smnweekly.com/ocean-acidification-mapped-revealed-by-satellite/16393/

Nearly 1 in 10 English-speaking Canadians only watch content online: study

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Streaming content boomsA person displays Netflix on a tablet in North Andover, Mass on Jan. 17, 2014. (AP / Elise Amendola)

The Canadian Press
Published Wednesday, February 18, 2015 3:37PM EST

Nearly one in 10 anglophone Canadians say they no longer watch any TV shows the old-fashioned way and only stream or download content online, according to a new study.

In a telephone poll with 4,002 Canadians conducted late last year on behalf of the Media Technology Monitor, nine per cent of the respondents said they had fully transitioned from watching TV broadcasts to online content.

That number has tripled since MTM began asking about the trend in 2010, and was up 50 per cent compared to a 2013 survey.

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Almost 40 per cent of the respondents in the most recent poll said they now view Internet content on their TV, which was up almost 50 per cent from 2013.

MTM observed the numbers of anglophone Canadians who said they were Netflix subscribers grew from 29 per cent in 2013 to 38 per cent last year. Thirty per cent of the Netflix subscribers said they had figured out how to access the U.S. version of the streaming service.

When asked what other kinds of online content they watched, 66 per cent said they streamed YouTube videos, 47 per cent said they screened TV shows online, 39 per cent said they downloaded or streamed full-length movies, 34 per cent watched newscasts and 29 per cent sought out sports videos.

While so-called Telco TV services (offered by the likes of Bell, MTS, Telus and SaskTel) were steady in the MTM poll (18 per cent of the respondents in 2013 and 2014 said they subscribed to such services), cable and satellite was seen to be on the decline.

In the most recent poll, 43 per cent said they were cable TV subscribers (down from 46 per cent in 2013) and 20 per cent said they used satellite TV (down from 21 per cent in 2013). Six per cent of the respondents said they picked up free over-the-air TV signals, which was a slight uptick from five per cent in 2013.

The polling for MTM was conducted by Forum Research Inc., between Oct. 8 and Dec. 12, 2014, and is considered accurate within 1.5 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/nearly-1-in-10-english-speaking-canadians-only-watch-content-online-study-1.2242292#ixzz3S8Q9WbkJ

Can ‘mindfulness’ help students do better in school?

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February 18, 2015

Mindfulness programs such as Goldie Hawn’s MindUP — a 12-week program to teach children to reduce stress and regulate emotions — can be effective, educators say.

A UBC study found that MindUP reduced stress and depression and improved math grades among fourth- and fifth-graders.

http://news.ubc.ca/2015/02/18/can-mindfulness-help-students-do-better-in-school/

pi milloin sold

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Yesterday we received some figures which confirmed something we’ve suspected for a few weeks now: we’ve sold over five million Raspberry Pis.

The Pi has gone from absolutely nothing just under three years ago, to becoming the fastest-selling British computer. (We still have Sir Alan Sugar to beat on total sales numbers – if you include the PCW word processor in the figures, Amstrad sold 8 million computers between 1984 and 1997.)

We roll this picture out every time we have a sales update: this is the first batch of Raspberry Pis we ever had made, around this time three years ago. There are 2000 original Raspberry Pis in this pallet. That’s 0.04% of all the Raspberry Pis that are currently out there. (Every individual Pi in this pallet now has 2500 siblings.)

There were so few Pis in this first production run that Eben and I were able to stick them in our car and drive them to RS and Farnell’s headquarters.

Three years ago today, I was sitting at my kitchen table stuffing stickers into envelopes (we were selling them for a pound a throw to raise the money we needed to kick off the original round of manufacture). Today, I’m sitting in an office with nineteen other people, and if I’m quite honest, we’re not quite sure how we got so far so fast. It definitely feels good, though.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charity. That means that we personally don’t make a profit from the Pi – all profits go straight back into our educational mission and into R&D. Your five million purchases mean that we’re able to train teachers for free; provide free educational resources; undertake educational outreach; fund open-source projects like XBMC (now Kodi), PyPy, Libav, Pixman,Wayland/Weston, Squeak, Scratch, Webkit and KiCad; and – for me, most importantly – we fund this sort of thing (and much more; you’ll hear more about projects we’ve sponsored with our education fund over the coming year, as they get written up by their owners).

Thank you. The Raspberry Pi community is a wonderful thing, and we’d be absolutely nowhere without you all.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/five-million-sold/

How to Put Your Mind to Sleep When it won’t shut up

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Much of my life is dictated by my fear of not falling asleep at the right time. I calculate how much sleep I need down to the exact minute. I lay in bed each night waiting for the unyielding thought-vomit to occur. I used to think that the endless stream of thoughts that plagued my nightly routine were unique to me, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

If you have trouble turning your mind off at night, you aren’t alone. It isestimated that 30-to-40 million Americans have a sleep disorder and an additional 20 million have occasional difficulty sleeping. It’s so bad that the Centers for Disease Control considers it a public health epidemic. To unearth the reasons why we can’t turn off our mind at night, we should first understand the body’s mechanisms which govern sleep.

Until as recently as the 1950s scientists believed that falling asleep was a completely passive process. Scientists now think that the body’s wakefulness and sleep mode is dictated by a two-process model. Process S:Promotes our desire to sleep and inhibits our arousal centers at night.Process C: Maintains our wakefulness during the day. This two-process model is also influenced by the circadian rhythm.

The circadian rhythm is the body’s clock that regulates our activities and behaviors. It’s controlled by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) — a part of the brain known as the circadian rhythm pacemaker. Morning light lets the SCN know ‘Hey, it’s time to get up and start this process over again.’ As the sun sets, the SCN signals our body to calm down and prepare for sleep.

Sunlight helps regulate our circadian rhythm

Disruptions to the circadian rhythm can prevent us from falling asleep at night and feeling overly tired during the day. These disruptions can also adversely effect our health.

(Night) Shift workers have an increased risk of heart problems, digestive disturbances, and emotional and mental problems, all of which may be related to their sleeping problems. The number and severity of workplace accidents also tend to increase during the night shift.

Okay, so we understand the process that drives us to sleep, but what happens to our bodies once we are in bed?

There are two kinds of sleep, Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep and Non-REM (NREM) sleep. Both of which are necessary for the body to go through its restorative process. There are also five stages of sleep. The entire process takes about 90-120 minutes. In an ideal situation, it would look something like this:

This is your brain on a sleep cycle.

When we can’t turn off the mind it is because we are having trouble transitioning from the alpha waves of stage 1 to the theta-band waves of stage two. Those with severe sleep disorders often enter REM sleep immediately upon falling asleep. As we begin the transition into sleep our brains are letting go of a lot, but this is by no means a passive process. Our brains are reordering and assessing the day’s events, working to promote new memory formations, and cleaning up debris.

Turning off our mind — as anyone who has tried to do will tell you — is easier said than done. There’s no magical switch you can flip to make yourself fall asleep, but there are some tricks you can do to help quiet your mind.

  1. Cool yourself down

Please do not actually encapsulate your head in a block of ice.
  • Part of the body’s process for falling asleep each night involves a lowering of the body temperature. If you are in a room that is too hot it can disturb your internal sleep processes. To get slightly more technical, the metabolism of your brains frontal cortex wants to be cool when falling asleep. Insomniacs have a higher metabolism in their frontal cortex which is said to contribute to their inability to sleep. The bodyloses its ability to regulate its temperature at night, so finding the right balance is important.

2. Buy red lights

Melatonin is a hormone essential for sleep. Image adapted from New Scientist.
  • You know that sort of bluish glow given off by our TVs, computers, and phones? That seemingly serene blue light is literally robbing you of sleep. The short-wavelength of blue light stops the production of melatonin— a hormone necessary for sleep. Exposure to blue light can even throw off our circadian rhythm. If purchasing all red lights is a bit too drastic for you, aim to reduce the amount of light you use at least two hours before bed.

3. Breathe out of your left nostril

It may look weird but breathing like this could actually help calm you down.
  • In yoga this is called nadi shodhana or alternate nostril breathing. Cover your right nostril and practice breathing in and out of your left nostril ten-times. The practice of breathing through your left nostril is said to help relax your sympathetic nervous system. Just simply focusing on the task of breathing can help you drown out other distractions.

4. Go outside in the morning

When it comes to getting sleep, the sun is our friend. Well, at least during the day.
  • Being in the sun — especially upon first waking — tells our circadian rhythm to reset itself. The best time for this to happen is between 6 and 8:30 a.m. You should aim for at least 30-minutes of sun exposure a day to receive the maximum benefits. Sunlight inhibits the production of melatonin, which is responsible for making you tired. Being tired during the day will likely rob you of that feeling later at night when you need it the most.

5. Visualize yourself asleep

If you think you can, chances are you will.
  • You are a leaf on the wind, watch how you soar off to sleep land. Visualizations draw focus away from thoughts which have emotional content. Experts say it is important to associate positivity with sleeping. This can help remove some of the anxiety we have built up around falling asleep each night. Researchers at Colorado College recently found that the simple act of believing that you received more sleep than you did is enough to give your brain some of the positive effects of sleep.

There are a lot of really useful sleeping tips out there, but they are all variations on the same theme. Preparing the mind and body for sleep is all about reducing the emotional content in our thoughts and eliminating as much external stimuli as possible. You should absolutely explore a variety of sleep routines and practices. Doing so can help you understand the barriers that prevent you from achieving a quiet mind.

Sleep is a process. It doesn’t just happen the moment you get into bed. The body is preparing itself for sleep all day. It actually helped me to think of sleep something ongoing as opposed to something that was just supposed to happen. It took some of the pressure off of me. My body was actually made to do this. Trusting and listening to my body’s natural process really helped me find a better way to fall asleep.

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This post originally appeared on the Crew blog

WRITTEN ON FEB 14, 2014 BY

Andrea Ayres-Deets

https://medium.com/@missafayres/how-to-put-your-mind-to-sleep-79f3495c80b7

30 patients to test dandelion’s cancer-killing potential

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Feb 17, 2015 8:43 AM ET Last Updated: Feb 17, 2015 2:40 PM ET

According to researchers, test results done prior to the clinical trial showed that dandelion tea, containing dandelion root extract, killed cancer cells in a lab.

According to researchers, test results done prior to the clinical trial showed that dandelion tea, containing dandelion root extract, killed cancer cells in a lab. (CBC File Photo)

Thirty patients are being recruited to take part in a study looking at the potentially cancer-killing abilities of dandelion root extract, taken from the common yellow yard weed.

The study will focus on patients with end stage blood related cancers including lymphoma and leukemia and take place at the Windsor Regional Cancer Centre.

According to researchers, test results done prior to the clinical trial showed that dandelion tea, containing dandelion root extract, killed cancer cells in a lab.

Dr. Siyaram Pandey is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Windsor and is the principal research investigator on the project.

He said the dandelion extract has “good potential” to kill cancer cells.

“Our clinical team is recruiting the patients and the outcome of the clinical trial will be the first clinical validation,” he said.

Dr. Pandey said it may take up to a year before results from the study are in.

The phase one clinical study, as it’s called, is part of the Dandelion Root Project, aimed at showcasing scientific evidence for the safe and effective use of dandelion root extract and other natural health products for cancer therapy.

Phase one clinical trials were approved by Health Canada in 2012. Phase one trials do not reveal whether the substance being tested has a medicinal effect.

The goal of the trial is to set the right dose, Dr. Caroline Hamm, who submitted the application for the trial, previously told CBC.

The research team has also launched a new Windsor-based company, called Windsor Botanical Therapeutics.

The creation of a company was necessary in order to contract a licensed Health Canada drug manufacturer to create the dandelion extract for clinical use.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/30-patients-to-test-dandelion-s-cancer-killing-potential-1.2959815