Self-propelled powder designed to stop severe bleeding

 

UBC researchers have created the first self-propelled particles capable of delivering coagulants against the flow of blood to treat severe bleeding. Credit: Christian Kastrup and James Baylis UBC researchers have created the first self-propelled particles capable of delivering coagulants against the flow of blood to treat severe bleeding, a potentially huge advancement in trauma care. "Bleeding is the number one killer of young people, and maternal death from postpartum hemorrhage can be as high as one in 50 births in low resource settings so these are extreme problems," explains Christian Kastrup, an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia. Traditional methods of halting severe bleeding are not very effective when the blood loss originates inside the body like the uterus, sinus or abdomen. "People have developed hundreds of agents that can clot blood but the issue is that it's hard to push these therapies against severe blood flow, especially far enough upstream to reach the leaking vessels. Here, for the first time, we've come up with an agent that can do that," Kastrup said. Kastrup teamed up with a group of researchers, biochemical engineers and emergency physicians to develop simple, gas-generating calcium carbonate micro-particles that can be applied in powder form to stop critical bleeding. The particles work by releasing carbon dioxide gas, like antacid tablets, to propel them toward the source of bleeding. The carbonate forms porous micro particles that can bind with a clotting agent known as tranexamic acid, and transport it through wounds and deep into the damaged tissue. After studying and modeling the movement of the particles in vitro, the researchers confirmed their results using two animal models. Even in a scenario that mimicked a catastrophic event like a gunshot wound to a femoral artery, the particles proved highly effective in stopping the bleeding. While much more rigorous testing and development is needed to bring the agent to market, the particles could have a wide range of uses, from sinus operations to treating combat wounds. "The area we're really focusing on is postpartum hemorrhage: in the uterus, after childbirth where you can't see the damaged vessels but you can put the powder into that area and the particles can propel and find those damaged vessels," said Kastrup. Watch a video of the self-propelling blood coagulants here:https://youtu.be/08X9QB-2miA Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of British Columbia. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: J. R. Baylis, J. H. Yeon, M. H. Thomson, A. Kazerooni, X. Wang, A. E. St. John, E. B. Lim, D. Chien, A. Lee, J. Q. Zhang, J. M. Piret, L. S. Machan, T. F. Burke, N. J. White, C. J. Kastrup. Self-propelled particles that transport cargo through flowing blood and halt hemorrhage. Science Advances, 2015; 1 (9): e1500379 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500379   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151002144909.htm

Online e-cigarette vendors engage customers using popular internet tools

 

First introduced in the United States in 2007, electronic cigarettes have risen dramatically in part because they are popularly considered safer and more socially acceptable than combustible cigarettes and because there are fewer restrictions on their purchase and use. A study by University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers, published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, points to aggressive online marketing tactics that make purchasing e-cigarettes easy for all ages. "We found e-cigarette vendors were highly engaged in promoting the culture of 'vaping' online, including posting images to Instagram, a social media site used by 52 percent of teens," said Tim K. Mackey, PhD, UC San Diego School of Medicine assistant professor of anesthesiology and global public health and first author of the study. "Despite the fact that 47 states prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, the results highlight the potential of the Internet to encourage e-cigarette initiation and underage purchasing. This is particularly concerning given that the FDA does not have specific proposed regulations for online e-cigarette sales." Data from the 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey shows that e-cigarette use tripled among middle and high school students from 2013 to 2014. E-cigarettes are tobacco-less, battery-operated devices that spritz vapor into the mouth with flavors like bubble gum and peach fuzz. Users of these devices, known colloquially as "vapers," exhale a mixture of volatile organic compounds, heavy metals and ultrafine particles that usually contain aerosolized nicotine in a cloud of vapor. Researchers found that 68 percent of the 57 online e-cigarette vendors they studied displayed one or more health warnings about the devices on their website. However, the notices were often depicted in smaller fonts or placed discretely in the terms and conditions section of a website. One third of the vendors had no detectable age verification process for buyers and of those that did, most required only a simple click to say the buyer was within the legal age limit. Industry analysts estimate that online sales comprise 25 to 30 percent of the $2 billion annual e-cigarette market, which may account for a high presence of vendors on social media, said Mackey, who is also associate director of the joint master's degree in Health Policy and Law. "The study found that online e-cigarette vendors use a variety of sophisticated and aggressive marketing practices, including promotional offers and high social media engagement to promote the sale of their products," said Mackey. Mackey and team reported that 70 percent of the online vendors used more than one of the three most commonly used social media platforms: 63 percent used Twitter, 52 percent posted to Facebook and 42 percent were on Instagram. The researchers said the findings could impact the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's 2014 proposed regulations of e-cigarette use, sale, marketing and manufacturing to include online monitoring of the laws. Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - San Diego. The original item was written by Yadira Galindo. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: Tim K. Mackey, Angela Miner, Raphael E. Cuomo. Exploring the e-cigarette e-commerce marketplace: Identifying Internet e-cigarette marketing characteristics and regulatory gaps. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2015; DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.08.032 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151002191736.htm

Light-based memory chip is the first ever to store data permanently

 

A schematic of the device, showing its structure and the propagation of light through it. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Oxford The world's first entirely light-based memory chip to store data permanently has been developed by material scientists at Oxford University in collaboration with scientists at Karlsruhe, Munster and Exeter. The device, which makes use of materials used in CDs and DVDs, could help dramatically improve the speed of modern computing. Today's computers are held back by the relatively slow transmission of electronic data between the processor and the memory. 'There's no point using faster processors if the limiting factor is the shuttling of information to-and-from the memory -- the so-called von-Neumann bottleneck,' explains Professor Harish Bhaskaran, who led the research. 'But we think using light can significantly speed this up.' Simply bridging the processor-memory gap with photons isn't efficient, though, because of the need to convert them back into electronic signals at each end. Instead, memory and processing capabilities would need be light-based too. Researchers have tried to create this kind of photonic memory before, but the results have always been volatile, requiring power in order to store data. For many applications -- such as computer disk drives -- it's essential to be able to store data indefinitely, with or without power. Now, an international team of researchers including researchers from Oxford University's Department of Materials has produced the world's first all-photonic nonvolatile memory chip. The new device uses the phase-change material Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) -- the same as that used in rewritable CDs and DVDs -- to store data. This material can be made to assume an amorphous state, like glass, or a crystalline state, like a metal, by using either electrical or optical pulses. In a paper published in Nature Photonics, the researchers describe the device they've created, which uses a small section of GST on top of a silicon nitride ridge, known as a waveguide, to carry light. The team has shown that intense pulses of light sent through the waveguide can carefully change the state of the GST. An intense pulse causes it to momentarily melt and quickly cool, causing it to assume an amorphous structure; a slightly less-intense pulse can put it into an crystalline state. Later, when light with much lower intensity is sent through the waveguide, the difference in the state of the GST affects how much light is transmitted. The team can measure that difference to identify its state -- and in turn read off the presence of information in the device as a 1 or 0. 'This is the first ever truly non-volatile integrated optical memory device to be created,' explains Clarendon Scholar and DPhil student Carlos Ríos, one of the two lead authors of the paper. 'And we've achieved it using established materials that are known for their long-term data retention -- GST remains in the state that it's placed in for decades.' By sending different wavelengths of light through the waveguide at the same time -- a technique referred to as wavelength multiplexing -- the team also showed that they could use a single pulse to write and read to the memory at the same time. 'In theory, that means we could read and write to thousands of bits at once, providing virtually unlimited bandwidth,' explains Professor Wolfram Pernice of the University of Munster. The researchers have also found that different intensities of strong pulses can accurately and repeatedly create different mixtures of amorphous and crystalline structure within the GST. When lower intensity pulses were sent through the waveguide to read the contents of the device, they were also able to detect the subtle differences in transmitted light, allowing them to reliably write and read off eight different levels of state composition -- from entirely crystalline to completely amorphous. This multi-state capability could provide memory units with more than the usual binary information of 0 and 1, allowing a single bits of memory to store several states or even perform calculations themselves instead of at the processor. 'This is a completely new kind of functionality using proven existing materials,' explains Professor Bhaskaran. 'These optical bits can be written with frequencies of up to one gigahertz and could provide huge bandwidths. This is the kind of ultra-fast data storage that modern computing needs.' Now, the team is working on a number of projects that aim to make use of the new technology. They're particularly interested in developing a new kind of electro-optical interconnect, which will allow the memory chips to directly interface with other components using light, rather than electrical signals. Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Oxford.Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: Carlos Ríos, Matthias Stegmaier, Peiman Hosseini, Di Wang, Torsten Scherer, C. David Wright, Harish Bhaskaran, Wolfram H. P. Pernice. Integrated all-photonic non-volatile multi-level memory. Nature Photonics, 2015; DOI:10.1038/nphoton.2015.182 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151004112856.htm

Lead exposure in mothers can affect future generations

 

Mothers with high levels of lead in their blood not only affect the fetal cells of their unborn children, but also their grandchildren. Credit: © tatyana_k / Fotolia A team of researchers at Wayne State University have discovered that mothers with high levels of lead in their blood not only affect the fetal cells of their unborn children, but also their grandchildren. Their study, Multigenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans: DNA methylation changes associated with maternal exposure to lead can be transmitted to the grandchildren, was published online this week in Scientific Reports. It's a known fact that babies in the womb can be affected by low levels of lead exposure. If a pregnant woman is exposed to lead, the lead passes through the placenta into the baby's developing bones and other organs. Pregnant women with a past exposure to lead can also affect the unborn child's brain, causing developmental problems later in life. Previous research studies have suggested that exposure to heavy metal toxicants can influence a person's global DNA methylation profile. In the recent Wayne State study led by Douglas Ruden, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, director of epigenomics, and program leader in the Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors, he and his research team revealed that lead exposure can cause specific changes in DNA methylation, which can be detected in dried blood spots beyond one generation. The neonatal blood spots from both the mothers and children in this study were obtained from the Michigan Neonatal Biobank, a unique resource that has most of the neonatal dried blood spots from children born in Michigan since 1984. According to Ruden, epigenetic effects of environmental exposures beyond one generation have not yet been demonstrated in humans prior to this study. He and his team tested the hypothesis that human fetal germ cell exposure to environmental toxins causes epigenetic changes in the newborn blood from a grandchild of an exposed pregnant woman. "Our results suggest that lead exposure during pregnancy affects the DNA methylation status of the fetal germ cells, which leads to altered DNA methylation in grandchildren's neonatal dried blood spots," said Ruden. "This is the first demonstration that an environmental exposure in pregnant mothers can have an epigenetic effect on the DNA methylation pattern in the grandchildren." The research team stated that this novel, two-generational study design might be able to identify the genes that may serve as possible candidate biomarkers for future transgenerational risk assessment studies. "Our pilot study provides indirect evidence that lead exposure in women during childbirth can affect the locus-specific DNA methylation status of grandchildren," said Ruden. "However, the altered DNA methylation profiles of the grandchildren's blood are apparently normalized during postnatal development. Also, fetal germline exposure to lead apparently has different epigenetic consequences than acute childhood exposure." Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Wayne State University - Office of the Vice President for Research. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: Arko Sen, Nicole Heredia, Marie-Claude Senut, Susan Land, Kurt Hollocher, Xiangyi Lu, Mary O. Dereski, Douglas M. Ruden. Multigenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans: DNA methylation changes associated with maternal exposure to lead can be transmitted to the grandchildren. Scientific Reports, 2015; 5: 14466 DOI: 10.1038/srep14466   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151002191739.htm

Lakeside Villa in Netherlands

 

Posted: 03 Oct 2015 11:00 AM PDT

Villa New Water - a été imaginé par les architectes de Waterstudio, situé dans la zone rurale de Westland aux Pays-Bas. De sa forme unique et longiligne, cette superbe villa fait face à un lac avec de larges baies vitrées offrant un panorama très agréable sur les alentours.

www.fubiz.net

NSF, NIST launch new consortium to support advanced manufacturing

 

Engineering and scientific advances from fundamental research are main drivers of economic growth. October 2, 2015 The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced today the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor will lead a consortium to identify new, emerging areas of advanced manufacturing that would benefit from shared public-private investment in research and development, education, and training. The Alliance for Manufacturing Foresight (MForesight) will provide a channel for rapid input from industrial, academic and other private sectors on future manufacturing technologies. Its work will help align advanced manufacturing research with national priorities and challenges to ensure efficient use of federal and private funding for the greatest possible return on investment. "Engineering and scientific advancements based on fundamental research have been the main drivers of U.S. economic growth over the past half century," said NSF Director France Córdova. "Thanks to innovative technologies enabled by manufacturing research, production has grown at its fastest pace in more than a decade, creating significant economic value for the nation. To continue to reap these benefits, we must seek new research frontiers for manufacturing and pursue them for high impact U.S. manufacturing innovation and economic competitiveness." "This consortium will provide a continuous channel to draw on the perspectives, knowledge and insights of not only industry but also academia," said Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Willie E. May. "Having this access to private-sector viewpoints and studies on urgent questions related to manufacturing technology R&D will help us better coordinate and prioritize research and funding." Recommended by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in its 2014 report, Accelerating U.S. Advanced Manufacturing, the consortium will study needs, challenges, and opportunities facing U.S. manufacturing, producing studies within an anticipated shorter-than-usual turnaround time. NSF and NIST announced a competition for the new consortium in April 2015. Sridhar Kota, Herrick Professor of Engineering, will lead the University of Michigan's work on MForesight, which has already partnered with 30 thought leaders from industry, professional associations and academia. MForesight aspires to create an inclusive advanced manufacturing community with greater communication and collaboration across a broad spectrum of sectors. Federal users of the information will include NSF, NIST, other federal research and development agencies, the interagency Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office and the Advanced Manufacturing Subcommittee of the President's National Science and Technology Council. Agencies will have the opportunity to fund studies where they have particular needs. For further information and to learn how to participate, visit mforesight.org. -NSF- Media Contacts Sarah Bates, NSF, (703) 292-7738, sabates@nsf.gov Jennifer Huergo, NIST, (301) 975-6343, jennifer.huergo@nist.gov Program Contacts Bruce Kramer, NSF, (703) 292-5348, bkramer@nsf.gov Related Websites NSF Advanced manufacturing: Made to order: nsf.gov/madetoorder mforesight.org: MForesight: the Alliance for Manufacturing Foresight National Institute of Standards and Technology: http://www.nist.gov/ The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2015, its budget is $7.3 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 48,000 competitive proposals for funding, and makes about 11,000 new funding awards. NSF also awards about $626 million in professional and service contracts yearly.   http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=136467&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click

Nobel de Medicina afirma que smartphones causam doenças

 

Smartphones: "Já nunca estamos ilocalizáveis,e temos contato minuto a minuto com nosso trabalho", disse o cientista Berlim - O neurologista Thomas Südhof, prêmio Nobel de Medicina, garante que os smartphones geram um estresse contínuo com consequências patológicas como o chamado "burn out", a síndrome de esgotamento. "Não me surpreende que muita gente adoeça de 'burn out' se levarmos em conta como se vive hoje em dia", disse o cientista da Universidade de Stanford em declarações que serão publicadas amanhã pelo dominical "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagzeitung". Os smartphones, segundo ele, tem parte nisso na medida em que levam à conectividade permanente. "Já nunca estamos ilocalizáveis, sempre estamos de guarda e através do e-mail temos contato minuto a minuto com nosso trabalho. A longo prazo isso não pode ser bom", acrescentou. Com frequência isso conduz a um estresse contínuo que gera transformações no cérebro, explicou. Südhof recomenda fazer pausas no uso do smartphone. "Isso é algo que o bom senso diz. Tudo o que nos distrai ajuda, seja esporte, ioga, um bom livro ou música", disse. O campo de investigação de Südhof é a comunicação entre os neurônios e, por exemplo, o que ocorre com eles em um burn out. Südhof recebeu a notícia que tinha recebido o Nobel quando estava a caminho a um congresso, ironicamente através de seu telefone celular. No entanto, o neurologista garantiu que ele mesmo se impõe limites sobre o uso dos aparelhos eletrônicos. "Às oito da noite apago sempre todos os aparelhos eletrônicos e só volto a ligá-los na hora do café da manhã", disse.  http://exame.abril.com.br/tecnologia/noticias/nobel-de-medicina-afirma-que-smartphones-causam-doencas