Musicians’ brains sync up during duets

Music not only brings people closer, it may also sync their brains! The brain waves of two musicians synchronise when they are performing duet even when playing different voices, a new study has found.

   A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin used electrodes to record the brain waves of 16 pairs of guitarists while they played a sequence from “Sonata in G Major” by Christian Gottlieb Scheidler.
   In 60 trials each, the pairs of musicians showed coordinated brain oscillations – or matching rhythms of neural activity – in regions of the brain associated with social cognition and music production, researchers said.
   “When people coordinate their own actions, small networks between brain regions are formed,” study researcher Johanna Sanger said.
   “But we also observed similar network properties between the brains of the individual players, especially when mutual coordination is very important; for example at the joint onset of a piece of music,” she said.
   The team believes people’s brain waves might also synchronise during other types of actions, such as during sports games. The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Bodies, not the faces, reveal how people feel

It is a person’s body that gives away what they are thinking, not their expression, a new research has suggested. According to the study, men and women who were given photos of individuals and asked to judge the emotion shown did badly when just given head and shoulders shots, but they did much better with images of the whole person, the Daily Mail reported.
   First the researchers showed volunteers pictures of tennis players including Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal as they experienced the highs and lows of winning and losing points at Wimbledon.
Given the faces alone, they couldn’t tell the winners from the losers.
   But with a face and body, or just the body, they could easily tell who was victorious. The key seemed to be in the players’ hands, with a clenched fist denoting a win and splayed fingers a loss.
   Again the volunteers were shown pictures of people experiencing a range of emotions, from the joy of seeing one’s house after a lavish makeover, to the grief of attending a funeral.
   Here also they were poor judges when simply shown the faces. In fact, they often rated the happy expressions more negatively than the sad ones.
   To further prove that it is the body and not the face that is key in expression emotion, the researchers created fake photos in which a happy face was planted on a sad body and vice versa. Again, it was the body that was the giveaway.

Aakash 2 gets unveiled at the United Nations

UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon has lauded India as a “super-power” in the field of information technology as he unveiled the country’s first indigenously created low-cost Aakash 2 tablet here. The tablet was showcased at the UN headquarters yesterday on the occasion of the India’s current Presidency of the UN Security Council.
   CEO of Datawind, maker of the Aakash tablet, Suneet Singh Tuli, presented the device to the UN chief who voiced appreciation for the tablet for being “small and handy.”
   “India is a critical player on security issues, but you are also a leader on development and technology. Indeed, India is a super-power on the information superhighway. There is a reason places like Hyderabad are called ‘Cyberabad’,” Ban said in his remarks.
   The UN chief said he is aware that ‘Aakash’ means ‘sky’ in Hindi and called on nations to work with the UN to help young people “reach for the sky and meet their dreams.”
   He said technology is not an end in itself but is the key to empower people to make the most of their own potential.
   “Information and communications technologies are engines of economic growth and development and can help transform people’s lives. They are great enablers, helping people communicate across distances, facilitating trade and commerce and providing better access to health care and education,” he said.
   Ban said technology is being used in innumerable ways around the world to improve the lives of people but the challenge is to leverage the power of technology and bridge the digital divide.

Prosthesis fuses man with machine

A new technique allows implanting thought-controlled robotic arms directly to the bones and nerves of amputees. The first volunteers will get their new limbs by 2013

The world’s first implantable robotic arm controlled by thoughts is being developed by Chalmers University researcher Max Ortiz Catalan. The first operations on patients will take place this year.   
  “Our technology helps amputees to control an artificial limb, in much the same way as their own biological hand or arm, via the person’s own nerves and remaining muscles. This is a huge benefit for both the individual and to society”, says Max Ortiz Catalan, industrial doctoral student at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

  Ever since the 1960s, amputees have been able to use prostheses controlled by electrical impulses in the muscles. Unfortunately, however, the technology for controlling these prostheses has not evolved to any great extent since then. For example, very advanced electric hand prostheses are available, but their functionality is limited because they are difficult to control.
  “All movements must by pre-programmed”, says Max Ortiz Catalan. “It’s like having a Ferrari without a steering wheel. Therefore, we have developed a new bidirectional interface with the human body, together with a natural and intuitive control system.”
  Today’s standard socket prostheses, which are attached to the body using a socket tightly fitted on the amputated stump, are so uncomfortable and limiting that only 50 per cent of arm amputees are willing to use one at all.
  This research project is using the world-famous Brånemark titanium implant instead (OPRA Implant System), which anchors the prosthesis directly to the skeleton through what is known as osseointegration.
  “Osseointegration is vital to our success. We are now using the technology to gain permanent access to the electrodes that we will attach directly to nerves and muscles”, says Max Ortiz Catalan.

Controlling by thought
Currently, in order to pick up the electrical signals to control the prosthesis, electrodes are placed over the skin. The problem is that the signals change when the skin moves, since the electrodes are moved to a different position. Additionally, the signals are also affected when we sweat, since the resistance on the interface changes.
   In this project, the researchers are planning to implant the electrodes directly on the nerves and remaining muscles instead. Since the electrodes are closer to the source and the body acts as protection, the bio-electric signals become much more stable. Osseointegration is used to enable the signals inside the body to reach the prostheses. prosthesprosthesis. The electrical impulses from the nerves in the arm stump are captured by a neural interface, which sends them to the prostheses through the titanium implant. These are then decoded by sophisticated algorithms that allow the patient to control the prosthesis using his or her own thoughts.
    “Many of the patients that we work with have been amputees for more than 10 years, and have almost never thought about moving their missing hand during this time”, says Max Ortiz Catalan.    
    “When they arrived here, they got to test our virtual-reality environment or our more advanced prostheses in order to evaluate the decoding algorithms. We placed electrodes on their amputation stumps, and after a few minutes, they were able to control the artificial limbs in ways that they didn’t know they could, most of the times. This made the patients very excited and enthusiastic.”
     If the first operations this winter are successful, we will be the first research group in the world to make ‘thought-controlled prostheses’ a reality for patients to use in their daily activities, and not only inside research labs.

Canine virus may lead to new HIV vaccines

Researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that a virus commonly found in dogs may serve as the foundation for the next great breakthrough in human vaccine development.

   Although harmless in humans, parainfluenza virus 5, or PIV5, is thought to contribute to upper respiratory infections in dogs. In a paper published in PLOS ONE, researchers describe how this virus could be used in humans to protect against diseases that have eluded vaccine efforts for decades.
   “We can use this virus as a vector for all kinds of pathogens that are difficult to vaccinate against,” said Biao He, the principal investigator. “We have developed a H5N1 flu vaccine with this technique, but we are also working on vaccines for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.”
   PIV5 does not cause disease in humans, as our immune system is able to recognise and destroy it. By placing antigens from other viruses or parasites inside PIV5, it effectively becomes a delivery vehicle that exposes the immune system to pathogens and allows it to create the antibodies that will protect against future infection.
   This approach not only ensures full exposure to the vaccine but also is much safer because it does not require the use of pathogens. For example, an HIV vaccine would contain only those parts of the virus necessary to create immunity, making it impossible to contract the disease from the vaccine.

More Vitamin D lowers rates of tooth decay

A new review of existing studies points toward a potential role for vitamin D in helping to prevent dental caries, or tooth decay.

  The review, published in the December issue of Nutrition Reviews, encompassed 24 controlled clinical trials, spanning the 1920s to the 1980s, on approximately 3,000 children in several countries. These trials showed that vitamin D was associated with an approximately 50 per cent reduction in the incidence of tooth decay.
  “My main goal was to summarise the clinical trial database so that we could take a fresh look at this vitamin D question,” said Philippe Hujoel of the University of Washington, who conducted the review.
  His research has also covered sugar substitutes, the use of antibiotics in the treatment of periodontal disease, and cleft lip and cleft palate. He has also studied the link between dental disease and systemic disease, as well as trends in disease prevalence. The trials he reviewed increased vitamin D levels in children through the use of supplemental UV radiation or by supplementing the children's diet with codliver oil or other products containing the vitamin.     
  “Whether this is more than just a coincidence is open to debate,” Hujoel said. “In the meantime, pregnant women or young mothers can do little harm by realising that vitamin D is essential to their offspring's health. Vitamin D does lead to teeth and bones that are better mineralised.”

Bot runs on heart cells, fights toxins

Bio-compatible 3D printed robots made from rat heart cells and hydrogel may one day roam inside the human body aiding medical diagnosis and even neutralising toxins on demand

Designing non-electronic biological machines has been a riddle that scientists at the interface of biology and engineering have struggled to solve. The walking bio-bots demonstrate the Illinois team’s ability to forward-engineer functional machines using only hydrogel, heart cells and a 3D printer.

   With an altered design, the bio-bots could be customised for specific applications in medicine, energy or the environment. The research team, led by University of Illinois professor Rashid Bashir, published its results in the journal Scientific Reports.
   “The idea is that, by being able to design with biological structures, we can harness the power of cells and nature to address challenges facing society,” said Bashir. “As engineers, we’ve always built things with hard materials, materials that are very predictable. Yet there are a lot of applications where nature solves a problem in such an elegant way. Can we replicate some of that if we can understand how to put things together with cells?”
   The key to the bio-bots’ locomotion is asymmetry. Resembling a tiny springboard, each bot has one long, thin leg resting on a stout supporting leg. The thin leg is covered with rat cardiac cells. When the heart cells beat, the long leg pulses, propelling the bio-bot forward.
   The team uses a 3D printing method common in rapid prototyping to make the main body of the bot from hydrogel, a soft gelatin-like polymer. This approach allowed the researchers to explore various conformations and adjust their design for maximum speed. The ease of quickly altering design also will allow them to build and test other configurations with an eye toward potential applications.
   For example, Bashir envisions the bio-bots being used for drug screening or chemical analysis, since the bots’ motion can indicate how the cells are responding to the environment. By integrating cells that respond to certain stimuli, such as chemical gradients, the bio-bots could be used as sensors.
   “Our goal is to see if we can get this thing to move toward chemical gradients, so we could eventually design something that can look for a specific toxin and neutralise it,” said Bashir. “Now you can think about a sensor that’s moving and constantly sampling and doing something useful, in medicine and the environment. The applications could be many, depending on what cell types we use and where we want to go with it.”
   Next, the team will work to enhance control and function, such as integrating neurons to direct motion or cells that respond to light. They are also working on creating robots of different shapes, different numbers of legs, and robots that could climb slopes or steps.
   “The idea here is that you can do it by forward-engineering,” said Bashir. “We have the design rules to make these millimeter-scale shapes and different physical architectures, which hasn’t been done with this level of control. We want to add more functionality to it.”
    “I think we are just beginning to scratch the surface in this regard,” said graduate student Vincent Chan, first author of the paper. “That is what’s so exciting about this technology – to be able to exploit some of nature’s unique capabilities and utilise it for other beneficial purposes or functions.”

Minority Report becomes reality with Mind’s Eye

An artificial intelligence system that connects to surveillance cameras to predict when people are about to commit a crime is under development, funded by the US military.

    The software, dubbed Mind's Eye, recognises human activities seen on CCTV and uses algorithms to predict what the targets might do next - then notify the authorities.
    The technology has echoes of the Hollywood film Minority Report, where people are punished for crimes they are predicted to commit, rather than after committing a crime.
    Scientists from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have presented a paper demonstrating how such so-called 'activity forecasting' would work.
    Their study, funded by the US Army Research Laboratory, focuses on the 'automatic detection of anomalous and threatening behaviour' by simulating the ways humans filter and generalise information from the senses.
    The system works using a high-level artificial intelligence infrastructure the researchers call a 'cognitive engine' that can learn to link relevant signals with background knowledge and tie it together.
    The signals the AI can recognise - characterised by verbs including ‘walk’, ‘run’, ‘carry’, ‘pick-up’, ‘haul’, ‘follow’, and ‘chase’, among others - cover basic action types which are then set in context to see whether they constitute suspicious behaviour. The device is expected to be used at airports, bus and train stations, as well as in military contexts where differentiating between suspicious and non-suspicious behaviour is important, like when trying to differentiate between civilians and militants in places like Afghanistan.

Mars colony of 80,000 in 20 yrs: SpaceX CEO

Elon Musk reveals ambitious plan to set up base on Red Planet by ferrying explorers for $500K a head

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip. 

    In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who would journey to the Red Planet aboard a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane.

    Accompanying the founders of the new Mars colony would be large amounts of equipment, including machines to produce fertilizer, methane and oxygen from Mars’ atmospheric nitrogen and carbon dioxide and the planet's subsurface water ice.

    The Red Planet pioneers would also take construction materials to build transparent domes, which when pressurized with Mars’ atmospheric CO2 could grow Earth crops in Martian soil. As the Mars colony became more self sufficient, the big rocket would start to transport more people and fewer supplies and equipment.

    Musk’s $500,000 ticket price for a Mars trip was derived from what he thinks is affordable.

    "The ticket price needs to be low enough that most people in advanced countries, in their mid-forties or something like that, could put together enough money to make the trip," he said, comparing the purchase to buying a house in California. He also estimated that of the eight billion humans that will be living on Earth by the time the colony is possible, perhaps one in 100,000 would be prepared to go. That equates to potentially 80,000 migrants.
    Musk figures the colony program — which he wants to be a collaboration between government and private enterprise — would end up costing about $36 billion. He arrived at that number by estimating that a colony that costs 0.25 percent or 0.5 percent of a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) would be considered acceptable.
    The United States' GDP in 2010 was $14.5 trillion; 0.25 percent of $14.5 trillion is $36 billion. If all 80,000 colonists paid $500,000 per seat for their Mars trip, $40 billion would be raised.

Spaceship
SpaceX is already testing what Musk calls a next-generation, reusable Falcon 9 rocket that can take off vertically and land vertically. The prototype, called Grasshopper, is a Falcon 9 first stage rocket with landing legs.
    Musk emphasized that only fully reusable rockets and spacecraft would keep the ticket price for Mars migration as low as $500,000. Grasshoper has made two short flights.
    The first was on September 21 and reached a height of 2 meters; the second test, on November 1, was to a height of 5.4 m. A planned milestone for the Grasshopper project is to reach an altitude of 30 m.

Life on Mars

Elon Musk

A world-famous entrepreneur and inventor, Musk is best known for founding SpaceX, co-founding Tesla Motors as well as PayPal. Musk's early work oversaw construction of the first battery electric sports car with Tesla Motors. SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft made history in May when becoming the first commercial vehicle in history to dock at the International Space Station. The 41-year-old has a net worth of 2.4 billion according to Forbes.

Pioneering the red planet
• One-way tickets would cost $500,000
• First batch of pioneers would build sustainable housing of transparent domes pressurized with CO2, which will help Mars soil to grow crops
• Eventually population would reach 80,000 - a number estimated from belief that one out of every 100,000 would desire to go into deep space
• Project estimated to cost $36 billion

How to jump Apple’s automated customer service queue: swear

Ranting and swearing at Apple’s automated call centres can get you fast-tracked to a human operative, an aggrieved Apple customer has discovered.

   Reddit user floppybutton started a forum thread (which, please be warned, contains quite a lot of swearing) explaining that when attempting to order a new MacBook keyboard over the phone, they had “got frustrated and used a few choice words that triggered something in the computer I was talking to”.
   Apparently the call centre program is able to recognise swear words, and interprets this as a warning sign that a customer is unhappy. It then transfers that customer to a human operator who apologises and attempts to ease any anger. “It cut itself off in mid-sentence, apologised, and in about 10 more seconds I was talking to an Apple tech,” wrote floppybutton. Fellow Redditer and former AppleCare employee rob79, however, warned that such policies, while initially satisfying, may ultimately cause more delays.

Wondermind.Tate.Org.UK

Wondermind is about a few things. It’s about the brilliant, amazing and truly mind-boggling stuff that’s going on inside your brain as you grow. It’s about the art of Alice in Wonderland, the exhibition at Tate Liverpool. And it’s about putting together both of those things -- mixing art with science -- in a fun, informative manner

Sweat glands help heal our wounds

Turns out the same glands that make you sweat are responsible for another job vital to your health: they help heal wounds. Human skin is rich with millions of eccrine sweat glands that help your body cool down after a trip to the gym or on awarm day.

   These same glands, new


University of Michigan Health System Research shows, also happen to play a key role in providing cells for recovering skin wounds – such as scrapes, burns and ulcers. The findings appear in the American Journal of Pathology.
   “Skin ulcers – including those caused by diabetes or bed sores – and other non-healing wounds remain atremendous burden on health services and communities around the world,” says lead author Laure Rittié, of the University of Michigan Medical School.
   Now, researchers believe they have discovered one of the body’s secret weapons in healing. “By identifying a key process of wound closure, we can examine drugs with a new target in mind: sweat glands, which are very under-studied,” Rittié says.
   Previous understanding of wound closure was that new skin cells originate from hair follicles and from intact skin at the edge of the wound. The findings demonstrate that cells arise from beneath the wound, and suggest that human eccrine sweat glands also store an important reservoir of adult stem cells that can quickly be recruited to aid wound healing.
   “We have discovered that humans heal their skin in a very unique way, different from other mammals,” Rittié adds. “The regenerative potential of sweat glands has been one of our body’s best-kept secrets.
   Our findings certainly advance our understanding of the normal healing process and will hopefully pave the way for designing better therapies.”

Fungus will make sure the bedbugs don’t bite

And don’t let the bedbugs bite, is no longer a harmless adage. In reality today, these bloodthirsty bugs infest thousands of homes. According to a team of Penn State entomologists, biopesticides – naturally occurring micro-organisms – might provide an answer to this pest problem.

    Bedbugs need blood meals for growth and development throughout their life cycle. Increased travel, widespread insecticide resistance and changes in management practices have caused a resurgence in those insects. Compounding the problem are concerns about the safety of using traditional chemicals in the domestic environment. According to Nina Jenkins, Beauveria bassiana – a natural fungus – could be used to control bedbugs. The study appears in the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology.
    In the study, the researchers used an airbrush sprayer to apply spore formulations to paper and cotton jersey. Then control surfaces, again paper and cotton jersey, were sprayed with blank oil only. The surfaces were allowed to dry at room temperature overnight. Three groups of 10 bedbugs were then exposed to one of the two surfaces for one hour. Afterward, they were placed on clean filter paper in a petri dish and monitored. The researchers found that all of the bedbugs exposed to the biopesticide became infected and died within five days.

Laser turns scotch tape into smart claw

Researchers find another use for the humble but useful and sticky tape, as the base material for a shape-changing four-pronged claw that can capture liquids for scientific testing

Scotch tape, a versatile household staple and a mainstay of holiday gift-wrapping, may have a new scientific application as a shape-changing “smart material.”

   Researchers used a laser to form slender half-centimeter-long fingers out of the tape. When exposed to water, the four wispy fingers morph into a tiny robotic claw that captures water droplets.
    The innovation could be used to collect water samples for environmental testing, said Babak Ziaie, a Purdue University professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering.

    The Scotch tape – made from a celluloseacetate sheet and an adhesive – is uniquely suited for the purpose.
    “It can be micromachined into different shapes and works as an inexpensive smart material that interacts with its environment to perform specific functions,” he said.
     Doctoral student Manuel Ochoa came up with the idea. While using tape to collect pollen, he noticed that it curled when exposed to humidity. The cellulose-acetate absorbs water, but the adhesive film repels water.
     “So, when one side absorbs water it expands, the other side stays the same, causing it to curl,” Ziaie said.
     A laser was used to machine the tape to a tenth of its original thickness, enhancing this curling action. The researchers coated the graspers with magnetic nanoparticles so that they could be collected with a magnet.
    “Say you were sampling for certain bacteria in water,” Ziaie said.
     “You could drop a bunch of these and then come the next day and collect them.” The grippers close underwater within minutes and can sample one-tenth of a milliliter of liquid.
     “Although brittle when dry, the material becomes flexible when immersed in water and is restored to its original shape upon drying, a crucial requirement for an actuator material because you can use it over and over,” Ziaie said.
     “Various microstructures can be carved out of the tape by using laser machining. This fabrication method offers the capabilities of rapid prototyping and batch processing without the need for complex clean-room processes.”

Metal gear rising: Revengeance Preview

Our preview featured some intense action not too dissimilar to the action-filled extravaganzas that were Bayonetta and Vanquish. No surprise since it’s being helmed by the same studio, Platinum Games.

  The demo takes place across the war torn streets of Abkhazia where we ended up slicing and dicing a number of enemy cyborgs and robots before being confronted with a fairly challenging boss fight.
  Pitted against a robotic wolf that doled out tremendous damage, our skills were tested to the hilt and had us on the edge of our seats.
  Nonetheless the entire experience was quite satisfying thanks to the fantastic sense of speed the game exhibited.
  Not only does it look very good but it was super smooth to boot. Pixel perfect production values aside the controls were a cinch to get used to with one button for strong but slow attacks and another for weak but fast attacks allowing for some interesting combos.
  This aside there’s a feature called Blade Mode that lets you pinpoint and slice off specific parts of your enemy all while in slow motion.
  All in all, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is shaping up to be a rather solid game. Look out for it when it hits the shelves in February.

Poetry in murder

While the shooter drones are busy with Call of Duty, anyone else who needs substance, will have to get their hands on Hitman: Absolution

The previous Hitman games have been a cult favourite. The series has grown tremendously with every new title, and with Absolution, it doesn’t stand out like an old fossil among the newer crop of highly refined games. On the contrary, it sets new examples creating exceptional cinematic moments and bring in some real though and tension behind every kill.

   As Hitman, your biggest challenge would be to stay invisible. Sure you can kill people who come in your way, and keep the enemies on high alert at all times, but then you’re missing the point. The game insists that you make your presence as unknown as possible and kill no one but the contract.   

   If you manage to pull that off, which is easier said than done, then you’re rewarded as a Silent Assassin. The key here is patience. All enemies have a pattern that will get them to the ideal location to eliminate, or simply to walk past them unnoticed. You can try pacifying some victims, but any trace left will deduct your points.
  The previous games were known to be punishing, and this one, if you choose so, would be no different. In fact, it scales pretty well according to the selected difficulty setting, which is why you have to option to select one of five. In the easy mode, a lot is forgiven, the enemies will not be as alert to your presence, you will be easily forgiven for your missteps, and the game gives you practically limitless intuition, which gives you the location of all your enemies and their motion patterns, along with other useful data. On Purist, the highest difficulty, you will be left without any videogame- like support system to make things easy for you. You need to be really, really good at the game.

   Be it on console or on PC, Hitman: Absolution is one of the best looking games we’ve seen this year. Besides the astonishingly realistic depiction of Chicago, all the NPCs show their own characteristics, which is a huge task considering that you’ll often be in highly crowded areas. Moreover the great lighting through the game adds to the sense of danger or encapsulates the right mood. Though the PC version will definitely be the best looker, even on the consoles, Absolution is a treat.
   As always, playing Hitman was an absolute joy. It has adapted well to the current trends without diluting the trial-and-error philosophy that the series so rigidly follows. Fans of stealth action have been given a lot of diluted experiences, where quick-time events have watered down real skill. This one does offer you an easy way to play, but it really rewards you for playing right.

Just 10 mins in a car with a smoker can be harmful

Children are very vulnerable to the effects of second hand smoke, because most of this occurs in cars and private homes – locations not covered by outright public bans on smoking, researchers have warned.
   Just 10 minutes spent in the back seat of a car with asmoker in the front, boosts a child’s daily exposure to harmful pollutants by up to 30 per cent, a new study has revealed.
   Pollutant levels exceeded those found in restaurants, bars, and casinos, the study showed.
   The researchers base their findings on 22 assessments of the air quality inside a stationary vehicle after three cigarettes had been smoked over the course of an hour.
   On each occasion, levels of pollutants that are normally emitted by cars as well as by cigarettes, were measured in the back seat of a vehicle at the breathing height of a child – with the front windows completely down, and again with the windows open just 10 cm.
   These pollutants were also measured outside the vehicle and included particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and carbon monoxide, plus nicotine.
   Exposure to PAH, in particular, has been linked to immune system disturbances, wheeze, IQ changes, and allergic sensitisation, the researchers said.
   The pollutant levels inside the car at both window settings were three times as high as those measured outside, the results showed.

How dogs understand the meaning of words

Unlike humans, dogs learn words by linking them to size and textures rather than shapes, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Lincoln.

   When toddlers pick up language, they learn by associating words with the shapes of objects. For example, toddlers who learn what a ‘ball’ is and are then presented other objects with similar shapes, sizes or textures will identify a similarly-shaped object as ‘ball’, rather than one of the same size or texture.
   Dogs have been shown to associate words with objects, such as toys, but their learning process was unstudied. In the new study, researchers presented Gable, a five year old Border Collie, with similar choices to see if this ‘shape bias’ exists in dogs.
   They found that after a brief training period, Gable learned to associate the name of an object with its size, identifying other objects of similar size by the same name.
   After a longer period of exposure to both a name and an object, the dog learned to associate a word to other objects of similar textures, but not shape.
  “The difference in the thought process between dogs and humans may come down to how evolutionary history has shaped our sense of perceiving shapes, sizes and textures,” said Emile van der Zee, who led the research. “Where shape matters for us, size or texture matters more for your dog,” Emile added.

New device lets you reset your body clock

A pair of glasses that emit green light can be used to counter the effects of jet lag to keep shift workers alert by stimulating the part of the brain the regulates our circadian rhythm

A new wearable green light device called Re-Timer, invented by Flinders University sleep researchers can reset the body’s internal clock.

  The portable device, which is worn like a pair of sunglasses and emits a soft green light onto the eyes, will help to counter jet lag, keep shift workers more alert and get teenagers out of bed by advancing or delaying sleeping patterns.

  Psychologist Professor Leon Lack, the device’s chief inventor, said that the light from Re-Timer stimulates the part of the brain responsible for regulating the 24-hour body clock. The device has been designed with the benefit of 25 years of sleep research at Flinders University.
  “Body clocks or circadian rhythms influence the timing of all our sleeping and waking patterns, alertness, performance levels and metabolism,” Professor Lack said.
  “Photoreceptors in our eyes detect sunlight, signal our brain to be awake and alert, and set our rhythms accordingly. These rhythms vary regularly over a 24-hour cycle. However, this process is often impaired by staying indoors, traveling to other times zones, working irregular hours, or a lack of sunlight during winter months.”
  “Our extensive research studies have shown that green light is one of the most effective wavelengths for advancing or delaying the body clock, and to date is the only wearable device using green light,” he added.
  Professor Lack recommended wearing the glasses for three days for 50 minutes each day either after awakening in the morning to advance the body clock, or before bed for those wanting to delay the body clock to wake up later. He said that Re-Timer’s light therapy offers a safer and, in many cases, more effective treatment for mistimed sleep than drug alternatives.

Study if owls’ flight could lead to quieter aircrafts

Owls have the uncanny ability to fly silently, relying on specialised plumage to reduce noise so they can hunt in acoustic stealth. Researchers from the University of Cambridge, are studying the owl’s wing structure to better understand how it mitigates noise so they can apply that data to the design of conventional aircraft.

   “Many owl species have developed specialised plumage to effectively eliminate the aerodynamic noise from their wings, which allows them to hunt and capture their prey using their ears alone,” said Justin Jaworski from the University of Cambridge. “No one knows exactly how owls achieve this acoustic stealth, and the reasons for this feat are largely speculative based on comparisons of owl feathers and physiology to other not-so-quiet birds such as pigeons.”
   All wings, either natural or engineered, create turbulent eddies as they cut through the air. When these eddies hit the trailing edge of the wing, they are amplified and scattered as sound. Aircraft, which have hard trailing edges, are particularly noisy in this regard.
   The researchers attempted to unravel the owl mystery by developing a theoretical basis for the owl’s ability to mitigate sound from the trailing edge of its wing. Earlier owl noise experiments suggest that their wing noise is much less dependent on air speed and that there is a large reduction of high frequency noise across a range where human ears are most sensitive. Using math models, the researchers demonstrated that elastic and porous properties of a trailing edge could be tuned so that aerodynamic noise would depend on the flight speed as if there were no edge at all.

Fukushima gets a clean-up BOT

The new tetrapod robot, which is able to walk on uneven surfaces, avoid obstacles and climb stairs, integrates a camera and dosimeter and will be capable of investigating the condition of tsunami- crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants by remote-controlled operation, according to creator Toshiba.

Electronic nose that apes a dog’s sniffer

A new portable device could accurately smell out vapours from explosives and other substances. It could soon become as commonplace as smoke detectors in public places

Researchers at University of California Santa Barbara, led by professors Carl Meinhart and Martin Moskovits, have designed a detector that uses microfluidic nanotechnology to mimic the biological mechanism behind canine scent receptors. The device is both highly sensitive to trace amounts of certain vapour molecules, and able to tell a specific substance apart from similar molecules.

    “Dogs are still the gold standard for scent detection of explosives. But like a person, a dog can have a good day or a bad day, get tired or distracted,” said Meinhart. “We have developed a device with the same or better sensitivity as a dog’s nose that feeds into a PC to report exactly what it’s detecting.”
    Results published in Analytical Chemistry show that their device can detect airborne molecules of a chemical called 2,4-dinitrotoluene, the primary vapour emanating from TNT-based explosives. The human nose cannot detect such minute amounts of a substance, but “sniffer” dogs can. Their tech is inspired by the biological design and microscale size of the canine olfactory mucus layer, which absorbs and then concentrates airborne molecules.

   Packaged on a fingerprint-sized silicon microchip and fabricated at UCSB’s state-of-the-art cleanroom fa- cility, the underlying tech combines free-surface microfluidics and surfaceenhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to capture and identify molecules.
   A microscale channel of liquid absorbs and concentrates the molecules by up to six orders of magnitude. Once the vapour molecules are absorbed into the microchannel, they interact with nanoparticles that amplify their signature when excited by laser light. A database of spectral signatures identifies what kind of molecule it is. “The device consists of two parts,” explained Moskovits. “There’s a microchannel, which is like a tiny river that we use to trap the molecules and present them to the other part, a mini spectrometer powered by a laser that detects them.
These microchannels are twenty times smaller than the thickness of a human hair.”
   “The technology could be used to detect a very wide variety of molecules,” said Meinhart. “The applications could extend to certain disease diagnosis or narcotics detection.”
  Moskovits added, “The paper we published focused on explosives, but it doesn’t have to be explosives. It could detect molecules from someone’s breath that may indicate disease, for example, or food that has spoiled.”

An avatar that imitates your expressions

A virtual character produces the same facial expressions as its user. It makes a video game, chat, or an animated film both fun and fast. Faceshift launches its software on the market today.

    You move, he moves. You smile, he smiles. You get angry, he gets angry. “He” is the avatar you chose. Faceshift, from Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne’s Computer Graphics and Geometry Laboratory, now offers a software program that could save time for the designers of animation or video games. Thibaut Weise, founder of the startup, smiles and nods. On the screen his avatar, a fantasy creature, directly reproduces his gestures. This system could enhance the future of video games or even make video chats more fun.
   One tool required: a camera that has motion and depth sensors in the style of Microsoft Kinect or Asus Xtion, well known to gamers. During its first use, the software needs only ten minutes to recognise the user’s face.The user reproduces several basic expressions requested by the program: smile, raise eyebrows, etc.
  “The more movement is incorporated into the program’s 50 positions, the more realistic are the results,” explains Thibaut Weise, creator of the startup.
  Then you can get into the skin of your character and animate by moving yourself. “It’s almost like leaving your body to enter that of your avatar,” jokes the young entrepreneur.
  One imagines the purpose is to directly animate the face of one’s avatar in a video game. Already in contact with the major designers of video games, Thibaut Weise believes that the next generation of 3D cameras will enable his company to take off. In the meantime, it provides versions for the general public, integrated into applications such as Skype or online gaming.

‘Magic’ polymer fights infection, filters water

Breakthrough at University of Akron could revolutionise a wide variety of fields

Working in the lab for the last few years, three generations of University of Akron polymer scientists say their mutual and passionate curiosity has led to their discovery of a first-of-its-kind, easily adaptable biocompatible polymer structure able to fight infection, filter water and perform a host of other functions.
   Darrell Reneker, 82, Matthew Becker, 37 and Jukuan Zheng, a 25-year-old student, developed what they call a one-size-fits-all polymer system that can be fabricated and then specialised to perform healing functions ranging from fighting infection to wound healing. The research has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Adapted to the need
The researchers devised a way to attach bioactive molecules to an electrospun polymer fiber mat, without compromising their biological functions. The possibilities for application should pique interest among developers and clinicians, say the scientists. Consider, for instance, Teflon-based vascular grafts used for aneurysm surgery since WWII being replaced by a strong, durable polymer structure with surface proteins that function as healthy blood vessels.
    “We can design a blood vessel that can be put in different places and coated with different materials — specific for the heart, specific for vascular, specific for the brain,” Becker says.
     Through the development, scientists for the first time place small molecules such as peptides, proteins, drugs and carbohydrates, which normally influence how cells behave, and attach therapeutic concentrations of chosen bioactive substances to the surfaces of an implant, after it has been fabricated. The bioactive efficacy and biocompatibility of the base surface then enables it to be implanted into the human body and perform healing functions that can save lives.

Efficient and effective
“There have been many types of polymers used in biomaterials, but the challenge with that has been, every time you make a new product it requires a new process,” Becker explains. “This chemistry will be very useful in that you can manufacture many different implant products that contain the same kind of sites for attachment and put any of a wide variety of bioactive substances on the same kind of attachment site.” An unlimited number of biologic molecule types can be attached to the surface of a fibrous system, from antibiotics to fracturehealing vitamins.
    “Imagine an emergency combat medic carrying around a box of bulky bandages to provide exactly the needed function from a larger number of possible needs,” Reneker says.“This system provides choice without bulk.”
    “This material will make life easier,” he says. “People will just open a package, mix two ingredients and it will be ready to use.”

Even chimps have midlife crises, study finds

Chimpanzees in a midlife crisis? It sounds like a setup for a joke. But there it is, in the title of a report published Monday in a scientific journal: ‘Evidence for a midlife crisis in great apes’. So what do these apes do? Buy red Ferraris? Leave their mates for some cute young bonobos? Uh, no.
   “I believe no ape has ever purchased a sports car,” said Andrew Oswald, an author of the study.

But researchers report that captive chimps and orangutans do show the same low ebb in emotional well-being at midlife that some studies find in people.
   That suggests the human tendency toward midlife discontent may have been passed on through evolution, rather than resulting just from the hassles of modern life, said Oswald, a professor of economics at the University of Warwick in England.
   Several studies have concluded that happiness in human adults tends to follow a certain course between ages 20 and 70: It starts high and declines over the years to reach a low point in the late 40s, then turns around and rises to another peak at 70. On a graph, that's a Ushaped pattern. swald and co-authors assembled data on 508 great apes from zoos and research centers in the US, Australia, Canada, Singapore and Japan. Caretakers and other observers had filled out a four-item questionnaire to assess well-being in the apes. The questions asked such things as the degree to which each animal was in a positive or negative mood, how much pleasure it got from social situations, and how successful it was in achieving goals. The raters were even asked how happy they would be if they were the animal for a week. Sounds wacky? Oswald and his co-authors say research suggests it's a valid approach. And they found that the survey results produced that familiar U-shaped curve, adjusted to an ape's shorter lifespan.

Paralysed dogs cured with nose cell transplants

Scientists have reversed paralysis in dogs after injecting them with cells grown from the lining of their nose, offering new hope for paralysed humans.
Scientists say this would be vital for spinal injury patients in humans who had lost sexual function or bowel and bladder control.

The pets had all suffered spinal injuries which prevented them from using their back legs, the BBC News reported.

Cambridge University researchers are cautiously optimistic the technique could eventually have a role in the treatment of human patients.

Researchers said the study is the first to test the transplant in “real-life” injuries rather than laboratory animals. The dogs had olfactory ensheathing cells from the lining of their nose removed. These were grown and expanded for several weeks in the laboratory.

The dogs that received the transplant showed considerable improvement and were able to walk on a treadmill with the support of a harness. Researchers say the transplanted cells regenerated nerve fibres across the damaged region of the spinal cord.

This enabled the dogs to regain the use of their back legs and coordinate movement with their front limbs. The study was published in the neurology journal Brain.

Fear of the dentist is passed on to children by their parents

Fear of visiting the dentist is a frequent problem in paediatric dentistry. A new study confirms the emotional transmission of dentist fear among family and analyses the different roles that mothers and fathers might play.

Anew study conducted by scientists at the University of Madrid highlights the important role that parents play in the transmission of dentist fear in their family.

America Lara Sacido, one of the authors of the study explains that “along with the presence of emotional transmission of dentist fear amongst family members, we have identified the relevant role that fathers play in transmission of this phobia in comparison to the mother.”

The results are published in the International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry were in line with previous studies which found that fear levels amongst fathers, mothers and children are interlinked.

The authors confirmed that the higher the level of dentist fear or anxiety in one family member, the higher the level in the rest of the family.

The study also reveals that fathers play a key role in the transmission of dentist fear from mothers to their children as they act as a mediating variable “With regard to assistance in the dental clinic, the work with parents is key.

They should appear relaxed as a way of directly ensuring that the child is relaxed too,” notes the author. “Through the positive emotional contagion route in the family, the right attitude can be achieved in the child so that attending the dentist is not a problem,” she concludes.

Bio-ink lets you print living human tissue

Scientists are one step closer to being able to print tissue replacements for diseased or damaged body parts using inkjet printers, thanks to the development of a specialised ink formulation

Researchers have been aware for some time of the potential for using commercially available inkjet printer heads to print living human cells into 3D structures, but design of the actual ink capable of carrying cells through the printer has been a challenge.

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science at University of Wollongong has led a team of scientists including Cameron Ferris, Kerry Gilmore, Stephen Beirne, Donald McCallum, Professor Gordon Wallace and Associate Professor Marc to develop a new bio-ink that improves the viability of living cells and allows better control of cell positioning through the printing process.

“To date, none of the available inks has been optimised in terms of both printability and cell suspending ability,” according to ACES Associate Researcher Cameron Ferris.

“Our new bio-ink is printable and cellfriendly, preventing cell settling and allowing controlled deposition of cells.” The 2D structures being printed with the bio-ink enables exquisite control over cell distribution and this already presents exciting opportunities to improve drug screening and toxicology testing processes.

Building on this, three-dimensional bioprinting, with which patient-specific tissue replacements could be fabricated, is within the grasp of researchers.

“The development of chemistries that enable fabrication protocols not only takes us closer to practical devices but gives us experimental protocols that allows previously unexplored areas of fundamental science to be explored,” ACES Director Professor Gordon Wallace said.

Results of the research have been published in Biomaterials Science and highlighted in Chemistry

The announcement of this breakthrough could not be more timely in light of this weekend’s Stumping Serious Diseases 20-20 cricket double header.

The University of Wollongong is committed to improving the health of all people in the Illawarra and beyond through extensive research into the causes and treatment of serious diseases.

Funds raised by Stumping Serious Diseases 2012 will assist vital health and medical research at UOW, in particular local children’s health.

“These advances in biofabrication provide a platform to address diseases previously thought ‘unstumpable’ – soon we can watch them walk the walk,” Professor Wallace said.