Artificial Lung Created !

Researchers have created an artificial lung that uses air as a ventilating gas instead of pure oxygen - as is the case with current man-made lungs, which require heavy tanks of oxygen that limit their portability. The prototype device was built following the natural lung's design and tiny dimensions and the researchers say it has reached efficiencies akin to the genuine organ. With a volume roughly the same as a human lung, the device could be implanted into a person and even be driven by the heart.

The artificial lung is filled with breathable silicone rubber versions of the blood vessels that branch down to a diameter less than one-fourth of human hair. It was created by first building a mould with miniature features and then layering on a liquid silicone rubber that solidified into artificial capillaries and alveoli. They air and blood channels were then separated with a gas diffusion membrane.

By making the parts of the artificial lung on the same scale as the natural lung, the researchers say they were able to create a very large surface-area-to-volume ratio and shrink the distances for gas diffusion compared to the current state-of-the-art. In comparison to current artificial lung systems that require pure oxygen due to their inefficient oxygen exchange, tests of the new artificial lung using pig blood showed a three to five times improvement in oxygen exchange efficiency over current devices. It is this efficiency that enables the new artificial lung to use plain air instead of pure oxygen as the ventilating gas.

Blood is injected into the device's fluid inlet, while air is fed into the gas inlet. Oxygen molecules diffuse across the gas exchange membrane into the blood on the way to the blood outlet, while carbon dioxide in the blood fed into the device would diffuse across the membrane to be released through the air outlet.

"Based on current device performance, we estimate that a unit that could be used in humans would be about 6 inches by 6 inches by 4 inches tall, or about the volume of the human lung. In addition, the device could be driven by the heart and would not require a mechanical pump," said Joe Potkay, a research assistant professor in electrical engineering and computer science at Case Western Reserve University.

Potkay says the device is a major step towards an easily portable and implantable artificial lung and the team envisions patients using the technology while allowing their own diseased lungs to heal, or implanting one while awaiting a lung transplant.

Potkay's team, which includes Brian Cmolik, MD, an assistant clinical professor at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, and Michael Magnetta and Abigail Vinson, biomedical engineers and third-year students at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, is now collaborating with researchers from Case Western Reserve's departments of biomedical engineering and chemical engineering to develop a coating to prevent clogging in the narrow artificial capillaries and on construction techniques needed to build a durable artificial lung large enough to test in rodent models of lung disease.

The Case Western Reserve University researchers expect to have human-scale artificial lungs in use in clinical trials within a decade.

Source: Gizmag

First Artificial Neural Network Created from DNA

One of the things that our brains excel at is the ability to recognize what things are, even when presented with an incomplete set of data. If we know only that an animal is sold in pet stores and stuffs food in its cheeks, for instance, we can be pretty certain that the animal in question is a hamster. Now, for the first time ever, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created a DNA-based artificial neural network that can do the same thing ... albeit on a very basic level. They believe that it could have huge implications for the development of true artificial intelligence.

The neural network is made up of just four artificial neurons, as opposed to the human brain's 100 billion real ones.

To test the network, the scientists played a game with it. That game started with the network being trained to "know" four scientists, each one identifiable by a unique combination of yes/no answers to the same four questions (such as "Is the scientist British?"). Human players then chose one of those scientists, and provided the network with an incomplete set of the identifying answers. They did this by dropping DNA strands that were programmed to correspond to those answers, into water in a test tube that contained the neurons.

Communicating through fluorescent signals, the network would then either correctly identify the chosen scientist, it would indicate that it didn't have enough data to identify just one scientist, or it would state that the data didn't match any of the scientists.

This was possible because of the manner in which the added strands of DNA paired with the strands already present in the network. This, in turn, was determined by whether or not the sequences programmed into both strands complimented one another.

It should be noted that the network took eight hours to come up with each of its responses, and that new DNA strands had to be created for each game. Still, theCaltech team state that the technology could ultimately be used for creating biochemical systems with artificial intelligence, which could revolutionize fields such as medicine, chemistry, and biological research.

The research was recently published in the journal Nature.

Source:Gizmag

Synthetic Vocal Cord gel could restore function to damaged vocal chords

Whether caused by intubation during surgery, laryngeal cancer, lesion removal, or simply overuse, vocal cord scarring can limit or even eliminate some peoples' ability to speak. This is because the scar tissue is stiff, and doesn't allow the vocal cords to vibrate adequately. Some doctors have tried to soften the tissue using materials from the fields of plastic surgery and dermatology, but the treatment doesn't work in all cases, and the effects are said not to last very long. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Medical School, however, are developing a new approach - an injectable gel that mimics vocal cord tissue.

Rather than approaching the problem as a physiological one, they looked at the vocal cords as a mechanical issue. That is, they didn’t attack the scar tissue in the vocal cords but devised a fix for it. That fix came in the form of a material known as polyethylene glycol (PEG), which they chose because it is already FDA approved for other medical applications.

Lab tests have also shown that it can restore vibration to stiffened, scarred vocal cords. The MIT/Harvard project is attempting to restore vocal functions despite the presence of scar tissue, while other approaches (such as those involving drug treatments) have focused more on trying to get rid of that tissue.

Their PEG30 gel, should it receive its own FDA approval, would be categorized as an injectable medical device rather than a drug, which could further speed it to market. If approved, it would have to be re-injected every six months or so because it breaks down over time. But it could restore voice to many who have lost their primary means of expression.

The video below shows how the gel performs, as compared to actual vocal cords.

Lab Builds a Fully Functioning Artificial Small Intestine

California researchers have created a tissue-engineered small-scale small intestine in mice, a breakthrough for regenerative medicine and a step toward growing new intestines for humans. The process re-creates all the layers of cells that make up a functioning intestine.

Tissue engineering, which promises to rebuild or replace injured or failing body parts, has seen some major advancements in recent months, with biological scaffolds used to create new bones in rabbits and regrown muscle in humans. But it’s more difficult to make a complete organ, which has several types of cells that must all function properly.

The small intestine is a good subject for this type of study because it’s a particularly regenerative organ, said Dr. Tracy C. Grikscheit, the lead author of a paper on this research.

Grikscheit and colleagues at The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles took samples of mice intestinal tissue, including all the layers of cells — muscle cells and epithelial cells. Then the team transplanted the cells onto a polymer scaffold within the abdomen, a news release explains. Growth factor proteins encouraged the cells to replicate.

New small intestines grew on the scaffold, the researchers say, and they had all the constituents of a normal intestine. The new intestines “contained the most essential components of the originals,” according to the news release.

The research could someday be used to treat various intestinal disorders, including a particular gastrointestinal disease that affects premature babies, according to Children’s Hospital. An engineered replacement organ would conceivably last much longer than a transplant, if one is even available.

A paper on the research is published in the journal Tissue Engineering Part A.

Source: Popsci via Science Daily

Using a Lab-Grown Trachea, Surgeons Conduct the World's First Synthetic Organ Transplant

Left: Two UCL researchers with the synthetic windpipe. Right: The scaffold after it has been filled in with stem cells, just prior to transplant.

Surgeons working at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden have taken a huge step forward for regenerative medicine by successfully executing the world’s first synthetic organ transplant. The donor-less transplant saved the life of a 36-year-old cancer patient, who is doing well now after having received a new windpipe grown from his own stem cells.

This story is about as international as it gets: The Eritrean patient, Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, was pursuing his doctorate in geology in Iceland when his trachea was consumed by an inoperable tumor that grew so bad that it was actually blocking his breathing. So 3-D scans of his windpipe were sent to scientists at University College London, which crafted a glass scaffold that was a perfect match for Beyene’s trachea and two main bronchi.

The scaffold was in turn was sent to Sweden, where it was soaked in stem cells from Beyene’s own bone marrow. The stem cells took hold and within just two days had filled the scaffold, creating a new trachea that is, biologically speaking, Beyene’s own tissue. A 12-hour operation by an Italian surgeon specializing in trachea operations removed Beyene’s windpipe and all signs of the cancer and then replaced it with the new, lab-grown organ.

That was a month ago. Today, Beyene is recovering well. Because the organ was grown from his own cells, there is no risk of his body rejecting it and no need for the harsh regimen of anti-rejection drugs that usually go hand in hand with an organ transplant. Moreover, there was no need to seek out a donor. In Beyene’s case, that was key. The tumor was increasingly blocking his breathing, and without the transplant he would have died. The clock was ticking, as it so often is in transplant situations.

From stem cell solution to transplantable organ in two days? That’s nothing short of amazing. Moreover, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Theoretically, this kind of procedure could be used to regenerate all kinds of different organs for transplant, eliminating the need (and wait) for donor organs and reducing the complications inherent in them.

Source: Popsci via BBC

'Sensing skin' could detect cracks in concrete structures

Concrete may be one of the toughest buildings materials in common use but it does develop cracks over time, and in the case of structures such as buildings or bridges, it is imperative that those cracks are noticed before they lead to a collapse. While visual inspections are useful, they are also time-consuming, and may miss tiny but structurally-significant cracks. Some technologies have been developed to automate the process, such as rust sensors for steel-reinforced concrete. Now, an international team of scientists is proposing a system of flexible crack-detecting skins, that could be applied to the surfaces of concrete surfaces.

The "sensing skin" was developed by civil engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), working with physicists at Germany's University of Potsdam.

Structures such as bridges would simply have pieces of the skin glued onto any areas where cracks were considered likely to occur. The skin would contain patterns of capacitive rectangular patches, arranged in different patterns within the skin, depending on the type of stress that was likely - patches oriented diagonally to one another would work best for detecting cracks caused by shear, whereas horizontally-joined patches would be better for detecting sag in horizontal beams, for instance.

The capacitance of each patch (the amount of energy it was storing) would be altered by any movement underneath it, as would be caused by the formation of cracks. Once a day, a computer that was attached to the skin would send an electrical current through it, measuring the capacitance of each patch. If sharp differences were noted between adjacent patches, the computer would note the exact location, and then notify a human inspector of the discrepancy. This ability to pinpoint the location reportedly sets the system apart from other stress-detecting technologies, that don't provide such specific coordinates.

So far, the largest piece of the skin tested in laboratory conditions has measured 8 by 4 inches (20 by 10 cm). While a stretchy silicon fabric with silver electrodes was used initially, it proved to be too thin and flexible for some applications. It has since been replaced with a thermoplastic elastomer mixed with titanium dioxide, with the capacitive patches made from painted-on black carbon.

Source: Gizmag

PossessedHand controls hand movement with electrical stimulation

It's often during those early stages of learning to play a new instrument that many people give up in despair. Even though you swear that you're hitting the right notes, everything still sounds like an old gramophone recording played at the wrong speed. If only you could let someone take control of your hands to fast forward through the arduous repetition phase before muscle memory kicks in and the piece you're trying to play begins to sound more like it should. That's precisely the kind of potential offered by the PossessedHand project. Electrode-packing armbands placed on a user's forearm send electrical pulses through the muscles to take control of the movement of the hand - with fledgling Koto players testing the system having demonstrated greater accuracy and speedier progress.

The goal of the PossessedHand project was to develop a support system for playing musical instruments where users could quickly learn the gestures, positioning and timing needed for a piece of music without having to wear glove-type devices that digitally control the movement of their fingers. By positioning two belts on the forearm of a user - each containing a number of non-invasive electrode pads - researchers were able to effectively take control of five independent and 11 linked joints in the hand to electrically control the movement of individual fingers of the wearer's hand.

Many of the muscles used to move fingers - like the superficial flexor muscle, deep flexor muscle, long flexor muscle of the thumb, common digital extensor muscle, flexor carpi radialis muscle, long palmar muscle, and flexor carpi ulnaris muscle - are located in the forearm. Movement of the joints can be controlled by stimulating these muscles with electrical pulses. The researchers also discovered that muscles at different depths in the forearm respond to different strengths of voltage, resulting in the system being able to take over control of a total of 16 joints in the user's hand.

The PossessedHand prototype consists of a battery, a condenser, a timing volume, a switching board (Photo-MOS Relays Series AQV221), a microcontroller, and solid gel electrode pads on two belts. One armband is positioned on the upper part of the forearm and the other lower down and then connected to PC via USB and controlled by a specially-developed graphical user interface. The pulse width is 0.2 ms and the voltage range is 17 - 29 V.

To overcome difficulties in precise positioning of the electrodes over specific muscles in different users, the researchers crammed 14 electrodes into each of the two armbands and then developed an automated calibration system. The system estimates the relationship between the 28 electrodes, the level of stimulation and the amount of muscle movement required.

Volunteers were blindfolded and asked to identify which joints were being moved by the system and reactions to PossessedHand ranged from Scary, just scary to I felt like my forearm was pushed by someone to I felt like my body was hacked.

The team then transcribed Japanese Koto scores into PossessedHand scores, which included information on which finger should be moved and when. Two beginners then alternated between system supported and non-supported playing of the music, with arm positioning over the 13-stringed instrument being undertaken by the user in both cases. The team noted a significant reduction in timing errors and fewer fingering mistakes when PossessedHand was active.

It's also important when playing a musical instrument to apply the correct amount of force at the appropriate time. Sadly, the PossessedHand experiments could not electrically stimulate enough force to actually grasp an object or play an instrument. As such, this would seem to fit in with learning systems like Piano Hands and Piano Maestro.

Such technology might also find application in the treatment of folks who suffer from impaired muscle control or be used by professionals looking to quickly improve dexterity, such as surgeons.

The paper entitled PossessedHand: Techniques for controlling human hands using electrical muscles stimuli by Emi Tamaki, Takashi Miyaki, and Jun Rekimoto was presented at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Vancouver, Canada in May 2011.

The PossessedHand system was recently demonstrated at the World Haptics Conference in Istanbul, Turkey.

Source: Gizmag

DNA-Based Computing Could Replace Silicon !

 

DNA is the future of computing,” Jian-Jun Shu tells PhysOrg. And why not? Silicon is slow by comparison, computes in a binary system, creates waste heat, and is not particularly easy on the environment. DNA-based computing can perform better than silicon in several respects, Shu says, and he and a few of his students at Nanyang Technical University in Singapore have set out to prove it.

The general idea: the human body performs computations all of the time, and does so far faster than even the fastest silicon-based supercomputer. Moreover, it does so in a parallel fashion, working with more breadth, speed, and agility than the ones and zeros of silicon computation. For massive parallel problems, artificial intelligence problems, and combinatorial problems, DNA-based computing could be far more efficient.

How does it work? Shu and company are just starting to scratch the surface of what DNA computing could do, he admits, but in the lab he and his students have manipulated strands of DNA to do all kinds of things. They have fused strands together, broken them apart, snipped them, and otherwise affected them to a certain goal or end like storing information in DNA molecules that can be later retrieved for computational purposes.

The operations right now are simple: addition or subtraction mainly, nothing as complex as what silicon computers can do on their worst days. The potential for that equation to be flipped is there, but first there are several obstacles that need to be overcome. For one, there is no real interface for DNA-based computing through which humans can interact with and display data. There also exists no equivalent to the CPU--something that can facilitate these complex operations without human interference.

But that will change, Shu says, with increases in technology and more time in the lab. Just don’t expect to be computing with nucleotides anytime in the near term.

Source: PopSci Via PhysOrg

Revolutionary 'blood' HBOC-201 saves Tamara Coakley

A REVOLUTIONARY synthetic blood - straight out of science fiction - has saved the life of a Victorian woman.

Doctors at The Alfred brought Tamara Coakley, 33, back from the brink of death after a horrific car crash left her with severe blood loss and dangerously close to heart failure.

This was the first reported case of the synthetic blood reversing cardiac hypoxia and anaemia in a trauma patient.

A last-ditch effort to save Mrs Coakley's life led to 10 units of the haemoglobin-based oxygen carrier, called HBOC-201 to be flown in from the US.

It contains a molecule derived from cow's blood and restored the level of haemoglobin in her blood, which carries oxygen to the tissues.

Trauma service director Dr Mark Fitzgerald said it marked an important step in developing a viable blood alternative to address world blood supply shortages.

Unlike donor blood it does not require matching and can be stored without refrigeration for up to three years- making it suitable for use in a rural settings or on the battlefield.

"It's a bit of science fiction," Dr Fitzgerald said.

"Currently only one in 30 people give blood, but one in three will need it.

"What we would eventually like to see is synthetic blood products to be available in remote areas of Australia and in the Defence Forces when people don't have any other option."

As a Jehovah's Witness, Mrs Coakley was unable to have whole blood transfusions, but was permitted to accept blood substitutes.

Dr Fitzgerald was familiar with the product, which is being developed by the US Navy, because he gave independent advice on a proposed research project five years ago.

Working through the night he negotiated with the drug's manufacturer, OPK Biotech, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service and airline carriers.

The Alfred's ethics committee approved the import, permission was granted under the TGA's special access scheme and the manufacturer picked up the tab.

Within 48 hours, the blood product had arrived in Melbourne and five units (2350ml) were painstakingly administered over two days.

Despite a few close calls, including high temperatures and pneumonia, Mrs Coakley's haemoglobin levels more than doubled.

HBOC-201 is one of several blood substitutes being developed around the world.

University of Melbourne Paediatrics Department head Prof Paul Monagle said synthetic blood could relieve donor supply issues and give people in remote areas access to life-saving treatment.

"The other issue is storage," he said.

"If you could make a synthetic blood with a long shelf life and it was portable you could carry it with you."

But any synthetic blood product would have to be rigorously tested before it moved from working prototype to routine practice.

Mrs Coakley, who was in an induced coma during the medical procedure, knows how close she came to death in the October crash.

She was overwhelmed by the lengths to which Dr Fitzgerald went to save her life and respect her personal choices.

"In a hospital setting you wouldn't get a person in this situation where they are forced to try something new," Mrs Coakley said.

"I'm glad something positive could come out of it. They did everything they could. I am so grateful for that."

Source: HeraldSun

Synthetic Brain Synapse Is Constructed

Synthetic Synapse

Building a synthetic brain is no easy undertaking, but researchers working on the problem have to start somewhere. In doing so, engineers at the University of Southern California have taken a huge step by building a synthetic synapse from carbon nanotubes.

In tests, their synapse circuit functions very much like a real neuron--neurons being the very building blocks of the brain. Tapping the unique properties of carbon nanotubes, their lab was able to essentially recreate brain function in a very fractional way.

Of course, duplicating synapse firings in a nanotube circuit and creating synthetic brain function are two very different things. The human brain, as we well know, is very complex and hardly static like the inner workings of a computer. Over time it makes new connections, adapts to changes, and produces new neurons.

But while a functioning synthetic brain may be decades away, the synthetic synapse is here now, which could help researchers model neuron communications and otherwise begin building, from the ground up, an artificial mimic of one of biology’s biggest mysteries.

Source: Popsci

New technique for regenerating blood vessels to aid treatment of vascular disease

A new technique for regenerating blood vessels has implications for victims of coronary artery disease

Researchers at the University of Western Ontario have discovered a new strategy for helping the body make blood vessels in vulnerable or damaged tissue. The approach, which has implications for the treatment of victims of coronary artery disease, involves the use of a protein named fibroblast growth factor 9 (FGF9) to assist the "supporting" cells of new blood vessels as they are formed by the body.

Existing biological strategies of 'therapeutic angiogenesis' that aim to promote the regeneration of the patients own blood vessels have focused on the endothelial or lining cells of the artery wall.

"Unfortunately and despite considerable investigation, therapeutic angiogenesis has not as yet been found to be beneficial to patients with coronary artery disease," says Cardiologist Dr. Geoffrey Pickering, who developed the strategy in collaboration with Mathew Frontini at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. "It appears that new blood vessels that form using approaches to date do not last long, and may not have the ability to control the flow of blood into the areas starved of oxygen."

The key innovation of the strategy of Pickering's research group is to pay more attention to the "supporting" cells of the vessel wall. FGF9 has the effect of stimulating the supporting cells in wrapping around the fragile walls of the vessels. The team found that by activating the supporting cells in mice, new vessels did not 'shrivel' and disappear but instead lasted over a year. Another advantage of the new strategy is that the redeveloped vessels were found to be surrounded by smooth muscle cells which enabled them to constrict and relax, ensuring the correct amount of blood and with it, oxygen, get to the tissues which require it so urgently.

With heart attacks and strokes being a leading cause of death, the implications of this research are far reaching.

Source: Gizmag

New Muscle Programming Method Uses DNA To Turn Blood Into Beating Heart Cells

Cardiomyocytes in the Sinoatrial Node This image shows a section of the sinoatrial node, a pacemaking area of the right atrium of the heart. The series of squiggly lines at bottom left, near the bulge, is a section of cardiomyocytes, which make the heart beat. Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions have figured out a new way to morph blood cells into this type of heart cell.Wikimedia Commons

A new DNA-based cell-transformation method could be a simpler, safer way to convert cells into beating heart cells, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. It involves no viruses and is a foolproof method to create cardiac cells that beat, they say.


Cardiac muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes, are what makes the heart beat. Scientists have been making cardiomyocytes from other cells for some time, usually by making induced pluripotent stem cells from some other cell, like skin cells or blood cells. The cells are reprogrammed into iPS cells by injecting virus particles that have been manipulated to carry genetic information.

But the viruses can cause mutations scientists don’t want, and in some cases, they cause cancer. It would be better to create new cells without involving viruses at all, but some scientists didn’t think this would be possible with heart muscle cells.

Cardiomyocytes are tricky to make in the lab, developing into clumps of regular, non-beating cells if they are not developed properly. Although plenty of labs have made them, there are no standardized recipes for the nutrient and growth factor broths that help them grow into properly beating cells.

Hopkins researchers went ahead and figured that out. Johns Hopkins postdoctoral scientist Paul Burridge pored through dozens of scientific papers and worked for nearly two years to develop a foolproof heart cell recipe. It worked for 11 different stem cell lines, including embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells.

“We took the recipe for this process from a complex minestrone to a simple miso soup,” said Elias Zambidis, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and the Kimmel Cancer Center.

To make the virus-free mutations, scientists used plasmids, which are ring-shaped molecules of double-stranded DNA that are separate from the DNA that’s found in chromosomes. They usually occur in bacteria, and can replicate inside cells but eventually degrade.

The team worked with stem cells from umbilical cord blood and gave them a slight shock, opening a gateway for a plasmid to insert seven genes into the cells. The plasmids caused the cells to turn into iPS cells. Then, Burridge fed them his specialized, simplified broth, designed to make them into heart cells. The researchers lowered oxygen levels to simulate the hypoxic environment these cells would experience when they grow inside an embryo. Nine days later, the nonviral iPS cells became functioning cardiac cells, according to Hopkins.

Such virus-free cells could eventually be used to test new cardiac drugs, or for stem cell-derived implants to help patients whose cardiomyocytes die in a heart attack, according to Hopkins.

Watch the cells pulse in the video below.

Source: Popsci

Mosquito inspires near-painless hypodermic needle

Mosquitoes are perhaps useful for something after all, besides feeding frogs. Along with his colleagues at Osaka's Kansai University, mechanical engineer Seiji Aoyagi has created an almost pain-free hypodermic needle that is based on a mosquito's proboscis. Perhaps surprisingly, the needle's patient-friendliness comes from the fact that its outer surface is jagged, not smooth.


While mosquito bites definitely do itch, the itching only occurs after the feeding is complete, due to bacteria in the anticoagulant injected by the insects. The initial "bite" itself can barely be felt. How is this possible?

A mosquito's proboscis includes an internal tubular labrum (that does the bloodsucking), which is sheathed between two serrated maxillae – one on either side. The maxillae are what first penetrate the skin and then sink into it, after which the labrum slides down between them. Because the maxillae have a jagged outer surface, they present a minimum amount of surface area to nerves in the skin. A smooth steel hypodermic needle, by contrast, makes contact with a maximum number of nerves, and is therefore uncomfortable.

Professor Aoyagi's needle, etched from silicon, mimics the labrum and maxillae. Two harpoon-like jagged-edged outer shanks first penetrate the skin, after which a smooth drug-delivering/blood-taking tube moves down between them, only touching the patient at its sharpened tip. Mosquitos vibrate their proboscis to help the maxillae ease down through the tissue, which Aoyagi has also copied – each of the three parts of his device are vibrated by tiny piezoelectric crystal motors at around 15 hertz.

The needle in its present form is tiny, at just one millimeter in length, 0.1 millimeters in diameter, and with walls a mere 1.6 micrometers thick. It is attached to a five-millimeter-wide tank, designed for storing fluids that the needle collects. To test the needle, Aoyagi's Kansai team used it to puncture silicone rubber with a skin-like resistance, underneath which was a container of red dye. The needle successfully drew the dye into its tank.

When tested on humans, the test subjects stated that it was much less painful than a traditional hypodermic, but that what discomfort there was lasted longer. Aoyagi believes that by copying more of the mosquito's seven mouthparts, including a system to steady the needle as it enters the skin, that discomfort could be further reduced in future versions.

He hopes that the needle could eventually be used to draw samples in labs, or that it could lead to the development of small wireless monitoring devices, which would be permanently attached to the bodies of people such as diabetics.

Source: Gizmag Via New Scientist

World's First 'Artificial Leaf' Created By MIT Labs

A practical artificial leaf that can turn sunlight and water into energy as efficiently as the real thing has long been a Holy Grail of chemistry, and researchers at MIT may have finally done it. Today at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society researchers from MIT’s Nocera Lab, led by Dr. Daniel Nocera, claimed that they’ve created an artificial leaf made from stable and--more importantly--inexpensive materials.

The artificial leaf looks nothing like the natural leaf that it mimics, but its inputs and outputs are the same. Made of silicon, electronics, and various catalysts that spur chemical reactions within the device, the artificial leaf uses sunlight to break water into hydrogen and oxygen which can then be used to create electricity in a separate fuel cell. Placed in a gallon of water and left in the sun, these artificial leaves could provide a home in the developing world with basic electricity for a day, Nocera said.

The Nocera Lab’s artificial leaf, it should be noted, isn’t the first working attempt at recreating photosynthesis in artificial materials. But previous attempts have led to artificial leaves full of unstable materials that are expensive and lead to short life spans. Nocera and his team identified a set of inexpensive, common catalysts including nickel and cobalt that get the job done with far less expense. And in the lab their playing-card-sized leaves have worked continuously for 45 straight hours without a drop in output.

Nocera and company will next try to boost both efficiency and lifespan of their photosynthetic material. It’s still a workbench technology at this point, but the leap forward presented here is significant. Scaled and mass produced, something like the Nocera Lab’s leaf could be the key component to shifting toward a hydrogen-based economy. In the nearer term, such technology could at the very least power parts of the globe that are currently off the grid with clean, plentiful, and easy-to-come-by energy.

Source: Popsci via Eurekalert

SmartBird flying robotic seagull created by Festo.

Festo has added to its robotic menagerie with the creation of a robotic seagull that weighs just 450 g (15.87 oz) and boasts a wingspan of 1.96 m (6.4 ft). Dubbed the SmartBird, the ultralight flying robot was inspired by the herring gull and can take off, fly and land autonomously, without the help of any additional drive systems.

In creating the SmartBird, Festo says it has succeeded in deciphering the flight of birds. The robot's wings not only beat up and down, with a lever mechanism increasing the degree of deflection to increase from the torso to the wing tip, but also twist at specific angles along their length in the same way that a real bird's do so that the leading edge is directed upwards during the upward stroke.

Directional control is achieved through the opposing movement of the robot's head and torso sections, which is synchronized by means of two electric motors and cables. This enables it to bend aerodynamically, with simultaneous weight displacement, and is responsible for the SmartBird's agility and maneuverability.

As with a real bird, the SmartBird's tail isn't just for show either. It produces lift and functions as both a pitch elevator and yaw rudder. In addition to stabilizing the robot in a similar way to an aircraft's conventional vertical stabilizer, the tail also tilts to initiate left and right turns and rotates about the longitudinal axis to produce yaw.

Packed inside the SmartBird's torso are the battery, engine and transmission, the crank transmission and control and regulation electronics. Wing position and torsion can be monitored via two-way ZigBee protocol radio communication and can be adjusted and optimized in real time during flight.

Festo says developing the SmartBird has provided insights that will help it in a variety of areas. The robot's minimal use of materials and lightweight construction will help increase efficiencies in resource and energy consumption, while the functional integration of its coupled drive units have provided ideas the company says it can transfer to the development of hybrid drive technology. Additionally, analysis of its flow characteristics during development has provided insights into ways to optimize future designs. Another plus is that it won't try and steal your chips at the beach.

Source: Gizmag Via IEEE Spectrum