Monthly Archives: April 2014

Replacement cartilage grown on laboratory chip

Most of us don’t think too much about cartilage (soft, flexible connective tissue found in the body) unless it’s damaged in which case it’s importance becomes immediately apparent. There is no substitute for cartilage although scientists are working on that problem and it seems that one team may have made a significant breakthrough according to an April 27, 2014 news item on ScienceDaily,

In a significant step toward reducing the heavy toll of osteoarthritis around the world, scientists have created the first example of living human cartilage grown on a laboratory chip. The researchers ultimately aim to use their innovative 3-D printing approach to create replacement cartilage for patients with osteoarthritis or soldiers with battlefield injuries.

“Osteoarthritis has a severe impact on quality of life, and there is an urgent need to understand the origin of the disease and develop effective treatments” said Rocky Tuan, Ph.D., director of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, member of the American Association of Anatomists and the study’s senior investigator. “We hope that the methods we’re developing will really make a difference, both in the study of the disease and, ultimately, in treatments for people with cartilage degeneration or joint injuries.”

Osteoarthritis is marked by a gradual disintegration of cartilage, a flexible tissue that provides padding where bones come together in a joint. Causing severe pain and loss of mobility in joints such as knees and fingers, osteoarthritis is one of the leading causes of physical disability in the United States. It is estimated that up to 1 in 2 Americans will develop some form of the disease in their lifetime.

Although some treatments can help relieve arthritis symptoms, there is no cure. Many patients with severe arthritis ultimately require a joint replacement.

An April 27,2014 Experimental Biology (EB) 2014 news release provides more insight,

Tuan said artificial cartilage built using a patient’s own stem cells could offer enormous therapeutic potential. “Ideally we would like to be able to regenerate this tissue so people can avoid having to get a joint replacement, which is a pretty drastic procedure and is unfortunately something that some patients have to go through multiple times,” said Tuan.

In addition to offering relief for people with osteoarthritis, Tuan said replacement cartilage could also be a game-changer for people with debilitating joint injuries, such as soldiers with battlefield injuries. “We really want these technologies to help wounded warriors return to service or pursue a meaningful post-combat life,” said Tuan, who co-directs the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a national consortium focused on developing regenerative therapies for injured soldiers. “We are on a mission.”

Creating artificial cartilage requires three main elements: stem cells, biological factors to make the cells grow into cartilage, and a scaffold to give the tissue its shape. Tuan’s 3-D printing approach achieves all three by extruding thin layers of stem cells embedded in a solution that retains its shape and provides growth factors. “We essentially speed up the development process by giving the cells everything they need, while creating a scaffold to give the tissue the exact shape and structure that we want,” said Tuan.

The ultimate vision is to give doctors a tool they can thread through a catheter to print new cartilage right where it’s needed in the patient’s body. Although other researchers have experimented with 3-D printing approaches for cartilage, Tuan’s method represents a significant step forward because it uses visible light, while others have required UV light, which can be harmful to living cells.

In another significant step, Tuan has successfully used the 3-D printing method to produce the first “tissue-on-a-chip” replica of the bone-cartilage interface. Housing 96 blocks of living human tissue 4 millimeters across by 8 millimeters deep, the chip could serve as a test-bed for researchers to learn about how osteoarthritis develops and develop new drugs. “With more testing, I think we’ll be able to use our platform to simulate osteoarthritis, which would be extremely useful since scientists really know very little about how the disease develops,” said Tuan.

As a next step, the team is working to combine their 3-D printing method with a nanofiber spinning technique they developed previously. They hope combining the two methods will provide a more robust scaffold and allow them to create artificial cartilage that even more closely resembles natural cartilage.

Rocky Tuan presented the research during the Experimental Biology 2014 meeting on Sunday, April 27 [2014].

I haven’t been able to find any papers published on this work but you can find Rocky Tuan’s faculty page (along with a list of publications) here and you may have more luck with the EB 2014 conference website than I did.

Physicist-entrepreneurs are different says American Institute of Physics report

An April 24, 2014 news item on Nanowerk features a very interesting American Institute of Physics (AIP) report on physicists and entrepreneurship,

For much of the 20th century, many of the technological innovations that drove U.S. economic growth emerged from “idea factories” housed within large companies — research units like Bell Labs or Xerox PARC that developed everything from the transistor to the computer mouse.

In recent decades, however, many large high-tech companies have eliminated in-house research programs, turning instead to startup companies as their primary source of breakthrough innovations.

“Small startups have replaced corporate research centers as the drivers of American innovation,” said Orville Butler, a former historian at the American Institute of Physics (AIP) and coauthor of a new AIP report on physics startups.

An April 23, 2014 AIP news release, which originated the news item, reveals more about the report,

The report, titled Physics Entrepreneurship and Innovation, is based on extensive interviews with 140 PhD physicists and other professionals who co-founded and work at some 91 startup companies in 14 states that were established in the last few decades. These companies are engaged in making medical devices, manufacturing tools, nanotechnology, lasers and optical devices, renewable energy technologies and other products.

There is no one winning formula for a successful physics startup, said Joe Anderson, director of AIP’s Niels Bohr Library & Archives and co-author of the new report. Many physics startups can be found in the same Boston and Silicon Valley zip codes that are also hotspots for biotech and internet startups, but many are found far from the those twin poles. Instead they are clustered in regions scattered across the west coast, southern states and the Midwest — in places where venture capital funding may not be as robust or where the particular technology transfer processes in place at one nearby large state university may dominate the business climate. But that seems to work for many companies.

“One of the deliberate things people try to do in the United States and abroad is to create another Silicon Valley, but it doesn’t always work,” Anderson said. “This is a different kind of phenomenon.”

One of the major differences, the report found, is between the culture of the physics startup and the internet startup. While high-flying Silicon Valley execs are likely to see risk taking as something that defines them professionally if not personally, most of the physics entrepreneurs involved in the study see themselves as risk adverse — as far apart from their internet cousins as oxford shirts are from hoodie sweats.

And unlike biotech startups, which tend to seek emerging markets by developing new drugs and devices to sell, many physics startups differ. Some do seek to sell new technologies to emerging markets but others specialize in improving existing technologies and adapting them for new uses based on a perceived market for those goods — what the report terms “market pull” versus “technology push.”

One factor that remained consistent across the United States was the negative response that entrepreneurs had to current immigration policies and the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which startup founders saw as hostile to American high-tech competitiveness. [emphasis mine]

Funding is one of the two most critical challenges that entrepreneurs face — the other being the technology itself. [emphases mine] According to one participant in the study, the funding question is always the one and only topic entrepreneurs ever discuss when they get together at meetings. Venture capitalists have become much more risk averse over the past decade, and research intensive startups typically depend, at least initially, on federal Small Business Innovation Research grants — something that is much less common among Silicon Valley tech startups.

A March 3, 2014 article by Fred Dyllia, Executive Director and CEO, references the HoPE (History of Physics Entrepreneurship) study, which culminated in the Physics Entrepreneurship and Innovation report, which helped clarify one point for me (the challenge from immigration policies and the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations but not the second critical challenge [the technology itself] that startups face),

The entrepreneurs interviewed also reported several other concerns that impact their operations, including immigration policies and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITARs) that often force US companies to develop technologies outside of the US, in order to stay globally competitive. [emphasis mine]

Dylla’s commentary is worth reading for the perspective he offers on the history behind this report and the details he offers.

You can find the108 pp. PDF of Physics Entrepreneurship and Innovation here. where you may discover for yourself why the technology itself is a critical challenge to entrepreneurs. I’m guessing it has to do with acceptance of new technologies and/or the speed of change.

One final observation, while specifics such as immigration policies do not apply to the Canadian scene, I think it’s safe to say there are many, many similarities between the US and Canada vis à vis science entrepreneurship.

Monitoring air pollution at home, at work, and in the car—the nano way

Meagan Clark, in an April 18, 2014  article for International Business Times, writes about a project in the EU (European Union) where researchers are working to develop nanotechnology-enabled sensors for air quality at home, at work, and in the car,

Poor indoor and outdoor air quality is linked to one in eight deaths worldwide or 7 million, making it the world’s most dangerous environmental health risk, according to a March [2014?] report by the World Health Organization.

That is the reasoning behind the European Union’s decision to fund a new nanotechnology project [IAQSENSE] that would allow people to gauge air quality real-time at home, work and in cars with low cost, mini sensor systems, the EU’s community research and development information service announced Friday [April 18, 2014].

“The control of indoor air quality and the related comfort it provides should have a huge societal impact on health, presence at work and economic-related factors,” Claude Iroulart, coordinator of IAQSENSE, said in a statement. …

The IAQSENSE homepage provides more details about itself,

The indoor air quality (IAQ) influences the health and well-being of people. For the last 20 years, there has been a growing concern regarding pollutants in closed environments and the difficulty in identifying these pollutants and their critical levels, without heavy, expensive equipment.

IAQSense aims to develop new nanotechnology based sensor systems that will precisely monitor the composition of the air in terms of both chemical and bio contaminants. This system will be miniaturized, low cost and adapted to mass production.

A major challenge consists of a gaz [sic] sensor system which must be at the same time low cost and highly sensitive and selective.  IAQSense relies on three patented technologies, of which one is based on surface ion mobility dynamics separating each gas component. Working like a spectrometer it allows high sensitivity fast multi-gas detection in a way never seen before.

IAQSense Project will characterize, monitor and improve indoor air quality in an innovative way.

The consortium is composed of 4 SMEs [small to medium enterprises[, 3 industrial companies and 3 research institutes. The project will last 3 years (01.09.2013 – 31.08.2016) and will deliver a complete sensor system.

The IAQSense research project has received funding from the European Community´s 7th Framework Programme under grant agreement n° 6043125.

As someone who has suffered from breathing problems from time to time, I wish them the best with this project .

From Australia: a recipe for baking lenses

Here’s the recipe from an April 24, 2014 Optical Society news release on EurekAlert,

All that’s needed is an oven, a microscope glass slide and a common, gel-like silicone polymer called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). First, drop a small amount of PDMS onto the slide. Then bake it at 70 degrees Celsius to harden it, creating a base. Then, drop another dollop of PDMS onto the base and flip the slide over. Gravity pulls the new droplet down into a parabolic shape. Bake the droplet again to solidify the lens. More drops can then be added to hone the shape of the lens that also greatly increases the imaging quality of the lens. “It’s a low cost and easy lens-making recipe,” Lee [ Steve Lee from the Research School of Engineering at Australian National University] says.

I’m still marveling over this image,

Caption: This photo shows a single droplet lens suspended on a fingertip. Credit: Stuart Hay. Courtesy: The Optical Society

Caption: This photo shows a single droplet lens suspended on a fingertip. Credit: Stuart Hay. Courtesy: The Optical Society

For anyone who doesn’t know much about producing lenses and why these baked droplets could improve lives, the Optical Society news release provides some insight,

A droplet of clear liquid can bend light, acting as a lens. Now, by exploiting this well-known phenomenon, researchers have developed a new process to create inexpensive high quality lenses that will cost less than a penny apiece.

Because they’re so inexpensive, the lenses can be used in a variety of applications, including tools to detect diseases in the field, scientific research in the lab and optical lenses and microscopes for education in classrooms.

“What I’m really excited about is that it opens up lens fabrication technology,” says Steve Lee from the Research School of Engineering at Australian National University (ANU) …

Many conventional lenses are made the same way lenses have been made since the days of Isaac Newton—by grinding and polishing a flat disk of glass into a particular curved shape. Others are made with more modern methods, such as pouring gel-like materials molds. But both approaches can be expensive and complex, Lee says. With the new method, the researchers harvest solid lenses of varying focal lengths by hanging and curing droplets of a gel-like material—a simple and inexpensive approach that avoids costly or complicated machinery.

“What I did was to systematically fine-tune the curvature that’s formed by a simple droplet with the help of gravity, and without any molds,” he explains.

Although people have long recognized that a droplet can act as a lens, no one tried to see how good a lens it could be. Now, the team has developed a process that pushes this concept to its limits, Lee says.

The researchers made lenses about a few millimeters thick with a magnification power of 160 times and a resolution of about 4 microns (millionths of a meter)—two times lower in optical resolution than many commercial microscopes, but more than three orders of magnitude lower in cost. “We’re quite surprised at the magnification enhancement using such a simple process,” he notes.

An April 24, 2014 Australian National University (ANU) news release on EurekAlert adds more details to the story,

The lenses are made by using the natural shape of liquid droplets.

“We put a droplet of polymer onto a microscope cover slip and then invert it. Then we let gravity do the work, to pull it into the perfect curvature,” Dr Lee said.

“By successively adding small amounts of fluid to the droplet, we discovered that we can reach a magnifying power of up to 160 times with an imaging resolution of four micrometers.”

The polymer, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), is the same as that used for contact lenses, and it won’t break or scratch.

“It would be perfect for the third world. All you need is a fine tipped tool, a cover slip, some polymer and an oven,” Dr Lee said.

The first droplet lens was made by accident. [emphasis mine]

I nearly threw them away. [emphasis mine] I happened to mention them to my colleague Tri Phan, and he got very excited,” Dr Lee said.

“So then I decided to try to find the optimum shape, to see how far I could go. When I saw the first images of yeast cells I was like, ‘Wow!'”

Dr Lee and his team worked with Dr Phan to design a lightweight 3D-printable frame to hold the lens, along with a couple of miniature LED lights for illumination, and a coin battery.

The technology taps into the current citizen science revolution [emphasis mine], which is rapidly transforming owners of smart phones into potential scientists. There are also exciting possibilities for remote medical diagnosis.

Dr Phan said the tiny microscope has a wide range of potential uses, particularly if coupled with the right smartphone apps.

“This is a whole new era of miniaturisation and portability – image analysis software could instantly transform most smartphones into sophisticated mobile laboratories,” Dr Phan said.

“I am most able to see the potential for this device in the practice of medicine, although I am sure specialists in other fields will immediately see its value for them.”

Dr Lee said the low-cost lens had already attracted interest from a German group interested in using disposable lenses for tele-dermatology.

“There are also possibilities for farmers,” he said. “They can photograph fungus or insects on their crops, upload the pictures to the internet where a specialist can identify if they are a problem or not.”

That Lee created his first droplet by accident and almost threw it away echoes many, many other science stories. In addition to that age old science story, I love the simplicity of the idea, the reference to Isaac Newton, and the inclusion of citizen science.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Fabricating low cost and high performance elastomer lenses using hanging droplets by W. M. Lee, A. Upadhya, P. J. Reece, and Tri Giang Phan. Biomedical Optics Express, Vol. 5, Issue 5, pp. 1626-1635 (2014) http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/BOE.5.001626

This paper is open access.

I wish Lee and his team great success in making this technology available, assuming that it lives up to its promise.

The glassy side of fractals

An April 24, 2014 news item on Nanowerk highlights a breakthrough in glass (wordplay intended),

Colorful church windows, beads on a necklace and many of our favorite plastics share something in common — they all belong to a state of matter known as glasses. School children learn the difference between liquids and gases, but centuries of scholarship have failed to produce consensus about how to categorize glass.

Now, combining theory and numerical simulations, researchers have resolved an enduring question in the theory of glasses by showing that their energy landscapes are far rougher than previously believed.

An April 23, 2014 Duke University news release by Erin Weeks (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides a diagram (am I the only one who thinks these resemble cow udders?) and more infotmation,

Glasses form when their molecules get jammed into fractal "wells," as shown on the right, rather than smooth or slightly rough wells (left). Photo credit: Patrick Charbonneau. Courtesy: Duke University

Glasses form when their molecules get jammed into fractal “wells,” as shown on the right, rather than smooth or slightly rough wells (left). Photo credit: Patrick Charbonneau. Courtesy: Duke University

“There have been beautiful mathematical models, but with sometimes tenuous connection to real, structural glasses. Now we have a model that’s much closer to real glasses,” said Patrick Charbonneau, one of the co-authors and assistant professor of chemistry and physics at Duke University.

One thing that sets glasses apart from other phase transitions is a lack of order among their constituent molecules. Their cooled particles become increasingly sluggish until, caged in by their neighbors, the molecules cease to move — but in no predictable arrangement. One way for researchers to visualize this is with an energy landscape, a map of all the possible configurations of the molecules in a system.

Charbonneau [Patrick Charbonneau, one of the co-authors and assistant professor of chemistry and physics at Duke University] said a simple energy landscape of glasses can be imagined as a series of ponds or wells. When the water is high (the temperature is warmer), the particles within float around as they please, crossing from pond to pond without problem. But as you begin to lower the water level (by lowering the temperature or increasing the density), the particles become trapped in one of the small ponds. Eventually, as the pond empties, the molecules become jammed into disordered and rigid configurations.

“Jamming is what happens when you take sand and squeeze it,” Charbonneau said. “First it’s easy to squeeze, and then after a while it gets very hard, and eventually it becomes impossible.”

Like the patterns of a lakebed revealed by drought, researchers have long wondered exactly what “shape” lies at the bottom of glass energy landscapes, where molecules jam. Previous theories have predicted the bottom of the basins might be smooth or a bit rough.

“At the bottom of these lakes or wells, what you find is variation in which particles have a force contact or bond,” Charbonneau said. “So even though you start from a single configuration, as you go to the bottom or compress them, you get different realizations of which pairs of particles are actually in contact.”

Charbonneau and his co-authors based in Paris and Rome showed, using computer simulations and numeric computations, that the glass molecules jam based on a fractal regime of wells within wells.

The new description makes sense of several behaviors seen in glasses, like the property known as avalanching, which describes a random rearrangement of molecules that leads to crystallization.

Understanding the structure of glasses is more than an intellectual exercise — materials scientists stand to advance from the knowledge, which could lead to better control of the aging of glasses.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Fractal free energy landscapes in structural glasses by Patrick Charbonneau, Jorge Kurchan,     Giorgio Parisi, Pierfrancesco Urbani & Francesco Zamponi. Nature Communications 5, Article number: 3725 doi:10.1038/ncomms4725 Published 24 April 2014

This paper is behind a paywall but there is a free preview available through ReadCube Access.

Nano and the NASDAQ

First, a caveat: I know very little about stock markets and investing so I’m not offering any comments about the quality of the investment advice offered in an April 23, 2014 article by StreetAuthority for the NASDAQ stock market website. The article is being featured here for informational purposes and because it focuses on nanotechnology (Note: A link has been removed),

A couple of months ago, the fund planners at Invesco PowerShares closed the book on one of the most unusual chapters in investing history, announcing a move to shut down the PowerShares Lux Nanotech Portfolio exchange-traded fund ( ETF ). A lack of interest was the main culprit in its demise.

… For many investors, the move signaled the end of the decade-long hype around nanotechnology stocks. Back in 2006, with nanotech mania in full bloom, Businessweek predicted that this emerging technology would represent a $2.6 trillion industry by 2014 .

That prediction overestimated the industry’s potential by at least $2.5 trillion.

StreetAuthority goes on to analyse some specific ‘nano’ stocks,

… A quick snapshot of where the remaining nanotech stocks trade in relation to their all-time highs paints a sobering picture. With the exception of FEI Co. (Nasdaq: FEIC ) , not one of these firms lived up to the hype.

[downloaded from http://www.nasdaq.com/article/is-the-nanotech-craze-over-not-for-these-2-stocks-cm346626]

[downloaded from http://www.nasdaq.com/article/is-the-nanotech-craze-over-not-for-these-2-stocks-cm346626]

Just when you think all is lost the author finds reason for optimism (Note: Links have been removed),

Yet just as most investors have written off the notion of nano-investing, the underlying technology is being seeded in a widening range of applications. Many industrial firms such as 3M (NYSE: MMM ) already derive solid recurring revenue streams from nanotechnology and are spending heavily on new products , which bodes well for the companies that make the tools to help further this technology’s development.

FEI, for example, is expected to reach the $1 billion revenue mark this year for the first time. FEI’s equipment helps other firms analyze and develop nanotechnology-based products and chemistries, mostly in the semiconductor industry. The company has delivered on the promise of nanotech, but shares appear fully valued, as top-line growth is around 10% and shares trade for more than 20 times next year’s earnings.

A more intriguingly valued stock is Flamel Technologies (Nasdaq: FLML ) , a biotech firm that has developed a range of drug delivery methods to deliver nano-sized particles into the bloodstream. Though this firm could never live up to the nanohype of a decade ago — and a decade of annual operating losses will wilt any investor’s confidence — shares are starting to rebound as key products start to reach the market.

It’s nice to be able to supplement the information one gets from government reports on commercializing nanotechnology with some ‘stock market’ analysis. As for whether or not this is good advice, caveat emptor (buyer beware). I can say that the author does not seem to have a solid grasp of the term ‘nanotechnology’, e.g. “… a new and much-hyped technology known as graphene holds the same promise , and in a few years we may see huge sums of money chase after graphene companies, just as we saw with nanotechs.” [emphasis mine] Generally speaking, graphene is considered to be part of the ‘nanotechnology enterprise’.

How do you know that’s extra virgin olive oil?

Who guarantees that expensive olive oil isn’t counterfeit or adulterated? An invisible label, developed by ETH researchers, could perform this task. The tag consists of tiny magnetic DNA particles encapsulated in a silica casing and mixed with the oil.

So starts Barbara Vonarburg’s April 24, 2014 ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology or Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) news release (also on EurekAlert). She goes on to describe the scope of the situation regarding counterfeit foods,

The worldwide need for anti-counterfeiting labels for food is substantial. In a joint operation in December 2013 and January 2014, Interpol and Europol confiscated more than 1,200 tonnes of counterfeit or substandard food and almost 430,000 litres of counterfeit beverages. The illegal trade is run by organised criminal groups that generate millions in profits, say the authorities. The confiscated goods also included more than 131,000 litres of oil and vinegar.

Jon Henley’s Jan. 4, 2012 article for the UK’s Guardian provides more insight into the specifics of counterfeit olive oil (Note: A link has been removed),

Last month [December 2011], the Olive Oil Times reported that two Spanish businessmen had been sentenced to two years in prison in Cordoba for selling hundreds of thousands of litres of supposedly extra virgin olive oil that was, in fact, a mixture of 70-80% sunflower oil and 20-30% olive.

… So with a litre of supermarket extra virgin costing up to £4, and connoisseurs willing to pay 10 times that sum for a far smaller bottle of seasonal, first cold stone pressed, single estate, artisan-milled oil from Italy or Greece, can we be sure of getting what we’re paying for?

The answer, according to Tom Mueller in a book out this month [January 2012], is very often not. In Extra Virginity: the Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, Mueller, an American who lives in Italy, lays bare the workings of an industry prey, he argues, to hi-tech, industrial-scale fraud. The problem, he says, is that good olive oil is difficult, time-consuming and expensive to make, but easy, quick and cheap to doctor.

Most commonly, it seems, extra virgin oil is mixed with a lower grade olive oil, often not from the same country. Sometimes, another vegetable oil such as colza or canola is used. The resulting blend is then chemically coloured, flavoured and deodorised, and sold as extra-virgin to a producer. Almost any brand can, in theory, be susceptible: major names such as Bertolli (then owned by Unilever [see Henley’s article for details about the 2008 Italian olive oil scandal]) have found themselves in court having to argue, successfully in this instance, that they had themselves been defrauded by their supplier.

Meanwhile, the chemical tests that should by law be performed by exporters of extra virgin oil before it can be labelled and sold as such can often fail to detect adulterated oil, particularly when it has been mixed with products such as deodorised, lower-grade olive oil in a sophisticated modern refinery.

Given the benefits claimed for olive oil, I imagine lower grade olive oil which is more highly processed or, worse yet, a completely different kind of oil would diminish or, possibly, eliminate any potential health benefit.

Getting back to the ETH Zurich news release, here’s more about the anti-counterfeiting ‘label’,

Just a few grams of the new substance are enough to tag [label] the entire olive oil production of Italy. If counterfeiting were suspected, the particles added at the place of origin could be extracted from the oil and analysed, enabling a definitive identification of the producer. “The method is equivalent to a label that cannot be removed,” says Robert Grass, lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zurich.

A forgery-proof label should not only be invisible but also safe, robust, cheap and easy to detect. To fulfil these criteria ETH researchers used nanotechnology and nature’s information storehouse, DNA. A piece of artificial genetic material is the heart of the mini-label. “With DNA, there are millions of options that can be used as codes,” says Grass. Moreover, the material has an extremely low detection limit, so tiny amounts are sufficient for labelling purposes.

However, DNA also has some disadvantages. If the material is used as an information carrier outside a living organism, it cannot repair itself and is susceptible to light, temperature fluctuations and chemicals. Thus, the researchers used a silica coating to protect the DNA, creating a kind of synthetic fossil. The casing represents a physical barrier that protects the DNA against chemical attacks and completely isolates it from the external environment – a situation that mimics that of natural fossils, write the researchers in their paper, which has been published in the journal ACS Nano. To ensure that the particles can be fished out of the oil as quickly and simply as possible, Grass and his team employed another trick: they magnetised the tag by attaching iron oxide nanoparticles.

Experiments in the lab showed that the tiny tags dispersed well in the oil and did not result in any visual changes. They also remained stable when heated and weathered an ageing trial unscathed. The magnetic iron oxide, meanwhile, made it easy to extract the particles from the oil. The DNA was recovered using a fluoride-based solution and analysed by PCR, a standard method that can be carried out today by any medical lab at minimal expense. “Unbelievably small quantities of particles down to a millionth of a gram per litre and a tiny volume of a thousandth of a litre were enough to carry out the authenticity tests for the oil products,” write the researchers. The method also made it possible to detect adulteration: if the concentration of nanoparticles does not match the original value, other oil – presumably substandard – must have been added. The cost of label manufacture should be approximately 0.02 cents per litre.

The researchers have plans for other products that could benefit from this technology and answers to questions about whether or not people would be willing to ingest a label/tag along with their olive oil,

Petrol could also be tagged using this method and the technology could be used in the cosmetics industry as well. In trials the researchers also successfully tagged expensive Bergamot essential oil, which is used as a raw material in perfumes. Nevertheless, Grass sees the greatest potential for the use of invisible labels in the food industry. But will consumers buy expensive ‘extra-virgin’ olive oil when synthetic DNA nanoparticles are floating around in it? “These are things that we already ingest today,” says Grass. Silica particles are present in ketchup and orange juice, among other products, and iron oxide is permitted as a food additive E172.

To promote acceptance, natural genetic material could be used in place of synthetic DNA; for instance, from exotic tomatoes or pineapples, of which there are a great variety – but also from any other fruit or vegetable that is a part of our diet. Of course, the new technology must yield benefits that far outweigh any risks, says Grass. He concedes that as the inventor of the method, he might not be entirely impartial. “But I need to know where food comes from and how pure it is.” In the case of adulterated goods, there is no way of knowing what’s inside. “So I prefer to know which particles have been intentionally added.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the researchers’ paper,

Magnetically Recoverable, Thermostable, Hydrophobic DNA/Silica Encapsulates and Their Application as Invisible Oil Tags by Michela Puddu , Daniela Paunescu , Wendelin J. Stark , and Robert N. Grass. ACS Nano, 2014, 8 (3), pp 2677–2685 DOI: 10.1021/nn4063853 Publication Date (Web): February 25, 2014

Copyright © 2014 American Chemical Society

This article is behind a paywall.

The Swiss aren’t the only ones interested in tagging petrol (gas), they’re already tagging petrol with nanoparticles in Malaysia with as per my Oct. 7, 2011 posting on the topic.

Call for submissions for two Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) prizes

Nothing is more heartbreaking than to be late for a submission, so, here’s the deadline for the Electronic Literature prizes: May 10, 2014. The Electronic Literature Organization’s gives more details on its call for prize submissions webpage,

The ELO is proud to announce the ”The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature” and “The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature.” Below is information including guidelines for submissions for each.

“The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature”

“The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature” is an award given for the best work of criticism, of any length, on the topic of electronic literature. Bestowed by the Electronic Literature Organization and funded through a generous donation from N. Katherine Hayles and others, this $1000 annual prize aims to recognize excellence in the field. The prize comes with a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level.

We invite critical works of any length. Submissions must follow these guidelines:

1. This is an open submission. Self nominations and nominations are both welcome. Membership in the Electronic Literature Organization is not required.
2. There is no cost involved in nominations. This is a free and open award aimed at rewarding excellence.
3. ELO Board Members serving their term of office on the Board are ineligible for nomination for the award. Members of the Jury are also not allowed to be nominated for the award.
4. Three finalists for the award will be selected by a jury of specialists in electronic literature; N. Katherine Hayles will choose the winner from among the finalists.
5. Because of the nature of online publishing, it is not possible to conduct a blind review of the submissions; the jury will be responsible for fair assessment of the work.
6. Those nominated may only have one work considered for the prize. In the event that several works are identified for a nominee, the nominee will choose the work that he or she wishes to be juried.
7. All works must have already been published or made available to the public within 18 months, no earlier than December 2012.
8. All print articles must be submitted in .pdf format. Books can be sent either in .pdf format or in print format. Online articles should be submitted as a link to an online site.
9. Nominations by self or others must include a 250-word explanation of the work’s impact in the field. The winner selected for the prize must also include a professional bio and a headshot or avatar.
10. All digital materials should be emailed to elo.hayles.award@gmail.com by May 15, 2014; three copies of the book should be mailed to Dr. Dene Grigar, Creative Media & Digital Culture, Washington State University Vancouver, 14204 NE Salmon Creek Ave., Vancouver, WA 98686 by May 15, 2014. [emphasis mine] Those making the nomination or the nominees themselves are responsible for mailing materials for jurying. Print materials will be returned via a self-addressed mailer.
11. Nominees and the winner retain all rights to their works. If copyright allows, ELO will be given permission to share the work or portions of it on the award webpage. Journals and presses that have published the winning work will be acknowledged on the award webpage.
12. The winner is not expected to attend the ELO conference banquet. The award will be mailed to the winner.

Timeline
Call for Nominations: April 15-May 10
Jury Deliberations: May 15-June 10
Award Announcement: ELO Conference Banquet

For more information, contact Dr. Dene Grigar, President, Electronic Literature Organization.

“The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature”

“The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature” is an award given for the best work of electronic literature of any length or genre. Bestowed by the Electronic Literature Organization and funded through a generous donation from supporters and members of the ELO, this $1000 annual prize aims to recognize creative excellence. The prize comes with a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level.

We invite critical works of any length and genre. Submissions must follow these guidelines:

1. This is an open submission. Self nominations and nominations are both welcome. Membership in the Electronic Literature Organization is not required.
2. There is no cost involved in nominations. This is a free and open award aimed at rewarding excellence.
3. ELO Board Members serving their term of office on the Board are ineligible for nomination for the award. Members of the Jury are also not allowed to be nominated for the award.
4. Three finalists for the award will be selected by a jury of specialists in electronic literature; Robert Coover or a representative of his will choose the winner from among the finalists.
5. Because of the nature of online publishing, it is not possible to conduct a blind review of the submissions; the jury will be responsible for fair assessment of the work.
6. Those nominated may only have one work considered for the prize. In the event that several works are identified for a nominee, the nominee will choose the work that he or she wishes to be juried.
7. All works must have already been published or made available to the public within 18 months, no earlier than December 2012.
8. Works should be submitted either as a link to an online site or in the case of non-web work, available via Dropbox or sent as a CD/DVD or flash drive.
9. Nominations by self or others must include a 250-word explanation of the work’s impact in the field. The winner selected for the prize must also include a professional bio and a headshot or avatar.
10. Links to the digital materials or to Dropbox should be emailed to elo.coover.award@gmail.com by May 15, 2014; three copies of the CD/DVDs and flash drives should be mailed to Dr. Dene Grigar, Creative Media & Digital Culture, Washington State University Vancouver, 14204 NE Salmon Creek Ave., Vancouver, WA 98686 by May 15, 2014. [emphasis mine] Those making the nomination or the nominees themselves are responsible for mailing materials for jurying. Physical materials will be returned via a self-addressed mailer.
11. Nominees and the winner retain all rights to their works. If copyright allows, ELO will be given permission to share the work or portions of it on the award webpage. Journals and presses that have published the winning work will be acknowledged on the award webpage.
12. The winner is not expected to attend the ELO conference banquet. The award will be mailed to the winner.

Timeline
Call for Nominations: April 19-May 10
Jury Deliberations: May 15-June 10
Award Announcement: ELO Conference Banquet

For more information, contact Dr. Dene Grigar, President, Electronic Literature Organization.

Good luck and please note the mailing address in the submission guidelines is for Vancouver, US and not for Vancouver, Canada. Finally, thank you to Christine Wilks of crissxross for the heads up via LinkedIn.

Captain America, Wolverine, Iron Man, and Thor on The Abstract, North Carolina State University’s news blog

Captain America’s shield as a supercapacitor? Intriguing, oui? Thank you to Matt Shipman and his April 15, 2014 post on The Abstract (North Carolina State University’s official newsroom blog, [h/t phys.org]) for presenting a very intriguing exploration of the science to be found in comic books and, now, the movies,

Image from Captain America By Ed Brubaker Vol. 2 Premiere HC (2011 – Present). Release Date: February 21, 2012. Image credit: Marvel.com

Image from Captain America By Ed Brubaker Vol. 2 Premiere HC (2011 – Present).
Release Date: February 21, 2012. Image credit: Marvel.com
Courtesy: NCSU

I have a new appreciation for Captain America (never one of my favourite super heroes). From Shipman’s April 15, 2014 posting on The Abstract (Note: Links have been removed),

It’s tough to explain how the shield works, in part because it behaves differently under different circumstances. Sometimes the shield is thrown and becomes embedded in a wall; but sometimes it bounces off of walls, ricocheting wildly. Sometimes the shield seems to easily absorb tremendous force; but sometimes it is damaged by the attacks of Cap’s most powerful foes.

“However, from a scientific perspective, it’s important to remember that we’re talking about the first law of thermodynamics,” says Suveen Mathaudhu, a program manager in the materials science division of the U.S. Army Research Office, adjunct materials science professor at NC State University and hardcore comics fan. “Energy is conserved. It doesn’t disappear, it just changes form.

“When enormous energy, such as a blow from Thor’s hammer, strikes Cap’s shield, that energy needs to go somewhere.”

Normally, that energy would need to be either stored or converted into heat or sound. But comic-book readers and moviegoers know that Cap’s shield usually doesn’t give off waves of heat or roaring shrieks (that shockwave from Thor’s hammer in The Avengers film notwithstanding).

“That absence of heat and sound means that the energy has to be absorbed somehow; the atomic bonds in the shield – which is made of vibranium – must be able to store that energy in some form,” Mathaudhu says.

Mathaudhu, later in the posting, describes the shield’s qualities as a supercapacitor. (For more information about supercapacitors, you can look at my April 9, 2014 posting.)

Shipman’s piece appears to be part of a series featuring Wolverine, Iron Man, and Thor, which you can access by scrolling past the end of the Captain America posting (April 15, 2014 post), where you will also find at least one comment, which is worth checking out.