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European nanotech roadmap

Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

No event, document, or specific announcement appears to have occasioned the May 10, 2013 news item on Nanowerk about Europe’s nanotechnology roadmap (Note: A link was removed),

Nanotechnology is opening the way to a new industrial revolution. From ‘individualised’ medical treatments tailored for each patient to new, environmentally-friendly energy storage and generation systems, nanotechnology is bringing significant advances. Exciting new futures await those businesses able to get ahead in the race to turn this wealth of promise into commercial success. But in a field which requires a high degree of coordinated effort involving many different stakeholder groups, including researchers, policymakers and commercial players across a wide variety of industrial sectors, it has perhaps been inevitable that fragmentation, disconnectedness and duplication have stood in the way.

NANOfutures was set up in 2010 to tackle exactly this problem of fragmentation. Supported by European Union (EU) funding, NANOfutures is a European Technology and Innovation Platform (ETIP) bringing together industry, research institutions and universities, NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], financial institutions, civil society and policymakers at regional, national and European levels. Acting as a kind of ‘nano-hub’ for Europe, NANOfutures is dedicated to fostering a shared vision and strategy on the future of nanotechnology.

The May 9, 2013 European Commission news release, which originated the news item, goes on to describe the NANOfutures project which ended in Sept. 2012,

Reflecting its objective of achieving a truly cross-sectoral approach, breaking out of individual industry silos and addressing the major nanotech issues which are common to all sectors, NANOfutures set up a steering committee which included representatives from 11 European Technology Platforms (ETPs) – sector-specific networks of industry and academia – including those for textiles, nanomedicine, construction and transportation. Chaired by Professor Paolo Matteazzi of Italian specialist nanomaterials company MBN Nanomaterialia, the committee also included ten nanotechnology experts, each one chairing a NANOfutures working group on cross-sectoral topics such as safety, standardisation, regulation, technology transfer and innovative financing.

This approach allowed NANOfutures to identify key aspects of nanotechnology and its exploitation in which all players – from researcher to politician, financier, commercial developer, regulator or end-user – were involved and therefore had common interests.

One of the major successes achieved by the two-year project was securing an agreement by all 11 ETPs on a set of research and innovation themes for the next decade. “The ETPs agreed to focus their private efforts, and call for increasing public efforts, on such themes in order to bring European nano-enabled products to successful commercialisation, with benefits for the grand challenges of our time such as climate change, affordable and effective medicine, green mobility and manufacturing,” says the project’s coordinator, Margherita Cioffi of Italian engineering consultancy D’Appolonia.

The most tangible result of this, and the key outcome from NANOfutures, was the development and publication of a ‘Research and Industrial Roadmap’ setting out, in Ms Cioffi’s words, “a pathway up to 2020 which will enable European industry and researchers to deliver and successfully commercialise sustainable and safe nano-enabled products.” Divided into seven separate thematic areas, or ‘value-chains’, the roadmap covers European priorities from materials research to product design, manufacturing, assembly, use and disposal. It describes both short- and longer-term actions with the aim of providing a practical guide for EC and Member State governments, research centres and industry, as well as standardisation and regulation bodies.

Other benefits directly resulting from the project, Ms Cioffi adds, were the sharing of safety best practices, the creation of partnerships to promote product development, training and other services, and the bringing together of relevant SME businesses with potential users and investors during specially organised Technology Transfer workshops.

Since it is not a product in itself, but a method with an enormous range of potential applications, nanotechnology naturally reaches into a diverse range of human activities. Paradoxically, almost, this very richness and universality of its benefits leads to a fragmentation of effort which acts as a barrier to its efficient exploitation. By bringing together the various stakeholders to create a unified, strategic approach, replacing fragmentation and duplication with a focus on areas of agreed priority and common interest, NANOfutures has played an invaluable role in promoting the rapid development of nanotechnology – with its twin benefits of societal usefulness and enhanced European competitiveness.

Project details

Project acronym: NANOFUTURES

  • Participants: Italy (Coordinator), Belgium, Spain
  • Project FP7 266789
  • Total costs: €1 171 011
  • EU contribution: €999 980
  • Duration: October 2010 – September 2012

The NANOfutures website provides more resources including a list of documents/deliverables  featuring a 148 pp. July 2012 roadmap. Unfortunately, I cannot provide a direct link to the roadmap or the documents page, for that matter.

At this point, the site is probably most valuable for its links to other project as a host of resources are organized under buttons (the left side of the home page) titled with Communication Projects, Finance Projects, Safety Projects, etc.

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Posted in nanotechnology | No Comments »

Prosthetics and the human brain

Friday, March 8th, 2013

On the heels of research which suggests that humans tend to view their prostheses, including wheel chairs, as part of their bodies, researchers in Europe  have announced the development of a working exoskeleton powered by the wearer’s thoughts.

First, there’s the ‘wheelchair’ research, from the Mar. 6, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

People with spinal cord injuries show strong association of wheelchairs as part of their body, not extension of immobile limbs.

The human brain can learn to treat relevant prosthetics as a substitute for a non-working body part, according to research published March 6 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Mariella Pazzaglia and colleagues from Sapienza University and IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia of Rome in Italy, supported by the International Foundation for Research in Paraplegie.

The researchers found that wheelchair-bound study participants with spinal cord injuries perceived their body’s edges as being plastic and flexible to include the wheelchair, independent of time since their injury or experience with using a wheelchair. Patients with lower spinal cord injuries who retained upper body movement showed a stronger association of the wheelchair with their body than those who had spinal cord impairments in the entire body.

According to the authors, this suggests that rather than being thought of only as an extension of the immobile limbs, the wheelchairs had become tangible, functional substitutes for the affected body part. …

As I mentioned in a Jan. 30, 2013 posting,

There have been some recent legal challenges as to what constitutes one’s body (from The Economist article, You, robot? [you can find the article here: http://www.economist.com/node/21560986]),

If you are dependent on a robotic wheelchair for mobility, for example, does the wheelchair count as part of your body? Linda MacDonald Glenn, an American lawyer and bioethicist, thinks it does. Ms Glenn (who is not involved in the RoboLaw project) persuaded an initially sceptical insurance firm that a “mobility assistance device” damaged by airline staff was more than her client’s personal property, it was an extension of his physical body. The airline settled out of court.

According to the Mar. 6, 2013 news release on EurekAlert from the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the open access article by Pazzaglia and her colleagues can be found here (Note: I have added a link),

Pazzaglia M, Galli G, Scivoletto G, Molinari M (2013) A Functionally Relevant Tool for the Body following Spinal Cord Injury. PLOS ONE 8(3): e58312.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0058312

At almost the same time as Pazzaglia’s work,  a “Mind-controlled Exoskeleton” is announced in a Mar. 7, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

Every year thousands of people in Europe are paralysed by a spinal cord injury. Many are young adults, facing the rest of their lives confined to a wheelchair. Although no medical cure currently exists, in the future they could be able to walk again thanks to a mind-controlled robotic exoskeleton being developed by EU-funded researchers.

The system, based on innovative ‘Brain-neural-computer interface’ (BNCI) technology — combined with a light-weight exoskeleton attached to users’ legs and a virtual reality environment for training — could also find applications in there habilitation of stroke victims and in assisting astronauts rebuild muscle mass after prolonged periods in space.

The Mar. 7, 2013 news release on CORDIS, which originated the news item, offers a description of the “Mindwalker” project,

‘Mindwalker was proposed as a very ambitious project intended to investigate promising approaches to exploit brain signals for the purpose of controlling advanced orthosis, and to design and implement a prototype system demonstrating the potential of related technologies,’ explains Michel Ilzkovitz, the project coordinator at Space Applications Services in Belgium.

The team’s approach relies on an advanced BNCI system that converts electroencephalography (EEG) signals from the brain, or electromyography (EMG) signals from shoulder muscles, into electronic commands to control the exoskeleton.

The Laboratory of Neurophysiology and Movement Biomechanics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) focused on the exploitation of EEG and EMG signals treated by an artificial neural network, while the Foundation Santa Lucia in Italy developed techniques based on EMG signals modelled by the coupling of neural and biomechanical oscillators.

One approach for controlling the exoskeleton uses so-called ‘steady-state visually evoked potential’, a method that reads flickering visual stimuli produced at different frequencies to induce correlated EEG signals. Detection of these EEG signals is used to trigger commands such as ‘stand’, ‘walk’, ‘faster’ or ‘slower’.

A second approach is based on processing EMG signals generated by the user’s shoulders and exploits the natural arm-leg coordination in human walking: arm-swing patterns can be perceived in this way and converted into control signals commanding the exoskeleton’s legs.

A third approach, ‘ideation’, is also based on EEG-signal processing. It uses the identification and exploitation of EEG Theta cortical signals produced by the natural mental process associated with walking. The approach was investigated by the Mindwalker team but had to be dropped due to the difficulty, and time needed, in turning the results of early experiments into a fully exploitable system.

Regardless of which method is used, the BNCI signals have to be filtered and processed before they can be used to control the exoskeleton. To achieve this, the Mindwalker researchers fed the signals into a ‘Dynamic recurrent neural network’(DRNN), a processing technique capable of learning and exploiting the dynamic character of the BNCI signals.

‘This is appealing for kinematic control and allows a much more natural and fluid way of controlling an exoskeleton,’ Mr Ilzkovitz says.

The team adopted a similarly practical approach for collecting EEG signals from the user’s scalp. Most BNCI systems are either invasive, requiring electrodes to be placed directly into brain tissue, or require users to wear a ‘wet’ capon their head, necessitating lengthy fitting procedures and the use of special gels to reduce the electrical resistance at the interface between the skin and the electrodes. While such systems deliver signals of very good quality and signal-to-noise ratio, they are impractical for everyday use.

The Mindwalker team therefore turned to a ‘dry’ technology developed by Berlin-based eemagine Medical Imaging Solutions: a cap covered in electrodes that the user can fit themselves, and which uses innovative electronic components to amplify and optimise signals before sending them to the neural network.

‘The dry EEG cap can be placed by the subject on their head by themselves in less than a minute, just like a swimming cap,’ Mr Ilzkovitz says.

Before proceeding any further with details, here’s what the Mindwalker looks like,

© MINDWALKER (downladed from http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=OFFR_TM_EN&ACTION=D&RCN=10601)

© MINDWALKER (downloaded from http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=OFFR_TM_EN&ACTION=D&RCN=10601)

After finding a way to collect the EEG/EMG signals and interpret them, the researchers needed to create the exoskeleton (from the CORDIS news release),

The universities of Delft and Twente in the Netherlands proposed an innovative approach for the design of the exoskeleton and its control. The exoskeletonis designed to be sufficiently robust to bear the weight of a 100 kg adult and powerful enough to recover balance from external causes of instability such as the user’s own torso movements during walking or a gentle push from the back or side. Compared to other exoskeletons developed to date it is relatively light, weighing less than 30 kg without batteries, and, because a final version of the system should be self-powered, it is designed to minimise energy consumption.

The Mindwalker researchers achieved energy efficiency through the use of springs fitted inside the joints that are capable of absorbing and recovering some of the energy otherwise dissipated during walking, and through the development of an efficient strategy for controlling the exoskeleton.

Most exoskeletons are designed to be balanced when stationary or quasi-static and to move by little steps inside their ground stability perimeter, an approach known as ‘Zero moment point’, or ZMP. Although this approach is commonly used for controlling humanoid robots, when applied to exoskeletons, it makes them heavy and slow – and usually requires users to be assisted by a walking frame, sticks or some other support device when they move.

Alternatively, a more advanced and more natural control strategy can replicate the way humans actually walk, with a controlled loss of balance in the walking direction.

‘This approach is called “Limit-cycle walking” and has been implemented using model predictive control to predict the behaviour of the user and exoskeleton and for controlling the exoskeleton during the walk. This was the approach investigated in Mindwalker,’ Mr Ilzkovitz says.

To train users to control the exoskeleton, researchers from Space Applications Services developed a virtual-reality training platform, providing an immersive environment in which new users can safely become accustomed to using the system before testing it out in a clinical setting, and, the team hope, eventually using it in everyday life.

By the end of this year, tests with able-bodied trial users will be completed. The system will then be transferred to the Foundation Santa Lucia for conducting a clinical evaluation until May 2013 with five to 10volunteers suffering from spinal cord injuries. These trials will help identify shortcomings and any areas of performance improvement, the project coordinator says.

In the meantime, the project partners are continuing research on different components for a variety of potential applications. The project coordinator notes, for example, that elements of the system could be adapted for the rehabilitation of stroke victims or to develop easy-to-use exoskeletons for elderly people for mobility support.

Space Applications Services, meanwhile, is also exploring applications of the Mindwalker technology to train astronauts and help them rebuild muscle mass after spending long periods of time in zero-gravity environments.

There’s more about the European Commission’s Seventh Programme-funded Mindwalker project here.

Parallel with these developments in Europe, Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University has stated that he will have a working exoskeleton (Walk Again Project)  for the kickoff by a paraplegic individual for the opening of the World Cup (soccer/football) in Brazil in 2014. I mentioned Nicolelis and his work most recently in a Mar. 4, 2013 posting.

Taken together, this research which strongly suggests that people can perceive prostheses as being part of their bodies and exoskeletons that are powered by the wearer’s thoughts, we seem to be edging closer to a world where machines and humans become one.

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Posted in human enhancement, space exploration | No Comments »

Biosensing cocaine

Wednesday, February 13th, 2013

Amusingly, the Feb. 13, 2013 news item on Nanowerk highlights the biosensing aspect of the work in its title,

New biosensing nanotechnology adopts natural mechanisms to detect molecules

(Nanowerk News) Since the beginning of time, living organisms have developed ingenious mechanisms to monitor their environment.

The Feb. 13, 2013 news release from the University of Montreal (Université de Montréal) takes a somewhat different tack by focusing on cocaine,

Detecting cocaine “naturally”

Since the beginning of time, living organisms have developed ingenious mechanisms to monitor their environment. As part of an international study, a team of researchers has adapted some of these natural mechanisms to detect specific molecules such as cocaine more accurately and quickly. Their work may greatly facilitate the rapid screening—less than five minutes—of many drugs, infectious diseases, and cancers.

Professor Alexis Vallée-Bélisle of the University of Montreal Department of Chemistry has worked with Professor Francesco Ricci of the University of Rome Tor Vergata and Professor Kevin W. Plaxco of the University of California at Santa Barbara to improve a new biosensing nanotechnology. The results of the study were recently published in the Journal of American Chemical Society (JACS).

The scientists have provided an interesting image to illustrate their work,

Artist's rendering: the research team used an existing cocaine biosensor (in green) and revised its design to react to a series of inhibitor molecules (in blue). They were able to adapt the biosensor to respond optimally even within a large concentration window. Courtesy: University of Montreal

Artist’s rendering: the research team used an existing cocaine biosensor (in green) and revised its design to react to a series of inhibitor molecules (in blue). They were able to adapt the biosensor to respond optimally even within a large concentration window. Courtesy: University of Montreal

The news release provides some insight into the current state of biosensing and what the research team was attempting to accomplish,

“Nature is a continuing source of inspiration for developing new technologies,” says Professor Francesco Ricci, senior author of the study. “Many scientists are currently working to develop biosensor technology to detect—directly in the bloodstream and in seconds—drug, disease, and cancer molecules.”

“The most recent rapid and easy-to-use biosensors developed by scientists to determine the levels of various molecules such as drugs and disease markers in the blood only do so when the molecule is present in a certain concentration, called the concentration window,” adds Professor Vallée-Bélisle. “Below or above this window, current biosensors lose much of their accuracy.”

To overcome this limitation, the international team looked at nature: “In cells, living organisms often use inhibitor or activator molecules to automatically program the sensitivity of their receptors (sensors), which are able to identify the precise amount of thousand of molecules in seconds,” explains Professor Vallée-Bélisle. “We therefore decided to adapt these inhibition, activation, and sequestration mechanisms to improve the efficiency of artificial biosensors.”

The researchers put their idea to the test by using an existing cocaine biosensor and revising its design so that it would respond to a series of inhibitor molecules. They were able to adapt the biosensor to respond optimally even with a large concentration window. “What is fascinating,” says Alessandro Porchetta, a doctoral student at the University of Rome, “is that we were successful in controlling the interactions of this system by mimicking mechanisms that occur naturally.”

“Besides the obvious applications in biosensor design, I think this work will pave the way for important applications related to the administration of cancer-targeting drugs, an area of increasing importance,” says Professor Kevin Plaxco. “The ability to accurately regulate biosensor or nanomachine’s activities will greatly increase their efficiency.”

The funders for this project are (from the news release),

… the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research (MIUR), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations program, the European Commission Marie Curie Actions program, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the Fonds de recherche du Québec Nature et Technologies.

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

Using Distal-Site Mutations and Allosteric Inhibition To Tune, Extend, and Narrow the Useful Dynamic Range of Aptamer-Based Sensors by Alessandro Porchetta, Alexis Vallée-Bélisle, Kevin W. Plaxco, and Francesco Ricci. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2012, 134 (51), pp 20601–20604 DOI: 10.1021/ja310585e Publication Date (Web): December 6, 2012

Copyright © 2012 American Chemical Society

This article is behind a paywall.

One final note, Alexis Vallée-Bélisle has been mentioned here before in the context of a ‘Grand Challenges Canada programme’ (not the Bill and Melinda Gates ‘Grand Challenges’) announcement of several fundees  in my Nov. 22, 2012 posting. That funding appears to be for a difference project.

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Posted in biomimcry, health and safety, medicine, nanotechnology | No Comments »

The yin and the yang of carbon nanotubes and toxicity

Wednesday, January 16th, 2013

 

Illustration courtesy of the University College of London (UCL). Downloaded from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0113/130115-chemistry-resolves-toxic-concerns-about-carbon-nanotubes

Illustration courtesy of the University College of London (UCL). Downloaded from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0113/130115-chemistry-resolves-toxic-concerns-about-carbon-nanotubes

Researchers at the University College of London (UCL), France’s Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), and Italy’s University of Trieste have determined that carbon nanotube toxicity issues can be addressed be reducing their length and treating them chemically. From the Jan. 15,2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

In a new study, published January 15 [2013] in the journal Angewandte Chemie, evidence is provided that the asbestos-like reactivity and pathogenicity reported for long, pristine nanotubes can be completely alleviated if their surface is modified and their effective length is reduced as a result of chemical treatment.

First atomically described in the 1990s, carbon nanotubes are sheets of carbon atoms rolled up into hollow tubes just a few nanometres in diameter. Engineered carbon nanotubes can be chemically modified, with the addition of chemotherapeutic drugs, fluorescent tags or nucleic acids — opening up applications in cancer and gene therapy.

Furthermore, these chemically modified carbon nanotubes can pierce the cell membrane, acting as a kind of ‘nano-needle’, allowing the possibility of efficient transport of therapeutic and diagnostic agents directly into the cytoplasm of cells.

Among their downsides however, have been concerns about their safety profile. One of the most serious concerns, highlighted in 2008, involves the carcinogenic risk from the exposure and persistence of such fibres in the body. Some studies indicate that when long untreated carbon nanotubes are injected to the abdominal cavity of mice they can induce unwanted responses resembling those associated with exposure to certain asbestos fibres.

In this paper, the authors describe two different reactions which ask if any chemical modification can render the nanotubes non-toxic. They conclude that not all chemical treatments alleviate the toxicity risks associated with the material. Only those reactions that are able to render carbon nanotubes short and stably suspended in biological fluids without aggregation are able to result in safe, risk-free material.

Here’s a citation and link for this latest  research, from the ScienceDaily news item where you can also read the lead researcher’s comments about carbon nanotubes, safety, and unreasonable proposals to halt production,

Hanene Ali-Boucetta, Antonio Nunes, Raquel Sainz, M. Antonia Herrero, Bowen Tian, Maurizio Prato, Alberto Bianco, Kostas Kostarelos. Asbestos-like Pathogenicity of Long Carbon Nanotubes Alleviated by Chemical Functionalization. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2013; DOI: 10.1002/anie.201207664

The article is behind a paywall. I have mentioned long carbon nanotubes and their resemblance to asbestos fibres in several posts. The  Oct. 26, 2009 posting [scroll down about 1/3 of the way] highlights research which took place after the study where mice had carbon nanotubes injected into their bellies; in this second piece of research they inhaled the nanotubes.

ETA Jan. 21, 2013: Dexter Johnson gives context and commentary about this latest research into long multiwalled nanotubes (MWNTs) which he sums up as the answer to this question “What if you kept the MWNTs short?”  in a Jan. 18, 2013 posting on his Nanoclast blog (on the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] website)

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Posted in health and safety, nanotechnology | 3 Comments »

Pinocchio enabled by nanotechnology

Monday, November 12th, 2012

Wood products used to build bone? Unfortunately, there aren’t many details in the Nov. 9, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

European research has investigated ways of transforming complex, organised natural products such as wood to make materials suitable for rebuilding the human skeletal system.

The metamorphosis of wood to a ceramic that is identical to the mineral part of bone tissue hydroxyapatite takes place at the molecular or nano-level. The EU-funded ‘New bio-ceramisation processes applied to vegetable hierarchical structures’ (TEM-PLANT) project aimed to develop and apply novel processes to hierarchical materials like wood to produce smart ceramics that behave like bone and ligaments.

TEM-PLANT developed several types of materials with huge practical potential. These included bone scaffolding to help bone regrowth with properties very like the real thing. There is a strong possibility that the new scaffolding concept could make an appearance in the clinic in the next 5 to 10 years.

Success has also been achieved for that all-important soft skeletal tissue. The project team have shown in vivo that natural polymers can be processed to produce regenerative scaffolds for both ligaments and tendons.

At the molecular level, TEM-PLANT has investigated the very nuts and bolts of transforming hierarchically structured materials like wood. Chemo-physical phenomena have been identified behind the self-assembling and mineralisation processes required to achieve the modification of raw materials.

I did check out the TEM-PLANT/New Bio-ceramisation processes applied to vegetable hierarchical structures project webpage on the European Union’s Cordis website only to find out that the project ended in 2011,

TEM-PLANT project focuses on the development and application of breakthrough processes to transform plant-derived hierarchical structures into templates for the exploitation of innovative biomedical devices with smart anisotropic performances and advanced biomechanical characteristics, designed for bone and ligament substitution. Natural bio-structures usually have properties superior to those of analogous synthetically manufactured materials with similar phase compositions. The remarkable biomechanical properties of bone and ligament tissues depend on their hierarchic structure which is an organized assembly of structural units at increasing size levels. In fact, these structures are highly organized from the molecular to nano-, micro- and macro-scales, always in a hierarchical manner, with intricate but extremely functional architectures able to constantly adapt to ever changing mechanical needs.The TEM-PLANT project primary addresses the nano-biotechnologies area and will push the current boundaries of the state-of-the-art in production of hierarchical structured biomaterials. By combining biology, chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology and production technologies, new and complex plant transformation processes will be investigated to copy smart hierarchical structures existing in nature and to develop breakthrough biomaterials that could open the door to a whole new generation of biomedical applications for which no effective solution exists to date. Starting from suitably selected vegetal raw material, ceramization processes based on pyrolysis will be applied to produce carbon templates, which will be either infiltrated by silicon to produce inert SiC ceramic structures or exchanged by electrophoresis deposition to produce bioresobable ceramics. For ligament yielding two processes will be developed: pH-controlled and electrophoresis-controlled fibration to generate fibrous collagenous cords with high tensile strength and wear-resistance.

It looks like interesting work and I wish I could find out more about it (were they using nanocrystalline cellulose/crystal nanocellulose?). In the meantime, I decided to investigate Pinocchio (from the Wikipedia essay; I have removed links, etc.),

Pinocchio … is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the 1883 children’s novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi, an Italian writer, and has since appeared in many adaptations of that story and others. Carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a small Italian village, he was created as a wooden puppet but dreamed of becoming a real boy.  …

Interestingly, the lead team (Istituto di Scienza e Technologia dei Materiali Ceramici – CNR – Biomaterials Lab)

for the New Bio-ceramisation processes applied to vegetable hierarchical structures project was based in Italy.

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Posted in forestry, medicine, nanotechnology | No Comments »

Get on the waiting list for Professor Gino Segrè’s talk on Galileo & the Higgs Boson on November 20, 2012 in Vancouver

Monday, November 5th, 2012

Sadly, I didn’t get the notice until late Friday, Nov. 3, 2012 but on a happier note it looks like Vancouver is really embracing physics. Professor Gino Segrè will be discussing the history of physics and more in a talk titled, Physics From Galileo to the Higgs Boson, which, as of today, is waiting list only.

The talk will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012 from 6:30 to 8 pm at Vancouver’s TELUS World of Science. From the ARPICO (Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada) announcement,

Physics From Galileo to the Higgs Boson
Unveiling the Universe Lecture Series
Tuesday, 20 November 2012 from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM (PST)
Telus World of Science
1455 Quebec Street 
Vancouver, British Columbia V6A 3Z7

…

This event is co-sponsored by TRIUMF, the Embassy of Italy in Ottawa,
Science World, CMC Engineering Group and the Consulate General Of Italy
at Vancouver.

I gather Segrè has a very personal take on some of the history,

Gino Segrè is a physics professor emeritus at the University of
Pennsylvania and the author of three popular science books, including
“Faust in Copenhagen”. He was the winner of the American Institute of
Physics Award for Best Science Writing. His lecture, entitled “Physics
in Florence from Galileo to the Higgs Boson”, will chart the history of
physics as it grew from the influence of Galileo, his disciples, and the
spirit of exploration in 17th century Florence, to the present day, with
the most recent dramatic example being the discovery of the Higgs boson.
Gino Segrè is also the nephew of 1959 Nobel Laureate Emilio Segrè, and
will be introduced by Ms. Olivia Fermi, granddaughter of 1938 Nobel
Laureate Enrico Fermi. [emphasis mine]

You can arrange to get on the waiting list here and, as encouragement to get on the list, here’s what the event organizers have posted,

Event is sold out at present but more seating likely will become available. Those on the waitlist will be notified automatically if new seating has been added.

Good luck!

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Posted in science communication, Vancouver | No Comments »

COllaborative Network for Training in Electronic Skin Technology (CONTEST) looking for twelve researchers

Tuesday, August 21st, 2012

The CONTEST (COllaborative Network for Training in Electronic Skin TechnologyCOllaborative Network for Training in Electronic Skin Technology) project was launched today in Italy. According to the Aug. 21, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

“Flexible electronics” is one of the most significant challenges in the field of future electronics. The possibility of realizing flexible and bendable electronic circuits, that can be rolled up, twisted or inserted in films around objects, would introduce a range of infinite applications in multiple fields, including healthcare, robotics and energy.

In this area, the Fondazione Bruno Kessler of Trento will coordinate the CONTEST project (COllaborative Network for Training in Electronic Skin Technology), an Initial Training Network (ITN) Marie Curie project funded by the European Commission involving European research, academic and business players. These include seven full partners (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy; ST Microelectronics, Italy; Technical University Munich, Germany; Fraunhofer EMFT, Germany; University College London, UK; Imperial College London, UK; and Shadow Robotics Company, UK) and two associate partners (University of Cambridge, UK, and University of Tokyo, Japan).

The CONTEST project page at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler website offers more details,

At the heart of the CONTEST programme lies the multidisciplinary research training of young researchers. The CONTEST network will recruit twelve excellent Early-Stage Researchers (e.g. PhD students) and two Experienced Researchers (e.g. Post-Doc fellows). Information for submitting applications is available at the project’s website: http://www.contest-itn.eu/.
CONTEST activities will be coordinated by Ravinder S. Dahiya, researcher at the Bio-MEMS Unit (BIO-Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems) of  the Center for Materials and Microsystems (Fondazione Bruno Kessler) and by Leandro Lorenzelli, head of the Bio-MEMS Unit.
“The disruptive flexible electronics technology – says Ravinder S. Dahiya – will create change and improve the electronic market landscape and usher in a new revolution in multifunctional electronics. It will transform to an unprecedented degree our view of electronics and how we, as a society, interact with intelligent and responsive systems.”
“The investigation, in a very multidisciplinary framework, of technological approaches for thin flexible components – explains Leandro Lorenzelli - will generate new paradigms and concepts for microelectronic devices and systems with new functionalities tailored to the needs of a wide range of applications including robotics, biomedical instrumentations and smart cities.”

Here’s more about the 12 researchers they’re recruiting, excerpted from the Job Openings page on the CONTEST project website (Note: I have removed some links),

We have been awarded a large interdisciplinary project on electronic skin and applications, called CONTEST (COllaborative Network for Training in Electronic Skin Technology). We are therefore looking for 12 excellent Early-Stage Researchers (e.g. PhD students) and 2 Experienced Researchers (e.g. Post-Doc), associated to:

  • Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy (2 Early-Stage Researcher positions on silicon based flexible sensors (e.g. touch sensors), electronic circuits and 1 Experienced Researcher position on system integration)  …,
  • ST Microelectronics, Catania, Italy (2 Early-Stage Researcher positions on chemical/physical sensors on flexible substrates, and metal patterned substrates for integrating flexible sensing elements)…,
  • Technical University Munich, Germany (3 Early-Stage Researcher positions on organic semiconductor based electronics devices and circuits, modeling of flexible devices and sensors … , and artificial skin in humanoids…,
  • Fraunhofer EMFT, Munich, Germany (1 Early-Stage Researcher position on assembly on film substrates and foil integration as well as 1 Experienced Researcher position on reliability and ESD issues of components during flex integration) … ,
  • University College London, UK (2 Early-Stage Researcher positions on organic semiconductor based interconnects, solutions processed sensors, alternative on-skin energy schemes, patterning of e-skin and stretchable interconnects using blends of graphene in polymeric materials …
  • Imperial College London, UK (1 Early-Stage Researcher position on human sensori-motor control and robotics) …, and
  • Shadow Robotics Company, UK (1 Early-Stage Researcher position on biorobotics and mechatronics) ….

Mobility rules apply to all these positions. Researchers can be of any nationality. They are required to undertake trans-national mobility (i.e. move from one country to another) when taking up their appointment. One general rule applies to the appointment of researchers: At the time of recruitment by the host organization, researchers must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of their host organization (i.e. recruiting institute) for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the reference date. Short stays such as holidays and/or compulsory national service are not taken into account.

Good luck to all who apply! Priority will be given to applications received by Sept. 30, 2012.

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Burn off cellulite with nanotechnology-enabled underpants

Wednesday, July 25th, 2012

Michelle Hammond in a July 24, 2012 article for the startupsmart website (Australia) highlights a nanotechnology breakthrough,

A new range of underwear has been launched online which manufacturers claim actually helps to burn fat.

Italian firm MyShapes uses nanotechnology and crystals that focus infrared rays to create a material to reduce cellulite.

It claims the Emana range is a “curative and cosmetic line with infrared rays” by stimulating blood circulation to the skin’s surface.

…

It also claims to have a clinically tested international patent for the product.

There’s more in Hammond’s article and you can find other details such as these I’ve excerpted on the Emana webpage at the MyShapes website,

What is Emana?

Emana is registered brand by Rhodia/Solvay built with bioactive crystals that absorb the human body heat to return it in the form of far infrared rays (FIR). These rays penetrate into the skin and interact with the body, stimulating blood microcirculation and cellular metabolism.

How Emana works?

Emana absorbs a fraction of “infrared” waves emitted by human body, re-emitting them as “far infrared” waves (also known as FIR), which interacts with human body, leading to body stimulation.

What are “far infrared” waves (F.I.R.)?

They are electromagnetic waves, invisible to naked eye and characterized by low energy and low penetration, without any collateral damage to biological tissues.

“Far Infrared” waves stimulate human body by interacting among other mechanisms, with water molecules which represent 70% of human body mass.

What are the advantages of a MyShapes Emana product?

All the MyShapes Emana items are made following the directions of Rhodia /Solvay: after checks and tests on finished garments MyShapes has obtained a certification to guarantee the therapeutic and healing characteristics.

The interaction between Emana and skin is entirely physical, it doesn’t provide chemical migration.

The enhancement of blood microcirculation and cellular metabolism are the primary effects of EMANA®, leading to important secondary benefits:

Aesthetic benefits:

• Increased skin elasticity for a younger and smoother skin

  1. •Reduced cellulite signs
  2. •Improved toxins elimination

• Fostered sizes reduction

Performance benefits:

• Higher skin blood microcirculation

• Better thermoregulation

  1. •Lower lactate accumulate

With improved blood microcirculation, heat distribution on the skin surface becomes more uniform thereby accelerating the human body’s heat dissipation and thermal balance during sports activities.

These benefits are clinically evaluated?

Emana efficacy has been assessed through international recognized protocols with medical surveillance and the support of an independent laboratory.

Emana is Oeko-tex standard 100 class I certified: (label guaranteeing that the product is harmless to human health) for use in all clothing in contact with the skin, including children.

Origin and provenance

Emana yarn is produced in Italy by Fulgar, leading European producer, processed and packed in Italy by the laboratories and partners MyShapes.

The folks at MyShapes claim this product is safe although contraindicated for pregnant women, people with autoimmune diseases, etc. Personally, I’d like a little more information about the studies mentioned on the webpage but perhaps those details have not been translated from the Italian. I also don’t understand how nanotechnology enables these underpants to burn cellulite.  In any event, these are interesting marketing tactics.

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Contest for best business ideas: Nanochallenge and Polymerchallenge 2012

Friday, June 1st, 2012

With a prize of 600,000 Euros in a competition that’s been opened to anyone in the world, you may want to give this a look. From the May 31, 2012 news item on Nanowerk (Note: I have removed a link),

Nanochallenge and Polymerchallenge is the unique international business plan competition, completely focused on nanotechnology and polymer-based materials. It awards one of the largest worldwide prizes for the creation of new high tech enterprises.

600.000 Euro are at stake for this year 8th contest.

Just like previous years, the Competition is open to inventors, students, Phd, scientists, researchers and to start ups with less than three years of life. Participants are supposed to present a business project featuring breakthrough innovation in nanotechnology and polymer-based material.

You can find more details about applying on the 2012 NanoChallenge and Polymerchallenge website.  If I read the home page rightly, you will be expected, if successful, to locate your startup in Italy,

Since 2005 Nanochallenge rewards the best international startup projects in nanotechnology, uncovering breakthrough nanotechnology applications and attracting the best entrepreneurial talents, in order to give them the actual opportunity to create a startup.

Nanochallenge is an international business plan competition organized by Veneto Nanotech, the Italian Cluster of Nanotechnology and, since 2007, by IMAST, Technological District on polymeric and composite materials engineering and structures.

Veneto Nanotech and IMAST aim at attracting the best nanotechnology innovations / polymer-based materials applications and business ideas in the Clusters, offering financial and strategic support to scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs ready to start a real company.

The new entrepreneurs have access to our facilities, labs, instruments and financial network to develop their technologies and products. This helps them speed the development phase and enter the market.

Good luck to anyone who chooses to enter. The first deadline (register online and submit an executive summary) is July 19,  2012.

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Threats to increase anti-science violence

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Andy Coghlan has a May 29, 2012 article on the New Scientist’s website outlining the recent history of violence and renewed threats against scientists,

It’s like something out of Kafka. Anti-science anarchists in Italy appear to be ramping up their violent and frankly surreal campaign. Having claimed responsibility for shooting the boss of a nuclear engineering company in Genoa, the group has vowed to target Finmeccanica, the Italian aerospace and defence giant.

In  a diatribe sent on 11 May to Corriere della Sera newspaper on 11 May, the Olga Cell of the Informal Anarchist Federation International Revolutionary Front said it shot Roberto Adinolfi, head of Ansaldo Nucleare, in the leg four days earlier. “With this action of ours, we return to you a tiny part of the suffering that you, man of science, are pouring into this world,” the statement said. It also pledged a “campaign of struggle against Finmeccanica, the murderous octopus”.

This group has also claimed responsiblity for the 2010 attempted attack on a nanotechnology centre in Switzerland (mentioned most recently in my July 25, 2011 posting) and, according to Coghlan’s article, the Informal Anarchist Federation International Revolutionary Front is associated with the, in English,  Individuals Tending to Savagery (ITS) group who claimed responsibility for the August 2011  attacks on ‘nanotechnology researchers’ in Mexico (mentioned in my August 11, 2011 posting).

The anarchists seem to be turning their attention away from nanotechnology to focus on the nuclear industry.  This quote from Coghlan’s article stimulated a new line of thinking on the topic of violence and science  for me (I’ve been horrified by it all),

“At least with animal rights activists, you know what they want, but with these anarchists, I’m not sure,” he says. “Do they want us to stop all scientific experiments, stop driving cars or go back to living in caves? I don’t know.” [Michael Hagman, head of communications at the Empa institute in Duebendorf, Switzerland]

The cynic in me finally awoke when I put that quote together with the group’s shift to a new target. After last year’s Fukushima incident and the huge amount of interest and concern, I imagine the Informal Anarchist Federation International Revolutionary Front has concluded they will get far more attention and notoriety, their primary and only goal,  by focusing on the nuclear industry.

If you’re interested, the details about the most recent attack, the group’s international links,  and some good writing are featured in Coghlan’s article.

ETA Aug. 30, 2012: I corrected the author’s name from Coughlan to Coghlan.

ETA Feb. 21, 2013: Leigh Phillips contacted me to mention that there was a May 28, 2012 article for Nature, Anarchists attack science, which preceded Coghlan’s article for New Scientist and to which Coghlan provides a link. Phillips’ preceding article was subtitled, Armed extremists are targeting nuclear and nanotechnology workers. Phillips opens with the then recent attack on a nuclear engineering executive and subsequently focuses on attacks in the nanotechnology sector.

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