Monthly Archives: November 2013

Is it smart fabrics or smart textiles? (Smart Fabrics + Wearable Technology 2013)

Cath Rogan is  Principal of Smart Garment People, and the author of a Nov. 27, 2013 article profiling the recently held (Oct. 29 – 31, 2013) Smart Fabrics + Wearable Technology Europe 2013 conference. Before excerpting any material from the main body of her conference review for Innovation in Textiles, here’s the description of her company and her work (from the end of the article),

According to a boutique consulting business that helps customers make clothing “smart” and technology wearable.  Cath has spent over two decades developing technical fabrics and clothing for some of the world’s leading outdoor and sports brands, including Karrimor, Berghaus, Barbour, Lowe Alpine, Henri Lloyd, TNF, Patagonia, Nike, Puma and Adidas. More recently, her work has taken her into specialist protective clothing for chemical, biological and ballistic protection, along with wearable health and fitness monitoring.

This image of a bio-mimetic textile is one of several image accompanying the article,

Daan Roosegarde's Intimacy Garment [downloaded from: http://www.innovationintextiles.com/smart-textiles-nanotechnology/smart-fabrics-europe-2013-conference-review/]

Dean Roosegarde’s Intimacy Garment [downloaded from: http://www.innovationintextiles.com/smart-textiles-nanotechnology/smart-fabrics-europe-2013-conference-review/]

Rogan offers a comprehensive review and I’ve chose to highlight only two items from it,. From the article,

Daan Roosegarde covered several different chromic materials in the course of his outstanding opening keynote presentation.  As an artist and architect, the diversity of his projects was striking, but their impact, both visually and in the way they connect people to places, and objects was much more so.  His “impact” dress, which transitions from opaque to transparent and can be triggered by voice recognition inspired another novel application which raised an appreciative smile from the audience; the “Yes But…” chair delivers an electric shock to the seat of the person who utters every designers’ least favourite phrase.  …

Rogan also comments on ‘lighted textiles’ at the conference,

The conference had a strong bias towards “lighted” textiles with no fewer than seven presentations covering these applications.  Conversely, and in strong contrast to previous conferences, there was almost no mention of textile based wearable physiological monitoring (other than in Prof. Daniel Berckman’s fascinating look at the algorithms behind such devices at M3-BIORES).  These two sectors probably account for most of the development and commercialization efforts in e-textiles to date, but with the recent surge in demand for monitoring products fuelled by a growing number of “hardware” devices such as the Fitbit, Jawbone UP, Nike Fuelband etc, the omission of wearable monitoring was surprising.

She goes on to mention Moritz Waldemeyer, a British/German designer and engineer (there’s more in the Wikipedia essay) who I heard speak at the 2009 International Symposium on Electronic Arts (SEA) in Belfast, Northern Ireland (as per my Sept. 9, 2009 posting). He does some really stunning work as can be seen on his website, I particularly like this work for the Olympics (I believe these were for the 2010 London Olympics),

Dancers during the Olympic closing ceremony [Downloaded from: http://www.waldemeyer.com/olympic-ceremonies]

Dancers during the Olympic closing ceremony [Downloaded from: http://www.waldemeyer.com/olympic-ceremonies]

Rogan briefly describes a number of different themes including bio-mimetic inspired responsive textiles, shape shifting devices, flexible batteries, DIY (do-it-yourself) and hacking all of which are illustrated with more images.

For anyone who’s interested, there’s an upcoming Smart Fabrics + Wearable Technology 2014 conference in San Francisco (California, US) from April 23 – 25,2014. (I believe the conference is run 2x per year with a North American version in the Spring and a European version in the Fall.)

Buckypaper technology in Florida (US) receives $!.4M grant

Just after suggesting (as per my Nov. 26, 2013 posting) that Florida is quietly becoming a center for nanotechnology efforts in the US, there’s a $1.4M funding announcement for Florida State University’s High-Performance Materials Institute (HPMI. From the Nov. 27, 2013 news item on Nanowerk,

Florida State researchers have been awarded more than $1.4 million from the National Science Foundation to develop a system that will produce large amounts of a state-of-the-art material made from carbon nanotubes that researchers believe could transform everything from the way airplanes are built to how prosthetic limbs fit the human body.

“The goal is clear — to show industry the ability to use this in large-scale quantities,” said Richard Liang, director of FSU’s High-Performance Materials Institute (HPMI) and a professor for the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. “We’re looking at a more efficient, cost effective way to do this.”

The Nov. 26, 2013 Florida State University (FSU) news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides greater detail about buckypaper, the team’s research work, and the team’s hopes for this grant,

The material, buckypaper, is a feather-light sheet made of carbon nanotubes that is being tested in electronics, energy, medicine, space and transportation.  The aviation industry, for example, is doing tests with buckypaper, and it’s projected that it could replace metal shielding in the Boeing 787, currently made up of 60 miles of cable.

Engineers believe that replacing the cable with buckypaper could reduce the weight of the Boeing 787 by as much as 25 percent.

Florida State researchers have been engaged in other projects with buckypaper as well, including the use of the material in creating more advanced and comfortable prosthetic sockets for amputee patients and multifunctional lightweight composites for aerospace applications.

As revolutionary as buckypaper technology is, a major hurdle for its future use is that it can take two or more hours and can cost as much as $500 to make just a small 7-inch by 7-inch piece.  Companies like Boeing need large amounts of it to use on an aircraft.

However, the current process is neither fast nor cheap.

So, Liang will spend the next four years developing a process to produce large-scale amounts of buckypaper. The process and materials would then be patented and marketed to meet the demands of the industrial partners.

Liang will be joined on the project by Arda Vanli, an HPMI researcher and an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, as well as researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology.

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) webpage listing the award describes the specific research being undertaken and introduces the term ‘Bucky-tapes’,

Award Abstract #1344672
SNM: Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing of High Quality Bucky-tape with Aligned and Crosslinked Carbon Nanotubes Through In-line Sensing and Control

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) demonstrate amazing properties; however, currently only a fraction of these properties can be transferred into products that can be used by engineers and consumers. To effectively transfer CNTs? properties into useful products requires a method to efficiently align and covalently interconnect the CNTs into tailored architectures at the nanoscale. This project will establish the fundamental understanding and foundation for using CNTs to make thin sheet materials, called Bucky-tapes, which can be rapidly produced in roll form and scaled-up for industrial applications. The proposed method will use a modified die-casting manufacturing process utilizing the self-repelling effects of selected flow media. In-situ ultra-violet (UV) reaction chemistry can covalently interconnect the CNTs rapidly to improve the load transfer and thermal and electronic transport properties of CNT networks. In-line multi-stage stretching of the web could orient the randomly dispersed interconnected CNT networks into specific patterns to provide greater strength and optimized transport properties. In-line Raman spectra monitoring and multistage process models will provide affordable, closed loop quality control and variation reduction methods for a high quality consistent nanomanufacturing process. A prototype will be built to demonstrate the continuous roll-to-roll process for manufacturing strong Bucky-tapes with high electrical and thermal conductivity, and low manufacturing cost.

This project can transform CNT thin films networks from a lab-scale demonstration material into commercially viable products with superior properties potentially surpassing the state-of-the-art carbon fiber material. The continuous Bucky-tapes can lead to new materials applications in aerospace, electronics, energy, medicine, and transportation. For example, continuous Bucky-tape could replace metal shielding of 60 miles of cables in the Boeing 787 and reduce cable weight by 25%. The education and outreach plan will expose especially under-represented students to molecular design, nanomanufacturing process development and quality control, structure-property relationship studies. Application oriented materials-by-design and nanomanufacturing process development will motivate students into nanotechnology, manufacturing and new materials development.

I had mentioned this team’s work on buckypaper (or are they now calling it Bucky-tape?) in an Oct. 4, 2011 posting which features a video about buckypaper and in which I noted the possible applications for buckypaper closely mirror those for CNC (cellulose nanocrystals) or, as it’s also known,  NCC (nanocrystalline cellulose).

You can check out Florida State University’s High Performance Materials Institute here.

Mongolian National Modern Art Gallery hosted nano art exhibit in November 2013

I’m sorry I didn’t hear about this in a more timely fashion but it will be featured regardless as this is the first time I’ve had an opportunity to write about Mongolia and nanotechnology.. From the Nov. 27, 2013 article by B.Tungalag for The UB (Ulaanbaatar) Post (Mongolian national independent English weekly),

“Nano World” Science Art Exhibition was unveiled at the Mongolian National Modern Art Gallery on November 11. The Association of Developing Mongolian Modern Art and The Mongolian National Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology jointly organized the exhibition. The purpose of the exhibition is to give context about the development of nanotechnology and its importance through art. The show featured the best artworks from participants of the “Science as Art” competition, which has been organized by the Materials Research Society in the USA since 2006, and artwork by the famous Swiss artist and photographer, Fabian Oefner. The exhibition will be open for only three days, and closes on November 13.

Here are a few of the images that were featured,

[downloaded from: http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/?p=6790#]

[downloaded from: http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/?p=6790#]

And,

NanoJellyFish

The article includes this information about Mongolia’s ‘national nanotechnology center’,

About the National Center of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
The National Center of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology was established in 2008. The main objective of the National Center of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology is to search and discover the structure of atomic molecules through nanoscience and the study of gravity. The center observes open cooperation with contract researchers.

I am unable to find a website for the center but I was able to locate the Mongolian National Modern Art Gallery (or the English language version of the website).

Accessing data the Marvel (comic book) way: uberframeworks and graphs

For want of a better term I’m going to be calling the company, Marvel. It is an entertainment conglomerate based in the world of comic books and comic book heroes and the company has a data problem as David Lumb points out in his Nov. 27, 2013 article for Fast Company (Note: A link has been removed),

After 70 years of publishing, Marvel Entertainment has built up an incredible universe of heroes, villains, and super teams–a sea of data that no mere wiki can organize. At long last, Marvel has embarked on a mighty quest of its own: to create an entirely new graph database and search system to conquer continuity malaise by visualizing each character across the Marvel Universe.

Here’s how Lumb describes the problem,

The problem, like with any massive chunk of data, lies in getting the right data pieces in front of users–but for Marvel, the question becomes a semantic exercise. Just who is the character Hawkeye?

Well, he’s Clint Barton, except when he’s not; erstwhile sidekick Kate Bishop and villain Bullseye have taken the Hawkeye identity. He’s a member of the Avengers, except when he’s not; he’s also been part of the Thunderbolts and West Coast Avengers. He got his skills performing trick shots in a circus, except when he didn’t: He got them as an agent redeeming a murder conviction in the Ultimate universe and as a Black Ops SHIELD agent in the Marvel films.

According to the article, Peter Olson, Marvel’s VP of Web and Application Development, is in charge of developing the new database (Note: A link has been removed),

“We want an uberframework–the words ‘ontology’ and ‘taxonomy’ get thrown around a lot,” Olson said. “We want characters to appear as close to as possible from all their stories and iterations but, overall, we want the characters to bubble up to archetypes.”

Most databases are relational, most easily visualized as tables of rows and columns: … Marvel still has use for this kind of database that returns queries with solid, irrefutable answers, like listing all the issues they’ve sold for the above prices.

The new database, however, will run on graph theory, looking for relationships between characters, teams, and events. The graph above [image removed] displays relationships between characters, which would be extremely difficult for a relational database that might look for superheroes but leave out villains instead of showing more abstract values, like how popular/visible a character is across Marvel’s comic titles.

There is of course a business case for this new approach (Note: Links have been removed from the article excerpt),

… The Marvel graph database will find an answer based not only on book similarities but nuanced metadata, like writer or artist style. Better still, it’ll do what the venerable ComicBookDatabase cannot: confidently propose a list of essential story arcs for the new fan.
And lo, Marvel’s multimedia empire strikes again: Aside from Sony’s death grip on Spider-Man, Marvel holds the rights to all its major characters, so their recommendations aren’t limited to subscriber-only comics on its Marvel Unlimited service. Let loose the hounds of suggested merchandise! Of course, this also means those ultra-streamlined character pages will become the most seamless portals to every character’s stories that the Internet has ever seen.

This is a good article, which I recommend reading in its entirety, although I do have one suggestion for David Lumb and/or his editor,

… the company now depicts the same characters across multiple mediums … [emphasis mine]

The plural in this context (mass communications) should have been media. Mediums are a group of people who communicate with the dead, as one of my professors informed us all in an undergraduate communications course. He was a bit of hardliner on the topic,. I found out later there is a group that uses both; artists use either media or mediums (Grammarist).

Graph Databases, are covered in a Wikipedia essay, which has this to say about them (Note: Links and footnotes have been removed),

A graph database is a database that uses graph structures with nodes, edges, and properties to represent and store data. By definition,[according to whom?] a graph database is any storage system that provides index-free adjacency. This means that every element contains a direct pointer to its adjacent element and no index lookups are necessary.

The essay also offers this illustration,

[Downloaded from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_database]

[Downloaded from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_database]

Peter Olson, the VP who’s managing this new database for Marvel gave a talk at the Nov. 5 – 6, 2013 GraphConnect New York (City) meeting. His talk is described this way on the website (from the GraphConnect 2013 videos webpage),

Graphing the Marvel Universe – Peter Olson @GraphConnect NY 2013

This talk will give an overview of why graphs are such a powerful conceptual framework for modeling intellectual property and how Marvel uses them to represent the 70 years of fictional content from many different media that makes up the Marvel Universe.

The talk is approximately 40 mins. long and you can also find it here on Vimeo.

You can find more information (speakers, agenda, etc.) here about the Nov. 5 – 6, 2013 meeting in New York City and you can find out more about GraphConnect 2013 meetings in Boston, San Francisco, London (UK), and elsewhere by going here.

Cleaning up water polluted by agricultural fertilizers

Researchers at Rice University (Texas, US) have announced a new catalyst for cleaning nitrites from water polluted by agricultural fertilizers (from the Rice University November 25, 2013 news release ,[also on EurekAlert]),

Chemical engineers at Rice University have found a new catalyst that can rapidly break down nitrites, a common and harmful contaminant in drinking water that often results from overuse of agricultural fertilizers.

Nitrites and their more abundant cousins, nitrates, are inorganic compounds that are often found in both groundwater and surface water. The compounds are a health hazard, and the Environmental Protection Agency places strict limits on the amount of nitrates and nitrites in drinking water. While it’s possible to remove nitrates and nitrites from water with filters and resins, the process can be prohibitively expensive.

There is a map illustrating the problem,

CAPTION: Many areas of the United States are at risk of contamination of drinking water by nitrates and nitrites due to overuse of agricultural fertilizers. CREDIT: USGS

CAPTION: Many areas of the United States are at risk of contamination of drinking water by nitrates and nitrites due to overuse of agricultural fertilizers.
CREDIT: USGS Courtesy: Rice University

Here’s more about these new catalysts designed to ‘scrub’ water clean (from the news release; Note: Links have been removed),

.. Michael Wong, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice and the lead researcher on the new study [says] “Our group has studied engineered gold and palladium nanocatalysts for several years. We’ve tested these against chlorinated solvents for almost a decade and in looking for other potential uses for these we stumbled onto some studies about palladium catalysts being used to treat nitrates and nitrites; so we decided to do a comparison.”

Catalysts are the matchmakers of the molecular world: They cause other compounds to react with one another, often by bringing them into close proximity, but the catalysts are not consumed by the reaction.

In a new paper in the journal Nanoscale, Wong’s team showed that engineered nanoparticles of gold and palladium were several times more efficient at breaking down nitrites than any previously studied catalysts. The particles, which were invented at Wong’s Catalysis and Nanomaterials Laboratory, consist of a solid gold core that’s partially covered with palladium.

Over the past decade, Wong’s team has found these gold-palladium composites have faster reaction times for breaking down chlorinated pollutants than do any other known catalysts. He said the same proved true for nitrites, for reasons that are still unknown.

“There’s no chlorine in these compounds, so the chemistry is completely different,” Wong said. “It’s not yet clear how the gold and palladium work together to boost the reaction time in nitrites and why reaction efficiency spiked when the nanoparticles had about 80 percent palladium coverage. We have several hypotheses we are testing out now. ”

He said that gold-palladium nanocatalysts with the optimal formulation were about 15 times more efficient at breaking down nitrites than were pure palladium nanocatalysts, and about 7 1/2 times more efficient than catalysts made of palladium and aluminum oxide.

I gather this team will be doing more work before promoting the use of gold-palladium nanocatalysts (from the news release),

Wong said he can envision using the gold-palladium catalysts in a small filtration unit that could be attached to a water tap, but only if the team finds a similarly efficient catalyst for breaking down nitrates, which are even more abundant pollutants than nitrites.

“Nitrites form wherever you have nitrates, which are really the root of the problem,” Wong said. “We’re actively studying a number of candidates for degrading nitrates now, and we have some positive leads.”

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

Supporting palladium metal on gold nanoparticles improves its catalysis for nitrite reduction by Huifeng Qian, Zhun Zhao, Juan C. Velazquez, Lori A. Pretzer, Kimberly N. Hecka and Michael S. Wong. Nanoscale, 2014, Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/C3NR04540D First published online 30 Oct 2013

This paper is behind a paywall.

NANOTEC’s creative lifestyle and culture theme for Nanotech 2014 exhibition and conference in Tokyo

A Nov. 22, 2013 news item on Nanowerk announces plans for Thailand’s participation at one of the world’s largest nanotechnology events, the 13th International Nanotechnology Exhibition and Conference; Nanotech 2014 in Tokyo, Japan,

Preparations are on the way at NANOTEC [Thailand’s agency for nanotechnology development] as it begins the tasks of preparing for nanotech 2014 at Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo, Japan which is scheduled for January 29 to 31. The Thailand team is coming to the show with elevated confidence as the team received a Special Award for its leading role in developing unique and innovative technology and products that have societal and economic impacts in the 2013 event.

The undated NANOTEC notice,, which originated the news item, goes to describe this year’s theme,

The Thailand team led by Prof. Dr. Pairash Thajchayapong, Specialist and Senior Advisor to NSTDA and Chairman of NANOTEC Executive Board, and Prof. Sirirurg Songsivilai, Executive Director will showcase research initiatives under the theme “Nanotechnology in Thailand: Creative Lifestyle and Culture”.

The Thailand pavillion at nanotech 2014.“Visitors to the Thailand Pavilion will be able to easily follow the exhibition and understand the research findings as the display will be group in 3 zones: Innovation, Living, and Culture” said Prof. Sirirurg. “We want to show that by incorporating nanotechnology to practical and down-to-earth productions, SMEs can up their “value chain” production process to increase competitiveness in global market”.The Thailand team is looking to welcoming visitors to their show at nanotech 2014 in Japan.

Here’s what I believe to be a model of the proposed pavilion,

[downloaded from http://www.nanotec.or.th/en/?p=5659]

[downloaded from http://www.nanotec.or.th/en/?p=5659]

Thailand’s theme for Nanotech 2012 was natural disaster relief as per my Dec. 6, 2011 posting, I last wrote about NANOTEC in an August 8, 2013 posting about its 10th anniversary.

ETa Dec. 6, 2013: NANOTEC has announced another event during nanotech 2014 in Tokyo, Japan as per this Dec. 5, 2013 news item on Nanotechnology Now,

Thailand is willing to tell it all at the Seed and Need Seminar on January 31 during nanotech 2014 at Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo, Japan. The title of the presentation is “Nanotechnology Development in Thailand”.

Meanwhile, Thailand is experiencing a temporary cessation of the violent protests which have overtaken the country since Nov. 24, 2013 according to a Dec. 5, 2013 item on BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) News online,

Thailand is marking the 86th birthday of the revered king amid a truce after days of violent protests in Bangkok.

Speaking at his palace in the coastal resort of Hua Hin, the king said that Thailand had been peaceful because of the unity of the people.

There were violent clashes earlier in the week between police and protesters.

The demonstrators, who are demanding that the current government resign, began protesting on 24 November.

They agreed to stop their attacks on government buildings for the birthday celebrations, but have said they will be back right after them.

Putting a new spin on it: Whirling Dervishes and physics and ballet dancers and neuroscience

Many years ago I was dragged to a movie about J. Krishnamurti (a philosopher and spiritual teacher; there’s more in this Wikipedia essay) which, for some reason, featured Whirling Dervishes amongst many other topics. Watching those dervishes was hypnotic and I now find out it was also an experience in physics, according to a Nov. 26, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

A force that intricately links the rotation of the Earth with the direction of weather patterns in the atmosphere has been shown to play a crucial role in the creation of the hypnotic patterns created by the skirts of the Whirling Dervishes.

This is according to an international group of researchers who have demonstrated how the Coriolis force is essential for creating the archetypal, and sometimes counterintuitive, patterns that form on the surface of the Whirling Dervishes skirts by creating a set of very simple equations which govern how fixed or free-flowing cone-shaped structures behave when rotating.

The Nov. 26, 2013 Institute of Physics (IOP) news release on EurekAlert (also on the IOP website but dated Nov. 27, 2013), which originated the news item, gives an explanation of Whirling Dervishes and describes the research further,

The Whirling Dervishes, who have become a popular tourist attraction in Turkey, are a religious movement who commemorate the 13th-century Persian poet, Rumi, by spinning on the spot and creating mesmerising patterns with their long skirts. A YouTube video of the Whirling Dervishes in action can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Cf-ZxDfZA.

Co-author of the study James Hanna, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, said: “The dancers don’t do much but spin around at a fixed speed, but their skirts show these very striking, long-lived patterns with sharp cusp-like features which seem rather counterintuitive.”

Hanna, along with Jemal Guven at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Martin Michael Müller at Université de Lorraine, found that it was the presence of a Coriolis force that was essential in the formation of the different patterns.

The Coriolis effect accounts for the deflection of objects on a rotating surface and is most commonly encountered when looking at the Earth’s rotations and its effect on the atmosphere around it. The rotation of the Earth creates the Coriolis force which causes winds to be deflected clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere – it is this effect which is responsible for the rotation of cyclones.

“Because the sheet is conically symmetric, material can flow along its surface without stretching or deforming. You can think of the rotating Earth, for example, with the air of the atmosphere free to flow around it.

“The flow of a sheet of material is much more restrictive than the flow of the atmosphere, but nonetheless it results in Coriolis forces. What we found was that this flow, and the associated Coriolis forces, plays a crucial role in forming the dervish-like patterns,” Hanna continued.

By providing a basic mathematical description of the spinning skirts of the Dervishes, the researchers hope their future research will discern how different patterns are selected, how stable these patterns are and if gravity or any other effects make a qualitative difference.

The news release notes,

The equations, which have been published today, 27 November,[2013], in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society’s New Journal of Physics, were able to reproduce the sharp peaks and gentle troughs that appear along the flowing surface of the Dervishes’ skirts and showed a significant resemblance to real-life images.

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

Whirling skirts and rotating cones by Jemal Guven, J A Hanna, and Martin Michael Müller. New Journal of Physics Volume 15 November 2013 doi:10.1088/1367-2630/15/11/113055  Published 26 November 2013

© IOP Publishing and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft

This paper is open access.

While the Whirling Dervishes and the fabric in their clothing provide insights into aspects of physics, ballet dancers are providing valuable information to neuroscientists and geriatric specialists with pirouettes, according to a Sept. 26, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

Scientists have discovered differences in the brain structure of ballet dancers that may help them avoid feeling dizzy when they perform pirouettes.

The research suggests that years of training can enable dancers to suppress signals from the balance organs in the inner ear.

The findings, published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, could help to improve treatment for patients with chronic dizziness. Around one in four people experience this condition at some time in their lives.

The Imperial College of London (ICL) Sept. 26, 2013 news release on EurekAlert (also on the ICL website but dated Sept. 27, 2013), which originated the news item, describes dizziness, this research, and ballet dancers’ unique brains in more detail,

Normally, the feeling of dizziness stems from the vestibular organs in the inner ear. These fluid-filled chambers sense rotation of the head through tiny hairs that sense the fluid moving. After turning around rapidly, the fluid continues to move, which can make you feel like you’re still spinning.

Ballet dancers can perform multiple pirouettes with little or no feeling of dizziness. The findings show that this feat isn’t just down to spotting, a technique dancers use that involves rapidly moving the head to fix their gaze on the same spot as much as possible.

Researchers at Imperial College London recruited 29 female ballet dancers and, as a comparison group, 20 female rowers whose age and fitness levels matched the dancers’.

The volunteers were spun around in a chair in a dark room. They were asked to turn a handle in time with how quickly they felt like they were still spinning after they had stopped. The researchers also measured eye reflexes triggered by input from the vestibular organs. Later, they examined the participants’ brain structure with MRI scans.

In dancers, both the eye reflexes and their perception of spinning lasted a shorter time than in the rowers.

Dr Barry Seemungal, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial, said: “Dizziness, which is the feeling that we are moving when in fact we are still, is a common problem. I see a lot of patients who have suffered from dizziness for a long time. Ballet dancers seem to be able to train themselves not to get dizzy, so we wondered whether we could use the same principles to help our patients.”

The brain scans revealed differences between the groups in two parts of the brain: an area in the cerebellum where sensory input from the vestibular organs is processed and in the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for the perception of dizziness.

The area in the cerebellum was smaller in dancers. Dr Seemungal thinks this is because dancers would be better off not using their vestibular systems, relying instead on highly co-ordinated pre-programmed movements.

“It’s not useful for a ballet dancer to feel dizzy or off balance. Their brains adapt over years of training to suppress that input. Consequently, the signal going to the brain areas responsible for perception of dizziness in the cerebral cortex is reduced, making dancers resistant to feeling dizzy. If we can target that same brain area or monitor it in patients with chronic dizziness, we can begin to understand how to treat them better.”

Another finding in the study may be important for how chronic dizzy patients are tested in the clinic. In the control group, the perception of spinning closely matched the eye reflexes triggered by vestibular signals, but in dancers, the two were uncoupled.

“This shows that the sensation of spinning is separate from the reflexes that make your eyes move back and forth,” Dr Seemungal said. “In many clinics, it’s common to only measure the reflexes, meaning that when these tests come back normal the patient is told that there is nothing wrong. But that’s only half the story. You need to look at tests that assess both reflex and sensation.”

For the curious, here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

The Neuroanatomical Correlates of Training-Related Perceptuo-Reflex Uncoupling in Dancers by Yuliya Nigmatullina, Peter J. Hellyer, Parashkev Nachev, David J. Sharp, and Barry M. Seemungal. Cereb. Cortex (2013) doi: 10.1093/cercor/bht266 First published online: September 26, 2013

Delightfully, this article too is open access.

I love these kinds of stories where two very different branches of science find information of interest in something as ordinary as spinning around.

Courtesy: Imperial College of London (downloaded from: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_26-9-2013-17-43-4]

Courtesy: Imperial College of London (downloaded from: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_26-9-2013-17-43-4]

Here are some Whirling Dervishes,

Istanbul - Monestir Mevlevi - Dervixos dansaires Credit: Josep Renalias [downloaded from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Istanbul_-_Monestir_Mevlevi_-_Dervixos_dansaires.JPG]

Istanbul – Monestir Mevlevi – Dervixos dansaires Credit: Josep Renalias [downloaded from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Istanbul_-_Monestir_Mevlevi_-_Dervixos_dansaires.JPG]

ETA Nov. 28, 2013: I was most diverted by the Nov. 27, 2013 Virginia Tech news release (also on EurekAlert) which describes how two physicists and an engineer came to study Whirling Dervishes,

James Hanna likes to have fun with his engineering views of physics.

So when he and his colleague Jemal Guven visited their friend Martin Michael Müller in France on a rainy, dreary day, the three intellects decided to stay in. Guven, absent-mindedly switching between channels on the television, stumbled upon a documentary on whirling dervishes, best described as a Sufi religious order, who commemorate the teachings of 13th century Persian mystic and poet Rumi through spinning at a fixed speed in their floor length skirts.

“Their skirts showed these very striking, long-lived patterns,” Hanna, the engineer, recalled.

The film caused physicists Guven and Müller to think about structures with conical symmetry, or those shapes that can be defined as a series of straight lines emanating from a single point. By contrast, Hanna, the engineer with a physicist’s background, thought about rotating flexible structures, namely strings or sheets.

Making cardiac implants stickier

It’s not often you read about an agricultural and biosystems engineer collaborating with a cardiac and biomedical engineer but that’s exactly what happened according to this Nov. 26, 2013 news item in phys.org,

Jeong-Yeol Yoon, associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, and Dr. Marvin Slepian, professor of cardiology and biomedical engineering, collaborated to test how nanotechnology-based techniques can be used to better facilitate adhesion between tissue and implanted devices.

The Nov. 25, 2013 University of Arizona news release by Eric Swedlund, which originated the news item, describes the pairing (Note Links have been removed),

The connection between Yoon, [Jeong-Yeol Yoon, associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering] a specialist in biosensors and nanotechnology from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Slepian [Dr. Marvin Slepian, professor of cardiology and biomedical engineering], co-founder and chief scientific officer of artificial-heart manufacturer SynCardia, came about by chance. A graduate student in Yoon’s lab met Slepian through their shared interest in bicycling.

“It’s very rare for the agriculture people to work with the cardiovascular people in the medical school,” Yoon says.

Here’s what the researchers did (from the news release),

“When we created the nanotexture surface, we thought it could be used as a sticky surface for the implants,” Yoon says.

Cell-substrate adhesion involves the interplay of mechanical properties, surface topographic features, electrostatic charge and biochemical mechanisms. By working at the nanoscale level, Yoon was able to maximize the physical properties of the underlying substrate in promoting adhesion.

[The adhesive properties derive from optimized surface texturing, electrostatic charge and cell adhesive ligands (molecular binding substances) that {sic} are uniquely assembled on the substrata surface as an ensemble of nanoparticles trapped in nanowells.]

But beyond simply creating a sticky surface, the researchers’ goal was to create a selectively sticky surface, favoring endothelial cell attachment, without favoring platelet attachment, Slepian says.

This particular approach has an important advantage (from the news release),

One particular challenge to overcome in cardiovascular implants is the potential for devices – such as stents placed inside coronary arteries – to become detached as a result of blood flow, Yoon says.

“We’re particularly focused on the cardiovascular applications because there’s a blood flow involved and our system is very good when there’s a flow situation,” Yoon says.

i have searched but am unable to find anything more recent than a July 2013 study by these researchers for Advanced Health Materials,

Biomaterials: Nanowell-Trapped Charged Ligand-Bearing Nanoparticle Surfaces: A Novel Method of Enhancing Flow-Resistant Cell Adhesion by Phat L. Tran, Jessica R. Gamboa, Katherine E. McCracken, Mark R. Riley, Marvin J. Slepian, and Jeong-Yeol Yoon.
Advanced Healthcare Materials Volume 2, Issue 7, page 1064, July, 2013 Article first published online: 10 JUL 2013 DOI: 10.1002/adhm.201370037

Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This article (assuming it’s the right one) is behind a paywall, should you wish to pursue this work further.

A superhydrophobic coating for glass from the University of Pennsylvania (US) with promises that it’s better than others

Anyone who’s read this blog with any frequency has likely encountered my obsession with self-cleaning glass (specifically, windows). Frankly, I’ve almost given up hope of ever seeing the product in my lifetime several times and then I see another announcement such as this in a Nov. 26, 2013 news item on Nanowerk,

Hanging hundreds of feet off the ground to wash a skyscraper’s windows or pumping water out to a desert solar array to keep its panels and mirrors clean is more than just a hassle—it’s an expensive problem with serious ecological implications.

A spin-off company from Penn has found a way to solve the problem of keeping surfaces clean, while also keeping them transparent.

The undated University of Pennsylvania article by Evan Lerner, which originated the news item, describes both the university’s spin-off company and the research which it is exploiting (Note: Links have been removed),

Nelum Sciences, created under an UPstart program in Penn’s Center for Technology Transfer, has developed a superhydrophobic coating that can be sprayed onto any surface. The water-based solution contains nanoscopic particles that add a nearly invisible layer of roughness to a surface. This increases the contact angle of the material to which these particles are applied.

A contact angle is the angle the edges of a resting drop of liquid make with a surface. When the angle is low, a drop resembles a flattened hemisphere, with edges that are stuck to the surface. But as the angle increases, a drop begins to look more like a ball, until it literally rolls away instead of sticking.

When these balls of liquid roll off a superhydrophobic surface, they pick up any debris they encounter in their paths, keeping a surface clean.

Co-founded in 2011 by Shu Yang, professor of materials science and engineering in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, Nelum Science’s coating is based on her nanotechnology research. Fabricating the coating’s nanoparticles at sizes smaller than the wavelength of light—the quality that makes them transparent—is the product of cutting-edge laboratory techniques. The company’s inspiration, however, came from structures created by nature.

“Some plants, like lotuses, and other biological structures, like butterfly wings, have this kind of nano-roughness to keep them clean and dry,” Yang says. “That’s why we named the company after the lotus’ Latin name, nelumbo.”

Other superhydrophobic sprays have recently come on the market, but they give surfaces a hazy, frosted appearance, making them inappropriate for applications where cleanliness is critical, such as windows, lenses, safety goggles, and solar panels.

Here’s a University of Pennsylvanis video illustrating the technology,

I wasn’t able to find much information about Nelum Sciences but there is this page on the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Technology Transfer website, which leads me to suspect I may not be seeing the product in the market place any time soon.

About GoldiBlox, the Beastie Boys, girls in science, and intellectual property

This story about GoldiBlox, was supposed to be a ‘feel good’ piece about the company, girls,  and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)—but that was last week. At this point (Nov. 26, 2013), we can add a squabble over intellectual property (copyright) to the mix.

GoldiBlox, a company that makes engineering toys for girls (previously mentioned in my Dec. 6, 2012 posting) has produced an advertisement that has been attracting a lot of interest on the internet including this Nov. 19, 2013 story by Katy Waldman for Slate (Note: Links have been removed),

This is a stupendously awesome commercial from a toy company called GoldieBlox, which has developed a set of interactive books and games to “disrupt the pink aisle and inspire the future generation of female engineers.” The CEO, Debbie Sterling, studied engineering at Stanford, where she was dismayed by the lack of women in her program. (For a long look at the Gordian knot that is women’s underrepresentation in STEM fields,  … . Sterling wants to light girls’ inventive spark early, supplementing the usual diet of glittery princess products with construction toys “from a female perspective.”

We love this video because it subverts a bunch of dumb gender stereotypes—all to the strains of a repurposed Beastie Boys song. [emphasis mine] In it, a trio of smart girls could not be less impressed by the flouncing beauty queens in the commercial they’re watching. So they use a motley collection of toys and household items (including a magenta feather boa and a pink plastic tea set) to assemble a huge Rube Goldberg machine. …

Here’s the video (no longer available with Beastie Boys parody song as of Nov. 27, 2013; I have placed the latest version at the end of this posting),,

You can find GoldieBlox here.

Things have turned a little since Waldman’s rapturous story. The Beastie Boys do not want their music to be used in advertisements, of any kind. From Christina Chaey’s Nov. 25, 2013 article for Fast Company,

Beastie Boys members Mike D and Ad-Rock, who survive the late Adam “MCA” Yauch, have issued the following open letter addressed to GoldieBlox:

Like many of the millions of people who have seen your toy commercial “GoldieBlox, Rube Goldberg & the Beastie Boys,” we were very impressed by the creativity and the message behind your ad. We strongly support empowering young girls, breaking down gender stereotypes and igniting a passion for technology and engineering.

As creative as it is, make no mistake, your video is an advertisement that is designed to sell a product, and long ago, we made a conscious decision not to permit our music and/or name to be used in product ads. When we tried to simply ask how and why our song “Girls” had been used in your ad without our permission, YOU sued US.

Chaey’s article goes on to document responses from other musicians about this incident and notes that GoldiBlox has not commented.

Techdirt’s Mike Masnic, also has a Nov. 25, 2013 article on the topic where he notes that neither party has filed suit  (at least, not yet),

Now, it is true that some in the press have mistakenly stated that the Beastie Boys sued GoldieBlox, and that’s clearly not the case. GoldieBlox filed for declaratory judgment, which is a fairly standard move after someone claims that you violated their rights. It’s not a lawsuit seeking money — just to declare that the use is fair use. While the Beastie Boys say they made no threat or demand, the lawsuit notes that their letter (which still has not been revealed in full) made a direct claim that the video was copyright infringement, and also that this was a “big problem” that has a “very significant impact.”

As Masnick goes on to mention (Note: A link has been removed),

.. in fact, that in Adam Yauch’s  [deceased band member] will, it explicitly stated that none of their music was ever to be used in advertising. And, from the Beastie Boys’ open letter, it appears that was their main concern.

But, here’s the thing: as principled as Yauch was about this, and as admirable as it may be for him and the band to not want their music appearing in advertisements that does not matter under the law. If the use is considered fair use, then it can be used. Period. There is no clause in fair use law that says “except if someone’s will says otherwise.” The very point of fair use is that you don’t need permission and you don’t need a license.

Sometimes (often) the resolution to these disagreements has more to do with whomever can best afford legal costs and less to do with points of law, even if they are in your favour. From Masnick’s article,

I’ve spoken to a bunch of copyright lawyers about this, and almost all of them agree that this is likely fair use (with some arguing that it’s a totally clear-cut case). Some have argued that because it’s an advertisement for a company that precludes any possibility of fair use, but that’s absolutely not true. Plenty of commercial efforts have been considered fair use, and, in fact, many of the folks who rely the most on fair use are large media companies who are using things in a commercial context.

It’s nice when the good guys are clearly distinguishable from the bad guys but it appears this may not entirely be the case with GoldiBlox, which apparently believes it can grant licences to link to their website, as per Mike Masnick’s Nov. 26, 2013 Techdirt posting on the topic (Note: Links have been removed),

… as noted in Jeff Roberts’ coverage of the case over at Gigaom, it appears that Goldieblox might want to take a closer look at their own terms of service, which makes some absolutely ridiculous and laughable claims about how you can’t link to their website …

… Because just as you don’t need a license to create a parody song, you don’t need a license to link to someone’s website.

I do hope things work out with regard to the parody song and as for licencing links to their website, that’s just silly.  One final note, Canadians do not have ‘fair use’ provisions under the law, we have ‘fair dealing’ and that is a little different. From the Wikipedia essay on Fair Dealing (Note: Links have been removed),

Fair dealing is a statutory exception to copyright infringement. It is a defence, with the burden of proof upon the defendant.

Should I ever learn of the outcome of this GoldiBlox/Beastie Boys conflict I will provide an update.

ETA Nov. 27, 2013: GoldiBlox has changed the soundtrack for their video as per the Nov. 27, 2013 article by Kit Eaton for Fast Company,

The company explains it has replaced the video and is ready to quash its lawsuit “as long as this means we will no longer be under threat from [the band’s] legal team.”

Eaton has more quotes from the letter written by the GoldiBlox team in his article. For the curious, I have the latest version of the commercial here,

I don’t think the new music is as effective but if I remember the video properly, they’ve made some changes and I like those.

ETA Nov. 27, 2013 (2): I can’t believe I’m adding material to this posting for the second time today. Ah well. Katy Waldman over at Slate has weighed in for the second time with a Nov. 27, 2013 article discussing the Beastie Boys situation briefly while focussing primarily on whether or not the company actually does produce toys that encourage girls in their engineering and science efforts. It seems the consensus, such as it is, would be: not really. Not having played with the toys myself, I have no worthwhile opinion to offer on the topic but you might want to check Waldman’s article to see what more informed folks have to say.

Mary Elizabetth Williams in her Nov. 27, 2013 article for Salon.com seems more supportive of the Beastie Boys’ position than the Mike Masnick at Techdirt. She’s also quite critical of GoldieBlox’s open letter mentioned in today’s first ETA. I agree with many of her criticisms.

Hopefully, this will be it for this story.