Monthly Archives: January 2016

Graphene-boron nitride material research from Rice University (US) and Polytechnique Montréal (Canada)

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A Jan. 13, 2016 Rice University news release (also on EurekAlert) highlights computational research on hybrid material (graphene-boron nitride),

Developing novel materials from the atoms up goes faster when some of the trial and error is eliminated. A new Rice University and Montreal Polytechnic study aims to do that for graphene and boron nitride hybrids.

Rice materials scientist Rouzbeh Shahsavari and Farzaneh Shayeganfar, a postdoctoral researcher at Montreal Polytechnic (also known as École Polytechnique de Montréal or Polytechnique de Montréal), designed computer simulations that combine graphene, the atom-thick form of carbon, with either carbon or boron nitride nanotubes.

Their hope is that such hybrids can leverage the best aspects of their constituent materials. Defining the properties of various combinations would simplify development for manufacturers who want to use these exotic materials in next-generation electronics. The researchers found not only electronic but also magnetic properties that could be useful.

…

Shahsavari’s lab studies materials to see how they can be made more efficient, functional and environmentally friendly. They include macroscale materials like cement and ceramics as well as nanoscale hybrids with unique properties.

“Whether it’s on the macro- or microscale, if we can know specifically what a hybrid will do before anyone goes to the trouble of fabricating it, we can save cost and time and perhaps enable new properties not possible with any of the constituents,” Shahsavari said.

His lab’s computer models simulate how the intrinsic energies of atoms influence each other as they bond into molecules. For the new work, the researchers modeled hybrid structures of graphene and carbon nanotubes and of graphene and boron nitride nanotubes.

“We wanted to investigate and compare the electronic and potentially magnetic properties of different junction configurations, including their stability, electronic band gaps and charge transfer,” he said. “Then we designed three different nanostructures with different junction geometry.”

Two were hybrids with graphene layers seamlessly joined to carbon nanotubes. The other was similar but, for the first time, they modeled a hybrid with boron nitride nanotubes. How the sheets and tubes merged determined the hybrid’s properties. They also built versions with nanotubes sandwiched between graphene layers.

Graphene is a perfect conductor when its atoms align as hexagonal rings, but the material becomes strained when it deforms to accommodate nanotubes in hybrids. The atoms balance their energies at these junctions by forming five-, seven- or eight-member rings. These all induce changes in the way electricity flows across the junctions, turning the hybrid material into a valuable semiconductor.

The researchers’ calculations allowed them to map out a number of effects. For example, it turned out the junctions of the hybrid system create pseudomagnetic fields.

“The pseudomagnetic field due to strain was reported earlier for graphene, but not these hybrid boron nitride and carbon nanostructures where strain is inherent to the system,” Shahsavari said. He noted the effect may be useful in spintronic and nano-transistor applications.

“The pseudomagnetic field causes charge carriers in the hybrid to circulate as if under the influence of an applied external magnetic field,” he said. “Thus, in view of the exceptional flexibility, strength and thermal conductivity of hybrid carbon and boron nitride systems, we propose the pseudomagnetic field may be a viable way to control the electronic structure of new materials.”

All the effects serve as a road map for nanoengineering applications, Shahsavari said.

“We’re laying the foundations for a range of tunable hybrid architectures, especially for boron nitride, which is as promising as graphene but much less explored,” he said. “Scientists have been studying all-carbon structures for years, but the development of boron nitride and other two-dimensional materials and their various combinations with each other gives us a rich set of possibilities for the design of materials with never-seen-before properties.”

Shahsavari is an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and of materials science and nanoengineering.

###

Rice supported the research, and computational resources were provided by Calcul Quebec and Compute Canada.

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

Electronic and pseudomagnetic properties of hybrid carbon/boron-nitride nanomaterials via ab-initio calculations and elasticity theory by Farzaneh Shayeganfar and Rouzbeh Shahsavari. Carbon Volume 99, April 2016, Pages 523–532 doi:10.1016/j.carbon.2015.12.050

This paper is behind a paywall.

Here’s an image illustrating the hybrid material,

Caption: The calculated properties of a three-dimensional hybrid of graphene and boron nitride nanotubes would have pseudomagnetic properties, according to researchers at Rice University and Montreal Polytechnic. Credit: Shahsavari Lab/Rice University

Caption: The calculated properties of a three-dimensional hybrid of graphene and boron nitride nanotubes would have pseudomagnetic properties, according to researchers at Rice University and Montreal Polytechnic. Credit: Shahsavari Lab/Rice University

No more kevlar-wrapped lithium-ion batteries?

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Current lithium-ion batteries present a fire hazard, which is why, last, year a team of researchers at the University of Michigan came up with a plan to prevent fires by wrapping the batteries in kevlar. My Jan. 30, 2015 post describes the research and provides some information about airplane fires caused by the use of lithium-ion batteries.

This year, a team of researchers at Stanford University (US) have invented a lithium-ion (li-ion) battery that shuts itself down when it overheats, according to a Jan. 12, 2016 news item on Nanotechnology Now,

Stanford researchers have developed the first lithium-ion battery that shuts down before overheating, then restarts immediately when the temperature cools.

The new technology could prevent the kind of fires that have prompted recalls and bans on a wide range of battery-powered devices, from recliners and computers to navigation systems and hoverboards [and on airplanes].

“People have tried different strategies to solve the problem of accidental fires in lithium-ion batteries,” said Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford. “We’ve designed the first battery that can be shut down and revived over repeated heating and cooling cycles without compromising performance.”

Stanford has produced a video of Dr. Bao discussing her latest work,

A Jan. 11, 2016 Stanford University news release by Mark Schwartz, which originated the news item, provides more detail about li-ion batteries and the new fire prevention technology,

A typical lithium-ion battery consists of two electrodes and a liquid or gel electrolyte that carries charged particles between them. Puncturing, shorting or overcharging the battery generates heat. If the temperature reaches about 300 degrees Fahrenheit (150 degrees Celsius), the electrolyte could catch fire and trigger an explosion.

Several techniques have been used to prevent battery fires, such as adding flame retardants to the electrolyte. In 2014, Stanford engineer Yi Cui created a “smart” battery that provides ample warning before it gets too hot.

“Unfortunately, these techniques are irreversible, so the battery is no longer functional after it overheats,” said study co-author Cui, an associate professor of materials science and engineering and of photon science. “Clearly, in spite of the many efforts made thus far, battery safety remains an important concern and requires a new approach.”

Nanospikes

To address the problem Cui, Bao and postdoctoral scholar Zheng Chen turned to nanotechnology. Bao recently invented a wearable sensor to monitor human body temperature. The sensor is made of a plastic material embedded with tiny particles of nickel with nanoscale spikes protruding from their surface.

For the battery experiment, the researchers coated the spiky nickel particles with graphene, an atom-thick layer of carbon, and embedded the particles in a thin film of elastic polyethylene.

“We attached the polyethylene film to one of the battery electrodes so that an electric current could flow through it,” said Chen, lead author of the study. “To conduct electricity, the spiky particles have to physically touch one another. But during thermal expansion, polyethylene stretches. That causes the particles to spread apart, making the film nonconductive so that electricity can no longer flow through the battery.”

When the researchers heated the battery above 160 F (70 C), the polyethylene film quickly expanded like a balloon, causing the spiky particles to separate and the battery to shut down. But when the temperature dropped back down to 160 F (70 C), the polyethylene shrunk, the particles came back into contact, and the battery started generating electricity again.

“We can even tune the temperature higher or lower depending on how many particles we put in or what type of polymer materials we choose,” said Bao, who is also a professor, by courtesy, of chemistry and of materials science and engineering. “For example, we might want the battery to shut down at 50 C or 100 C.”

Reversible strategy

To test the stability of new material, the researchers repeatedly applied heat to the battery with a hot-air gun. Each time, the battery shut down when it got too hot and quickly resumed operating when the temperature cooled.

“Compared with previous approaches, our design provides a reliable, fast, reversible strategy that can achieve both high battery performance and improved safety,” Cui said. “This strategy holds great promise for practical battery applications.”

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

Fast and reversible thermoresponsive polymer switching materials for safer batteries by Zheng Chen, Po-Chun Hsu, Jeffrey Lopez, Yuzhang Li, John W. F. To, Nan Liu, Chao Wang, Sean C. Andrews, Jia Liu, Yi Cui, & Zhenan Bao. Nature Energy 1, Article number: 15009 (2016) doi:10.1038/nenergy.2015.9 Published online: 11 January 2016

This paper appears to be open access.

Star Trek, Schrödinger’s cat, quantum entanglement, and more in memory teleportation scheme

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A Jan. 13, 2016 news item on Nanowerk introduces Star Trek and Schrödinger’s cat as means to explain a quantum teleportation theory (Note: A link has been removed),

In “Star Trek”, a transporter can teleport a person from one location to a remote location without actually making the journey along the way. Such a transporter has fascinated many people. Quantum teleportation shares several features of the transporter and is one of the most important protocols in quantum information.

In a recent study (“Quantum superposition, entanglement, and state teleportation of a microorganism on an electromechanical oscillator”), Prof. Tongcang Li at Purdue University [US] and Dr. Zhang-qi Yin at Tsinghua University [China] proposed the first scheme to use electromechanical oscillators and superconducting circuits to teleport the internal quantum state (memory) and center-of-mass motion state of a microorganism.

They also proposed a scheme to create a Schrödinger’s cat state in which a microorganism can be in two places at the same time. This is an important step towards potentially teleporting an organism in future.

A Jan. 13, 2016 Science China Press news release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger proposed a famous thought experiment to prepare a cat in a superposition of both alive and dead states. The possibility of an organism to be in a superposition state dramatically reveals the profound consequences of quantum mechanics, and has attracted broad interests. Physicists have made great efforts in many decades to investigate macroscopic quantum phenomena. So far, matter-wave interference of electrons, atoms, and molecules (such as C60) have been observed. Recently, quantum ground state cooling and the creation of superposition states of mechanical oscillators have been realized. For example, a group in Colorado, US has cooled the vibration of a 15-micrometer-diameter aluminum membrane to quantum ground state, and entangled its motion with microwave photons. However, quantum superposition of an entire organism has not been realized. Meanwhile, there have been many breakthroughs in quantum teleportation since its first experimental realization in 1997 with a single photon. Besides photons, quantum teleportation with atoms, ions, and superconducting circuits have been demonstrated. In 2015, a group at University of Science and Technology of China demonstrated the quantum teleportation of multiple degrees of freedom of a single photon. However, existing experiments are still far away from teleporting an organism or the state of an organism.

In a recent study, Tongcang Li and Zhang-qi Yin propose to put a bacterium on top of an electromechanical membrane oscillator integrated with a superconducting circuit to prepare quantum superposition state of a microorganism and teleport its quantum state. A microorganism with a mass much smaller than the mass of the electromechanical membrane will not significantly affect the quality factor of the membrane and can be cooled to the quantum ground state together with the membrane. Quantum superposition and teleportation of its center-of-mass motion state can be realized with the help of superconducting microwave circuits. With a strong magnetic field gradient, the internal states of a microorganism, such as the electron spin of a glycine radical, can be entangled with its center-of-mass motion and be teleported to a remote microorganism. Since internal states of an organism contain information, this proposal provides a scheme for teleporting information or memories between two remote organisms.

The proposed setup is also a quantum-limited magnetic resonance force microscope. It not only can detect the existence of single electron spins (associated to protein defects or DNA defects) like conventional MRFM, but also can coherently manipulate and detect the quantum states of electron spins. It enables some isolated electron spins that could not be read out with optical or electrical methods to be used as quantum memory for quantum information.

Li says “We propose a straightforward method to put a microorganism in two places at the same time, and provide a scheme to teleport the quantum state of a microorganism. I hope our unconventional work will inspire more people to think seriously about quantum teleportation of a microorganism and its potential applications in future.” Yin says “Our work also provides insights for future studies about the effects of biochemical reactions in the wave function collapses of quantum superposition states of an organism.”

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

Quantum superposition, entanglement, and state teleportation of a microorganism on an electromechanical oscillator by Tongcang Li and Zhang-Qi Yin. Science Bulletin pp 1-9 DOI: 10.1007/s11434-015-0990-x First online: 11 January 2016

This paper is behind a paywall.

Spermbot alternative for infertility issues

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A German team that’s been working with sperm to develop a biological motor has announced it may have an alternative treatment for infertility, according to a Jan. 13, 2016 news item on Nanowerk,

Sperm that don’t swim well [also known as low motility] rank high among the main causes of infertility. To give these cells a boost, women trying to conceive can turn to artificial insemination or other assisted reproduction techniques, but success can be elusive. In an attempt to improve these odds, scientists have developed motorized “spermbots” that can deliver poor swimmers — that are otherwise healthy — to an egg. …

A Jan. 13, 2016 American Chemical Society (ACS) news release (*also on EurekAlert*), which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

Artificial insemination is a relatively inexpensive and simple technique that involves introducing sperm to a woman’s uterus with a medical instrument. Overall, the success rate is on average under 30 percent, according to the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority of the United Kingdom. In vitro fertilization can be more effective, but it’s a complicated and expensive process. It requires removing eggs from a woman’s ovaries with a needle, fertilizing them outside the body and then transferring the embryos to her uterus or a surrogate’s a few days later. Each step comes with a risk for failure. Mariana Medina-Sánchez, Lukas Schwarz, Oliver G. Schmidt and colleagues from the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences at IFW Dresden in Germany wanted to see if they could come up with a better option than the existing methods.

Building on previous work on micromotors, the researchers constructed tiny metal helices just large enough to fit around the tail of a sperm. Their movements can be controlled by a rotating magnetic field. Lab testing showed that the motors can be directed to slip around a sperm cell, drive it to an egg for potential fertilization and then release it. The researchers say that although much more work needs to be done before their technique can reach clinical testing, the success of their initial demonstration is a promising start.

For those who prefer to watch their news, there’s this,


This team got a flurry of interest in 2014 when they first announced their research on using sperm as a biological motor. Tracy Staedter in a Jan. 15, 2014 article for Discovery.com describes their then results,

To create these tiny robots, the scientists first had to catch a few. First, they designed microtubes, which are essentially thin sheets of titanium and iron — which have a magnetic property — rolled into conical tubes, with one end wider than the other. Next, they put the microtubes into a solution in a Petri dish and added bovine sperm cells, which are similar size to human sperm. When a live sperm entered the wider end of the tube, it became trapped down near the narrow end. The scientists also closed the wider end, so the sperm wouldn’t swim out. And because sperm are so determined, the trapped cell pushed against the tube, moving it forward.

Next, the scientists used a magnetic field to guide the tube in the direction they wanted it to go, relying on the sperm for the propulsion.

…

The quick swimming spermbots could use controlled from outside a person body to deliver payloads of drugs and even sperm itself to parts of the body where its needed, whether that’s a cancer tumor or an egg.

This work isn’t nanotechnology per se but it has been published in ACS Nano Letters. Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Cellular Cargo Delivery: Toward Assisted Fertilization by Sperm-Carrying Micromotors by Mariana Medina-Sánchez, Lukas Schwarz, Anne K. Meyer, Franziska Hebenstreit, and Oliver G. Schmidt. Nano Lett., 2016, 16 (1), pp 555–561 DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b04221 Publication Date (Web): December 21, 2015

Copyright © 2015 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

*'(also on EurekAlert)’ text and link added Jan. 14, 2016.

University of Malaya (Malaysia) and Harvard University (US) partner on nanomedicine/prevention projects

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Unusually for a ‘nanomedicine’ project, the talk turned to prevention during a Jan. 10, 2016 teleconference featuring Dr. Noor Hayaty Abu Kasim of the University of Malaya and Dr. Wong Tin Wui of the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Dr. Joseph Brain of  Harvard University in a discussion about Malaysia’s major investment in nanomedicine treatment for lung diseases.

A Jan. 11, 2016 Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) news release on EurekAlert announces both the lung project (University of Malaya/Harvard University) and others under Malaysia’s NanoMITe (Malaysia Institute for Innovative Nanotechnology) banner,

Malaysian scientists are joining forces with Harvard University experts to help revolutionize the treatment of lung diseases — the delivery of nanomedicine deep into places otherwise impossible to reach.

Under a five-year memorandum of understanding between Harvard and the University of Malaya, Malaysian scientists will join a distinguished team seeking a safe, more effective way of tackling lung problems including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the progressive, irreversible obstruction of airways causing almost 1 in 10 deaths today.

Treatment of COPD and lung cancer commonly involves chemotherapeutics and corticosteroids misted into a fine spray and inhaled, enabling direct delivery to the lungs and quick medicinal effect. However, because the particles produced by today’s inhalers are large, most of the medicine is deposited in the upper respiratory tract.

The Harvard team, within the university’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is working on “smart” nanoparticles that deliver appropriate levels of diagnostic and therapeutic agents to the deepest, tiniest sacs of the lung, a process potentially assisted by the use of magnetic fields.

Malaysia’s role within the international collaboration: help ensure the safety and improve the effectiveness of nanomedicine, assessing how nanomedicine particles behave in the body, what attaches to them to form a coating, where the drug accumulates and how it interacts with target and non-target cells.

Led by Joseph Brain, the Cecil K. and Philip Drinker Professor of Environmental Physiology, the research draws on extensive expertise at Harvard in biokinetics — determining how to administer medicine to achieve the proper dosage to impact target cells and assessing the extent to which drug-loaded nanoparticles pass through biological barriers to different organs.

The studies also build on decades of experience studying the biology of macrophages — large, specialized cells that recognize, engulf and destroy target cells as part of the human immune system.

Manipulating immune cells represents an important strategy for treating lung diseases like COPD and lung cancer, as well as infectious diseases including tuberculosis and listeriosis.

Dr. Brain notes that every day humans breathe 20,000 litres of air loaded with bacteria and viruses, and that the world’s deadliest epidemic — an outbreak of airborne influenza in the 1920s — killed tens of millions.

Inhaled nanomedicine holds the promise of helping doctors prevent and treat such problems in future, reaching the target area more swiftly than if administered orally or even intravenously.

This is particularly true for lung cancer, says Dr. Brain. “Experiments have demonstrated that a drug dose administered directly to the respiratory tract achieves much higher local drug concentrations at the target site.”

COPD meanwhile affects over 235 million people worldwide and is on the rise, with 80% of cases caused by cigarette smoking. Exacerbated by poor air quality, COPD is expected to rise from 5th to 3rd place among humanity’s most lethal health problems by 2030.

“Nanotechnology is making a significant impact on healthcare by delivering improvements in disease diagnosis and monitoring, as well as enabling new approaches to regenerative medicine and drug delivery,” says Prof. Zakri Abdul Hamid, Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

“Malaysia, through NanoMITe, is proud and excited to join the Harvard team and contribute to the creation of these life-giving innovations.”

…

While neither Dr. Abu Kasim nor Dr. Wong are included in the news release both are key members of the Malaysian team tasked to work on nanomedicines for lung disease. Dr. Abu Kasim is a professor of restorative dentistry at the University of Malaya and familiar with nanotechnology-enabled materials and nanoparticles through her work in that field. She is also the project lead for NanoMITe’s Project 4: Consequences of Smoking among the Malaysian Population. From the project webpage,

Smoking is a prevalent problem worldwide but especially so in Asia where nearly more than half of the world population reside. Smoking kills half of its users and despite the many documented harm to health is still a major problem. Globally six million lives are lost each year because of this addiction. This number is estimated to increase to ten million within the next two decades. Apart from the mortality, smokers are at increased risk of health morbidities of smoking which is a major risk factor for many non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as heart diseases, respiratory conditions and even mental health. Together, smoking reduces life expectancy 10-15 years compared to a non-smoker. Those with mental health lose double the years, 20 -25 years of their life as a result of their smoking. The current Malaysia death toll is at 10,000 lives per year due to smoking related health complications.

…

Although the health impact of smoking has been reported at length, this information is limited nationally. Lung cancer for example is closely linked to smoking, however, the study of the link between the two is lacking in Malaysia. Lung cancer particularly in Malaysia is also often diagnosed late, usually at stages 3 and 4. These stages of cancer are linked with a poorer prognosis. As a result to the harms to health either directly or indirectly, the World Health Organization (WHO) has introduced a legal treaty, the first, called the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC). This treaty currently ratified by 174 countries was introduced in 2005 and consists of 38 FCTC Articles which are evidence based policies, known to assist member countries to reduce their smoking prevalence. Malaysia is an early signatory and early adopter of the MPOWER strategy which are major articles of the FCTC. Among them are education and information dissemination informing the dangers of smoking which can be done through awareness campaigns of advocacy using civil society groups. Most campaigns have focused on health harms with little mention non-health or environmental harm as a result of smoking. Therefore there is an opportunity to further develop this idea as a strong advocacy point towards a smoke-free generation in the near future

It is difficult impossible to recall any other nanomedicine initiative that has so thoroughly embedded prevention as part of its mandate. As Dr. Brain puts it, “Malaysia’s commitment to better health for everyone—sometimes, I’m jealous.”

Getting back to nanomedicine, it’s Dr. Wong, an associate professor in the school of pharmaceutics at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), who is developing polymeric nanoparticles designed to carry medications into the lungs and Brain who will work on the best method of transport. From Dr. Brain’s webpage,

Dr. Brain’s research emphasizes responses to inhaled gases, particulates, and microbes. His studies extend from the deposition of inhaled particles in the respiratory tract to their clearance by respiratory defense mechanisms. Of particular interest is the role of lung macrophages; this resident cell keeps lung surfaces clean and sterile. Moreover, the lung macrophage is also a critical regulator of inflammatory and immune responses. The context of these studies on macrophages is the prevention and pathogenesis of environmental lung disease as well as respiratory infection.

His research has utilized magnetic particles in macrophages throughout the body as a non-invasive tool for measuring cell motility and the response of macrophages to various mediators and toxins. …

It was difficult to get any specifics about the proposed lung nanomedicine effort as it seems to be at a very early stage.

  • Malaysia through the Ministry of Higher Education with matching funds from the University of Malaya is funding this effort with 1M Ringgits ($300,00 USD) per year over five years for a total of 5M Ringgits ($1.5M USD)
  • A Malaysian researcher will be going to Harvard to collaborate directly with Dr. Brain and others on his team. The first will be Dr. Wong who will come to Harvard in June 2016 where he will work with his polymeric nanoparticles (vehicles for medications) and where Brain will examine transport strategies (aerosol, intrathecal administration, etc.) for those nanoparticle-bearing medications.
  • There will be a series of comparative studies of smoking in Malaysia and the US and other information efforts designed to support prevention strategies.

One last tidbit about research, Dr. Brain will be testing the nanoparticle-bearing medication once it has entered the lung using the ‘precision cut lung slices’ technique, as an alternative to some, if not all, in vivo testing.

Final comments

Nanomedicine is highly competitive and the Malaysians are interested in commercializing their efforts which according to Dr. Abu Kasim is one of the reasons they approached Harvard and Dr. Brain.

Should you find any errors please do let me know.

PoetryFilm news: January 2016 issue (around the world)

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On Jan. 9, 2016 the latest issue (January 2016) of PoetryFilm News landed in my email box (*Note: There’s a long blank space between the last excerpt and my last comments. I’m sorry but I can’t figure what’s causing it. sigh*),

Forthcoming in 2016
  • I [Zata Banks] have been awarded a 3-month Artist-Researcher residency at the Skagastrond Research Library in Iceland in association with The University of Iceland. … (January – April 2016)
  • Collaboration with The University of Lincoln [UK] on a Poetry + Film creative module for the BA Graphic Design course, including a lecture, and evaluating the final student work (January – March 2016)
  • Screening of a selection of psychoanalysis-informed poetry film artworks taken from The PoetryFilm Archive + psychoanalytic discussion at The Freud Museum, London [UK] (March 2016, exact date TBC)
  • Lecture at Millfield School [UK] about the poetry film artform to inspire sixth form students to make their own poetry film artworks (April 2016)
  • I [Zata Banks] have been invited to judge the USA-based Carbon Culture Review poetry film competition (closing date April 2016).

The Carbon Culture Review (CCR; its focus is on new literature, art, technology, and contemporary culture) poetry film competition was last mentioned here in an Oct. 30, 2015 posting. Since then more information (deadline extension and a broader scope for entries) about the competition has been made available. From the CCR Poetry Film webpage,

Poetry Film Prize

We want to integrate film and literary culture. Carbon Culture will award a $1,000.00 prize for the best poetry film. Zata Kitowski [now Banks], director of PoetryFilm, will pick the grand prize winner and finalists. The winning entry will receive $1,000.00. The top five entries will receive high-profile placements across our social media networks, a one page note alongside honorable mentions in our newsstand print and device editions. Deadline for submissions is April 1, 2016.

By submitting, you grant CCR the right to publish selected poetry films in our online issue as well as recognition in our print issue. All rights revert to the film creator(s) and/or submitter.

Rules for Submission

  1. Create a video adaptation of your original, unpublished poem.
  2. Post the video to a Youtube or Vimeo account and make it live.
  3. Submit the piece as an .Mp4 alongside your bio or team member’s bios to us.
  4. One submission per poet, please. If you previously created a poetry film for our initial guidelines listed in early 2015 for John Gosslee’s poem before we opened the contest to any original poem, you may submit this and one other poetry film for consideration.

Prize Announcements will be made in July 2016. Payment will be made via Paypal.

Film Types

All visual and textual interpretations of any contemporary poem written by you or someone on your team are welcome. Animation (digital or cartoon,) live action, kinetic poems, stop motion, anything you can imagine. We are looking for literal and non-literal interpretations of the poem. How long should it be? That is up to you. Poetry is meant to be heard and we encourage audio.

Eligibility

The prize is open to poets, students, individuals and teams.

You can go here to submit your piece and if you haven’t already, you will need to create an account.

*’Note’ added Jan. 12, 2016 at 1250 PST.

Do you really want to swallow a ‘smart pill’ to measure intestinal gas or anything else?

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Caption: Smart gas sensing pills developed at RMIT University can measure intestinal gases inside the gut and send the data directly to a mobile phone. Credit: RMIT University

Caption: Smart gas sensing pills developed at RMIT University can measure intestinal gases inside the gut and send the data directly to a mobile phone.
Credit: RMIT University

Researchers at RMIT University (Australia) have tested a ‘smart pill’ (or sensor/wireless transmitter) on animals according to a Jan. 12, 2016 news item on ScienceDaily,

Researchers have conducted the first ever trials of smart pills that can measure intestinal gases inside the body, with surprising results revealing some unexpected ways that fiber affects the gut.

Intestinal gases have been linked to colon cancer, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but their role in health is poorly understood and there is currently no easy and reliable tool for detecting them inside the gut.

The first animal trials of smart gas sensing pills developed at Australia’s RMIT University — which can send data from inside the gut directly to a mobile phone — have examined the impact of low and high-fibre diets on intestinal gases and offer new clues for the development of treatments for gut disorders.

Lead investigator Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, from the Centre for Advanced Electronics and Sensors at RMIT, said the results reversed current assumptions about the effect of fibre on the gut.

A Jan. 12, 2016 RMIT University news release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

“We found a low-fibre diet produced four times more hydrogen in the small intestine than a high-fibre diet,” Kalantar-zadeh said.

“This was a complete surprise because hydrogen is produced through fermentation, so we naturally expected more fibre would equal more of this fermentation gas.

“The smart pills allow us to identify precisely where the gases are produced and help us understand the microbial activity in these areas – it’s the first step in demolishing the myths of food effects on our body and replacing those myths with hard facts.

“We hope this technology will in future enable researchers to design personalised diets or drugs that can efficiently target problem areas in the gut, to help the millions of people worldwide that are affected by digestive disorders and diseases.”

The trials revealed different levels of fibre in a diet affected both how much gas was produced and where it was concentrated in the gut – in the stomach, small intestine or large intestine.

The smart pills were trialled on two groups of pigs – whose digestive systems are similar to humans – fed high and low-fibre diets. The results indicate the technology could help doctors differentiate gut disorders such as IBS, showing:

  • high-fibre diets produce more methane gas in the large intestine than the low-fibre diet, suggesting that painful gut gas retention could be avoided by cutting back on high-fibre food
  • low-fibre diets produced four times more hydrogen gas in the small intestine than high-fibre, indicating a high-fibre regimen could be better for patients with IBS caused by bacterial overgrowth in small intestine
  • the ratio of carbon dioxide and methane gases remained the same in the large intestine for both diets, suggesting that neither diet would be helpful for people suffering IBS diseases associated with excess methane concentration

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

Intestinal Gas Capsules: A Proof-of-Concept Demonstration by Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, Chu K. Yao, Kyle J. Berean, Nam Ha, Jian Zhen Ou, Stephanie A. Ward, Naresh Pillai, Julian Hill, Jeremy J. Cottrell, Frank R. Dunshea, Chris McSweeney, Jane G. Muir, and  Peter R. Gibson. Gastroenterology January 2016Volume 150, Issue 1, Pages 37–39 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2015.07.072

This article appears to be open access.

Getting back to my question, will people be willing to swallow these things? The study indicates that four pigs, in total, were tested and killed afterwards. The ‘smart pill’ measurements were compared to others made with standard technologies to assure researchers the new technology was viable. This particular study seems to have served as a proof of concept rather than an in-depth analysis of intestinal gases. As to whether or not anyone will ever be asked to swallow one of these ‘smart pills’ (sensor/wireless transmitter), the scientists did not share any plans for human clinical trials. I guess one of the big questions would be, what happens to the pill (stay in your gut or expelled) once you’ve gotten your measurements?

Getting back to incandescent light (recycling the military way)

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MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) issued two news releases about this research into reclaiming incandescent light or as they call it “recycling light.” First off, there’s the Jan. 11, 2016 MIT Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies news release by Paola Rebusco on EurekAlert,

Humanity started recycling relatively early in its evolution: there are proofs that trash recycling was taking place as early as in the 500 BC. What about light recycling? Consider light bulbs: more than one hundred and thirty years ago Thomas Edison patented the first commercially viable incandescent light bulb, so that “none but the extravagant” would ever “burn tallow candles”, paving the way for more than a century of incandescent lighting. In fact, emergence of electric lighting was the main motivating factor for deployment of electricity into every home in the world. The incandescent bulb is an example of a high temperature thermal emitter. It is very useful, but only a small fraction of the emitted light (and therefore energy) is used: most of the light is emitted in the infrared, invisible to the human eye, and in this context wasted.

Now, in a study published in Nature Nanotechnology on January 11th 2016 (online), a team of MIT researchers describes another way to recycle light emitted at unwanted infrared wavelengths while optimizing the emission at useful visible wavelengths. …

“For a thermal emitter at moderate temperatures one usually nano-patterns its surface to alter the emission,” says Ilic [postdoc Ognjen Ilic], the lead author of the study. “At high temperatures” – a light bulb filament reaches 3000K! – “such nanostructures deteriorate and it is impossible to alter the emission spectrum by having a nanostructure directly on the surface of the emitter.” The team solved the problem by surrounding the hot object with special nanophotonic structures that spectrally filter the emitted light, meaning that they let the light reflect or pass through based on its color (i.e. its wavelength). Because the filters are not in direct physical contact with the emitter, temperatures can be very high.

To showcase this idea, the team picked one of the highest temperature thermal emitters available – an incandescent light bulb. The authors designed nanofilters to recycle the infrared light, while allowing the visible light to go through. “The key advance was to design a photonic structure that transmits visible light and reflects infrared light for a very wide range of angles,” explains Ilic. “Conventional photonic filters usually operate for a single incidence angle. The challenge for us was to extend the desired optical properties across all directions,” a feat the authors achieved using special numerical optimization techniques.

However, for this scheme to work, the authors had to redesign the incandescent filament from scratch. “In a regular light bulb, the filament is a long and curly piece of tungsten wire. Here, the filament is laser-machined out of a flat sheet of tungsten: it is completely planar,” says Bermel [professor Peter Bermel now at Purdue University]. A planar filament has a large area, and is therefore very efficient in re-absorbing the light that was reflected by the filter. In describing how the new device differs from previously suggested concepts, Soljačić [professor Marin Soljačić], the project lead, emphasizes that “it is the combination of the exceptional properties of the filter and the shape of the filament that enabled substantial recycling of unwanted radiated light.”

In the new-concept light bulb prototype built by the authors, the efficiency approaches some fluorescent and LED bulbs. Nonetheless, the theoretical model predicts plenty of room for improvement. “This experimental device is a proof-of-concept, at the low end of performance that could be ultimately achieved by this approach,” argues Celanovic [principal research scientist Ivan Celanovic]. There are other advantages of this approach: “An important feature is that our demonstrated device achieves near-ideal rendering of colors,” notes Ilic, referring to the requirement of light sources to faithfully reproduce surrounding colors. That is precisely the reason why incandescent lights remained dominant for so long: their warm light has remained preferable to drab fluorescent lighting for decades.

Some practical questions need to be addressed before this technology can be widely adopted. “We will work closely with our mechanical engineering colleagues at MIT to try to tackle the issues of thermal stability and long-lifetime,” says Soljačić. The authors are particularly excited about the potential for producing these devices cheaply. “The materials we need are abundant and inexpensive,” Joannopoulos [professor John Joannopoulos] notes, “and the filters themselves–consisting of stacks of commonly deposited materials–are amenable to large-scale deposition.”

Chen [professor Gang Chen] comments further: “The lighting potential of this technology is exciting, but the same approach could also be used to improve the performance of energy conversion schemes such as thermo-photovoltaics.” In a thermo-photovoltaic device, external heat causes the material to glow, emitting light that is converted into an electric current by an absorbing photovoltaic element.

The last point captures the main motivation behind the work. “Light radiated from a hot object can be quite useful, whether that object is an incandescent filament or the Sun,” Ilic says. At its core, this work is about recycling thermal light for a specific application; “a 3000-degree filament is one of the hottest and the most challenging sources to work with,” Ilic continues. “It’s also what makes it a crucial test of our approach.”

There are a few more details in the 2nd Jan. 11, 2016 MIT news release on EurekAlert,

Light recycling

The key is to create a two-stage process, the researchers report. The first stage involves a conventional heated metal filament, with all its attendant losses. But instead of allowing the waste heat to dissipate in the form of infrared radiation, secondary structures surrounding the filament capture this radiation and reflect it back to the filament to be re-absorbed and re-emitted as visible light. These structures, a form of photonic crystal, are made of Earth-abundant elements and can be made using conventional material-deposition technology.

That second step makes a dramatic difference in how efficiently the system converts light into electricity. The efficiency of conventional incandescent lights is between 2 and 3 percent, while that of fluorescents (including CFLs) is currently between 7 and 13 percent, and that of LEDs between 5 and 13 percent. In contrast, the new two-stage incandescents could reach efficiencies as high as 40 percent, the team says.

The first proof-of-concept units made by the team do not yet reach that level, achieving about 6.6 percent efficiency. But even that preliminary result matches the efficiency of some of today’s CFLs and LEDs, they point out. And it is already a threefold improvement over the efficiency of today’s incandescents.

The team refers to their approach as “light recycling,” says Ilic, since their material takes in the unwanted, useless wavelengths of energy and converts them into the visible light wavelengths that are desired. “It recycles the energy that would otherwise be wasted,” says Soljačić.

Bulbs and beyond

One key to their success was designing a photonic crystal that works for a very wide range of wavelengths and angles. The photonic crystal itself is made as a stack of thin layers, deposited on a substrate. “When you put together layers, with the right thicknesses and sequence,” Ilic explains, you can get very efficient tuning of how the material interacts with light. In their system, the desired visible wavelengths pass right through the material and on out of the bulb, but the infrared wavelengths get reflected as if from a mirror. They then travel back to the filament, adding more heat that then gets converted to more light. Since only the visible ever gets out, the heat just keeps bouncing back in toward the filament until it finally ends up as visible light.

I appreciate both MIT news release writers for “Thomas Edison patented the first commercially viable incandescent light bulb” (Rebusco) and the unidentified writer of the 2nd MIT news release for this, from the news release, “Incandescent bulbs, commercially developed by Thomas Edison (and still used by cartoonists as the symbol of inventive insight) … .” Edison did not invent the light bulb. BTW, the emphases are mine.

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

Tailoring high-temperature radiation and the resurrection of the incandescent source by Ognjen Ilic, Peter Bermel, Gang Chen, John D. Joannopoulos, Ivan Celanovic, & Marin Soljačić. Nature Nanotechnology  (2016) doi:10.1038/nnano.2015.309 Published online 11 January 2016

This paper is behind a paywall.

A watch that conducts sound through your body and into your ear

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Apparently, you all you have to do is tap your ear to access your telephone calls. A Jan. 8, 2016 article by Mark Wilson for Fast Company describes the technology and the experience of using Samsung’s TipTalk device,

It’s not so helpful to see a call on your smartwatch when you have to pull our your phone to take it anyway. And therein lies the problem with products like the Apple Watch: They’re often not a replacement for your phone, but an intermediary to inevitably using it.

But at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show [held in Las Vegas (Nevada, US) annually (Jan. 6 – 9, 2016)], Samsung’s secret R&D lab … showed off a promising concept to fix one of the biggest problems with smartwatches. Called TipTalk, it’s technology that can send sound from your smartwatch through your arm so when you touch your finger to your ear, you can hear a call or a voicemail—no headphones required.

…

Engineering breakthroughs like these can be easy to dismiss as a gimmick rather than revolutionary UX [user experience], but I like TipTalk for a few reasons. First, it maps hearing UI [user interface] into a gesture that we already might use to hear to something better … . Second, it could be practical in real world use. You see a new voicemail on your watch, and without even a button press, you listen—but crucially, you still opt-in to hear the message rather than just have it play. And third, the gesture conveys to people around you that you’re occupied.

Ulrich Rozier in his Jan. 8, 2016 article for frandroid.com also raves albeit, in French,

Samsung a développé un bracelet que l’on peut utiliser sur n’importe quelle montre.

Ce bracelet vibre lorsque l’on reçoit un appel… il est ainsi possible de décrocher. Il faut ensuite positionner son doigt au niveau du pavillon de l’oreille. C’est là que la magie opère. On se retrouve à entendre des sons. Contrairement à ce que je pensais, le son ne se transmet pas par conduction osseuse, mais grâce à des vibrations envoyées à partir de votre poignet à travers votre corps. Vous pouvez l’utiliser pour prendre des appels ou pour lire vos SMS et autres messages. Et ça fonctionne.

Here’s my very rough translation,

Samsung has developed a bracelet that can worn under any watch’s band strap.

It’s the ‘bracelet’ that vibrates when you get a phone call. If you want to answer the call, reach up and tap your ear. That’s when the magic happens and sound is transmitted to your ear. Not through your bones as I thought but with vibrations transmitted by your wrist through your body. This way you can answer your calls or read SMS and other messages [?]. It works

I get sound vibration being transmitted to your ear but I don’t understand how you’d be able to read SMS or other messages.

Constructing an autonomous Maxwell’s demon as a self-contained information-powered refrigerator

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Aalto University (Finland) was the lead research institution for  INFERNOS, a European Union-funded project concerning Maxwell’s demon. Here’s an excerpt from an Oct. 14, 2013 post featuring the project,

An Oct. 9, 2013 news item on Nanowerk ties together INFERNOS and the ‘demon’,

Maxwell’s Demon is an imaginary creature that the mathematician James Clerk Maxwell created in 1897. The creature could turn heat into work without causing any other change, which violates the second law of thermodynamics. The primary goal of the European project INFERNOS (Information, fluctuations, and energy control in small systems) is to realize experimentally Maxwell’s Demon; in other words, to develop the electronic and biomolecular nanodevices that support this principle.

…

I like the INFERNOS logo, demon and all,

Logo of the European project INFERNOS (Information, fluctuations, and energy control in small systems).

A Jan. 11, 2016 news item on Nanowerk seems to be highlighting a paper resulting from the INFERNOS project (Note: A link has been removed),

On [a] theoretical level, the thought experiment has been an object of consideration for nearly 150 years, but testing it experimentally has been impossible until the last few years. Making use of nanotechnology, scientists from Aalto University have now succeeded in constructing an autonomous Maxwell’s demon that makes it possible to analyse the microscopic changes in thermodynamics. The research results were recently published in Physical Review Letters (“On-Chip Maxwell’s Demon as an Information-Powered Refrigerator”). The work is part of the forthcoming PhD thesis of MSc Jonne Koski at Aalto University.

An image illustrating the theory underlying the proposed device has been made available,

An autonomous Maxwell's demon. When the demon sees the electron enter the island (1.), it traps the electron with a positive charge (2.). When the electron leaves the island (3.), the demon switches back a negative charge (4.). Image: Jonne Koski.

An autonomous Maxwell’s demon. When the demon sees the electron enter the island (1.), it traps the electron with a positive charge (2.). When the electron leaves the island (3.), the demon switches back a negative charge (4.). Image: Jonne Koski.

A Jan. 11, 2016 Aalto University press release, which originated the news item, provides more technical details,

The system we constructed is a single-electron transistor that is formed by a small metallic island connected to two leads by tunnel junctions made of superconducting materials. The demon connected to the system is also a single-electron transistor that monitors the movement of electrons in the system. When an electron tunnels to the island, the demon traps it with a positive charge. Conversely, when an electron leaves the island, the demon repels it with a negative charge and forces it to move uphill contrary to its potential, which lowers the temperature of the system,’ explains Professor Jukka Pekola.

What makes the demon autonomous or self-contained is that it performs the measurement and feedback operation without outside help. Changes in temperature are indicative of correlation between the demon and the system, or, in simple terms, of how much the demon ‘knows’ about the system. According to Pekola, the research would not have been possible without the Low Temperature Laboratory conditions.

‘We work at extremely low temperatures, so the system is so well isolated that it is possible to register extremely small temperature changes,’ he says.

‘An electronic demon also enables a very large number of repetitions of the measurement and feedback operation in a very short time, whereas those who, elsewhere in the world, used molecules to construct their demons had to contend with not more than a few hundred repetitions.’

The work of the team led by Pekola remains, for the time being, basic research, but in the future, the results obtained may, among other things, pave the way towards reversible computing.

‘As we work with superconducting circuits, it is also possible for us to create qubits of quantum computers. Next, we would like to examine these same phenomena on the quantum level,’ Pekola reveals.

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

On-Chip Maxwell’s Demon as an Information-Powered Refrigerator by J.V. Koski, A. Kutvonen, I.M. Khaymovich, T. Ala-Nissila, and J.P. Pekola. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 260602 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.260602 Published 30 December 2015

This paper is behind a paywall.

One final comment, this is the 150th anniversary of Maxwell’s publication of a series of equations explaining the relationships between electric charges and electric and magnetic fields (featured here in a Nov. 27, 2015 posting).