Tag Archives: L’Oreal

L’Oréal introduces new wearable technology (UV sensor) as nail art?

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Downloaded from https://inhabitat.com/tiny-yves-behar-designed-wearable-warns-you-when-youve-had-too-much-sun/uv-sense-by-loreal-and-yves-behar-2

(I should have published this a while ago but I think the content holds up even if it is a bit dated.) What you see on the model’s thumbnail (in the image above) is L’Oréal’s latest wearable tech as Lucy Wang notes in her January 8, 2018 preview article for inhabitat. (Note: The article is posted in a slide show, which offers quite a bit of detail (some of it technical) including this (Note: Links have been removed),

A tiny piece of innovative tech wants to help you stay away from sun-induced skin cancer. Global beauty leader L’Oréal teamed up with prolific designer Yves Behar of fuseproject to create UV Sense, the first battery-free wearable electronic UV sensor. Soon to be unveiled at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show [CES] kicking off tomorrow [January 9, 2018], this innovative technology collects and shares real-time data on individual UV exposure within a wearable so small and thin it fits on a fingernail.

Christina Bonnington in a January 28, 2018 article for Fast Company offers less technical detail while offering many other useful tidbits (Note: Links have been removed),

… in 2016, beauty brand L’Oreal entered the space with another solution: a stretchable UV-sensing skin patch developed by the company’s technology incubator. The My UV Patch was an experiment in giving beauty consumers access to their sun-exposure data. A heart-shaped design on the patch changed colors depending on your sun exposure, which could then be analyzed via photograph in its accompanying app. L’Oreal distributed more than 1 million of the patches to consumers for free and was surprised by the level of engagement and effectiveness of the project: 34 percent of users reported wearing sunscreen more often, and 37 percent tried to stay in the shade more frequently.

Now, L’Oreal has a new wearable device for people like me—people concerned with their long-term sun-exposure risks, people at risk for melanoma, and people who want to know if they should be wearing more sunscreen or reapplying more often. But calling it a device is a bit of a stretch. The UV Sense is a circular, nail-sized sticker that’s little more than a UV sensor and an antenna. Unlike most other wearables, it’s completely batteryless; the sensor is powered by near-field communications and only transmits data when you place your phone near the sensor. Developed in partnership with Northwestern University, UV Sense now boasts the title of world’s smallest wearable.

Guive Balooch, the global vice president of L’Oréal’s technology incubator, said that the company wanted to make sure the sensor was comfortable for longtime wear. My UV Patch, L’Oreal’s first tech-centric UV-sensing product, was a disposable: You wore it for up to three days, then threw it away. The UV Sense, by contrast, lasts as long as any other wearable on the market. And besides just being small, it’s notable for its unique form factor. Its tiny size—about as thick as a credit card and lighter than a Tic Tac—makes it ideal as a stick-on nail applique. “We knew that nail art was booming,” Balooch said. “We thought that could be really interesting.” However, it’s not exclusively a nail sticker—it can just as easily be positioned on a pair of sunglasses or on another accessory you typically wear outdoors, such as a watch. On a nail, the sensor lasts for two weeks, then it needs to be readhered. (“The reason is more for the nail than the sensor,” Balooch said. “The nail is a living part of your body. UV gel or nail art normally lasts about two weeks.”)

…

For anyone who’d like to bear down on the technical detail, there’s Daniel Cooper’s January 7, 2018 article for engadget (Note: Links have been removed),

L’Oreal is working with MC10, a medical technology wearables outfit established by professor John Rogers at Northwestern University. Rogers is famous for developing the “wearable tattoo,” circuit boards no thicker than a band-aid that attach to people’s skin. The eventual goal for such technology is that it will replace the bulky and invasive monitors strapped onto hospital patients.

Interesting, yes? And as the writers note it’s not L’Oréal’s first foray into wearable tech. For anyone interested in the 2016 version, there’s my January 6, 2016 posting about ‘my UV patch”  and its introduction a the 2016 CES.  As for John Rogers, one of my latest postings on him and his work is a May 15, 2015 posting.  You can find more using “John Rogers” as your blog search term.

Robots judge a beauty contest

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I have a lot of respect for good PR gimmicks and a beauty contest judged by robots (or more accurately, artificial intelligence) is a provocative idea wrapped up in a good public relations (PR) gimmick. A July 12, 2016 In Silico Medicine press release on EurekAlert reveals more,

Beauty.AI 2.0, a platform,” a platform, where human beauty is evaluated by a jury of robots and algorithm developers compete on novel applications of machine intelligence to perception is supported by Ernst and Young.

“We were very impressed by E&Y’s recent advertising campaign with a robot hand holding a beautiful butterfly and a slogan “How human is your algorithm?” and immediately invited them to participate. This slogan captures the very essence of our contest, which is constantly exploring new ideas in machine perception of humans”, said Anastasia Georgievskaya, Managing Scientist at Youth Laboratories, the organizer of Beauty.AI.

Beauty.AI contest is supported by the many innovative companies from the US, Europe, and Asia with some of the top cosmetics companies participating in collaborative research projects. Imagene Labs, one of the leaders in linking facial and biological information from Singapore operating across Asia, is a gold sponsor and research partner of the contest.

There are many approaches to evaluating human beauty. Features like symmetry, pigmentation, pimples, wrinkles may play a role and similarity to actors, models and celebrities may be used in the calculation of the overall score. However, other innovative approaches have been proposed. A robot developed by Insilico Medicine compares the chronological age with the age predicted by a deep neural network. Another team is training an artificially-intelligent system to identify features that contribute to the popularity of the people on dating sites.

“We look forward to collaborating with the Youth Laboratories team to create new AI algorithms. These will eventually allow consumers to objectively evaluate how well their wellness interventions – such as diet, exercise, skincare and supplements – are working. Based on the results they can then fine tune their approach to further improve their well-being and age better”, said Jia-Yi Har, Vice President of Imagene Labs.

The contest is open to anyone with a modern smartphone running either Android or iOS operating system, and Beauty.AI 2.0 app can be downloaded for free from either Google or Apple markets. Programmers and companies can participate by submitting their algorithm to the organizers through the Beauty.AI website.

“The beauty of Beauty.AI pageants is that algorithms are much more impartial than humans, and we are trying to prevent any racial bias and run the contest in multiple age categories. Most of the popular beauty contests discriminate by age, gender, marital status, body weight and race. Algorithms are much less partial”, said Alex Shevtsov, CEO of Youth Laboratories.

Very interesting take on beauty and bias. I wonder if they’re building change into their algorithms. After all, standards for beauty don’t remain static, they change over time.

Unfortunately, that question isn’t asked in Wency Leung’s July 4, 2016 article on the robot beauty contest for the Globe and Mail but she does provides more details about the contest and insight into the world of international cosmetics companies and their use of technology,

Teaching computers about aesthetics involves designing sophisticated algorithms to recognize and measure features like wrinkles, face proportions, blemishes and skin colour. And the beauty industry is rapidly embracing these high-tech tools to respond to consumers’ demand for products that suit their individual tastes and attributes.

Companies like Sephora and Avon, for instance, are using face simulation technology to provide apps that allow customers to virtually try on and shop for lipsticks and eye shadows using their mobile devices. Skincare producers are using similar technologies to track and predict the effects of serums and creams on various skin types. And brands like L’Oréal’s Lancôme are using facial analysis to read consumers’ skin tones to create personalized foundations.

“The more we’re able to use these tools like augmented reality [and] artificial intelligence to provide new consumer experiences, the more we can move to customizing and personalizing products for every consumer around the world, no matter what their skin tone is, no matter where they live, no matter who they are,” says Guive Balooch, global vice-president of L’Oréal’s technology incubator.

Balooch was tasked with starting up the company’s tech research hub four years ago, with a mandate to predict and invent solutions to how consumers would choose and use products in the future. Among its innovations, his team has come up with the Makeup Genius app, a virtual mirror that allows customers to try on products on a mobile screen, and a device called My UV Patch, a sticker sensor that users wear on their skin, which informs them through an app how much UV exposure they get.

These tools may seem easy enough to use, but their simplicity belies the work that goes on behind the scenes. To create the Makeup Genius app, for example, Balooch says the developers sought expertise from the animation industry to enable users to see themselves move onscreen in real time. The developers also brought in hundreds of consumers with different skin tones to test real products in the lab, and they tested the app on some 100,000 images in more than 40 lighting conditions, to ensure the colours of makeup products appeared the same in real life as they did onscreen, Balooch says.

…

The article is well worth reading in its entirety.

For the seriously curious, you can find Beauty AI here, In Silico Medicine here, and Imagene Labs here. I cannot find a website for Youth Laboratories featuring Anastasia Georgievskaya.

I last wrote about In Silico Medicine in a May 31, 2016 post about deep learning, wrinkles, and aging.

L’Oréal introduces wearable cosmetic electronic patch (my UV patch)

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You don’t (well, I don’t) expect a cosmetics company such as L’Oréal to introduce products at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas (Nevada, US) annually (Jan. 6 – 9, 2016).

A Jan. 6, 2016 article by Zoe Kleinman for BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) news online explains,

Beauty giant L’Oreal has unveiled a smart skin patch that can track the skin’s exposure to harmful UV rays at the technology show CES in Las Vegas.

The product will be launched in 16 countries including the UK this summer, and will be available for free [emphasis mine].

It contains a photosensitive blue dye, which changes colour when exposed to ultraviolet light.

But the wearer must take a photo of it and then upload it to an app to see the results.

It’s a free app, eh? A cynic might suggest that the company will be getting free data in return.

A Jan. 6, 2016 L’Oréal press release, also on PR Newswire, provides more details (Note: Links have been removed),

Today [Jan. 6, 2016] at the Consumer Electronics Show, L’Oréal unveiled My UV Patch, the first-ever stretchable skin sensor designed to monitor UV exposure and help consumers educate themselves about sun protection. The new technology arrives at a time when sun exposure has become a major health issue, with 90% of nonmelanoma skin cancers being associated with exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sun* in addition to attributing to skin pigmentation and photoaging.

To address these growing concerns, L’Oréal Group’s leading dermatological skincare brand, La Roche-Posay, is introducing a first-of-its kind stretchable electronic, My UV Patch. The patch is a transparent adhesive that, unlike the rigid wearables currently on the market, stretches and adheres directly to any area of skin that consumers want to monitor. Measuring approximately one square inch in area and 50 micrometers thick – half the thickness of an average strand of hair – the patch contains photosensitive dyes that factor in the baseline skin tone and change colors when exposed to UV rays to indicate varying levels of sun exposure.

Consumers will be able to take a photo of the patch and upload it to the La Roche-Posay My UV Patch mobile app, which analyzes the varying photosensitive dye squares to determine the amount of UV exposure the wearer has received. The My UV Patch mobile app will be available on both iOS and Android, incorporating Near Field Communications (NFC)-enabled technology into the patch-scanning process for Android. My UV Patch is expected to be made available to consumers later this year.

“Connected technologies have the potential to completely disrupt how we monitor the skin’s exposure to various external factors, including UV,” says Guive Balooch, Global Vice President of L’Oréal’s Technology Incubator. “Previous technologies could only tell users the amount of potential sun exposure they were receiving per hour while wearing a rigid, non-stretchable device. The key was to design a sensor that was thin, comfortable and virtually weightless so people would actually want to wear it. We’re excited to be the first beauty company entering the stretchable electronics field and to explore the many potential applications for this technology within our industry and beyond.”

My UV Patch was developed by L’Oréal’s U.S.-based Technology Incubator, a business division dedicated entirely to technological innovation, alongside MC10, Inc., a leading stretchable electronics company using cutting-edge innovation to create the most intelligent, stretchable systems for biometric healthcare analytics. L’Oréal also worked with PCH who design engineered the sensor. The stretchable, peel-and-stick wearable unites L’Oréal Group’s extensive scientific research on the skin and expertise with UV protection with MC10’s strong technological capabilities in physiological sensing and pattern recognition algorithms to measure skin changes over time, and PCH’s 20-year experience in product development, manufacturing and supply chain.

“With My UV Patch, L’Oréal is taking the lead in developing the next generation of smart skincare technology powered by MC10’s unique, stretchable electronics platform, that truly addresses a consumer need,” said Scott Pomerantz, CEO of MC10. “This partnership with L’Oréal marks an exciting new milestone for MC10 and underscores the intersection of tech and beauty and the boundless potential of connected devices within the beauty market.”

*Source: Skin Cancer Foundation 2015

“Together with La Roche-Posay dermatologists like myself, we share a mission to help increase sun safe behavior,” added Alysa Herman, MD.  “La Roche-Posay recently commissioned a global study in 23 countries, which surveyed 19,000 women and men and found a huge gap in consumer behavior: even though 92% were aware that unprotected sun exposure can cause health problems, only 26% of Americans protect themselves all year round, whatever the season. With the new My UV Patch, for the first time, we are leveraging technology to help incite a true behavioral change through real-time knowledge. ”

About L’Oréal

L’Oréal has devoted itself to beauty for over 105 years. With its unique international portfolio of 32 diverse and complementary brands, the Group generated sales amounting to 22.5 billion euros in 2014 and employs 78,600 people worldwide. As the world’s leading beauty company, L’Oréal is present across all distribution networks: mass market, department stores, pharmacies and drugstores, hair salons, travel retail and branded retail.

Research and innovation, and a dedicated research team of 3,700 people, are at the core of L’Oréal’s strategy, working to meet beauty aspirations all over the world and attract one billion new consumers in the years to come. L’Oréal’s new sustainability commitment for 2020 “Sharing Beauty With All” sets out ambitious sustainable development objectives across the Group’s value chain. www.loreal.com

About LA ROCHE-POSAY and ANTHELIOS

Recommended by more than 25,000 dermatologists worldwide, La Roche-Posay offers a unique range of daily skincare developed with dermatologists to meet their standards in efficacy, tolerance and elegant textures for increased compliance. The products, which are developed using a strict formulation charter, include a minimal number of ingredients to reduce side effects and reactivity and are formulated with effective ingredients at optimal concentrations for increased efficacy. Additionally, La Roche-Posay products undergo stringent clinical testing to guarantee efficacy and safety, even on sensitive skin.

About MC10

MC10’s mission is to improve human health through digital healthcare solutions. The company combines its proprietary ultra-thin, stretchable body-worn sensors with advanced analytics to unlock health insights from physiological data. MC10 partners with healthcare organizations and researchers to advance medical knowledge and create monitoring and diagnostic solutions for patients and physicians. Backed by a strong syndicate of financial and strategic investors, MC10 has received widespread recognition for its innovative technology, including being named a 2014 CES Innovation in Design Honoree. MC10 is headquartered in Lexington, MA.  Visit MC10 online at www.mc10inc.com.

About PCH

PCH designs custom product solutions for startups and Fortune 500 companies. Whether design engineering and development, manufacturing and fulfilment, distribution or retail, PCH takes on the toughest challenges. If it can be imagined, it can be made. At PCH, we make. www.pchintl.com. Twitter: @PCH_Intl

Ryan O’Hare’s Jan. 6, 2016 article for the UK’s DailyMailOnline provides some additional technology details and offers images of the proposed patch, not reproduced here, (Note: A link has been removed),

…

The patch and free app, which will be launched in the summer, have been welcomed by experts.

Dr Christopher Rowland Payne, consultant dermatologist to The London Clinic, said: ‘This is an exciting device that will motivate people in a positive way to take control of their sun exposure and will encourage them to know when it is time to leave the sun or to reapply their sunscreen.

‘It is an ingenious way of giving people the information they need. I hope it will also get people talking to each other about safe sun exposure.’

…

The technology used in the UV patches is based on ‘biostamps’ designed by tech firm MC10.

They were originally designed to help medical teams measure the health of their patients either remotely, or without the need for large expensive machinery.

Motorola were exploring the patches as an alternative to using traditional passwords for security and access to devices.

…

Getting back to this ‘free app’ business, the data gathered could be used to help the company create future skincare products. If they are planning to harvest your data, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the practice but the company isn’t being as straightforward as it could be. In any event, you may want to take a good at the user agreement and decide for yourself.

Finally, I think it’s time to acknowledge medical writer, Dr. Susan Baxter, (not for the first time and not the last either) as I likely wouldn’t have thought past my general cynicism about data harvesting for a reason, additional to any humanitarian motivations L’Oréal might have, for offering a free mobile app. She doesn’t post on her blog that frequently but it’s always worth taking a look (http://www.susanbaxter.ca/blog-page/) and I recommend this July 30, 2014 post titled, ‘Civil Scientific Discourse RIP’ which focuses on vaccination and anti-vaccination positions. Do not expect a comfortable read.

Cosmetics giant, L’Oréal, to 3D print skin

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L’Oréal, according to a May 19, 2015 BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) online news item, has partnered with Organovo, a 3D bioprinting startup, to begin producing skin,

French cosmetics firm L’Oreal is teaming up with bio-engineering start-up Organovo to 3D-print human skin.

It said the printed skin would be used in product tests.

Organovo has already made headlines with claims that it can 3D-print a human liver but this is its first tie-up with the cosmetics industry.

Experts said the science might be legitimate but questioned why a beauty firm would want to print skin. [emphasis mine]

L’Oreal currently grows skin samples from tissues donated by plastic surgery patients. It produces more than 100,000, 0.5 sq cm skin samples per year and grows nine varieties across all ages and ethnicities.

Its statement explaining the advantage of printing skin, offered little detail: “Our partnership will not only bring about new advanced in vitro methods for evaluating product safety and performance, but the potential for where this new field of technology and research can take us is boundless.”

The beauty and cosmetics industry has a major interest in technology, especially anything to do with the skin. I’m curious as to what kind of an expert wouldn’t realize that cosmetics companies test products on skin and might like to have a ready supply. Still, I have to admit to surprise when I first (2006) started researching nanotechnology;  L’Oréal at one point was the sixth largest nanotechnology patent holder in the US (see my Nanotech Mysteries Wiki page: Marketers put the buy in nano [scroll down to Penetration subhead]). In 2008 L’Oréal company representatives were set for a discussion on their nanotechnology efforts and the precautionary principle, which was to be hosted by the Wilson Center’s Project for Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN). The company cancelled at a rather interesting time as I had noted in my June 19, 2008 posting. (scroll down about 40% of the way until you see mention of Dr. Andrew Maynard).

Back to 3D printing technology and cosmetics giants, a May 5, 2015 Organovo/L’Oréal press release provides more detail about the deal,

L’Oreal USA, the largest subsidiary of the world’s leading beauty company, has announced a partnership with 3-D bioprinting company Organovo Holdings, Inc. (NYSE MKT: ONVO) (“Organovo”).  Developed between L’Oreal’s U.S.-based global Technology Incubator and Organovo, the collaboration will leverage Organovo’s proprietary NovoGen Bioprinting Platform and L’Oreal’s expertise in skin engineering to develop 3-D printed skin tissue for product evaluation and other areas of advanced research.

This partnership marks the first-ever application of Organovo’s groundbreaking technology within the beauty industry.

“We developed our technology incubator to uncover disruptive innovations across industries that have the potential to transform the beauty business,” said Guive Balooch, Global Vice President of L’Oreal’s Technology Incubator.  “Organovo has broken new ground with 3-D bioprinting, an area that complements L’Oreal’s pioneering work in the research and application of reconstructed skin for the past 30 years. Our partnership will not only bring about new advanced in vitro methods for evaluating product safety and performance, but the potential for where this new field of technology and research can take us is boundless.”

Organovo’s 3D bioprinting enables the reproducible, automated creation of living human tissues that mimic the form and function of native tissues in the body.

“We are excited to be partnering with L’Oreal, whose leadership in the beauty industry is rooted in scientific innovation and a deep commitment to research and development,” said Keith Murphy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Organovo. “This partnership is a great next step to expand the applications of Organovo’s 3-D bioprinting technology and to create value for both L’Oreal and Organovo by building new breakthroughs in skin modeling.”

I don’t have much information about Organovo here, certainly nothing about the supposed liver (how did I miss that?), but there is a Dec. 26, 2012 posting about its deal with software giant, Autodesk.

Agelessness and RUSNANO

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Who could lose money on anti-aging cosmetics? Given the maniacal pursuit of youth which according to popular media is an almost universal obsession, the RUSNANO investment in cosmetics is a no-brainer. From the Nov. 3, 2011 news item Nanowerk,

RUSNANO is joining a project that will produce cosmetics based on double encapsulation technology. Earlier, the project attracted financing from Russian Venture Company’s Seed Investment Fund. The project has a total budget of 65 million rubles. RUSNANO will receive an 18% interest in Nanoderm-Profi, the project company.

…

The cosmetics are non-toxic and highly effective, thanks to the technology of double encapsulation. The active ingredient—uronic acid—is embedded in nanoparticles of cyclodextrin of less than two nanometers. Those particles are, in turn, surrounded by a spherical capsule of beta-cyclodextrin and plant-based lipids with diameters of 80 nanometers. When the nanostructures are applied to the skin, the external capsule dissolves and the nanoparticles of cyclodextrin transport the active ingredient through the transdermal barrier to the skin’s deep layers.

Project company Nanoderm-Profi is already producing and selling the first series of its nanocosmetics. Earlier, the agent passed organoleptic, physiochemical, microbiological, clinical-laboratory, and toxicological testing by Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Protection of Consumer Rights and Human Welfare. As this project develops, Nanoderm-Profi plans to expand its assortment of active components.

I know there’s been lots of nanotechnology-enabled product developed by the cosmetics industry [see the Marketers put the buy in nano page on my wiki for more about Adorage, L’Oréal, and other cosmetics companies in the nanotech field]  and it’s nice to see some details for a change.

Five new laureates for the L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Awards

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There will be a ceremony in March 2011 to welcome the five women being hnoured with the 2011 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards. From the news item on Nanowerk,

More than 1,000 high-level scientists from around the world were involved in the nomination of the Awards’ candidates, who come from five continents. The International Awards Jury, comprised of 16 eminent members of the scientific community, and presided by Professor Ahmed Zewail, recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, then selected the five women researchers in the Physical Sciences as the Laureates of the 2011 Awards. Their pioneering projects contribute to finding solutions to major challenges for our planet.

…

Professor Faiza AL-KHARAFI
Professor of Chemistry, Kuwait University, Safat, KUWAIT

For her work on corrosion, a problem of fundamental importance to water treatment and the oil industry.

Born in Kuwait, Faiza Al-Kharafi earned a BSc degree from Am Shams University in Egypt before returning to Kuwait to pursue her MSc and PhD degrees from Kuwait University. She has filled in a number of teaching and research positions at the Kuwait University, including serving as the first female president of the university from 1993 to 2002. The first Kuwait-France Chemistry Symposium was held under her patronage in 2009, and she is currently Vice-President of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World.

Professor Vivian Wing-Wah YAM
Professor of Chemistry and Energy, The University of Hong Kong, CHINA

For her work on light-emitting materials and innovative ways of capturing solar energy.

Vivian Wing-Wah Yam was born in Hong Kong, where she pursued her university studies, obtaining her PhD at the University of Hong Kong. After two years at the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, she moved to the University of Hong Kong in 1990 where she became Professor in 1997 and Chair Professor in 1999. She was Head of Chemistry for 6 years from 2000 to 2005, and became the Philip Wong Wilson Wong Professor in Chemistry and Energy in 2009 at the University of Hong Kong. She is an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, and has been awarded a Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) Centenary lectureship and medal.

Professor Anne L’HUILLIER
Professor of Atomic Physics, Lund University, SWEDEN

For her work on the development of the fastest camera for recording events in attoseconds (a billionth of a billionth of a second).

Anne L’Huillier obtained her PhD in Physical Sciences in France, the country of her birth, at the Université de Paris VI. After postdoctoral research in Sweden and the United States, she spent the years 1986-1995 as a researcher at the French Atomic Energy Commission. She then transferred to Lund Unversity, where she has been Professor Atomic Physics since 1997. She has received numerous awards, is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Professor Silvia TORRES-PEIMBERT
Professor Emeritus, Institute of Astronomy, Mexico City University (UNAM), Mexico City, MEXICO

For her work on the chemical composition of nebulae which is fundamental to our understanding of the origin of the universe.

A native of Mexico, Silvia Torres-Peimbert obtained her PhD at the University of California Berkeley, USA. She then became Professor in the Faculty of Sciences and the Institute of Astronomy at UNAM. Today she is Emeritus Professor and since 2009 has been Coordinator of Physical, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences at the university. She is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the Academy of Sciences of the Developing World, and is a past Vice-President of the International Astronomical Union.

Professor Jillian BANFIELD
Professor of Earth and Planetary Science, of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, and of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, UNITED STATES

For her work on bacterial and material behaviour under extreme conditions relevant to the environment and the Earth.

Originally from Australia, Jillian Banfield received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Geology from the Australian National University. She subsequently completed a PhD in Earth and Planetary Science at Johns Hopkins University, USA. From 1990-2001 she was a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since then she has been a professor at the University of California-Berkeley and an affiliate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She has been honored with numerous prestigious awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship, The Dana Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America, and a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. She was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2006.

Congratulations to all of the recipients! (Earlier this year I noted the L’Oréal Singapore for Women in Science Fellowships in my Sept. 2, 2010 posting as part of my informal series on women in science.)

Obama nano and nano risks in cosmetics

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Take a look at the image of US president-elect Barack Obama that’s been made out of carbon nanotubes. It’s called Nanobama and it’s here.

Today BBC News had an article about warnings from a consumer safety watchdog group, Which? (formerly known as the Consumers’ Association). They wrote to 67 cosmetics companies asking them about their use of nanotechnology. 17 companies responded and eight of them provided specific information about how they use nanotechnology in their products. The eight companies included: Avon, L’Oreal, The Body Shop, Nivea, Unilever, and others. After examining the information, Which? has advised that nanocosmetic products should have an independent safety assessment.

There has been an attempt at voluntary reporting of engineered nanomaterials. It was instituted by the UK government in the fall of 2006. To date, they’ve had 12 responses and the voluntary programme is under review. I get the feeling that government regulation may be a reality in the not too distant future. Anyway, it’s a good introductory article about cosmetics, the precautionary principle, and nanotechnology and it’s located here.

In fact, the article reminded me of an event with L’Oreal that the Project for Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) had to postpone a few months ago. It was called, Small is Beautiful–A European View of Nanotech Cosmetics and Safety and it was to feature a speaker from L’Oreal and PEN’s science advisor, Andrew Maynard. I hope they find a way to reschedule it soon.

Canada’s nano article numbers (part 2) plus memristor and L’Oreal updates

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Now for part 2 about M. Fatih Yegul’s (he’s at the University of Waterloo) paper which is to be presented in South Africa at PICMET ’08, July 27-31 (www.picmet.org or go here). PICMET will publish Yegul’s study in their proceedings if you want to check out his data.)

Yegul points out that nanotechnology or nanoscience didn’t actually exist as categories until after people started publishing and applying for patents which makes searching and analyzing data a little bit of a challenge. (I was really surprised to find out that the US Patent and Trademark Office took until 2004 before establishing nanotechnology as a category.)

As per Canadian publication output, we seem to bob around in the rankings between 8th and 13th worldwide, depending on the time period being examined and what the study was measuring.  Some of the studies are expressed in whole numbers while others provide percentages. Interestingly, we seem to range from 1% to roughly 4% when the studies express results in percentages.

A few countries,  the US, China, Japan, Germany, and South Korea dominate the numbers in some more recent studies.  (The 2008 Nature Nanotechnology publication analysis aggregated the European countries’ numbers which resulted in a high ranking overall but makes the study a little hard to compare to anything else. It’s a problem that I imagine Yegul confronted any number of times while producing his paper. )

I’ll look at the patents tomorrow in part 3 (I just can’t fit it all in today).

Now a few things I’d like to clarify…I’m a bit of a dullard and didn’t realize until two days ago that I’d gotten some responses to earlier postings…I hope both individuals will accept my apologies and since those comments were made weeks ago I thought it only fair to highlight them…first from Scott Jordan at Carpe Nano and in response to some confusion about memristors on my part:

  • “Thanks for the link to my blog, http://CarpeNano.blogspot.com. Think of the memristor as being like a resistor whose value changes with the current it has experienced flowing through it, and that its value “sticks” when no current goes through (that is, power off), and that the process is reversible. That’s not quite accurate, but the sticky behavior is the important part. It’s a way of storing information, and not just with the 0-or-1 states of conventional digital memory, though that’s one possible implementation. It can store intermediate values, too. That means one memristor can store multiple bit-states… in principle, one memristor could do the job of a whole conga-line of RAM elements. Fascinating stuff!”

Thank you, the explanation helped a lot.

Next, a comment from Andrew Maynard, Science Advisor for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) about their event “Small is Beautiful” which would have had Maynard and a L’Oreal scientist talking about nanotechnology safety and cosmetics from the European perspective. The talk which was to take place June 5, 2008 was postponed within a week of two studies (one about carbon nanotubes and the other about fullerenes) being released that occasioned a lot of online discussion about nanotechnology safety. (Maynard was one of the authors for the carbon nanotube study.) Here’s his comment:

  • “No hidden agenda here – our speaker from L’Oreal couldn’t make it for personal reasons. We are intending to reschedule as soon as possible – stay tuned!”

Thank you and I checked again this morning and unfortunately, they haven’t rescheduled yet.

Nano risk aftershocks?

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Did the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) postpone the ‘Small is Beautiful: A European View of Nanotech Cosmetics and Safety presentation/webcast in the wake of the latest risk concerns i.e. long carbon nanotubes resembling asbestos and the possibility that bucky balls might be toxic? (Check my last couple of postings for more info. about the studies and some links.) They haven’t sent me a notice yet but maybe they don’t want to draw attention. I hope this doesn’t turn into a cancellation as I really wanted to hear what Dr. Andrew Maynard, PEN’s Science Advisor, and L’Oreal’s science representative,  Dr.Francis Quinn, have to say about nanotech risks and safety vis a vis cosmetics.  (L’Oreal has a lot of patents. One statistic I read suggested that they rank as sixth on the list of patent holders in the US. Here’s the info. in a news release announcing the talk which has been ‘postponed’.)