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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,623

Experiments confirm a quantum material’s unique response to circularly polarized laser light

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down experiments at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory early last year, Shambhu Ghimire’s research group was forced to find another way to study an intriguing research target: quantum materials known as topological insulators, or TIs, which conduct electric current on their surfaces but not through their interiors.

Denitsa Baykusheva, a Swiss National Science Foundation Fellow, had joined his group at the Stanford PULSE Institute two years earlier with the goal of finding a way to generate high harmonic generation, or HHG, in these materials as a tool for probing their behavior. In HHG, shining through a material shifts to higher energies and higher frequencies, called harmonics, much like pressing on a guitar string produces higher notes. If this could be done in TIs, which are promising building blocks for technologies like spintronics, quantum sensing and quantum computing, it would give scientists a new tool for investigating these and other quantum materials.

With the experiment shut down midway, she and her colleagues turned to theory and computer simulations to come up with a new recipe for generating HHG in topological insulators. The results suggested that circularly polarized light, which spirals along the direction of the laser beam, would produce clear, unique signals from both the conductive surfaces and the interior of the TI they were studying, bismuth selenide—and would in fact enhance the signal coming from the surfaces.

Shape-shifting materials with infinite possibilities

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a shape-shifting material that can take and hold any possible shape, paving the way for a new type of multifunctional material that could be used in a range of applications, from robotics and biotechnology to architecture.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Today’s -shifting materials and structures can only transition between a few stable configurations but we have shown how to create structural materials that have an arbitrary range of shape-morphing capabilities,” said L Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and of Physics and senior author of the paper. “These structures allow for independent control of the geometry and mechanics, laying the foundation for engineering functional shapes using a new type of morphable unit cell.”

Direct Analysis and Quantification of Metaldehyde in Water using Reactive Paper Spray Mass Spectrometry

Circa 2016 Basically means we can see contaminated water easier.

Detection and quantification of contaminants or pollutants in surface waters is of great importance to ensure safety of drinking water and for the aquatic environment1,2,3,4,5,6. Metaldehyde (CH3CHO)4 is a cyclic tetramer of acetaldehyde and is used extensively around the world as a molluscicide in agriculture for the control of slugs to protect crops. Large amounts of metaldehyde residues (from ‘slug pellets’) become mobilized, especially during periods of rainfall, seeping into reservoirs, rivers and groundwater, from which drinking water is sourced. Although metaldehyde has low toxicity, cases of metaldehyde poisoning and death in both humans and animals have been reported6,7,8. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) re-registered metaldehyde as a ‘restricted use pesticide’ and required risk-reduction measures to be adopted due to the potential short-term and long-term effects on wildelife9,10. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies metaldehyde as a “moderately hazardous” pesticide (class II)11. In Europe, the European Commission has adopted a directive that restricts pesticides levels to 0.1 μg/L in drinking water12,13. Water companies and environmental agencies are under increasing pressure to routinely monitor levels of metaldehyde residues in water courses as part of their legal obligation14. As such there is an increasing need to develop effective analytical methods for detecting and quantifying metaldehyde in water samples at the source. In particular in-situ monitoring is required to ensure water management practices are based on empirical, up-to-date information which provides a better understanding of competing factors, risk and requirement.

Rapid analytical methods for in-situ analysis of metaldehyde in water, if available, would provide critical information on water quality for water companies and regulation bodies to manage exposures. Quantitative analysis of metaldehyde has been reported using various ex-situ methods based on solid-phase extraction8,15 followed by gas chromatography (GC) or high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with mass spectrometry (MS)7,14,15,16,17,18. However, each of these analytical methods involves extensive sample preparation including extraction, separation, and derivatization, resulting in increased cost and time of analysis. As will be demonstrated in this study, ambient ionization (AI) combined with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) can overcome such limitations19,20,21,22.

AI is a form of ionization that is performed on unmodified samples in open air and the method is capable of providing almost instantaneous data while minimizing sample preparation22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29. Some of the most popular AI techniques include desorption electrospray ionization (DESI)30, extractive electrospray ionization (EESI)31,32,33,34,35,36, desorption atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (DAPCI)37,38,39, and direct analysis in real time (DART)40,41. AI-MS shows promise as an analytical tool for in-situ applications and has been demonstrated in a variety of fields where timely intervention is highly desirable such as: homeland security23, food safety42, pharmaceutical drug development43, and environmental monitoring44. There are several advantages to using in-situ AI methods capable of onsite analysis.

Russia reports cases of more contagious COVID-19 Delta subvariant

A more contagious subvariant of Detla has been found.

MOSCOW, Oct 21 (Reuters) — Russia has reported “isolated cases” of COVID-19 with a subvariant of the Delta variant that is believed to be even more contagious, the state consumer watchdog’s senior researcher said on Thursday.

The researcher, Kamil Khafizov, said the AY.4.2 subvariant may be around 10% more infectious than the original Delta — which has driven new cases and deaths to a series of record daily highs in Russia — and could ultimately replace it.

However, he said this was likely to be a slow process.

Gene editing can turn storage fat cells into energy-burning fat cells

A team of researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Touchstone Diabetes Center have successfully used CRISPR gene editing to turn fat cells normally used for storage into energy-burning cells.

“It’s like flipping a switch. We removed the ‘brake’ on the energy burning pathway in by engineering a mutation that disrupts the interaction between a single pair of proteins,” said study leader Rana Gupta, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Internal Medicine. “Our research demonstrates that releasing this brake in fat cells can potentially help make existing much more effective.”

The research at UT Southwestern, ranked as one of the nation’s top 25 hospitals for diabetes and endocrinology care, is published in Genes and Development and supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Deep North, which uses AI to track people from camera footage, raises $16.7M

Deep North, a Foster City, California-based startup applying computer vision to security camera footage, today announced that it raised $16.7 million in a Series A-1 round. Led by Celesta Capital and Yobi Partners, with participation from Conviction Investment Partners, Deep North plans to use the funds to make hires and expand its services “at scale,” according to CEO Rohan Sanil.

Deep North, previously known as Vmaxx, claims its platform can help brick-and-mortar retailers “embrace digital” and protect against COVID-19 by retrofitting security systems to track purchases and ensure compliance with masking rules. But the company’s system, which relies on algorithms with potential flaws, raises concerns about both privacy and bias.

Full Story:

Russia registers ‘world’s first’ COVID-19 vaccine for dogs, cats and other animals

Russia has registered the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine for animals, the country’s agricultural regulator said on Wednesday.

Clinical trials of the vaccine — called Carnivac-Cov — started last October and involved dogs, cats, Arctic foxes, minks, foxes and other animals, said Konstantin Savenkov, deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor, according to a Reuters report.

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