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Evidence of First Virus That Moves from Plants to Humans

Researchers from the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille, France have found evidence that suggest a virus common to peppers may have moved on to infect humans. Recently, a number of people have become ill and the RNA from the pepper mild mottle virus was found in their feces.

Didier Raoult of the UOM believes that it is possible the plant virus could be causing their symptoms. Of the 304 tested, 7 percent were found to have the virus in their feces. Those which did were more likely to have fever, abdominal pain and itching.

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General:

Printed Origami Offers New Technique for Complex Structues

Although it looks small and unassuming, the tiny origami crane sitting in a sample dish in University of Illinois professor Jennifer Lewis’ lab heralds a new method for creating complex three-dimensional structures for biocompatible devices, microscaffolding and other microsystems. The penny-sized titanium bird began as a printed sheet of titanium hydride ink.

The team will publish their novel technique in the April 14 online edition of the journal Advanced Materials.

Small, intricate shapes made of metals, ceramics or polymers have a variety of applications, from biomedical devices to electronics to rapid prototyping. One method of fabricating such structures is by direct-write assembly, which the Lewis group helped pioneer. In this approach, a large printer deposits inks containing metallic, ceramic or plastic particles to assemble a structure layer by layer. Then, the structure is annealed at a high temperature to evaporate the liquid in the ink and bond the particles, leaving a solid object.

However, as more layers are added, the lower layers tend to sag or collapse under their own weight – a problem postdoctoral researcher Bok Yeop Ahn encountered while trying to manufacture titanium scaffolds for tissue engineering. He decided to try a different approach: Print a flat sheet, then roll it up into a spiral – or even fold it into an assortment of shapes.

Folding the printed sheets is not as easy as it would first seem.

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last update: May 17, 2012

Space:

NASA’s Real-life Ironman On His Way To Space

The Robonaut 2 created by NASA and General motors has just been cleared for takeoff. This humanoid robot has been in development for many years and is now in its second form. The larger more capable R2 weighs in at 300 pounds, with a head, torso and two fully functional arms.

R2 will make its home permanently on the International Space Station this September after its flight there on the Space Shuttle Discovery, part of the STS-133 mission. NASA says that the R2 will assist astronauts with regular tasks such as handing them tools, holding wires, etc. within the space station and on space walks. The chief advantage of a machine such as R2 is its ability to use the same tools as astronauts.
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General:

Researchers Find Electrical Current Stemming From Plants

In an electrifying first, Stanford scientists have plugged in to algae cells and harnessed a tiny electric current. They found it at the very source of energy production – photosynthesis, a plant’s method of converting sunlight to chemical energy. It may be a first step toward generating “high efficiency” bioelectricity that doesn’t give off carbon dioxide as a byproduct, the researchers say.

“We believe we are the first to extract electrons out of living plant cells,” said WonHyoung Ryu, the lead author of the paper published in the March issue of Nano Letters. Ryu conducted the experiments while he was a research associate for mechanical engineering professor Fritz Prinz.

[photo via InfraNet Lab]

The Stanford research team developed a unique, ultra-sharp nanoelectrode made of gold, specially designed for probing inside cells. They gently pushed it through the algal cell membranes, which sealed around it, and the cell stayed alive. From the photosynthesizing cells, the electrode collected electrons that had been energized by light and the researchers generated a tiny electric current.

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Space:

Comet Gets Gobbled Up by the Sun

The NASA and ESA’s sun observatory, SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory), snapped a pic of a newly found comet moments before it is gobbled up by the sun. You can see the comet here is pretty bright, though it dims as it gets closer to the sun and eventually disappears into the fiery mass.

[photo via Space.com]

The comet, which appeared in photos on Friday, finally disappeared a day later. With close to 1,600 comets in our solar system, watching one get eaten by the sun is surely a sight to see. Here are some more photos captured by SOHO:

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Health:

UBC Graduate Student Finds ‘Start/Stop Switch’ for Retroviruses

A University of British Columbia doctoral candidate has discovered a previously unknown mechanism for silencing retroviruses, segments of genetic material that can lead to fatal mutations in a cell’s DNA.

The findings, published today in the journal Nature, could lead to new cancer treatments that kill only tumor cells and leave healthy surrounding tissue unharmed.

Danny Leung, a 27-year-old graduate student in the laboratory of Asst. Prof. Matthew Lorincz in the Dept. of Medical Genetics, UBC Faculty of Medicine, found that a protein called ESET is crucial to preventing the activity of endogenous retroviruses in mouse embryonic stem cells. Distant relatives of such retroviruses are more active in the cells of testicular, breast and skin cancers in humans.

If ESET can be blocked, retroviruses would become dramatically more active, thus either killing the cancer cells hosting them or flagging them as targets for the immune system.

Leung, who was co-lead author with a graduate student at Kyoto University in Japan, has devoted his studies at UBC to the growing field of epigenetics – changes to the genome that do not involve changes to the underlying genetic code. Such changes determine whether or not a gene is expressed.

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Health:

Chip in Pill Tells Doctors Whether or Not You Take Your Meds

No longer will doctors have to worry whether or not their patients have taken their prescribed medications. Thanks to researchers at the University of Florida the pills will now send messages back to the doctor when they have been ingested.

Although still in prototype, each pill is the standard size, with an antenna printed on the surface with ink made of nontoxic, conductive silver nanoparticles. Contained within the pill is a microchip the size of a period which transmits a signal to a nearby receiver. The receiver then sends a message back to the doctor. Currently it is just the transmitting device but in the future it could be built into watches, cell phones or other common items. The antenna breaks down within the body and the mircochip passes through the digestive tract safely.

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