Getting Ready For Defcon 15

July 31, 2007 by 11 Comments


Just stoking up a bit for Defcon 15 later this week. [Eliot] and I’ll both be there.
My personal coffee stash is down to a single selection of Ethiopian Yirg, so I probably won’t enter the coffee wars. (But I might stop by and add some Hack-A-Day swag to the pot for the winner.)

The final speaker schedule looks really good. It’ll be difficult to decide which talks to visit. The DefconBots event should be interesting. I’m hoping to see some original hardware creations.

Looks like wireless cracking is still one of the most popular topics. Hack-A-Day friend [Aaron] of Midnight Research will be presenting the latest on wicrawl.

Oh, and just prior to Defcon, the Pwnie Awards will take place at Black Hat.

See you in Vegas!

Using Donor Immune Cells To Mass-Produce CAR-T Autoimmune Therapies

October 7, 2024 by 2 Comments

As exciting as immunotherapies are in terms of fighting cancer, correcting autoimmune disorders and so on, they come with a major disadvantage. Due to the current procedure involving the use of a patient’s own immune (T) cells, this making such therapies rather expensive and involved for the patient. Recent research has therefore focused on answering the question whether T cells from healthy donors could be somehow used instead, with promising results from a recent study on three human patients, as reported in Nature.

The full study results (paywalled) by [Xiaobing Wang] et al. are published in Cell, with the clinical trial details available on the ClinicalTrials.gov website. For this particular trial the goal was to attempt to cure the autoimmune conditions of the three study participants (being necrotizing myopathy (IMNM) and diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis (dcSSc)). The T cells used in the study were obtained from a healthy 21-year old woman, and modified with chimeric antigen receptors targeting B (memory) cells. Using CRISPR-Cas9 the T cells were then further modified to prevent the donor cells from attacking the patient’s cells and vice versa.

After injection, the CAR-T cells got to work, multiplying and seeking out the target B cells, including the pathogenic ones underlying the autoimmune conditions. This persisted for a few weeks until the CAR-T cells effectively vanished and new B cells began to emerge, with a clear decrease in autoantibodies. Two months after beginning treatment, all three participants noted marked improvements in their conditions, which persisted at 6 months. For the woman with IMNM, muscle strength had increased dramatically with undetectable autoantibody levels, and the two men with dcSSc saw scar tissue formation reversed and their skin condition improve massively.

It remains to be seen whether this period of remission in these patients is permanent, and whether there any side effects of CAR-T cell therapy. We previously reported on CAR-T cell therapies and the many promises which they hold. Depending on the outcome of these early trials, it could mean that autoimmune conditions, allergies and cancer will soon be worries of the past, marking another massive medical milestone not unlike the invention of vaccines and the discovery of antibiotics.

WiFi Meets LoRa For Long Range

October 7, 2024 by 19 Comments

What do you get when you cross WiFi and LoRa? Researchers in China have been doing this, and they call the result WiLo. They claim to get reliable connections over about half a kilometer. Typical WiFi runs 40 to 60 meters, barring any Pringle’s cans or other exotic tricks.

According to [Michelle Hampson] writing in IEEE Spectrum, the researchers manipulated Wi-Fi’s OFDM multiplexing to emulate LoRa’s chirp-spreading signal. The advantage is that existing WiFi hardware can use the protocol to increase range.

Continue reading “WiFi Meets LoRa For Long Range” →

Reversing Type 1 Diabetes With A Patient’s Own Stem Cells

October 6, 2024 by 8 Comments

Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune condition whereby the patient’s own immune system attacks the pancreatic islets, destroying them in the process. Since these islets are responsible for producing insulin in response to blood sugar (glucose) levels, the patient is thus required to externally inject insulin for the remainder of their life. That was the expected scenario, but it appears that this form of diabetes may soon be treatable, with one woman now being free of the condition for a year already, as reported in Nature, referencing an article by [Shusen Wang] et al. that describes the treatment and the one-year result.

Most notable with this study is that the researchers didn’t use the regular method to create pluripotent stem cells. These cells were extracted from the patient, to revert back to this earlier developmental stage. They were not modified using genes, but rather singular chemicals (PDF). The advantage of this is that it avoids having to modify the cell’s genomes, which could conceivably cause issues like cancer later on. This was one of the first time that this method was used in a human subject, with islet cells formed and about 1.5 million of them injected into the patient’s abdominal muscles, a novel site for this procedure.

This location made these islets easy to keep track of, and easier to remove in case of any issues compared to the usual injection site within the liver. Fortunately for this woman, no complications occurred and one year later she is still free of any diabetes symptoms. Two other patients in the trial are also seeing very positive results, leaving only the question of whether the auto-immune condition that originally caused the islet destruction still exists. Since this female patient is taking immunosuppressants for a previous liver transplant it’s a hard to thing to judge, especially since we understand the causes behind type 1 diabetes so poorly.

Regardless, this and other trials using pluripotent cells, transplanted islets and more offer the prospect of a permanent treatment for the many people who suffer from type 1 diabetes.

Featured image: “Human induced pluripotent stem cell colony” National Eye Institute/NIH

 

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Hackaday Links: October 6, 2024

October 6, 2024 by 20 Comments

Remember that time a giant cylindrical aquarium in a Berlin hotel bar catastrophically failed and left thousands of fish homeless? We sure do, and further recall that at the time, we were very curious about the engineering details of how this structure failed so spectacularly. At the time, we were sure there’d be plenty of follow-up on that score, but life happened and we forgot all about the story. Luckily, a faithful reader named Craig didn’t, and he helpfully ran down a few follow-up articles that came out last year that are worth looking at.

The first is from prosecutors in Berlin with a report offering three possibilities: that the adhesive holding together the acrylic panels of the aquarium failed; that the base of the tank was dented during recent refurbishment; or that the aquarium was refilled too soon after the repairs, leading to the acrylic panels drying out. We’re a little confused by that last one just from an intuitive standpoint, but each of these possibilities seems hand-wavy enough that the report’s executive summary could have been “Meh, Scheiße happens.”

Continue reading “Hackaday Links: October 6, 2024” →

3D Printed Hydrofoil Goes From Model Scale To Human Scale With Flight Controller

October 6, 2024 by 5 Comments

Hydrofoils have been around for several decades, but watching a craft slice through the water with almost no wake never get old. In the videos after the break, [rctestflight] showcases his ambitious project: transforming a standup paddleboard into a rideable hydrofoil with active stabilization.

Unlike conventional electric hydrofoil boards that depend on rider skill for balance, [rctestflight] aims to create a self-stabilizing system. He began by designing a small-scale model, complete with servo-controlled ailerons and elevators, dual motors for differential thrust, and a dRehmFlight flight controller. A pair of sonar sensors help the flight controller maintain constant height above the water. The wings are completely 3D printed, with integrated hinges for flight control surfaces slots for wiring and control components. It’s better suited for 3D printing than RC aircraft since it’s significantly less sensitive to weight, allowing for more structural reinforcement. The small scale tests were very successful and allowed [rctestflight] to determine that he didn’t need the vertical stabilizer and rudder.

The full-sized version features a scaled up wing, larger servos and motors attached to an 11-foot standup paddleboard — minus its rear end — mounted on commercially available e-foil booms. A foam battery box stores a hefty LiFePO4 battery, while the electronics from the smaller version are repurposed here. Despite only catching glimpses of this larger setup in action at the end of the video, it promises an excitingly smooth lake ride we would certainly like to experience.

We’ve seen several 3D printed hydrofoils around here, but this promised to be the largest successful attempt. Don’t fail us [Daniel].

Continue reading “3D Printed Hydrofoil Goes From Model Scale To Human Scale With Flight Controller” →

Automated Pixel Art With Marbles

October 6, 2024 by 11 Comments

Marble machines are a fun and challenging reason to do engineering for the sake of engineering. [Engineezy] adds some color to the theme, building a machine to create 16×16 marble images automatically. (Video embedded below.)

The core problem was devising ways to sort, lift, place, and dump marbles in their correct positions without losing their marbles—figuratively and literally. Starting with color detection, [Engineezy] used an RGB color sensor and Euclidian math to determine each marble’s color. After trying several different mechanical sorting mechanisms, he settled on a solenoid and servo-actuated dump tube to drop the marble into the appropriate hopper.

After sorting, he faced challenges with designing a mechanism to transport marbles from the bottom hoppers to the top of the machine. While paddle wheels seemed promising at first, they tended to jam—a problem solved by innovating with Archimedes screws that move marbles up smoothly without clogs. The marbles are pushed into clear tubes on either side of the machine, providing a clear view of their parade to the top.

Perhaps most ingenious is his use of constant-force springs as a flexible funnel to guide the marbles to a moving slider that drops them into the correct column of the display. When a picture is complete, sliding doors open on the bottom of the columns, dumping the marbles into a chain lift which feeds them into the sorting section. Each of the mechanisms has a mirrored version of the other side, so the left and right halves of the display operate independently.

The final product is slow, satisfying and noisy kinetic testament to [Engineezy]’s perseverance through countless iterations and hiccups.

Marble machines can range from minimalist to ultra-complex musical monstrosities, but never fail to tickle our engineering minds. Continue reading “Automated Pixel Art With Marbles” →