Science

1244 Articles

The Thousand Year (Radioactive) Diamond Battery

May 22, 2023 by 44 Comments

The Holy Grail of battery technology is a cell which lasts forever, a fit-and-forget device that never needs replacing. It may seem a pipe-dream, but University of Bristol researchers have come pretty close. The catch? Their battery lasts a very long time, but it generates micropower, and it’s radioactive.

They’re using a thin layer of vapour-deposited carbon-14 diamond both as a source of beta radiation, and as a semiconductor material which harvests those electrons. They’re expected to be used for applications such as intermittent sensors, where they would slowly charge a supercapacitor which could release useful amounts of power in short bursts.

It’s being touted as an environmental win because the carbon-14 is sourced from radioactive waste, but against that it’s not unreasonable to have a concern about the things being radioactive. The company commercializing the tech leads with the bold question: “What would you do with a power-cell that outlasts the device it powers?“, to which we would hope the answer won’t be “Throw it away to be a piece of orphaned radioactive waste in the environment when the device it powers is outlasted”. We’ll have to wait and see whether devices containing these things turn up on the surplus market in a couple of decades.

Fortunately the carbon-14 lives not in cartoonish vats of radioactive green slime but safely locked away in diamond, about the safest medium for it to be in. The prototype devices are also tiny, so we’re guessing that the quantity of carbon-14 involved is also small enough to not be a problem. We’re curious though whether they could become a valuable enough commodity to be reused and recycled in themselves, after all something that supplies energy for decades could power several different devices over its lifetime. Either way, it’s a major improvement over a tritium cell.

Faster Glacier Melting Mechanism Could Cause Huge Sea Level Rises

May 19, 2023 by 115 Comments

When it comes to the issue of climate change, naysayers often contend that we have an incomplete understanding of the Earth’s systems. While humanity is yet to uncover all the secrets of the world, that doesn’t mean we can’t act on what we know. In many cases, as climate scientists delve deeper, they find yet more supporting evidence of the potential turmoil to come.

In the stark landscapes of Greenland, a team of intrepid researchers from the University of California, Irvine, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have unearthed a hidden facet of ice-ocean interaction. Their discovery could potentially flip our understanding of sea level rise on its head.

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Custom Glove Guides Wearers’ Dreams

May 19, 2023 by 6 Comments

For as much advancement as humanity has made in modern medicine even in the last century alone, there’s still plenty we don’t understand about the human body. That’s particularly true of the brain, where something as common as dreams are the subject of active debate about their fundamental nature, if they serve any purpose, and where they originate. One research team is hoping to probe a little further into this mystery, and has designed a special glove to help reach a little deeper into the subconscious brain.

The glove, called Dormio, has a number of sensors and feedback mechanisms which researchers hope will help explore the connection between dreaming and creativity. Volunteers were allowed to take a nap while wearing the glove, which can detect the moment they began entering a specific stage of sleep. At that point, the device would provide an audio cue to seed an idea into the dreams, in this case specifically prompting the sleeper to think about trees. Upon awakening, all reported dreaming about trees specifically, and also demonstrated increased creativity in tests compared to control groups.

While this might not have the most obvious of implications, opening the brain up to being receptive of more creative ideas can have practical effects beyond the production of art or music. For example, the researchers are also investigating whether the glove can help individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder manage nightmares. From a technical perspective this glove isn’t much different from some other devices we’ve seen before, and replicating one to perform similar functions might be possible for most of us willing to experiment on ourselves.

Revisiting Folk Wisdom For Modern Chronic Wound Care

May 18, 2023 by 81 Comments

In the constant pursuit of innovation, it’s easy to overlook the wisdom of the past. The scientific method and modern research techniques have brought us much innovation, which can often lead us to dismiss traditional cultural beliefs.

However, sometimes, there are still valuable kernels of truth in the folklore of yesteryear. This holds true in a medical study from Finland, which focused on the traditional use of spruce resin to treat chronic wounds, breathing new life into an age-old therapy.

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Binding of the Rab5(GTP) to EEA1 triggers a transition of the EEA1 molecule from a rigid, extended state to a more flexible, collapsed state. (Credit: Anupam Singh et al., 2023)

Not Just ATP: Two-Component Molecular Motor Using GTPase Cycle Demonstrates Mechanotransduction

May 17, 2023 by 15 Comments

For most of us who haven’t entirely slept through biology classes, it’s probably no secret that ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is the compound which provides the energy needed for us to move our muscles and for our body to maintain and repair itself, yet less know is guanosine triphosphate (GTP). Up till now GTP was thought to be not used for mechanical action like molecular motors, but recent research by Anupam Singh and colleagues in Nature Physics (press release) has shown that two GTPase hydrolase enzymes (Rab5 and EEA1) function effectively as a reversible molecular motor.

Although much of the heavy lifting in the body has shifted to use ATP with ATPases such as myosin and kinesin, GTPases have retained their functional roles in mostly signal transduction (acting as switches or timers), a tethered EEA1 enzyme performs mechanical force when a Rab5 enzyme (in its activated, GTP state) binds to it. Within e.g. a cell this can pull membranes and other structures together. Most importantly, the researchers found that no external influence was necessary for the inactive (GDP) Rab5 enzyme to separate and EEA1 to revert back to its original state, completing a full cycle.

This discovery not only gives us another intriguing glimpse into the inner workings of biological systems, but also increases our understanding of how these molecular motors work, opening intriguing possibilities for constructing our own synthetic structures such as protein engines, where mechanical movement is needed on scales which require such molecular motors.

(Heading image: Binding of the Rab5(GTP) to EEA1 triggers a transition of the EEA1 molecule from a rigid, extended state to a more flexible, collapsed state. (Credit: Anupam Singh et al., 2023) )

Human DNA Is Everywhere: A Boon For Science, While Terrifying Others

May 16, 2023 by 15 Comments

Environmental DNA sampling is nothing new. Rather than having to spot or catch an animal, instead the DNA from the traces they leave can be sampled, giving clues about their genetic diversity, their lineage (e.g. via mitochondrial DNA) and the population’s health. What caught University of Florida (UoF) researchers by surprise while they were using environmental DNA sampling to study endangered sea turtles, was just how much human DNA they found in their samples. This led them to perform a study on the human DNA they sampled in this way, with intriguing implications.

Ever since genetic sequencing became possible there have been many breakthroughs that have made it more precise, cheaper and more versatile. The argument by these UoF researchers in their paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution is that although there is a lot of potential in sampling human environmental DNA (eDNA) to study populations much like is done today already with wastewater sampling, only more universally. This could have great benefits in studying human populations much how we monitor other animal species already using their eDNA and similar materials that are discarded every day as a part of normal biological function. Continue reading “Human DNA Is Everywhere: A Boon For Science, While Terrifying Others” →

Microbubbles And Ultrasound: Getting Drugs Through The Blood-Brain Barrier

May 16, 2023 by 19 Comments

The brain is a rather important organ, and as such, nature has gone to great lengths to protect it. The skull provides physical protection against knocks and bumps, but there’s a lesser-known defense mechanism at work too: the blood-brain barrier. It’s responsible for keeping all the nasty stuff – like bacteria, viruses, and weird chemicals – from messing up your head.

The blood-brain barrier effectively acts as a filter between the body’s circulatory system and the brain. However, it also frustrates efforts to deliver drugs directly to the brain for treating conditions like brain tumors. Now, scientists have developed a new technique that may allow critical life saving drugs to get through the barrier with the help of ultrasound technology. 

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