An egg-cellent source of renewable energy

Researchers from Osaka City University in Japan have discovered that using proteins taken from egg whites could help facilitate the carbon-free production of hydrogen.

Although hydrogen is considered clean fuel because it emits nothing but water when burnt, the creation of the gas itself is a less eco-friendly affair. Currently, the mass production of hydrogen involves the burning of fossil fuels, a process which releases harmful carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Scientists have discovered that is possible to generate hydrogen for fuel cleanly using a photocatalyst like solar power by creating a fluid to store the substance. But free-moving and randomly located molecules and particles in the fluid can interfere with the process of producing hydrogen and scientists have long searched for a way to immobilise them.

A team of scientists at Osaka City University believe they have found the solution. The researchers, led by Professor Yusuke Yamada, have developed a method in which the protein contained in egg whites can be harnessed to build crystals with lots of tiny holes to trap these particles.

“We found protein was a useful tool” to generate hydrogen in a lab without using a fossil fuel, the professor told AFP.

The whites of chicken eggs, which are inexpensive and inexhaustible, consist of porous lysozyme crystals.

“Lysozyme crystals have a highly ordered nanostructure and, thus, we can manipulate the molecular components when they accumulate in the crystals,” Hiroyasu Tabe, a special appointment research associate at the Graduate School of Engineering at the university, said. The crystal structure can be easily analysed with X-ray technology.

The change brought a sense of traffic control to the molecular interactions and improved the efficiency of clean, hydrogen production, Yamada was cited as saying. The discovery was published in the February edition of the scientific journal “Applied Catalysis B”.

Hydrogen is considered by many as the ultimate clean energy. If an efficient method to generate the gas can be found, it could be used to power everything from cars to buildings.

Source: Osaka City University; AFP

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Low-cost origami 3D-printing technique could improve bone implants

Scientists at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands have created a new way to print flat structures which self-fold into complex shapes according to a pre-planned sequence. The research has many applications, including the potential to improve bone transplants, the university said.

Essentially a combination of the Japanese paper-folding art of origami and 3D printing, the technique created by Amir Zadpoor and his team of researchers is means of creating shape-shifting constructs without the high costs or manual labour usually associated with this process.

Zadpoor’s team used an Ultimaker, one of the most popular 3D printers, and PLA, the most common printing material available. “At about 17 Euro’s per kilo, it’s dirt cheap”, said Zadpoor. “Nevertheless, we created some of the most complex shape-shifting ever reported with it.” The process is also fully automated and requires no manual labour whatsoever.

Zadpoor’s team achieved this by creating a technique in which they simultaneously printed and stretched the material in certain spots. “The stretching is stored inside the material as a memory”, PhD researcher Teunis van Manen explained. “When heated up, the memory is released and the material wants to go back to its original state.”

The researchers also alternated the thickness and the alignment of the filaments in the material.

“What makes the team’s shape-shifting objects so advanced is the fact that they self-fold according to a pre-planned sequence,” TU Delft wrote about the project.

“If the goal is to create complex shapes, and it is, some parts should fold sooner than others”, Zadpoor explained. “Therefore, we needed to program time delays into the material. This is called sequential shape-shifting.”

This approach marks an important step in the development of better bone implants for two reasons, the researchers explained. Firstly, it makes it possible to create prosthetics with a porous interior which allows a patient’s own stem cells to move into the structure of the implant and attach themselves to the interior surface area, instead of just coating the exterior. This will result in a stronger, more durable implant.

Secondly, with this technique, nanopatterns that guide cell growth can be crafted on the surface of the implant, TU Delft explained.

“We call these ‘instructive surfaces’, because they apply certain forces to the stem cells, prompting them to develop into the cells we want them to be”’, said PhD researcher Shahram Janbaz. “A pillar shape, for instance, may encourage stem cells to become bone cells.”

It is impossible to create such instructive surfaces on the inside of a 3D structure. “This is why we decided we needed to start from a flat surface,” said Zadpoor.

Other applications for the research include printed electronics (“by using this technique, it may be possible to incorporate printed, 2D-electronics into a 3D shape,” Zadpoor said) and flat-pack furniture. “Shape-shifting could definitely turn many of our existing 2D worlds into 3D worlds’, he said. “We are already being contacted by people who are interested in working with it.”

Source: TU Delft 

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Tesla releases first ‘affordable’ Model 3 electric cars to early buyers

CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, has handed over the first 30 of the company’s long-anticipated “affordable” electric car, the Model 3, to employee buyers, Reuters reported.

The Model 3 (Photo: Steve Jurvetson [CC BY-SA 4.0] creativecommons.org)

The Model 3, which will cost USD 35,000, is a departure from Tesla’s earlier luxury electric cars and marks the first step in Musk’s strategy to turn his company into a profitable, mass-market electric car maker, Reuters said.

The basic model has a range of 220 miles (350 km) on a single charge, while the longer-range version of the Model 3, retailing at USD 44,000, manages 310 miles (500 km).

Speaking to reporters at the company’s Fremont, California factory on Friday 28 July, Musk said the Tesla Model 3 already has over 500,000 advance reservations.

Tesla has only manufactured 50 of the vehicles so far, including 20 for testing purposes but plans to produce 500,000 next year – a six-fold increase on its 2016 production levels. A simpler Model 3 design will greatly reduce potential assembly-line problems, Musk was reported as saying.

According to the company, new buyers are not likely to receive their car until the end of 2018. Musk acknowledged it would be “quite a challenge” to build the car during the early days of production: “We’re going to go through at least six months of manufacturing hell,” he was quoted as saying.

The Model 3 interior (Photo: Steve Jurvetson [CC BY 2.0] creativecommons.org). 

The Model 3 has been designed with a minimalist interior, including a streamlined dashboard devoid of buttons or knobs and a 15-inch touchstream display.

“The Model 3 is part of Musk’s broader plan to build a clean energy and transportation company that offers electric semi-trailer trucks, rooftop solar energy systems and large-scale battery storage systems,” Reuters said.

Apple analyst Gene Munster says he believes the launch of the Tesla Model 3 could be as big as the launch of the first iPhone.

“Over the next 10 years, the Model 3’s value, in combination with its technology, has the potential to change the world and accelerate the adoption of electric and autonomous vehicles,” Business Insider cited a note written by Munster on 6 July. “We believe we will eventually look back at the launch of the Model 3 and compare it to the iPhone, which proved to be the catalyst for the shift to mobile computing.”

Source: Reuters; Business Insider

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Images taken by Japanese camera space drone on ISS released

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has released the first group of photos and videos movies taken by its zero-gravity autonomous camera drone, known as the JEM Internal Ball Camera (or “Int-Ball”), aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Photo: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

The JEM Int-Ball is the Agency’s first camera drone that can record video while moving in space under remote control from the ground, JAXA said.

Its main purpose is to optimise cooperation and communication between flight controllers on the ground and the astronauts on board, and to eliminate the need for onboard astronauts to take photographs: a task which currently accounts for around 10% of working hours.

Manufactured using 3D printing, and adopting modern drone technology, the orb-shaped camera is able to move autonomously in space and record still and moving images under remote control by the JAXA Tsukuba Space Center, JAXA said. It is also really cute – with CNN calling it the “cutest little orb since Star Wars’ BB-8 droid.”

The recorded images and videos taken by the floating camera can be checked in real time by flight controllers and researchers on the ground, and then fed back to the onboard crew, the agency said.

Int-Ball was received on board the ISS’s Japanese Experiment Module known as “Kibo” on 4 June 2017, and the images were released on 14 July.

Source: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

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Babies can distinguish between different languages while still in the womb, study finds

Babies are able to recognise the difference between English and Japanese a month before they are born , a scientific study published in the journal NeuroReport, has found.

 

The study, conducted by a team at the University of Kansas, used a sample of 24 women in the US, all around eight months pregnant, to test whether foetuses responded differently to the rhythm of a language that was new to them.

The languages used were English and Japanese, which have very different rhythms; English is spoken in irregular bursts resembling Morse code, while Japanese is characterised by a more regular tempo.

The researchers played an audio clip in Japanese followed by one in English, spoken by the same bi-lingual speaker. Then, using one of just two fetal biomagnetometers available in the US fitted to the maternal abdomen, they measured the babies’ heartbeats, breathing and other body movements in response the the audio.

The results showed that the babies’ heart rates changed when they heard the unfamiliar Japanese, but that there was no variation when they heard the English – demonstrating that they recognised a rhythmical difference between the two.

One previous study using ultrasound technology has yielded similar results but the University of Kansas study marks the first time the finding has been made  using the most accurate technology available.

“The previous study used ultrasound to see whether fetuses recognised changes in language by measuring changes in fetal heart rate,” said Utako Minai, associate professor of linguistics at the University of Kansas and the lead researcher on the study.

“The speech sounds that were presented to the fetus in the two different languages were spoken by two different people in that study. They found that the fetuses were sensitive to the change in speech sounds, but it was not clear if the fetuses were sensitive to the differences in language or the differences in speaker, so we wanted to control for that factor by having the speech sounds in the two languages spoken by the same person.”

“The biomagnetometer is more sensitive than ultrasound to the beat-to-beat changes in heart rate,” she said.

Experts say the study indicates that language development begins before birth – and will pave the way for further research in this area.

“These results suggest that language development may indeed start in utero,”  said Minai.

“Foetuses are tuning their ears to the language they are going to acquire even before they are born, based on the speech signals available to them in utero.

“Pre-natal sensitivity to the rhythmic properties of language may provide children with one of the very first building blocks in acquiring language.

“We think it is an extremely exciting finding for basic science research on language. We can also see the potential for this finding to apply to other fields.”

Source: The University of Kansas

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Robots with the sense of touch: 3D-printed “bionic skin” developed by University of Minnesota engineers

A revolutionary process for 3D printing “stretchable electronic sensory devices” has been developed by engineering researchers at the University of Minnesota, USA. According to the University, the technology could be used in robots to enable them to feel their environment.

“This stretchable electronic fabric we developed has many practical uses,” Michael McAlpine, mechanical engineering associate professor and lead researcher on the study, was quoted as saying. “Putting this type of ‘bionic skin’ on surgical robots would give surgeons the ability to actually feel during minimally invasive surgeries, which would make surgery easier instead of just using cameras like they do now. These sensors could also make it easier for other robots to walk and interact with their environment.”

According to McAlpine, the technology could also be used to print electronics on human skin.

“While we haven’t printed on human skin yet, we were able to print on the curved surface of a model hand using our technique,” McAlpine said. “We also interfaced a printed device with the skin and were surprised that the device was so sensitive that it could detect your pulse in real time.”

The “electronic fabric” was developed using a 3D printer McAlpine and his team of researchers built themselves.

The multifunctional printer has four nozzles to print the various specialised ‘inks’ that make up the layers of the device—a base layer of silicone, top and bottom electrodes made of a conducting ink, a coil-shaped pressure sensor, and a sacrificial layer that holds the top layer in place while it sets (later washed away in the final manufacturing process), the University report said.

This method of 3D printing uses “inks” that can set at room temperature. The liquid plastic used in conventional 3D printing uses is too hot and too rigid to use on the skin.

“This is a completely new way to approach 3D printing of electronics,” McAlpine said. “We have a multifunctional printer that can print several layers to make these flexible sensory devices. This could take us into so many directions from health monitoring to energy harvesting to chemical sensing.”

According to the researchers, the best part of the discovery is that the manufacturing is built into the process.

“With most research, you discover something and then it needs to be scaled up. Sometimes it could be years before it ready for use,” McAlpine said. “This time, the manufacturing is built right into the process so it is ready to go now.”

The researchers say the next step is to move toward semiconductor inks and printing on a real body. “The possibilities for the future are endless,” McAlpine said.

The full research paper entitled “3D Printed Stretchable Tactile Sensors,” is due to be published in the next issue of peer-reviewed material science journal, Advanced Materials and is available online.

Sources: University of Minnesota

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UK VR tech startup receives $502 million investment from Softbank

British virtual reality startup, Improbable, has announced that it has raised USD 502m (GBP ) after a round of round of Series B funding led by Japanese multinational telecommunications company SoftBank, the company said.

The investment is thought to be the largest ever investment made in a fledgling European tech firm, according to The Guardian. 

Improbable said all the funds will be invested in developing the company’s technology, including its SpatialOS distributed operating system. Improbable’s plans include accelerated recruitment in its London and San Francisco offices, and investments to develop a vibrant ecosystem of developers and customers.

“This investment reflects the potential size and importance of the market for this next generation of games and, ultimately, how massive-scale virtual worlds could become fundamental to how society works,” Herman Narula, CEO of Improbable said.

“SoftBank is a perfect partner for us, with many complementary investments in their portfolio. This investment will allow us to take the big, bold steps needed to fully realise our vision.”

Improbable has also said it will explore and identify opportunities for mutually beneficial relationships with SoftBank, its partners and portfolio companies.

About Improbable

Improbable was co-founded in 2012 by a group of Cambridge University computer science graduates. It uses cloud-based distributed computing to enable the creation of virtual worlds for use in games and massive-scale simulations of the real world.

Its first product, SpatialOS, a distributed operating system for massive-scale simulations created using Improbable’s technology, integrates with major game engines and has been in live beta since March.

“Because the work of maintaining game worlds and tracking activities within them is managed and distributed across the cloud using SpatialOS, multiplayer and massively multiplayer games can be created and scaled by teams of any size, without dedicated network engineering and without initial infrastructure costs,” the company said in a press release.

“Developers are already using SpatialOS to build a range of different types of games which take advantage of its ability to manage larger scale, higher player numbers and easy scaling in a seamless virtual world.”

Real-world applications

Improbable says it is also applying the same technology that powers SpatialOS to the simulation of complex real world systems. Potential applications include simulating transport infrastructure, telecommunications networks or the behaviour of fleets of autonomous vehicles.

“Beyond gaming, this new form of simulation on a massive scale has the potential to help us make better decisions about the world we live in, Deep Nishar, managing director of Softbank, said, “Improbable’s technology will help us explore disease, improve cities, understand economies and solve complex problems on a previously unimaginable scale.”

Sources: Improbable, The Guardian

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