International Research Awards on New Science Inventions

So often, the question comes up in cities looking to make improvements in their public transit service offerings and systems regarding what type of service and system is best suited to meet the majority or mass-public need. Services and systems suggested often run the gamut, after which a thorough review and narrowing of selections are made, public input typically being an integral part of the discussion process; after all, the populace is the transit-served here. Harkening back to the early days when cities were considering upgrading beginning circa 1920, the transportation choices made were comparatively easy. Back then, cars were making serious inroads as buying an automobile became within the realm of possibility for more and more people over time. As the electric street and interurban railway systems more and more fell into disfavor with the general riding public and car travel became more and more preferable, one by one these electrified passenger railways began to close. But r...

The earliest signs of alkaptonuria are often subtle and harmless, like a diaper stained black. However, over the years, this rare genetic disease can lead to a lifetime of surgery. Now, after 20 years of research, a not-so-new drug can offer relief for thousands of patients worldwide. The disease, also known as AKU, prevents the breakdown of a chemical called homogentisic acid in the body. The kidneys help to clear this chemical and get rid of it through urine. When exposed to the air, it turns black and this is how parents usually spot the first sign of the condition in children. However, some of the homogentisic acid remains in the body and builds up slowly over time. This starts to cause damage in the areas that it accumulates, such as the cartilage and heart valves. ‘Similar symptoms appear in most patients, with spinal problems in their 20s or 30s, then severe joint deterioration during their 30s, 40s and 50s, and then heart problems in their 50s and later,’ said Nick...

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a new way to harness properties of light waves that can radically increase the amount of data they carry. They demonstrated the emission of discrete twisting laser beams from antennas made up of concentric rings roughly equal to the diameter of a human hair, small enough to be placed on computer chips. The new work, reported in a paper published Feb. 25 in the journal  Nature Physics , throws wide open the amount of information that can be multiplexed, or simultaneously transmitted, by a coherent light source. A common example of multiplexing is the transmission of multiple telephone calls over a single wire, but there had been fundamental limits to the number of coherent twisted light waves that could be directly multiplexed. “It’s the first time that lasers producing twisted light have been directly multiplexed,” said study principal investigator Boubacar Kanté, the Chenming Hu Associate Professor in UC Berkeley...

The small, furry ancestors of all primates — a group that includes humans and other apes — were already taking to the trees a mere 100,000 years after the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs and most other terrestrial animals, according to a new analysis of fossil teeth in the collections of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP). The analysis showed that the teeth are the earliest-known fossil evidence of any primate, dating from about 65.9 million years ago — 105,000 to 139,000 years after Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary 66 million years ago that signaled the end of the dinosaur era, except for the dinosaurs’ descendants, the birds. The teeth and upper and lower jawbones, from a genus of mammals known as Purgatorius — the oldest genus in a group of now extinct early primates called plesiadapiforms — were collected over the past two decades from the Hell Creek region of northeastern Montana, south and east of Fort Peck Reservoir. The area is known for its...

A new computational approach for analyzing complex datasets shows that as disease progresses, neurons and astrocytes lose the ability to maintain homeostasis. Using an innovative computational approach to analyze vast brain cell gene expression datasets, researchers at MIT and Sorbonne Université have found that Huntington’s disease may progress to advanced stages more because of a degradation of the cells’ health maintenance systems than because of increased damage from the disease pathology itself. The analysis yielded a trove of specific gene networks governing molecular pathways that disease researchers may now be able to target to better sustain brain cell health amid the devastating neurodegenerative disorder, says co-senior author  Myriam Heiman , associate professor in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and an investigator at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. Christian Neri of the Sorbonne’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique is th...

Imaging of the same spot shows that cracks eventually self-heal, an important trademark that maintains the integrity of structured liquids. Real-time video of 70 nm nanoparticles (red) and 500 nanometer nanoparticles (green) captured via laser scanning confocal microscopy at the Molecular Foundry. (Credit: Paul Ashby and Tom Russell/Berkeley Lab and Science Advances) L iquid structures – liquid droplets that maintain a specific shape  – are useful for a variety of applications, from food processing to cosmetics, medicine, and even petroleum extraction, but researchers have yet to tap into these exciting new materials’ full potential because not much is known about how they form. Now, a research team led by Berkeley Lab has captured real-time high-resolution videos of liquid structures taking shape as nanoparticle surfactants (NPSs) – soap-like particles just billionths of a meter in size – jam tightly together, side by side, to form a solid-like layer at the interface between o...

Inspired by personal tragedy, graduate student Hyunwoo Yuk used his background in soft materials to develop a bioadhesive tape for repairing damaged tissue. In November, mechanical engineering PhD candidate Hyunwoo Yuk earned the top prize at the Collegiate Inventors Competition hosted by the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame. Yuk was named the graduate winner for his invention  SanaHeal , a bioadhesive tape that can easily bind to tissues or organs. The tape could one day be used in place of sutures to promote healing and minimize complications after surgery. Yuk accepted the prize a few weeks prior to successfully defending his doctoral thesis last December. These accomplishments marked the culmination of a personal journey that has its root in family tragedy. As he was completing his bachelor’s degree, Yuk received a call that his brother was involved in a horrific accident. He suffered multiple traumatic injuries and required intensive care. Yuk spent the next two years b...

Seismologists at Caltech working with optics experts at Google have developed a method to use existing underwater telecommunication cables to detect earthquakes. The technique could lead to improved earthquake and tsunami warning systems around the world. A vast network of more than a million kilometers of fiber optic cable lies at the bottom of Earth’s oceans. In the 1980s, telecommunication companies and governments began laying these cables, each of which can span thousands of kilometers. Today, the global network is considered the backbone of international telecommunications. Scientists have long sought a way to use those submerged cables to monitor seismicity. After all, more than 70 percent of the globe is covered by water, and it is extremely difficult and expensive to install, monitor, and run underwater seismometers to keep track of the earth’s movements beneath the seas. What would be ideal, researchers say, is to monitor seismicity by making use of the infrastructure alre...

Fewer than 366 surviving North Atlantic right whales remain on Earth as extinction pressures mount on the critically endangered species, a new assessment published today in the journal Diseases of Aquatic Organisms finds. Climate change, vessel strikes, entanglements in fishing gear and underwater noise pollution have taken a toll on the species’ health and slowed its rate of reproduction, but there is still time to turn the numbers around, the report’s authors say. “North Atlantic right whales face a serious risk of extinction, but there is hope if we can work together on solutions. Trauma reduction measures and applying new tools to assess their health are critically important to enhance the welfare of individual whales. If we can reduce the number of deaths, and successfully improve their health (and increase their) reproduction, the current decline in population can be reversed,” said lead author Michael Moore, a whale trauma specialist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Instit...

Fish can’t shrug, fish can’t cry, fish cannot get mad; fish can’t sulk fish can’t frown, or tell us if they’re sad. But fish can turn, fish can move, fish can start and stop; so can we recognise each fish from traits that they adopt? Angry fish, happy fish, fish with spiny backs; sad fish, frightened fish, movements we can track. Fish that don’t stay stationary like to burst with speed, while those that have a lengthy stride travel far indeed. Watching how these fish all swim might show us how they feel, a shoal of individuals whose temperaments are real. Three-spined sticklebacks at Berlin Aquarium (Image Credit: JSutton93, via Wikimedia Commons). This poem is inspired by recent research , which has found that the way a fish swims reveals a lot about its personality. Understanding body language and personality traits in humans can help experts to recommend actions that individuals can take in order to improve their health and wellbeing. Many animal perso...

Using the IBM Q computer, physicists at EPFL have verified for the first time the tight relationship between quantum entanglement and wave-particle duality, showing that the former controls the latter in a quantum system. “It is possible to do experiments in fundamental physics on the remotely accessible  IBM Q quantum computer ,” says Marc-André Dupertuis, a physicist at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences. Working with Nicolas Schwaller, a Master student in Physics at EPFL, and Clément Javerzac-Galy, co-CEO of photonics company Miraex, the three scientists carried out their work by studying a system made of two separate quantum elements, represented in the IBM Q as superconducting quantum bits. EPFL already has a longstanding relationship with IBM’s famed quantum computer, with two teams of students placing second in the annual “IBM Q competition” in  2018  and  2020 . The work is  published in  Physical Reviews A . “We were able to indirectly...

Ten cubic kilometres of concrete, equivalent to the volume of Mount Everest, are used in construction projects every year, resulting in huge volumes of emissions. But a new eco-friendly cement may help to reduce our global climate footprint. “The building industry emits huge volumes of CO 2 ”, says SINTEF researcher Simone Balzer Le, who is part of a cross-disciplinary research team currently developing a biological cement called BioZEment. “The manufacture of cement, which is a binding agent in concrete, alone accounts for more than five per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions”. No emissions – no warming In conventional cement production, limestone is heated to a temperature of 1450 degrees. The process is called calcination and results in the release of huge volumes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the form of CO 2 . “There are currently many ways of reducing these volumes”, says Balzer Le. “Our options include capturing the CO 2  gas, partially substituting t...

Previous research at NTNU has shown that people with anxiety disorders can  benefit from two types of therapy . But in a new NTNU study, the same patients also exhibited major changes on a scientific personality test. The treatment resulted in patients scoring lower on the neuroticism personality trait, and thereby perhaps having a lower risk of relapse. In general, the patients’ personality profiles also normalized. “Our findings might apply to treatment in general. The risk of relapse could be less if we manage to reduce patients’ neuroticism,” says Professor Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair at NTNU’s Department of Psychology. Two effective methods People with generalized anxiety disorder usually score high on neuroticism. At the same time, they score lower on the traits of extroversion and openness to new experiences. The research team used both cognitive behaviour therapy and metacognitive therapy to help patients. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) aims to help patients ide...

Researchers used to need to scuba dive to find out which fish live in any given area of the ocean. Now, a  new UCLA study  has found that environmental DNA, or eDNA, can be used to identify marine organisms living in a certain space. Environmental DNA is the term for the DNA from cells that are constantly released by organisms into their environments — much like the hair and skin people normally shed in the shower. In the past decade eDNA technology has advanced rapidly, making it a competitive tool for assessing ecosystem biodiversity. The findings, which were published in PLOS One, could have major implications for monitoring of marine protected areas, sections of ocean where fishing and other activities are prohibited to conserve marine life and habitat. In 2012, California established 124 marine protected areas covering about 16% of state waters. Regular monitoring of those areas is critical for understanding if marine life is being protected successfully, said UC...

Nearly everything author Malcolm Gladwell said about how information spreads in his 2000 bestseller “The Tipping Point” is wrong, according to a recent study led by UCLA professor of sociology Gabriel Rossman. “The main point of ‘The Tipping Point’ is if you want your idea to spread, you find the most popular person in the center of any given network and you sell them on your idea, and then they’ll sell the rest of the world on it,” Rossman said. But Rossman’s latest study,  recently published  in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pokes holes in that widely accepted notion by showing how the presence of even just a bit of advertising or other mass communication — “top-down” information that comes from outside the network — effectively equalizes the influence of everyone across the network. Rossman, together with co-author Jacob Fisher of Duke University and the University of Michigan, used a statistical programming language called R to build out networ...