Impact Lab – Page 342 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Cancer

Shapeshifting Microrobots that Fight Cancer on a Cellular Level

November 26, 2021

Researchers have developed fish-shaped microrobots that are guided with magnets to cancer cells.

No, it’s not from a science fiction movie or from an episode of a popular kid’s television show. It’s real life. Researchers, in a proof-of-concept study, have made fish-shaped microrobots that are guided with magnets to cancer cells, where a pH change triggers them to open their mouths and release their chemotherapy cargo.

Scientists have previously made microscale (smaller than 100 µm) robots that can manipulate tiny objects, but most can’t change their shapes to perform complex tasks, such as releasing drugs. Some groups have made 4D-printed objects (3D-printed devices that change shape in response to certain stimuli), but they typically perform only simple actions, and their motion can’t be controlled remotely.

new technology

Researchers Use Quantum Entanglement to Achieve “Ultrabroadband”

November 25, 2021

By Alex McFarland

Researchers at the University of Rochester have harnessed quantum entanglement to achieve incredibly large bandwidth. They did this by using a thin-film nanophotonic device.

This new approach could lead to enhanced sensitivity and resolution for experiments in metrology and sensing, as well as higher dimensional encoding of information in quantum networks for information processing and communications.

The research was published in Physical Review Letters.

NASA

NASA’s Laser Demonstrations Extend to Deep Space

November 25, 2021

By George Leopold

NASA plans to launch a pair of laser communications missions over the next nine months that would demonstrate high-bandwidth optical relays capable of someday transmitting streaming HD video and other data from planetary probes.

The launch of the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) scheduled for Dec. 4 will be followed as early as August 2022 by the launch of the Deep Space Optical Communications flight demonstration, program officials said this week. LCRD, testing laser communications from geosynchronous orbit, is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is overseeing development of the deep space mission that will operate between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter as part of NASA mission to study a giant metal asteroid.

The LCRD payload consists of two optical terminals, each with bi-directional optical communications capability along with switching circuitry that enables one terminal to receive signals, switch data to the second terminal and relay it in real time to one of two ground stations in California and Hawaii.

Medical Breakthrough

Harnessing T-Cell Biology To Develop Living Drugs

November 25, 2021

Superresolution image of a group of killer T cells (green and red) surrounding a cancer cell (blue, center). Credit: Alex Ritter, Jennifer Lippincott Schwartz, Gillian Griffiths/ National Institutes of Health

MUSC Hollings Cancer Center researcher Leonardo Ferreira, Ph.D., well-regarded for his pioneering work with regulatory T-cells, published a paper in Frontiers in Immunology that describes his experience using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) regulatory T-cells to address the challenge of transplant tolerance.

Ferreira, who joined the Medical University of South Carolina’s Department of Immunology on July 1, is changing the rules of the game by exploiting the unique biology of regulatory T-cells, or Tregs. His overall research goal is to understand Treg biology more thoroughly in order to use the cells to treat a range of autoimmune problems.

Cancer

Shape-Shifting Microrobots Deliver Drugs to Cancer Cells

November 25, 2021

Fish-shaped microrobots are guided with magnets to cancer cells, where they open their mouths to release their chemotherapy cargo.

Bu Katie Cottingham

Delivering drugs directly to cancer cells could help reduce chemotherapy’s unpleasant symptoms.

Chemotherapy successfully treats many forms of cancer, but the side effects can wreak havoc on the rest of the body. Delivering drugs directly to cancer cells could help reduce these unpleasant symptoms. Now, in a proof-of-concept study, researchers reporting in ACS Nano made fish-shaped microrobots that are guided with magnets to cancer cells, where a pH change triggers them to open their mouths and release their chemotherapy cargo.

Space

Astronauts Will Traverse the Moon in 2025 Using an Autonomous Buggy

November 25, 2021

Northrop Grumman’s lunar vehicle will help map the moon’s south pole.

By Chris Young

Northrop Grumman will design the electric and autonomous Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) for NASA’s Artemis astronauts, who are due to land on the moon in 2025, a press statement reveals.

The aerospace and defense firm announced a partnership with AVL, Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Michelin to work on the project, which will help to take humans to the lunar south pole for the first time in an expedition that could uncover ice and water resources for future missions.

new technology

These are the top 10 emerging technologies of 2021

November 25, 2021

The 10^th anniversary edition of the World Economic Forum’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies Report lists new technologies poised to impact the world in the next three to five years.
Experts convened by the World Economic Forum and Scientific American highlight technological advances that could revolutionize agriculture, health and space.
Self-fertilizing crops, on-demand drug manufacturing, breath-sensing diagnostics and 3D-printed houses are among the technologies on the list.

At COP26, countries committed to new, ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions this decade. Delivering on these promises will rely on the development and scale up of green technologies.

Two such technologies – the production of “green” ammonia and engineered crops that make their own fertilizer – both aiming to make agriculture more sustainable, made it onto this year’s list of emerging tech.

Stem cells

Using Young Stem Cells to Restore Old Stem Cells

November 25, 2021

The restored cells regain many, but not all, of their youthful abilities.

By Josh Conway

In a study published in Aging, researchers have found that younger hematopoietic cells can restore older hematopoietic cells through microvesicles, which are facilitators of intercellular communication.

WHY WE AGE: ALTERED INTERCELLULAR COMMUNICATION.

Altered intercellular communication, as described in the Hallmarks of Aging, is the change in signals between cells that can lead to some of the diseases and disabilities of aging.

Futurati Podcast, Science & Technology News

Futurati Podcast Ep.61 with Peter McCormack

November 23, 2021

Watch on Youtube

Listen on the Futurati Podcast website

Peter McCormack is a journalist, educator, and bitcoin evangelist who hosts one of the most popular cryptocurrency podcasts in the world, ‘What Bitcoin Did’.

Space Flight

Boeing completes world’s first all-electric propulsion satellites

November 23, 2021

By Loren Blinde

Boeing, of Chicago, IL, announced on January 9 that it has completed production of the world’s first all-electric propulsion satellites as preparations continue to launch the satellites, as a vertically stacked pair, next month.

The Boeing 702SP (small platform) satellites are affordable and lightweight, and provide more options for movement to different orbital positions, the firm said. The 702SP is one of three new satellite designs Boeing has introduced in four years, the others being the 702MP and 502 Phoenix.

Electric Vehicles

Ford and Purdue University Created a Cable That Fully Charges an EV in 5 Minutes

November 23, 2021

The new cable would be able to output four times more current than today’s best option.

By BRYAN HOOD

Ford may have just figured out a way to get rid of range anxiety once and for all.

The Detroit auto giant has teamed up with Purdue University to build a prototype of a cable that could fully charge an EV’s battery in just five minutes. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done, but the cable could help overcome one of the last major obstacles standing in the way of battery-powered cars achieving mass acceptance.

EV driving ranges may finally be reaching acceptable levels, but slow charging times still make some drivers wary. The last couple years has seen charging times improve dramatically, but they’re still not great, especially when compared to the five minutes it takes to fill up a gas-powered car. Right now, the best you can hope for is around 20 minutes when connected to a DC fast charger. It’s even worse when you’re home. The Ford Mustang Mach-E is one of the more in-demand EVs on the market, but it takes 11 hours to charge to full capacity at home, even when connected to a Level 2 charging setup.

This is due in no small part to the fact that current charging cables just can’t handle the heat generated by the amount of power that would be needed to charge an EV as fast as gas can fill up a car. The cables connected to the Tesla Supercharger—currently the industry’s best charger—can handle a maximum of 520 amps of current. Ford and Purdue’s solution: Come up with a better method of cooling charging cables.

AI

Artificial Intelligence Can Predict New Designer Drugs With 90% Accuracy

November 21, 2021

It’s like precrime, for psychedelics.

By Brad Bergan

New drugs are created all the time.

And many are extremely dangerous.

This is why researchers trained computers to predict what designer drugs will emerge onto the scene before they hit the market, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.

With highly-addictive drugs flooding regions throughout the U.S., this program could save countless lives. But it could also unlock an entire “dark matter” world of unknown psychoactive possibilities.