China Science & Technology Forum

[JSCh]

Scientists create two-antibody cocktail that cures Ebola-infected monkeys
Source: Xinhua | 2016-03-14 02:17:29 | Editor: huaxia

​

This file photo taken on August 31, 2014 showing children walk past a slogan painted on a wall reading "Ebola" in Monrovia. (AFP / DOMINIQUE FAGET)​

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Scientists have created a two-antibody cocktail that was able to cure monkeys infected with the deadly Ebola virus, revealed a new study published this week in the U.S. journal Science Translational Medicine.

The MIL77E cocktail was based on one of the most promising Ebola drugs, a three-antibody cocktail called ZMapp, which cured a number of foreign aid workers in West Africa during the latest and biggest Ebola outbreak.

"The two monoclonal antibodies (mAb) in the MIL77E cocktail are 13C6 and 2G4, which act similarly to the three mAb ZMapp treatment," first author Xiangguo Qiu, a biologist at the Canadian Public Health Agency's National Microbiology Laboratory, told Xinhua.

One reason they used two antibodies, instead of three as in the ZMapp cocktail, is that one antibody named 4G7 from ZMapp "has been hard to produce and the yield is quite low compared to the other two mAbs," said Qiu, who co-developed the treatment with Chinese researchers.

Another reason is "the cost of treatment would be decreased if it worked," she said.

ZMapp was produced by U.S.-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., but two of its three components were originally developed at the National Microbiology Laboratory, and the third at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

In the new study, Qiu and colleagues produced 13C6 and 2G4 in modified Chinese hamster ovary cells and found that the two-antibody cocktail protected all three monkeys three days after infection with the Ebola virus.

However, a similar cocktail comprised of two ZMapp antibodies, which are produced in tobacco leaves instead of mammalian cells, protected only two of three monkeys.

"This finding is very exciting," Qiu said, given that ZMapp is only effective to Zaire Ebola, one of five species.

"It has the potential to include an additional monoclonal antibody against another Ebola virus strain, providing a broader coverage against outbreak strains," she said.

Currently, there are currently no licensed therapies against the Ebola virus.

 

[cirr]

11-MAR-2016

Chinese scientists realize quantum simulation of the Unruh effect

SCIENCE CHINA PRESS


IMAGE: (A) THE NMR QUANTUM SIMULATOR CONSISTS OF 13C, 1H AND 19F NUCLEAR SPINS IN CHLOROFORM; (B) THE EXPERIMENTAL PULSE SEQUENCE FOR SIMULATING THE UNRUH EFFECT.view more

CREDIT: ©SCIENCE CHINA PRESS

Quantum mechanics and relativity theory are two pillars of modern physics. With their amalgamation, many novel phenomena have been identified. For example, the Unruh effect [1] is one of the most significant outcomes of the quantum field theory. This effect serves as an important tool to investigate phenomena such as thermal emission of particles from black holes and cosmological horizons [2]. It has been 40 years since the discovery of the Unruh effect, however, this effect is too weak to be observed with current technique. There have been a lot of attempts in searching for the observational evidence of the Unruh effect and in general the experimental observation is still of great challenge. To address this issue, quantum simulators [3, 4] may provide a promising approach. Quantum simulation is widely applied for simulating the quantum systems which cannot be efficiently simulated by classical computers or are not directly tractable by the current techniques in the laboratory.

The researchers, led by Prof. Jiangfeng Du from University of Science and Technology of China, reported an experimental simulation of the Unruh effect with an NMR quantum simulator [5]. The experiments were performed on a Bruker Avance III 400MHz spectrometer. The researchers used a sample of 13C, 1H and 19F nuclear spins in chloroform as the NMR quantum simulator, as shown in Figure 1(a). The simulated Unruh effect on the quantum states can be realized by the pulse sequence acting on the sample, as depicted in Figure 1(b). By the quantum simulator, they experimentally demonstrated the behavior of Unruh temperature with acceleration, which agrees nicely with the theoretical prediction, as shown in Figure 2. Furthermore, they investigated the quantum correlations quantified by quantum discord between two fermionic modes as seen by two relatively accelerated observers. It is shown for the first time that the quantum correlations can be created by the Unruh effect from the classically correlated states. This work was recently published in the Science China-Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy.

It is interesting that the Unruh effect was in Feynman's blackboard as one of the issues to learn at the time of his death in 1988, while it was also Feynman who conceived the idea of quantum simulation in 1982. This quantum simulation of the Unruh effect will provide a promising window to explore the quantum physics of accelerated systems, which widely appear in black hole physics, cosmology and particle physics.

Chinese scientists realize quantum simulation of the Unruh effect | EurekAlert! Science News

 

[JSCh]

Chemoelectronics: Nanoparticle Diodes and Devices That Work When Wet
By Dexter Johnson
Posted 14 Mar 2016 | 17:29 GMT

Photo: UNIST/Nature Nanotechnology​

Whether they’re for sensors in artificial skin that demands flexibility or for wearable electronics where the circuits must withstand our sweat, silicon-based chips aren’t always up to the task.

Now, an international research team has developed a way to fabricate flexible, water-loving logic circuits and sensors without the need of semiconductors. Instead, what the researchers have done is coat gold nanoparticles with charged organic molecules to create a system that they’ve dubbed a “chemoelectronic circuit”.

The team—made up of scientists from the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology in Beijing, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States-based comapny NuMat Technologies, and Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea—described the chemoelectronic components in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Con't-> Chemoelectronics: Nanoparticle Diodes and Devices That Work When Wet - IEEE Spectrum

 

[JSCh]

Magnetic nanoparticles show promise in biomedical applications -- ScienceDaily
Date: March 15, 2016

Schematic of magnetic nanoparticle based drug delivery system: drug-loaded IONPs are guided in vivo to the targeted tumour site using a high-gradient magnetic field. Credit: Copyright Science and Technology of Advanced Materials​

Recent developments and research related to iron oxide nanoparticles confirm their potential in biomedical applications -- such as targeted drug delivery -- and the necessity for further studies.

Iron oxides are widespread in nature and can be readily synthesized in the laboratory. Among them, hematite, magnetite and maghemite nanoparticles have particularly promising properties for biomedical applications.

Researchers in China and Korea reviewed recent studies on the preparation, structure and magnetic properties of iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) and their corresponding applications. The review, published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, emphasized that the size, size distribution (the relative proportions of different-sized particles in a given sample), shape and magnetic properties of IONPs affect the location and mobility of IONPs in the human body. However, having complete control over the shape and size distribution of magnetic IONPs remains a challenge.

For example, magnetic IONPs are promising for carrying cancer drugs that target specific tissues. For this to happen, they are coated with a biocompatible shell that carries a specific drug. If this "functionalized" magnetic IONP is too large, it may be cleared from the blood stream. Thus, it is very important to be able to control the size of these particles. Researchers found that IONPs with diameters ranging from 10 to 100 nanometres are optimal for intravenous injection and can remain in the blood stream for the longest period of time.

The surface charge of IONPs is also important for their stability and how they interact with tissues. For example, breast cells uptake positively charged IONPs better than negatively charged ones. At the same time, positively charged IONPs are more rapidly cleared from the circulation. Negatively charged and neutral IONPs tend to remain longer in the circulation. The surface charge of IONPs can be controlled by using an appropriately charged functionalized material as a shell.

Other applications that can benefit from improving the functionality of magnetic IONPs include magnetic resonance imaging, magnetic hyperthermia and thermoablation (killing selected cancer cells with heat), and biosensing (detecting molecular interactions for disease diagnosis).

Further research is needed to evaluate the toxicity of both bare and functionalized IONPs.

The team's next focus will be on fabricating recyclable magnetic IONP catalysts and designing multifunctional biomedical applications, involving magnetic IONPs, that can play a dual role in diagnosing and treating disease, says Professor Wei Wu from China's Wuhan University.


Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by National Institute for Materials Science. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.​

Journal Reference:

Wei Wu, Zhaohui Wu, Taekyung Yu, Changzhong Jiang, Woo-Sik Kim. Recent progress on magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles: synthesis, surface functional strategies and biomedical applications. Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, 2016; 16 (2): 023501 DOI: 10.1088/1468-6996/16/2/023501​

 

[JSCh]

Archaeologists Uncover Another Branch of the Silk Road - Scientific American
New evidence suggests the ancient trade route ventured through the heights of Tibet

By Jane Qiu on April 1, 2016

SOURCE: “EARLIEST TEA AS EVIDENCE FOR ONE BRANCH OF THE SILK ROAD ACROSS THE TIBETAN PLATEAU,” BY HOUYUAN LU ET AL., IN SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, VOL. 6, ARTICLE NO. 18955; JANUARY 7, 2016; Map by Mapping Specialists​

Famous for facilitating an incredible exchange of culture and goods between the East and the West, the ancient Silk Road is thought to have meandered across long horizontal distances in mountain foothills and the lowlands of the Gobi Desert. But new archaeological evidence hidden in a lofty tomb reveals that it also ventured into the high altitudes of Tibet—a previously unknown arm of the trade route.

Discovered in 2005 by monks, the 1,800-year-old tomb sits 4.3 kilometers above sea level in the Ngari district of Tibet. When excavations began in 2012, the research team examining the site was surprised to find a large number of quintessential Chinese goods inside. The haul lends itself to the idea that merchants were traveling from China to Tibet along a branch of the Silk Road that had been lost to history.

“The findings are astonishing,” says Houyuan Lu, an archaeobotanist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing. Among other artifacts, archaeologists unearthed exquisite pieces of silk with woven Chinese characters wang hou (meaning “king” and “princes”), a mask made of pure gold, and ceramic and bronze vessels.

They also were taken aback by what looked like tea buds. The earliest documentation of tea in Tibet dates to the seventh century A.D., but these buds would be 400 to 500 years older. To confirm the identification, Lu and his colleagues analyzed the chemical components of the samples and detected ample amounts of caffeine and theanine, a type of amino acid abundant in tea. Moreover, the chemical fingerprints of the tea residues were similar to those of tea found in the tomb of a Chinese emperor of the Han Dynasty dated to 2,100 years ago, and both could be traced to tea varieties grown in Yunnan in southern China. “This strongly suggests that the tea [found in the Tibetan tomb] came from China,” Lu says. The findings were recently published in Scientific Reports.

Such early contacts between Tibet and China “point to a high-altitude component of the Silk Road in Tibet that has been largely neglected,” says Martin Jones, an archaeobotanist at the University of Cambridge. The evidence contributes to the emerging picture that the Silk Road—which the Ottoman Empire closed off in the 15th century—was a highly three-dimensional network that not only traversed vast linear distances but also scaled tall mountains.

Other studies, too, have documented signs of trade along mountain trails in Asia from around 3000 B.C.—routes now known as the Inner Asia Mountain Corridors. “This suggests that mountains are not barriers,” says Rowan Flad, an archaeologist at Harvard University. “They can be effective conduits for the exchange of cultures, ideas and technologies.”

This article was originally published with the title "Silk Road Heads for the Hills"

 

[JSCh]

Reactor vessel delivered for China's first HTR
15 March 2016

The reactor pressure vessel for the first of two demonstration HTR-PM high-temperature gas-cooled reactors under construction at Shidaowan in China's Shandong province has been delivered to the construction site.

The vessel arrives at Shidaowan (Image: China Huaneng)​

The component - about 25 meters in height and weighing about 700 tonnes - was manufactured by Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Equipment. It successfully completed factory acceptance on 29 February and was dispatched from the manufacturing plant on 2 March. The pressure vessel arrived at the Shidaowan site on 10 March, plant owner China Huaneng Group announced the following day.

The company said it sent the project leader and supervision staff to supervise the entire manufacturing process of the reactor vessel, which it claims is the world's largest and heaviest.

Work began on two demonstration HTR-PM units at China Huaneng's Shidaowan site in December 2012. China Huaneng is the lead organization in the consortium to build the demonstration units together with China Nuclear Engineering Corporation (CNEC) and Tsinghua University's Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, which is the research and development leader. Chinergy, a joint venture of Tsinghua and CNEC, is the main contractor for the nuclear island.

The demonstration plant's twin HTR-PM units will drive a single 210 MWe turbine. It is expected to start commercial operation in late 2017. An earlier proposal was for 18 further 210 MWe units - giving a total capacity of 3800 MWe - at the Shidaowan site, near Rongcheng in Weihai city, but this has been dropped.

A proposal to construct two 600 MWe HTR plants - each featuring three twin reactor and turbine units - at Ruijin city in China's Jiangxi province passed a preliminary feasibility review in early 2015. The design of the Ruijin HTRs is based on the smaller Shidaowan demonstration HTR-PM. Construction of the Ruijin reactors is expected to start next year, with grid connection in 2021.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News

 

[JSCh]

Scientists modulate cholesterol metabolism to potentiate T-cell antitumor immunity
March 16, 2016

Scanning electron micrograph of human T lymphocyte or T cell. Credit: NIAID/NIH​

As key players in the immune system, T cells provide tumor surveillance and have direct antitumor effects. However, tumors can escape T-cell attack through various mechanisms in the tumor microenvironment. Reactivating the antitumor effects of T cells has shown great clinical benefits in treating various cancers. The current T cell-based cancer immunotherapies are, nevertheless, only effective in a limited group of patients. New cancer immunotherapies are needed, therefore, to benefit more patients.

In their new study, Prof. XU Chenqi's group and Prof. LI Boliang's group with the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology (SIBCB) of the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, found that inhibiting cholesterol esterification can potentiate the antitumor activity of CD8+ T cells (also known as killer T cells).

This new way of improving T-cell function might be used as a complement to current cancer immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint blockade.

Their research, entitled "Potentiating the antitumour response of CD8+ T cells by modulating cholesterol metabolism," was published in Nature on March 17.

The researchers investigated T-cell antitumor immunity from a new perspective. They believe that modulating T-cell metabolism can make killer T cells more "metabolically fit" to fight tumor cells. As a key component of membrane lipids, cholesterol is important for T-cell signaling and function.

Scientists found that inhibiting the cholesterol esterification enzyme ACAT1 can increase the plasma membrane cholesterol level and therefore promote the T-cell signaling and killing process. A small molecule inhibitor of ACAT1, avasimibe, was used to treat cancer in mouse tumor models and showed good antitumor effect. A combination of avasimibe and anti-PD-1 antibody, a checkpoint blockade drug, showed even better antitumor effect.

This study opens a new field of cancer immunotherapy and identifies ACAT1 as a promising drug target. It is worth mentioning that avasimibe was tested in clinical trials to treat atherosclerosis and had a good human safety profile. Therefore, avasimibe could be a good drug candidate for cancer immunotherapy.

More information: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature17412

Journal reference: Nature

Provided by: Chinese Academy of Sciences

 

[JSCh]

Scientists Fabricate New Type of Flexible Sensing Device for Application in Electronic Skins and Health Monitoring
Mar 17, 2016

Electronic skin (e-skin) which can mimic pressure, humidity, and temperature sensing capabilities of human skin has obtained great attention due to its superior abilities to detect slight pressure changes. It has potential application in human health monitoring, medical diagnostics, tactile sensor, artificial intelligence, and so on. Tactile sensor, which can act as transducers to convert the changes in external force to an electrical signal or other recognized signal, is a fundamental part of e-skin. So, design of tactile sensors with ultra-sensitivity, rapid response speed and long-term stability is a key procedure to fulfill high performance electronic skins.

Recently, Prof. SHEN Guozhen and his group (from Institute of Semiconductors) have fabricated a new type of graphene based flexible tactile sensor which achieves a similar function of human skin. The sensor can exhibit high sensitivity (15.6 kPa-1), low detection limit (1.2 Pa) which enabled to detect a feather or a rice grain. The excellent long-term stability under 100,000 cycles and rapid response time of 5 ms at 50 Hz are particularly captivating.

This flexible tactile sensor has been used in the medical field to monitor the human physiological signal in real-time, such as pulse and voice recognition through the slight pressure changes of blood flow and the muscle movement during speech.

This study preliminary realized voice recognition and different human physiological states monitoring which have the great potential application in voice auxiliary output system, human health assessment and early diagnosis of the disease. Besides, using the simple and versatile procedures, a framework to make integrated sensor array platforms easily can be used as highly sensitive electronic skins for mapping spatial pressure distribution.

This work provides a new idea for electronic skin and wearable health monitoring systems. After further research and improvement, the flexible multidimensional tactile sensor array not only have a great flexibility like human skin, but also have the functional to get the 3D force information.

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the corresponding paper entitled “An ultra-sensitive and rapid response speed graphene pressure sensors for electronic skin and health monitoring” was published in Nano Energy.

Device structure and applications in electronic skins and health monitoring. (Image by Prof. SHEN Guozhen et al.)​

 

[bobsm]

3D printing technology guides heart surgery for Chinese baby
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2016-03-17 16:05

CHANGCHUN - Doctors have performed a successful surgery using a 3D-printed heart model on a nine-month-old baby suffering from a severe congenital heart defect (CHD) in Northeast China's Jilin province.

It was the first open heart surgery performed with the help of 3D printing technology in the province. The operation took place on March 11, and the infant has already been transferred to a general ward and is recovering.

The boy weighed 5.6 kilograms before surgery. He experienced shortness of breath after birth and was diagnosed with CHD.

"The defect was very rare and complicated," said Zhang Xueqin, the baby's surgeon and director of the pediatric cardiac surgery center at the People's Hospital of Jilin.

The tiny patient suffered from total pulmonary venous anomalous drainage, which means all four of his pulmonary veins were malpositioned. He also had an atrial septal defect, causing blood to flow between the upper chambers of the heart.

"He was taken to the hospital and was critically ill with heart failure and severe pneumonia," Zhang said.

Because the boy is so young and small, it was difficult to develop the best surgery plan using just an ultrasound examination, he said.

If treatment had been delayed, the baby's chance of dying before his first birthday would have been as high as 80 percent, he added.

To save the child, Zhang and his team turned to 3D printing. A full-sized heart replica modeled the boy's cardiac structure and helped the doctors plan the operation.

"With the model, we were able to know precisely where and how we should cut, and how big the incision should be," said Zhang. "And with such a thorough plan, we spent only half the time we had expected to complete the surgery."

China's first cardiac surgery using 3D technology is believed to have been on July 21, 2015, on a nine-month-old boy with CHD in East China's Jiangsu province.

The technology will hopefully be more widely used in medicine in the future, said Zhang.

3D printing technology guides heart surgery for Chinese baby - China - Chinadaily.com.cn

 

[JSCh]

Want to live to see 200? Chinese team come up with ‘super diet pill’ formula they believe will double people’s lifespans
Scientists in Shanghai conduct experiments on roundworms that make them live three times longer, say same genes they manipulated also exist in humans

• PUBLISHED : Thursday, 17 March, 2016, 8:32am
• UPDATED : Thursday, 17 March, 2016, 2:37pm
• Stephen Chen

Ever wanted to see your great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren? Fancy still being around in 150 years to see what technological marvels the world conjures up? Don’t like the idea of being cryogenically frozen?

While doubling your natural lifespan by popping pills may sound like science-fiction to most people, a team of Chinese researchers believe this soon be possible.

They claim to have found a formula for a “super diet pill”that can apparently break some of the fundamental laws of nature, according to their paper in the latest issue of the journal Cell Metabolism.

The relationship between food and health is well-documented. Moreover, scientists have suspected for many decades that restricting the diet - specifically, the calorific intake - of certain species of animal enables them to live longer.

‘Eat free and live long - all you need is the right pill,’ says Professor Han Jingdong, who works at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences. Credit: Handout​

But the exact reason why this works - and how far it can be taken - has left most scientists scratching their heads.

Pushing the envelope even further, a research team in East China led by Professor Han Jingdong at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, which operates under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has come up with a new theory based on their experiments with roundworms or nematodes.

Han’s team identified three groups of genes, each numbering over a hundred, that affect how the worms age when their diets are restricted.

By changing how the genes were expressed in cells in all three gene groups simultaneously, the team was able to increase the average lifespan of their wriggling subjects from under 20 days to over 50 days, they said.

The “diet pills” for humans which the team hopes to see developed one day would be filled with chemical compounds that manipulate the expression of these gene groups in a similar way.

“The same genes also exist in humans,” Han said.

Scientists were able to treble the lifespan of worms by manipulating three groups of genes, a discovery they said paves the way for the development of a drug that could at least double the lifespan of humans. Credit: Chinese Academy of Sciences​

“We are now testing on mice a drug which can hit the three groups of genes in one shot. This could [one day] allow us to live more than two hundred years,” she added.

Yet growing doubt has been cast in recent years on whether a leaner diet can really influence a person’s longevity.

Two separate studies published last year on Rhesus monkeys, which are genetically very close to humans, produced contradictory results after the effects of feeding them restricted-calorie diets were monitored over a long period.

Han said this confusion was partly caused by the different kinds of food the monkeys were given, and partly due to a lack of understanding about the underlying mechanism behind how the ageing process can be retarded.

In 2013, scientists from the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in the United States used genetic mutations of worms to quintuple their lifespan. Credit: Buck Institute​

Their study also showed that regular fasting, which is practised by Muslims and various cultures around the world, does not always lead to longer life.

The team found that the three groups of genes play different roles in how the body functions. The group known as TOR, for example, helps control cell life and ageing by regulating the level of lipids - for example, cholesterol - in the blood and organs.

If TOR - or any of the other two groups - remain inactive, a person’s longevity would not be influenced by how much they eat, the team found. In people, all three groups are usually inactive.

Han said most scientists do not encourage healthy people to diet because of the risk of harmful side effects ranging from malnutrition to organ damage, or stunted growth in children.

It can also be miserable to go on a strict diet as the human body has evolved over millions of years of evolution and foraging for food to favour a high-calorie diet. Many studies show that people put on more weight after they finish their diet than they measured before they started it.

However, longevity studies on Rhesus monkeys - similar to the one pictured here at Kam Shan Country Park in Hong Kong - have proven contradictory. Han said this is partly because of the different diets the test subjects were fed. Photo: SCMP Pictures​

One of the intriguing aspects of Han’s recipe for a special diet pill is that it promises to deliver the nutrition our bodies need, as well as the restrictions required to live longer, without any of the dangerous side effects.

Referring to the worms as a case in point, Han said that even those which were deliberately overfed the specially constructed diet did not die any earlier than regular worms.

“Eat free and live long - all you need is the right pill,” she said.

Well, may not all. The team admitted there are many factors apart from diet that contribute to the ageing process, meaning that more research must be undertaken.

Han said it could be “many years” before a tailored long-life drug hits shelves in China or elsewhere.

However, previous experiments by other scientists in the United States have also proven it possible to make animals live longer, which lends credibility to the argument the same could be done for humans.

In 2013, scientists from the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, which is based in California, used genetic mutations of worms to quintuple their lifespan.

Worms live naturally for one to nine years, depending on the species, but some nightcrawlers have reportedly lived for up to 20 years.

Want to live to see 200? Chinese team come up with ‘super diet pill’ formula they believe will double people’s lifespans | South China Morning Post

#####
​

The article from SCMP above did not mention this, but Professor Han and her research is feature in the latest issue of Nature.

Nature | Research Highlights

Longevity
Genetic switches for long life

Nature 531, 279 (17 March 2016) doi:10.1038/531279e
​

Published online

16 March 2016
​

Researchers have homed in on the genetic control points that allow nematodes to live longer when they are on a low-calorie diet.

A team led by Jing-Dong Han of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai analysed gene-expression changes over time in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The worms were subjected either…​

 

[JSCh]

Public Release: 16-Mar-2016
Lasers help speed up the detection of bacterial growth in packaged food | EurekAlert! Science News
New technique enables fast, accurate and noninvasive measurement of bacteria levels

The Optical Society

WASHINGTON -- It's important to know how microorganisms -- particularly pathogenic microbes -- grow under various conditions. Certain bacteria can cause food poisoning when eaten and bacterial growth in medical blood supplies, while rare, might necessitate discarding the blood.

Now a group of researchers from Zhejiang Normal University in China and Umeå University in Sweden report a fast, accurate, and noninvasive technique for monitoring bacterial growth. They report the results in Applied Optics, a journal of The Optical Society (OSA).

Microorganism growth is driven by many factors, which make it far from easy to accurately estimate the amount of bacteria within food containers or blood samples at any given time.

To avoid the risk that any particular packaged food item will go bad and cause illness, it's given an unnecessarily short shelf life. In short, a better understanding of the growth process of microorganisms could reduce food waste and prevent people from being sickened by food poisoning -- or both.

Within the medical realm, it's critical to be able to assess the quality of blood samples quickly and accurately. Without this ability, samples might need to be discarded or, alternatively, result in or worsen illnesses. Although bacterial blood contamination is rare, it does occur and has led to deaths. A rapid screening method could mean that a larger percentage of blood could be directly tested for bacteria.

"Microorganism growth is always associated with the production of carbon dioxide (CO2)," said Jie Shao, associate professor at the Institute of Information Optics, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China. "By assessing the level of CO2 within a given closed compartment -- bottle or bag -- it's possible to assess the microbial growth."

Several detection techniques are currently capable of rapid and accurate measurements of gas compositions. Those based on optical spectrometry are most appealing because they're noninvasive, boast high sensitivity, provide instant responses, and are potentially useful for assessment of bacterial growth.

"A technique referred to as 'tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy' (TDLAS) is particularly suitable because it combines all of these properties with an ease of use and low cost," Shao said.

So the group decided to develop an easy-to-use instrument based on TDLAS to assess bacterial growth of various types of samples under a variety of conditions.

TDLAS is by far the most common laser-based absorption technique for quantitative assessments of species within a gas phase. It can be used to measure the concentration of specific gaseous species -- carbon monoxide, CO2, water, or methane, to name a handful -- within gaseous mixtures by using absorption spectrometry based on tunable diode lasers.

"One major advantage TDLAS offers is its ability to achieve very low detection limits, on the order of parts per billion," Shao said. "Apart from concentration, it's also possible to determine other properties of the gas under observation -- temperature, pressure, velocity and mass flux."

The group's basic setup simply involves a tunable diode laser as the light source, beam shaping optics, a sample to be investigated, receiving optics, and one or more detectors.

"The emission wavelength of the laser is tuned over a characteristic absorption line transition -- of the species within the gas being assessed," Shao explained. "This causes a reduction of the measured signal intensity, which we can use to determine the gas concentration."

When the wavelength is rapidly tuned across the transition in a specific manner, it can be combined with a modulation technique called "wavelength modulation" (WM), which gives the TDLAS technique an enhanced sensitivity. It's referred to as "WM-TDLAS."

By applying the technique to transparent containers of organic substances such as food items or medical samples, bacterial growth can be quickly evaluated. "Although we anticipated that the WM-TDLAS technique would be suitable for assessing bacterial growth, we didn't expect this level of accuracy," Shao noted.

In contrast with conventional and more invasive techniques that require contact with the tested items, the WM-TDLAS method is truly noninvasive, making it ideal for monitoring the status of food and medical supplies, or as a tool to determine under which environmental conditions bacterial growth is expected to be severe. "It can provide real-time analysis," Shao said.

Next, the researchers plan to enhance the technique to "allow for assessments of microbial growth in a large variety of samples -- expanding beyond food items and medical supplies," Shao added.

###​

Paper: Jie Shao, Jindong Xiang, Ove Axner, and Chaofu Ying, "Wavelength-modulated tunable diode-laser absorption spectrometry for real-time monitoring of microbial growth," Appl. Opt. 55, 2339-2345 (2016).

 

[JSCh]

S China lab sterilizes mosquitos to fight dengue, Zika
Source: Xinhua 2016-03-17 17:49:35

GUANGZHOU, March 17 (Xinhua) -- A lab in China is aiming to sterilize mosquitos to cut off transmission of dengue and Zika virus after pesticides and medication have proved to have limited effects.

The lab at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, is rearing male mosquitos with a naturally occurring bacterium, called wolbachia, that sterilizes females to reduce the mosquito population and transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.

The largest of its kind, the lab covers an area of over 3,500 square meters and is divided into four sections, each capable of raising 5 million wolbachia-carrying male mosquitos.

The mosquitos hatch in cages designed to allow only males, which are usually a bit smaller, to filter through and be released.

Researchers at the lab said the filtering process is currently done manually, but they are working toward a more efficient automated filtering process.

These grown male mosquitoes are then released at a ratio of five sterile males to each non-sterile male in the wild, giving females an 80-percent chance of mating with them and becoming sterilized.

"Since female mosquitos only mate once in their lives, we want them to mate with our (wolbachia-carrying) males so the larvae they produce will not hatch," said Xi Zhiyong, who leads the lab's research on the Sterile Insect Technique project.

Last year, around 6.5 million male mosquitos were released at experiment sites, resulting in a nearly 100-percent elimination rate of mosquito larvae.

The research team hopes to see the technique gain widespread use in two to three years as an alternative to pesticides, which also hurt beneficial insects such as butterflies and bees and have decreased in effectiveness as mosquitos begin to develop antibodies.

 

[bobsm]

China plays increasing role in global innovation: WIPO
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2016-03-18 01:39

BEIJING -- China has continued to perform strongly in international patent and trademark filing against the backdrop of a moderate worldwide intellectual property (IP) filing growth, according to the latest figures released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

The WIPO issued a report analyzing the amount and sources of global IP applications in 2015, including patents, trademarks and industrial designs, in Geneva on Wednesday.

"Global IP applications provide a good indication of the incidence and location of innovation," said Francis Gurry, Director General of WIPO at the press conference in Geneva.

"We see through this indicator that, while the United States of America maintains its premier position, the geography of innovation continues to shift and to evolve, with Asia, and in particular Japan, China and the Republic of Korea, forming the predominant geographical cluster," Gurry added.

International patent applications filed under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) were up by 1.7 percent to 218,000 in 2015, the slowest growth in five years, with the United States extending its long-standing position as the top source.

China's PCT applications exceeded 29,800 in 2015, an increase of 16.8 percent, ranking third for the third year behind the United States and Japan.

The three top filing companies were China's Huawei Technologies, followed by based Qualcomm and China's ZTE Corp. Huawei topped the list since 2013.

"China has played an increasing role in global innovation with its improved innovation ability and awareness of IP," Chen Hongbing, Director of WIPO Office in China, told Xinhua.

The report revealed that, with over 2,400 applications last year, China made the most filings for international trademark applications under the Madrid System since it became a member of the system in 1989. The country was in seventh place among all filers.

"We can see that Chinese enterprises are picking up their pace in doing business overseas. They are building international brands to improve competitive standing in the global market," said Chen.

Chen attributed the achievements to pursuit of an innovation-driven economy. "Reform of scientific and technological systems, increasing investment in research and development and strengthened IP protection have driven progress."

The WIPO expects China's technology, products and services to benefit the world through the Belt and Road and international production capacity cooperation, and is willing to use their innovation resources to better serve China's economic growth, Chen said.

Chen suggested China speed up the process of becoming a member of Hague System that governs the international registration of industrial design.

"China, as a major manufacturing nation, should better use industrial design as an IP tool to help its manufacturers winning competitive advantages in the global market," Chen said.


China plays increasing role in global innovation: WIPO - China - Chinadaily.com.cn

 

[bobsm]

Pwn2Own 2016: Chinese Researcher Hacks Google Chrome within 11 minutes

Mar 17, 2016, 09:12 ET from Qihoo 360

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- 360Vulcan Team from Qihoo 360 hacked Google Chrome, the browser with the least vulnerabilities, and obtained the highest system privilege. It's the first time a Chinese security team has hacked Google Chrome at the Pwn2Own contest.

360Vulcan Team also hacked Adobe Flash Player based on Edge browser, obtaining the highest system privilege, which won the team a USD 80,000 cash prize and a total score of 13 points.

Hackers win in the battle of man vs. machine

Google Chrome is a browser built for security and simplicity, which represents the highest level of security defense in Google. Besides world-renowned Google Project Zero, Google also uses thousands of servers for vulnerability tests with deep mining technology and computing capacity that can compete with AlphGo, the program that defeated Lee Sedol, a top-ranked Go player, in the battle of man vs. machine. Thus Google Chrome is regarded as the browser with the least vulnerabilities.

Meanwhile, Chrome is equipped with the only sandbox which can detect and block attacks over Windows kernel. Once the sandbox is locked, the attacker will no long have the access to outside resources. Chrome has therefore been regarded as the ultimate challenge at the Pwn2Own competition in recent years.

The latest version of Google Chrome has been fundamentally improved in terms of security level. It's almost viewed as mission impossible for security researchers to exploit vulnerability for system privilege.

360Vulcan Team, in together with 360 Mobile Safe Team, hacked Chrome exploiting four vulnerabilities, which can make Chrome more secure as well as improve the overall defense level of the browser.

Chinese Security Team in Global Arena

Qihoo 360 is not new to Pwn2Own. At the contest in 2015, 360Vulcan Team successfully hacked tightly protected IE 11 running on the Windows 8.1 operating system in 17 seconds, and became the first Asian team to successfully claim IE browser in the contest's nine-year history. For two years, 360Vulcan Team has chosen to compete in the most challenging categories, which can show the remarkable expertise of Chinese security researchers.

360Vulcan Team is a security research team from the 360 Internet Security Innovation Center, focuses on security vulnerabilities mining and helping vendors to patch vulnerabilities. "XP Shield" and "IE Shield", the vulnerability defense product from 360 Safeguard, were supported by 360Vulcan Team on the core technology.

In 2015, security teams in Qihoo 360 received over 100 official acknowledgements from Google, Microsoft, Apple and Adobe for the vulnerabilities submitted, second only to Google Project Zero, which won the fame of "Most Capable Security Team in the East". Those vulnerabilities, once sold to the black market, can earn millions of dollars. However, the team prefers to submit vulnerabilities to related vendors.

According to Zheng Wenbing, head of 360Vulcan Team, "Live Long and PWN, a motto of our team, stands for our consistent pursuit to challenge limits and impossibilities. In the battle of man vs. machine, we hope to make the Internet more secure."

Pwn2Own 2016: Chinese Researcher Hacks Google Chrome within 11 minutes

 

[qaisraani]

wow thats really cool, but im just curious to know whether you guys have a wind testing facility for buildings, like to check how much drag in a building design its like a wind tunnel test for buildings.im fascinated by wind tunnels of all sorts thats y im asking . it mostly requires wind engineers so do u guys have that i'd love to know... thanks in advance and best of luck for China's flourishing future

nbmn ,

cryogenic technologies among scientists in China. A seminar he gave in 2007 at Tsinghua University in Beijing drew few attendees, he says, “and even fewer really understood what I was talking about.” Just four years later, in 2011, Zhao gave another seminar on ultralow-temperature physics in Beijing. That time, he says, “half the audience was in the corridor. The situation has changed completely.” Ding agrees: The driving force behind SECUF, he says, is a growing demand by scientists.