Ancient body clock discovered that helps to keep all living things on time

Scientists have identified the mechanism responsible for driving the internal clock of almost all living organisms

A group of Cambridge scientists have successfully identified the mechanism that drives our internal 24-hour clock, or circadian rhythm. It occurs not only in human cells, but has also been found in other life forms such as algae, and has been dated back millions of years. Whilst the research promises a better understanding of the problems associated with shift-work and jet-lag, this mechanism has also been proven to be responsible for sleep patterns, seasonal shifts and even the migration of butterflies.
The study from the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge discovered that red blood cells contain this 24-hour rhythm. In the past, scientists assumed this rhythm came from DNA and gene activity but unlike most cells, red blood cells do not contain DNA.
During this study, the Cambridge scientists incubated healthy red blood cells in the dark at body temperature for several days, sampling them at regular intervals. It was discovered that the levels of peroxiredoxins (proteins that are produced in blood), underwent a 24-hour cycle. Virtually all known organisms contain peroxiredoxins.
"The implications of this for health are manifold," said Akhilesh Reddy, lead author of the study. "We already know that disrupted clocks – for example, caused by shift-work and jet-lag – are associated with metabolic disorders such as diabetes, mental health problems and even cancer. By furthering our knowledge of how the 24-hour clock in cells works, we hope that the links to these disorders – and others – will be made clearer. This will, in the longer term, lead to new therapies that we couldn't even have thought about a couple of years ago."
A second study by scientists working together at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, and the Observatoire Oceanologique in Banyuls, France, identified a similar 24-hour rhythm in marine algae. Once again, the scientists held a previous belief that the circadian clock was driven by gene activity, but both the algae and the red blood cells proved this theory wrong.
"This groundbreaking research shows that body clocks are ancient mechanisms that have stayed with us through a billion years of evolution," said Andrew Millar of the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences. "They must be far more important and sophisticated than we previously realized. More work is needed to determine how and why these clocks developed in people – and most likely all other living things on Earth – and what role they play in controlling our bodies."
The papers "Circadian Clocks in Human Red Blood Cells" and "Circadian Rhythms Persist Without Transcription in a Eukaryote" were published on 27th January 2011 in the journal Nature.

Filter feeding basking shark inspires more efficient hydroelectric turbine

The Strait Power turbine inspired by the basking shark

Studying the bumpy protrusions on the fins of humpback whales has already led to more efficient wind and tidal power turbines and now nature is once again the source of inspiration for a new and more efficient hydroelectric turbine. The latest source of biomimicry is the basking shark, which industrial design student Anthony Reale has borrowed from to create "strait power," a water-powered turbine generator that tests have shown is 40 percent more efficient than current designs.

• 
• 
• 
• 

Despite being the second largest shark in the ocean, the basking shark is generally considered harmless to humans as it is a filter feeder. It swims with its mouth open to sift zooplankton, small fish and invertebrates from the water before the water is expelled through extended gill slits that nearly encircle its whole head. Although this flow of water assists in the shark’s swimming, Reale recognized that the shape of the shark’s body also played an important role.
With the basking shark’s jaw able to stretch up to 1.2 meter (3.9 ft) in width, a pressure differential is created as the shark swims. As with the wings of an airplane, the water pressure is greater along the straight bottom, while the curved surface of the shark’s body increases the distance the water has to travel, resulting in lower pressure across the shark’s top.
This pressure differential helps draw the water out of the basking shark’s gills and allows the basking shark to be only filter feeder shark that relies solely on the passive flow of water through its pharynx to feed. Other filter feeder sharks, the whale shark and megamouth shark, assist the process by suction or actively pumping water into their pharynxes.
With this in mind, Reale designed his ‘Strait Power’ turbine with a double converging nozzle or an opening within an opening. The water enters the turbine through the first opening and the second nozzle – like the shark’s gills – compresses the water and creates a low-pressure zone to draw the water through and generate more energy.
Reale came up with the design for his senior project at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit and recently had the opportunity to put it to the test at the University of Michigan’s (UM) Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratory. The UM researchers with whom Reale collaborated were interested as they had been working on something similar to provide power for remote research camps in Alaska.
Subjected to 200 hours of testing in UM’s 100-yard-long (91 m), 22-foot-wide (6.7 m), 10-foot-deep (3 m) tow tank, Reale’s 900-pound (408 kg) turbine model made mostly of wood, screwed together and sealed with marine paint came out looking battered and bruised. But the results were promising with the researchers saying the design improved the power output of a single blade by around 40 percent – a figure that Reale expects to improve upon with future versions.
Reale has filed a patent for the technology and has designed five potential commercial uses of the Strait Power system ranging from a portable and collapsible version for charging small electrical devices designed for outdoor and military use, up to industrial versions with 10-foot (3 m) diameter blades for powering high-power electrical generators of 40,000 watts and higher.

Breakthrough in quest for solar hydrogen production

Bubbles form during water oxidation, catalyzed by the new tetra-cobalt WOC

Scientists at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, have built on feats of Mother Nature to develop the most potent homogeneous catalyst known for water oxidation, which they hope will lead to producing clean hydrogen fuel using only water and sunlight. Could cars of the future be powered by just water and a solar collector on the roof?
The water oxidation catalyst (WOC) research is a component of the Emory Bio-inspired Renewable Energy Center (EBREC), which aims to copy natural processes like photosynthesis to generate clean fuel. The next step involves incorporating the WOC into a solar-driven, water-splitting system. The long-term goal is to use sunlight to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. While hydrogen becomes the fuel, its combustion produces water - which would then flow back into a clean, green, renewable cycle. “The fastest, carbon-free molecular WOC to date has really upped the standard from the other known homogeneous WOCs," said Emory inorganic chemist Craig Hill, whose lab led the effort. "It's like a home run compared to a base hit."
The new WOC is based on the cheap and abundant element cobalt, adding to its potential to help solar energy go mainstream.

Challenges

The lab developed a stable, carbon-free WOC prototype two years ago, but this was based was ruthenium, a relatively rare and expensive element. Three main technical challenges face the team. They are developing a light collector, a catalyst to oxidize water to oxygen and a catalyst to reduce water to hydrogen.
Hill says all three components need improvement, but a viable WOC may be the most difficult scientific challenge. "We are aiming for a WOC that is free of organic structure, because organic components will combine with oxygen and self-destruct," Hill says. "You'll wind up with a lot of gunk." "We've duplicated this complex natural process by taking some of the essential features from photosynthesis and using them in a synthetic, carbon-free, homogeneous system. The result is a water oxidation catalyst that is far more stable than the one found in nature."
The breakthrough, to be published in Science was made in collaboration with the Paris Institute of Molecular Chemistry.

New Energy Technologies demonstrates electricity-generating SolarWindow prototype

A miniature helicopter is powered by electricity generated by the previous SolarWindow prototype (Photo: New Energy Technologies)

Over the past several years, a number of companies and institutions have been developing technologies that could allow windows to double as solar panels. These have included EnSol’s metal nanoparticle-based spray-on product, RSi’s photovoltaic glass and Octillion’s NanoPower window. Last September, Maryland-based New Energy Technologies joined the party by demonstrating a 4 x 4 inch (10.2 x 10.2 cm) prototype of its SolarWindow product. This Tuesday, the company unveiled a working 12 x 12 inch (30.5 x 30.5 cm) prototype, which takes it significantly closer to becoming commercially-viable.
As is the case with EnSol’s technology, SolarWindow incorporates a spray-on photosensitive film. It is applied at room temperature, allows the window to remain transparent, and is capable of generating electricity from both artificial and natural light – the company's intention is that it would be used primarily on the exterior of windows, where it would be exposed to sunlight.
While the details of how the system works aren’t being fully disclosed, the company has stated that the film “replaces visibility-blocking metal [used in most solar panels] with environmentally-friendly and more transparent compounds."

New Energy Technologies claims that SolarWindow is superior to similar products in that its coating doesn’t have to be applied at a high temperature or in a vacuum, it is less than one-tenth the thickness of other “thin films,” and the solar cells used in each window are the world’s smallest functional models – less than a quarter the size of a grain of rice. It is also said to outperform other technologies by up to ten-fold when it comes to generating electricity from artificial light.
Although precise figures on efficiency aren’t available, the company estimates that when applied to the facade of an office tower, its product could generate over 300 percent the energy savings of traditional rooftop panels.
New Energy Technologies has also received some publicity for its experimental MotionPower system, that generates power from traffic driving over small plates embedded in roads.

Sea cucumbers could clean up fish farms – and then be eaten by humans

Researchers are looking at introducing sea cucumbers to fish farms, where they could clean up fish waste and be bred for food

Marine net-pen fish farms aren’t popular with environmentalists for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being the amount of fish feces and uneaten food that they release into the surrounding ocean. In the UK, help for that problem may be coming in the form of the sea cucumber. Despite its name, the sea cucumber is an animal, that resembles a big slug and is about the same size as ... well, as a cucumber, or sometimes larger. Given that sea cukes subsist on organic matter that they scavenge from the sea floor, scientists at Newcastle University have proposed that they be introduced to fish farms where they could process waste. After eating all that fish poop, some of the cucumbers could then be served up as gourmet cuisine for humans.
Not only would this initiative theoretically be good for the environment, but it should also help sea cucumbers – perhaps not the ones that get eaten, but sea cucumbers in general. Because they are a rich source of glucosamine and chondroitin, the animals are currently harvested for use in traditional Chinese medicine and cuisine, to the point that worldwide populations of key species are declining. At fish farms, not only would they be used to minimize waste, but they would also be bred for the marketplace.
“We wanted to find a way to clean up waste produced by large-scale aquaculture so that farming activities in the sea have little or no impact on the ocean floor,” said Newcastle’s Dr. Matthew Slater. “By growing sea cucumbers on waste from fish farms we are not only farming a valuable food product and giving the wild sea cucumber populations a chance to recover, we are also developing solutions to fish farming impacts.”

After having studied them at Newcastle's Dove Marine Laboratory, the research team is now looking towards actually placing them at fish farms around the UK. The team is also leading an aquaculture project in Tanzania, where sea cucumbers are being bred in cages in a lagoon.
Fish farming has also been criticized for introducing antibiotics and anti-algal chemicals into the ocean, allowing escaped non-native fish to disturb the local ecological balance, creating higher levels of toxins in farmed fish flesh, and for putting strain on wild populations of fish caught to feed carnivorous domesticated fish such as salmon.
It’s hard to say if the cukes can help with all of that, but every little bit helps.

ORNL demonstrates photosynthetic hydrogen production

Neutron scattering analysis reveals the lamellar structure of a hydrogen-producing, biohybrid composite material formed by the self-assembly of naturally occurring, light harvesting proteins with polymers

One of the biggest problems with the move towards a hydrogen economy is currently the production of hydrogen fuel takes a lot of energy, which generally comes from burning fossil fuels. For hydrogen vehicles to make sense, cleaner more efficient hydrogen production methods will need to be developed. One promising approach takes its lead from the natural processes of photosynthesis in order to convert sunlight into hydrogen fuel. The latest breakthrough in this quest comes from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) where scientists have taken an important step towards understanding the design principles that promote self-assembly in natural photosynthetic systems.
ORNL researchers have demonstrated a biohybrid photoconversion system based on the interaction of photosynthetic plant proteins with synthetic polymers.
Using small-angle neutron scattering analysis, they showed that light harvesting complex II (LHC-II) proteins can self-assemble with polymers into a synthetic membrane structure and produce hydrogen.
It is this ability of LHC-II to maintain the structure of the photosynthetic membrane that's significant to the development of biohybrid photoconversion systems. These would consist of high surface area, light-collecting panes that use the proteins combined with a catalyst such as platinum to convert the sunlight into hydrogen, which could be used for fuel.
Although the primary role of the LHC-II protein in plants is as a solar collector, absorbing sunlight and transferring it to the photosynthetic reaction centers to maximize their output, the researchers showed that LHC-II can also carry out electron transfer reactions.
"Making a, self-repairing synthetic photoconversion system is a pretty tall order. The ability to control structure and order in these materials for self-repair is of interest because, as the system degrades, it loses its effectiveness," ORNL researcher Hugh O'Neill, of the lab's Center for Structural Molecular Biology, said.
"This is the first example of a protein altering the phase behavior of a synthetic polymer that we have found in the literature. This finding could be exploited for the introduction of self-repair mechanisms in future solar conversion systems," he said.
The ORNL team’s study is published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

Air hybrid vehicles could halve fuel consumption

The air hybrid engine used in the Lund University study

The most commonly used form of regenerative braking is where a vehicle’s electric motor is used as an electric generator to capture the vehicle’s kinetic energy, which is otherwise lost as heat when braking. The generator converts the kinetic energy into electricity that is then fed back into the vehicle’s battery pack where it is stored for later use. New research suggests that pneumatic or air hybrids that instead store the energy as compressed air would be much cheaper to produce than the current crop of EVs and battery-electric hybrids and could halve the fuel consumption of ICE powered vehicles.

• 
• 
• 

Although converting kinetic energy to electricity is the system found in the majority of EV’s and hybrids on our roads, such as the Toyota Prius, there are also systems that allow the kinetic energy to be stored in other forms. Mechanical systems use a flywheel to store it as rotational energy, while hydraulic systems store the energy as pressurized fluid.
Pneumatic systems that store the energy as compressed air are yet another option and it is pneumatic or air hybrid systems that Sasa Trajkovic believes can be used to produce more fuel efficient vehicles. Trajkovic, a doctoral student in Combustion Engines at Lund University in Sweden, did his doctoral thesis on pneumatic hybrid vehicles and he says that compressed air could be used to provide extra power to the engine when starting up and save fuel by avoiding idle operation when the car is at standstill.
For the study the researchers converted heavy duty Scania engines converted to operate as pneumatic hybrid engines. During pneumatic hybrid operation the engine can be used as a 2-stroke compressor for generation of compressed air during vehicle deceleration (compressor mode) and during vehicle acceleration the engine can be operated as an air-motor driven by the previously stored pressurized air (air-motor mode).
The compressed air is stored in a pressure tank connected to one of the inlet ports. One of the engine inlet valves has been modified to work as a tank valve in order to control the pressurized air flow to and from the pressure tank.
The air hybrid engine, which would work with gasoline, natural gas and diesel fuel-powered engines, doesn’t require any expensive materials such as those used in battery packs, so they would be cheaper to manufacture. They would also take up much less space than an electric hybrid engine.
Trajkovic calculated that 48 percent of the brake energy, which is compressed and saved in a small air tank connected to the engine, could be reused later. This matches the degree of reuse of today’s electric hybrids and, like current electric hybrids, Trajkovic says the technology would be even more attractive for slow and jerky driving, like that found on a bus in urban traffic. His simulations showed that buses in cities could reduce their fuel consumption by 60 per cent.
Although pneumatic motors have been around for over a century and there have been some (so far unsuccessful) attempts to bring a compressed air car to the market, the idea of air hybrids has only been around for a couple of decades. With most of the previous research into the technology theoretical, the Lund researchers say theirs is the first time anyone has done experiments on an actual air hybrid engine.
The Lund University researchers studied a single cylinder air hybrid engine but hope to conduct further research into a complete, multi-cylinder engine with the aim of bringing the concept another step closer to a real air hybrid vehicle.

New graphene transistor created with record high-switching performance

Graphene is a one-atom-thick planar sheet of carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice

Graphene has already brought us the world’s smallest transistor, a triple-mode, single transistor amplifier and a supercapacitor that can store as much energy as a battery while recharging in seconds. And these are sure to just be the tip of the iceberg. The latest breakthrough from the wonderful world of graphene is a new graphene field effect transistor (GFET) that boasts a record high-switching performance. The device promises improved performance for future electronic devices and means graphene could potentially replace silicon, or at least be used side by side with silicon, in electronic devices.
Although graphene boasts high electrical conductivity, it is what is known as a zero bandgap semiconductor. This means that there is no difference between its conductive and nonconductive state and transistors made of the material cannot be easily turned on and off.
Dr Zakaria Moktadir of the Nano research group at the University of Southampton discovered that by introducing geometrical singularities such as sharp beds and corners in bilayer graphene nanowires, the current could be turned off efficiently. According to Professor Hiroshi Mizuta, Head of the Nano research group, this engineering approach has achieved an on/off switching ratio 1,000 times higher than previous attempts.
"Enormous effort has been made across the world to pinch off the channel of GFETs electrostatically, but the existing approaches require either the channel width to be much narrower than 10 nanometres or a very high voltage to be applied vertically across bilayer graphene layers," he says. “This hasn't achieved an on/off ratio which is high enough, and is not viable for practical use."
The researchers believe the breakthrough will enable electronics that progress beyond current silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, which is reaching its limits.
"It will have major implications for next generation computer, communication and electronic systems. Introducing geometrical singularities into the graphene channel is a new concept which achieves superior performance while keeping the GFET structure simple and therefore commercially exploitable,” says Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.
Now that he’s created the transistor, Dr Moktadir is now carrying out further research to understand the mechanism that causes the current to stop flowing in the channel. He is also testing the transistor’s reliability and performance under various noise and temperature conditions.

Production set to begin on Loon solar-electric boat

Tamarack Lake Electric Boats is set to begin full-scale production of its Loon solar-electric boat
Image Gallery

Five years ago we first reported on Tamarack Lake Electric Boat Company's Loon, a proposed production solar-electric boat. At that time, creator Monte Gisborne told us that “exhausting hydrocarbons directly into your own lake isn’t much different from urinating in your family room.” In 2009 the 8-passenger watercraft received a design overhaul, and production was scheduled to begin later that year. Now, with a just-announced deal in place to manufacture the boat at facilities in the city of Rome, New York, full-scale Loon production should finally be commencing within the next few months.
The current version of the Loon is 22 feet (6.7 meters) long, with a beam of 7’4” (2.24 meters), and a resin-infused fiberglass hull. Its 48-volt lead-acid battery is charged via 115 or 220-volt mains power, to in turn power a 5.5 hp motor – a 1,000-watt rooftop solar array helps extend the boat’s range, which sits at over 50 miles (80.5 km). It has a cruising speed of 6.5 knots (7.5 mph/12 kph) and a top speed of 8 knots (9.5 mph/15.3 kph).
The company will also continue to produce the Osprey, its 30-passenger all-electric boat.
Should you be interested, Tamarack is now taking US$500 deposits on its new Loons. The complete price will be $32,500.

SteriShoe uses UV light to eliminate smelly shoes

The SteriShoe Shoe Sanitizer uses UV light to kill microorganisms in shoes

U.S. company Shoe Care Innovations has launched the world’s first ultraviolet shoe cleaner. The SteriShoe UV Shoe Santizer safely disinfects the inside of shoes by using ultraviolet (UVC) light. It is ideal for people who suffer from athlete's foot (tinea pedis), toenail fungus (onychomycosis), or shoe odor. It has also been recommended for diabetes sufferers and is 100 percent free of chemicals.
Sweat from feet can often cause shoes to become breeding grounds for fungi and bacteria that can then cause infections. The SteriShoe is reportedly an effective chemical-free method for killing unwanted bacteria and fungal spores in your shoes. It may not be a quick clean, but after 45 minutes with the SteriShoe ultraviolet light, 99.9 percent of all microorganisms including fungi and bacteria are killed.
The use of UVC light for sterilization is nothing new, being commonly used in hospitals, public swimming pools and other water treatment systems. Using ultraviolet light is relatively safe, but it is not recommended to come in direct contact with the light. To keep this from happening, the SteriShoe shoe sanitizer includes two key safety features, including a compression sensor that requires the ultraviolet shoe sanitizer to be compressed in a shoe. If the device is removed from the shoe whilst in action, it will shut off automatically.
The device is also designed to only work in a closed, dark environment (such as a cupboard) and a second sensor scans the environment before activating a clean, to ensure the environment is dark enough and thus safe to start. If light is detected, the device will not start. In addition two shoe bags are provided in every box, so a user can cover their open-toed shoes and sandals to provide a dark enough environment.

Diabetes can cause poor blood circulation leading to loss of sensation and thus the potential for untreated blister or ulcers on the foot’s surface. If left untreated, a diabetic foot ulcer can result in an amputation and according to Shoe Care Innovations, in the United States there are approximately 86,000 diabetic related amputations annually. Clean shoes are thus an important measure for all sufferers of diabetes, to keep healthy feet.
Priced at US$129.95, the SteriShoe UV Shoe Sanitizer comes is three sizes (Sml, Med, Lge) and is available for purchase online.