Next Creation Changing Your Future?

Have you experienced the overcrowded living space in Hong Kong? 

As a scholar in architecture, Prof. NG Yan Yung shared his story about the how he could help improving the living conditions in this overpopulated city:

"When Professor Ng returned to Hong Kong in 1999, he was surprised to find that many people in this city still lived in poor and overcrowded conditions, without suitable amount of daylight and proper air ventilation. And he remembered his teacher's question: 'What should be done?'"

I find this is an very good story for all scientists and engineers. Complete article can be found:
One Question, Many Answers: New Yao Ling Sun Professor of Architecture shares his quest for the 'right' answers


More about Prof. NG Yan Yung:
Personal homepage: http://www.edwardng.com/
Webpage at CUHK: http://www.arch.cuhk.edu.hk/v1/index.php/people/facultypage/10


image source: A Photographer Finds Beauty In The Extreme Overcrowding Of Hong Kong

Do you know the Avian Phylogenomic Project?  A genomic project recovering the genetic secret among birds...


"The evolutionary relationships between modern bird lineages are contentious and have been debated for many years. In order to address this point, the Avian Genomes consortium has sequenced the genomes of 45 species of bird representing 36 orders. Together with the three previously sequenced genomes, these data have helped us resolve the phylogeny of the class Aves. As well as specific insights into bird biology, the wealth of data generated has allowed researchers to answer more general questions about evolutionary biology."

The full collection can be viewed here: http://avian.genomics.cn/en/index.html
Collection published: 11 December 2014

Biome interviewed the project leaders, Guojie Zhang, Associate Director of the National GeneBank at the BGI, China and Assistant Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Laurie Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of GigaScience and tell us more about this project:

How Bird Genomes Got Their Wings

Closing to the end of year, do you know the year 2014 is the International Year of Family Farming?

What is family farming?

"Family farming includes all family-based agricultural activities, and it is linked to several areas of rural development. Family farming is a means of organizing agricultural, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production which is managed and operated by a family and predominantly reliant on family labour, including both women’s and men’s.



Both in developing and developed countries, family farming is the predominant form of agriculture in the food production sector.



At national level, there are a number of factors that are key for a successful development of family farming, such as: agro-ecological conditions and territorial characteristics; policy environment; access to markets; access to land and natural resources; access to technology and extension services; access to finance; demographic, economic and socio-cultural conditions; availability of specialized education among others.



Family farming has an important socio-economic, environmental and cultural role."

THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF FAMILY FARMING

The 2014 International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) aims to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas.The goal of the 2014 IYFF is to reposition family farming at the centre of agricultural, environmental and social policies in the national agendas by identifying gaps and opportunities to promote a shift towards a more equal and balanced development.  The 2014 IYFF will promote broad discussion and cooperation at the national, regional and global levels to increase awareness and understanding of the challenges faced by smallholders and help identify efficient ways to support family farmers.



image source: http://www.agriculturesnetwork.org/news/photo-competition-winners-2810/

There are very useful tips collection from ACS for all researchers to publish high quality scientific papers. 

"While the electronic age has made the publication process easier and quicker, optimizing the structure of a scientific paper requires a certain degree of skill and proficiency. ACS Publications has been actively engaged in disseminating the basics of publication through Publication 101 videos and editorials, and in continuation of this spirit we have assembled this virtual issue. This issue draws together in one place these editorials that summarize the key steps involved in writing an effective paper, journal submission, review processes, and post-publication efforts."

Selected topics:

• How to Make Your Next Paper Scientifically Effective
• The Art of Writing the Title of Your Paper
• Summarize Your Work in 100 Milliseconds or Less. .. The Importance of the table of Contents Image
• The Experimental Section: The Key to Longevity of Your Research
• Graphical Excellence
• Cite with a Sight
• The Increasing Impact of Multimedia and Social Media in Scientific Publications

Complete guide @ ACS:
A Virtual Issue of Editor Tips for Authors - Mastering the Art of Scientific Publication




image source: When peer review meets the press

Let's see how University of Oxford defines "Software Engineering"

"Software Engineering is the application of scientific and engineering principles to the development of software systems—principles of design, analysis, and management—with the aim of:

• developing software that meets its requirements, even when these requirements change;
• completing the development on time, and within budget;
• producing something of lasting value—easy to maintain, re-use, and re-deploy."

There is a recent post from Biome, an online newspaper by BioMed Central about three large scale brain research projects in US, Europe, and Japan:

I read the following from recent ACS newsletter:

"Are you a chemistry instructor at a 2- and 4-year institution that does not have an advanced degree program in the chemical sciences?  Are you planning to attend a workshop or other continuing education activity in 2015? 

Applications for the Dorothy and Moses Passer Education Grants are now accepted online and the first deadline, January 1, for 2015 is approaching! "

Moses Passer (1917-1999)

GOAL of the Grant
The vision of the Passers is to provide support for faculty in small programs and who are somewhat isolated from others in their discipline.

More information:
Dorothy and Moses Passer Education Grants (Established 1992) 




image source: http://www.sbuniv.edu/academics/majors/ChemistryEducation.html

"This year, Research Fronts 2014 was undertaken as a collaborative project by the Joint Research Center of Emerging Technology Analysis established by Thomson Reuters and the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In this report, 100 hot research fronts and 44 emerging ones were identified based on cocitation analysis that generated more than 9,700
research fronts in the Thomson Reuters database Essential Science Indicators (ESI). "

 - The 2014 Thomson Reuters Research Fronts report





Some emerging research fronts are listed here:

• Ecological status assessment of Europe surface waters by aquatic organisms #Ecology and Environmental Sciences
• Major non-CO2 Greenhouse gas such as ozone, methane, and black carbon, as well as OH and anthropogenic sulfur dioxide in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Model Intercomparison Project simulaitons #Geosciences
• Clinical and virological features of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection #Clinical Medicine
• CRISPR/CAS system for genomic editing #Biological Sciences
• Polymer solar cells with enhanced power-conversion efficiency #Chemistry and Materials Science
• Inverse spin hall and spin Seebeck effects; Pt films #Physics
• Precision measurement of cosmic ray positron fraction by Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer #Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Higher order shear deformation theories, functionally graded plates #Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering
• Control and treatment of schistosomiasis in Africa using the drug praziquantel #Economics, Psychology and Other Social Sciences

Abstract:
Sensory receptors in human skin transmit a wealth of tactile and thermal signals from external environments to the brain. Despite advances in our understanding of mechano- and thermosensation, replication of these unique sensory characteristics in artificial skin and prosthetics remains challenging. Recent efforts to develop smart prosthetics, which exploit rigid and/or semi-flexible pressure, strain and temperature sensors, provide promising routes for sensor-laden bionic systems, but with limited stretchability, detection range and spatio-temporal resolution. Here we demonstrate smart prosthetic skin instrumented with ultrathin, single crystalline ​silicon nanoribbon strain, pressure and temperature sensor arrays as well as associated humidity sensors, electroresistive heaters and stretchable multi-electrode arrays for nerve stimulation. This collection of stretchable sensors and actuators facilitate highly localized mechanical and thermal skin-like perception in response to external stimuli, thus providing unique opportunities for emerging classes of prostheses and peripheral nervous system interface technologies.


The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/141209/ncomms6747/full/ncomms6747.html#access




image source: Scientists develop artificial skin that can feel rain and the touch of a hand

Do you know how much is a Nobel Prize gold medal?

- $4.8m, James Watson sold his medal early this month. 





"In 2007, the Sunday Times ran an interview with Dr Watson in which he said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”.

He told the newspaper people wanted to believe that everyone was born with equal intelligence but that those “who have to deal with black employees find this not true”.

Mr Watson said he hoped the publicity surrounding the sale of the medal would provide an opportunity for him to “re-enter public life”. Since the furore in 2007 he has not delivered any public lectures."



Complete story:
James Watson selling Nobel prize 'because no-one wants to admit I exist, the Telegraph

Related news:
Russia's Usmanov to give back Watson's auctioned Nobel medal, BCC
Lab suspends DNA pioneer Watson, BBC

Corresponding authors: Kumaran S Ramamurthi ramamurthiks@mail.nih.gov 

Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda 20892-5132, MD, USA

BMC Biology 2014, 12:96  doi:10.1186/s12915-014-0096-y

More about Author


Commentary
‘Small proteins’ is a description given to proteins that traditionally escaped detection and thus detailed study due to their extremely small size. We also define ‘small proteins’ to be polypeptides that, in contrast to ‘peptides’, are encoded by small open reading frames (ORFs), are synthesized by ribosomes, and are not produced by proteolytic cleavage of a much larger precursor protein. Small proteins are difficult to identify for a variety of reasons. From a bioinformatics perspective, due to the problem of a high background, only ORFs of greater than approximately 50 or 100 codons were typically annotated as encoding proteins in sequenced bacterial and eukaryotic genomes, respectively. The lack of annotation coupled with few known phenotypes associated with mutations in small protein genes has restricted the detection of these genes by genetic approaches. Detection of small proteins biochemically requires optimized approaches so that, for instance, small proteins are not simply run off gels during electrophoresis. However, several recent lines of evidence suggest that small proteins are far more prevalent than previously imagined, indicating that a significant portion of the proteome of all organisms remains to be identified and studied.



The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/12/96





image source: Prion-Based Inheritance, Protein Folding/Misfolding, and Analysis of Cellular Systems

If there is any one find himself/herself difficult in eating because of tremor (Parkinson's Disease),  I believe Liftware will be a good solution!!

Take a look how it work in the following movies:


more about Liftware:

"We are a group of scientists and engineers working to develop new technologies to provide proactive care for people with essential tremor and Parkinson's Disease.

Seeing our own friends and family suffering has motivated us to create Lift Labs and focus on improving overall quality of life and independence.

We're joining Google[x] and will continue to make and sell our Liftware stabilizers. We could not have reached this point without the support of Rock Health, the National Institutes of Health, our customers and the hard work of our team. We're especially excited to work with the Google team to scale our operations and reach even more people who could benefit from using tremor-canceling devices. "

 - http://www.liftlabsdesign.com

Correspondence: Rino Rappuoli      rino.rappuoli@novartis.com

Rino Rappuoli, Global Head of Vaccines Research and Development for Novartis Vaccines in Siena

Novartis Vaccines, Siena 53100, Italy

BMC Biology 2014, 12:100  doi:10.1186/s12915-014-0100-6




Ebolavirus disease has been much in the news recently because of the horrendous outbreak in West Africa – but how many other rare, sporadic but severe infections are there that pose an equal threat?

Well, during the last few years, more or less with every 6 months to a year there has been a new outbreak of an emerging infection. Examples are the influenza viruses - for instance H1N1 in 2009, and H7N9 and H5N1 more recently [1] - the MERS rotavirus in Saudi Arabia [2], and Chikungunya virus in St Martin in 2013 [3], and of course now Ebola virus [4]. So there are many rare but potentially very dangerous diseases or emerging infections regularly breaking out. Ebola virus is by far the most lethal that we have now, but all of the others are very dangerous.

I know that there are ’flu vaccines, but are there licensed vaccines for any of the others?
The answer is no - there are no vaccines for SARS, which emerged in 2003, there is no licensed vaccine for MERS, there is no licensed vaccine for Chikungunya, there is no licensed vaccine for Ebola - so for most of these diseases there are no vaccines, because they are too rare to justify the economic investment.

Is that the only difficultly, or are there other difficulties in developing vaccines for these sorts of diseases? I realise it may be impossible to generalise.
Most of the time we do have the technologies to make these vaccines. I remember for example when SARS came in 2003/2004 we made a vaccine pretty quickly and brought it to the stage where it was ready to go to phase 1, but when we got to phase 1 the disease had gone away, there was no interest, no incentive to bring it even to phase 1, so we dropped it. For Ebola I think that the technology to make a vaccine has been there for many years, but nobody wanted to invest in it because there was no market, no demand.

Do you think this is going to have to change in the light of what has happened with Ebola?
I hope that this humanitarian and health disaster is going to help us to become a little bit smarter in planning the future. I see these emerging infectious diseases as a constant threat. They pose a risk, just as in other areas we have a risk of earthquakes, we have a risk when we drive a car of car accidents, when we buy a house there is a risk of burning the house, and so on - and for all of those risks we prepare ahead of time. We have insurance for cars or we have insurance for houses and we build buildings that are earthquake-resistant. It looks as though the only place where we are not able to make investments ahead of time is health - we always have to wait for the disaster to happen and then we rush and usually with the vaccine we come too late and when the disease is no longer there then everyone forgets and we go from one disaster to another.

How forward-thinking do we need to be? - How long does it actually take to develop a vaccine, generally?
For a normal commercial vaccine the time is between 10 and 15 years. Under very accelerated circumstances, like those we have now for Ebola, you can take advantage of previous studies that have been done and try to rush the development of the vaccine, but we do take risks with safety and efficacy when we accelerate so much, so I think we will be wise to develop those vaccines ahead of time.

How much of a problem is viral mutation?
It depends on the virus, so for Ebola it is not a problem at all, for MERS it does not seem to be a problem, for SARS it does not seem to be a problem, for Chikungunya it does not seem to be a problem. For influenza it is a problem and for HIV it is a big problem, so it depends on the virus.

What about the possibility, aired in the Press, that Ebola might become transmissible in an airborne form? Do you have any view on that possibility?
I believe that it is extremely unlikely. This virus has been there for a long time in the wild in Africa and it has never done it. It has had many opportunities to do it. I don’t think that a small exposure to mankind right now is going to do it and the preliminary data from the genetics and genomics of the virus show very good stability so I don’t think this is a risk in the short term.

So a little bit of good news. But you say one of these diseases pops out about every six months. Do you expect that we’ll be continuing to see emerging infections we haven’t seen before?

Oh yes, I believe that in six months we will have a new emerging disease. Hopefully the Ebola outbreak will be under control. It will not be in the news and there will be other news about another emerging infection and we will rush into the new one, and instead of doing that I think it would be nice to be able to plan ahead of time. I think we have technologies today by which we could prepare multiple vaccine platforms that could be tested for safety and efficacy against multiple diseases and where you could plug in an antigen from a new emerging infection quickly. We already effectively have this for influenza virus, for which as the virus mutates each year we just plug in the most prevalent haemagglutinin variants to the existing vaccine platform. If the regulatory authorities could approve platforms suitable for use against other pathogens – thus already of proven safety and efficacy – we could have a way of being as ready as possible for unexpected events.




The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/12/100



image source: Will we ever… have an HIV vaccine?

What will you do if you are able to "disappear" or "invisible"?


A specially designed metamaterial may help you realize this. Prof. Sir John Pendry explained the idea in an article "Controlling Electromagnetic Fields" in 2006:

"Using the freedom of design that metamaterials provide, we show how electromagnetic fields can be redirected at will and propose a design strategy. The conserved fields—electric displacement field D, magnetic induction field B, and Poynting vector B—are all displaced in a consistent manner. A simple illustration is given of the cloaking of a proscribed volume of space to exclude completely all electromagnetic fields. Our work has relevance to exotic lens design and to the cloaking of objects from electromagnetic fields." 

More about Prof. Sir John Pendry, Imperial Collage
Today’s physics news: Sir John Pendry awarded Newton Medal, IOP
A nice article can be found here: Metamaterials and the Science of Invisibility, the Quantumtunnel

A simple drawing illustrate the basic principle here:

But how metamaterials related to visibility? Listen to Prof. John Pendry at Youtube: 





image source: Improved invisibility cloak tames light