Preventing collateral damage in cancer treatment

The Electronic Polymer Dosimeter for Radiotherapy, created by a team at Sandia National Laboratories.
 Photo Credit: Spencer Toy

Using a simple concept and a patented Sandia sensor that detects radioactive materials, a team at Sandia National Laboratories has developed a patch to stop damage to healthy tissue during proton radiotherapy, one of the best tools to target certain cancerous tumors.

“This is an important need, especially among pediatric patients,” said Patrick Doty, one of the creators of the patch. Proton radiation therapy is used to send a high dose of radiation into a specific area of the body to disrupt and destroy tumor cells, but the radiation also kills nearby healthy cells. The goal is to be as precise as possible when targeting the radiation, but human movement is an issue especially when dealing with children.

“If you breathe, you move. When your heart beats, you move. You can’t stop those types of motions. And kids are wiggly. You can’t keep them still for long,” Doty said. “Sometimes doctors must resort to general anesthesia and the treatments sometimes go day after day for six weeks. Imagine going to the hospital and having to be put under every day for weeks. That is not good for anyone, but it’s especially bad for kids.”

Rice researcher scans tropical forest with mixed-reality device

Rice doctoral alumnus Daniel Gorczynski wearing a Microsoft HoloLens headset.
Photo Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

Rice University scientists used a commercially available mixed-reality headset with custom-designed software to measure and analyze forest floor vegetation, demonstrating a correlation between animal diversity and the mapped habitat of a Tanzanian national park. According to the paper published in the journal Ecology, the greater the microhabitat surface area, the richer the biodiversity of its mammals.

Traditional habitat field research requires a significant amount of time and effort, but Rice postdoctoral researcher Daniel Gorczynski reduced those costs by incorporating a Microsoft HoloLens with his innovative VegSense software. Gorczynski and his advisor, assistant professor of biosciences Lydia Beaudrot, created VegSense to help researchers measure animal habitats, while the HoloLens was initially designed to improve work quality and outcomes in manufacturing, engineering, healthcare and education.

“Because the HoloLens is a mixed-reality device, you can see both the projected mesh over the forest structure as well as your local surroundings,” Gorczynski said.

A miniature magnetic resonance imager made of diamond

Prof. Dominik Bucher uses defects in diamond (NV-centers) as quantum sensors for NMR spectroscopy on the nano- to microscale. His research group works at the unique interface between quantum sensing and (bio) chemistry with interdisciplinary approaches from applied quantum physics, chemical synthesis and biophysics. The over goal is to perform NMR spectroscopy on smallest length-scales - from nano- and surface science to microfluidics and single-cell biology.
Photo Credit: Andreas Heddergott / TUM

The development of tumors begins with minuscule changes within the body's cells; ion diffusion at the smallest scales is decisive in the performance of batteries. Until now the resolution of conventional imaging methods has not been high enough to represent these processes in detail. A research team led by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed diamond quantum sensors which can be used to improve resolution in magnetic imaging.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an important imaging method in research which can be used to visualize tissue and structures without damaging them. The technique is better known from the medical field as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), where the patient is moved into the bore of a large magnet on a table. The MRI device creates a very strong magnetic field which interacts with the tiny magnetic fields of the hydrogen nuclei in the body. Since the hydrogen atoms are distributed in a particular way amongst different types of tissues, it becomes possible to differentiate organs, joints, muscles and blood vessels.

Warmer climate may impact reliability of solar farms: modeling

Managing weather-induced power fluctuations will be a growing challenge for variable renewables in the future.
Photo Credit: Quang Nguyen Vinh

New research suggests Australia will need to adjust to climate-driven shifts in solar power production.

Australia’s renewable energy transition is well underway, but an impending shift in the reliability of solar due to climate change could impact generation capacity and the management of the electricity grid. 

Modeling conducted by researchers from UNSW Sydney predicts changes in the availability of solar across different regions of Australia under a warmer climate. The findings, published in the journal Solar Energy, have implications for future solar power infrastructure development in Australia, including the world’s largest solar infrastructure energy network.

Australia is a prominent solar hotspot, with several notable large-scale grid-connected solar power systems – or solar photovoltaics (PV) plants – in operation or development. However, the sensitivity of solar power generation to weather-induced variability can limit its ability to deliver a consistent and dependable energy supply.

Managing grid stability due to inherent variability in solar energy generation due to factors like cloud cover, seasonal cycles, and location – all of which will be impacted by future warming – is possible with proper forecasting, power storage and load controls. But, if left unmanaged, it can lead to power deficits that can result in outages or even complete grid failures.

The world may have crossed solar power ‘tipping point’

Photo Credit: American Public Power Association

The world may have crossed a “tipping point” that will inevitably make solar power our main source of energy, new research suggests.

The study, based on a data-driven model of technology and economics, finds that solar PV (photovoltaics) is likely to become the dominant power source before 2050 – even without support from more ambitious climate policies.

However, it warns four “barriers” could hamper this: creation of stable power grids, financing solar in developing economies, capacity of supply chains, and political resistance from regions that lose jobs.

The researchers say policies resolving these barriers may be more effective than price instruments such as carbon taxes in accelerating the clean energy transition.

The study, led by the University of Exeter and University College London, is part of the Economics of Energy Innovation and System Transition (EEIST) project, funded by the UK Government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).

“The recent progress of renewables means that fossil fuel-dominated projections are no longer realistic,” Dr Femke Nijsse, from Exeter’s Global Systems Institute.

Lockheed Martin's Next Generation Interceptor Program Advances Through Major Design Milestone

Lockheed Martin NGI Artist rendering of NGI.
Illustration Credit: Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin's Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) program executed its digital All Up Round (AUR) Preliminary Design Review (PDR), in partnership with the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), on September 29. The company remains on-plan to deliver NGI on an accelerated schedule for the warfighter.

NGI is part of the MDA's Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system and will provide a new, advanced interceptor to protect the homeland against long range ballistic missile threats from rogue nations. During this review, the MDA assessed the NGI program's readiness and maturity to continue into the detailed design phase, confirming that Lockheed Martin's solution continues to meet requirements for the mission.

"I am proud of our team's commitment to innovating with urgency to achieve expectations for this phase of the program," said Sarah Hiza, vice president and general manager of Strategic and Missile Defense at Lockheed Martin. "With this additional confidence in our NGI design through a week-long digital review with our MDA customer, we are on track to deliver the right solution to meet the needs of the nation."

Special probes improve ultrasound imaging in obese patients

Edited image from the publication: scan of the liver of an obese patient. The image quality of the standard ultrasound probe (left) is significantly poorer than that of the high-performance probes (center and left).
Image Credit: Heintz et.al. 2023, Scientific Reports

Ultrasound is used to diagnose many diseases in the abdominal cavity. A new study conducted at the University of Leipzig Medical Center and supported by the Helmholtz Institute for Metabolism, Obesity and Vascular Research (HI-MAG) shows that obesity affects the quality of ultrasound scans of the liver and kidneys. It also shows that the use of high-performance ultrasound probes can improve the anatomical depiction in these patients. The findings have been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Ultrasound of the abdominal organs is a central diagnostic tool and is recommended as the first-line approach for many medical conditions. Compared with other imaging modalities such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound is readily available, avoids unnecessary radiation exposure and can be used in almost every case. However, the accuracy of this method is usually limited in obese individuals because the imaging quality of anatomical structures is impaired. To date, the degree of obesity at which ultrasound diagnostics are no longer sufficiently precise has not been sufficiently researched.

Ultrahigh-sensitivity microprobe optimizes detection of molecular fingerprints

Illustration of a whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microprobe scanning across a sample substrate to collect 2D mapping of molecular fingerprints of substances.
Illustration Credit: Yang lab

Being a good detective requires top-notch evidence gathering, going where the clues are and recognizing their meaning. The same holds true in the realm of sensing technology, where the quest for the perfect balance between ultrahigh sensitivity and a large detection area has been an ongoing challenge. These properties are crucial for a wide range of applications, from biomedical monitoring and chemical imaging to magnetic sensing and vibration detection.

Optical whispering-gallery-mode microsensors, characterized by their ability to trap light in tiny spherical cavities, have emerged as a promising platform for various sensing applications. However, they have historically struggled to achieve both ultrahigh sensitivity and a substantial detection area simultaneously.

Breaking new ground in the field, researchers working with Lan Yang, the Edwin H. & Florence G. Skinner Professor in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, have developed a scanning whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microprobe. This novel device represents a shift in the world of microsensors, offering a remarkable solution to the sensitivity-detection area trade-off conundrum. The findings were published in Light: Science & Applications.

Doubling Down on Known Protein Families

Shedding light on the diversity of microbial communities by looking at protein function within them.
Illustration Credit: Samantha Trieu/Berkeley Lab

Imagine researchers exploring a dark room with a flashlight, only able to clearly identify what falls within that single beam. When it comes to microbial communities, scientists have historically been unable to see beyond the beam – worse, they didn’t even know how big the room is.

A new study published online October 11, 2023 in Nature highlights the vast array of functional diversity of microbes through a novel approach to better understand microbial communities by looking at protein function within them. The work was led by a team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and collaborators across multiple other research centers around the world.

“We’ve more than doubled the number of protein families known up until now, and identified many novel structure predictions,” said lead author on the paper Georgios Pavlopoulos, now a research director at the Biomedical Sciences Research Center Alexander Fleming. “This was a massive analysis of 1.3 billion proteins with massively parallel computations.”

Removal of magnetic spacecraft contamination within extraterrestrial samples easily carried out

PhD student Ji-In Jung, left, and Assistant Professor Sonia Tikoo examine a collection of lunar samples.
 Photo Credit: Harry Gregory

By demonstrating that spaceflight doesn’t adversely affect the magnetism of moon rocks, Stanford researchers underscore the exciting potential of studying the magnetic histories stored in these samples.

For decades, scientists have pondered the mystery of the moon’s ancient magnetism. Based on analyses of lunar samples, its now-deceased magnetic field may have been active for more than 1.5 billion years – give or take a billion years. Scientists believe it was generated like the Earth’s via a dynamo process, whereby the spinning and churning of conductive liquid metal within a rocky planet’s core generates a magnetic field. However, researchers have grappled with how such a small planetary body could have sustained a long-lived magnetic field. Some have even questioned the legitimacy of return samples that point to the existence of an ancient dynamo, suggesting magnetism may have been acquired via exposure to strong magnetic fields onboard spacecraft during the return mission or from plasmas produced by massive impacts on the moon.

Stanford University scientists have now demonstrated that the magnetism in lunar samples is not adversely altered by the spacecraft journey back to Earth or certain laboratory procedures, disproving one of the two major oppositions to the ancient dynamo theory. The findings, published in Geophysical Research Letters Oct. 11, bode well for research stemming from other sample-return missions from space, since any magnetic contamination acquired during flight or on Earth can likely be easily removed.

Superconducting niobium waveguide achieves high-precision communications for B5G/6G networks

Researchers fabricated 20mm length waveguides made of the superconducting metal niobium (right).  It shows improved conductivity compared with normal metal materials such as a gold-plated tellurium copper (middle)  and aluminum alloy (left), and can transmit radio waves that are necessary for B5G/6G communications. 
Photo Credit: Taku Nakajima

A team of researchers has made a breakthrough discovery in the world of Beyond 5G/6G (B5G/6G) signal transmission. Taku Nakajima and Kazuji Suzuki of Nagoya University in Japan, along with their collaborators, created a waveguide made of niobium that speeds up the transition of B5G/6G signals.  

The frequency of data waves has continued to increase as B5G/6G technologies have been introduced. Although the currently used metal transmission lines can handle B5G/6G, research has focused on superconducting metals, such as niobium, that have lower transmission loss and can handle higher frequencies.  

Nakajima and his collaborators evaluated the use of niobium in a waveguide, a three-dimensional transmission line consisting of a metal tube that guides and confines waves along a specific path, minimizing losses due to radiation and absorption. However, working with the metal proved to be difficult as it was susceptible to deformation and damage during fabrication and handling.  

Scorpius images to test nuclear stockpile simulations

Two cathode inductive voltage-adder cells on the electrical test stand are aligned at Sandia National Laboratories. After thousands of tests, each holding 50 kilovolts across the insulating gap, they are ready to be mounted on seven-cell modules.
Photo Credit: Craig Fritz

Scientific Frontline: "At a Glance" Summary

• Project Scope: The $1.8 billion "Scorpius" linear induction accelerator is being constructed 1,000 feet underground at the Nevada National Security Site to conduct subcritical experiments on plutonium without triggering a nuclear explosion.
• Methodology: The machine accelerates electron beams to 22 megavolts and directs them into a heavy metal target, generating high-intensity X-ray flashes to image plutonium as it is compressed by high explosives ("tickling the dragon’s tail").
• Technical Specifications: Scorpius is engineered to deliver four independent 80-nanosecond pulses of 1,400 amps each within a single three-microsecond window, allowing for multi-frame radiographic capture of rapid hydrodynamic changes.
• Scientific Necessity: This facility overcomes the limitations of above-ground tests that rely on surrogate materials, as no other element accurately mimics the unique fluid-like behavior of plutonium under extreme compression.
• Primary Objective: The collected data will validate supercomputer simulations used to certify the reliability of the aging U.S. nuclear stockpile (30–50 years old) and qualify modernized weapon designs without violating the 1992 moratorium on explosive testing.
• Timeline: A collaborative effort involving Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, the facility is scheduled to become fully operational by late 2027.

New dog, old tricks: New AI approach yields ‘athletically intelligent’ robotic dog

A doglike robot can navigate unknown obstacles using a simple algorithm that encourages forward progress with minimal effort.

Video Credit: Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute/Stanford University

With a simplified machine learning technique, AI researchers created a real-world “robodog” able to leap, climb, crawl, and squeeze past physical barriers as never before.

Someday, when quakes, fires, and floods strike, the first responders might be packs of robotic rescue dogs rushing in to help stranded souls. These battery-powered quadrupeds would use computer vision to size up obstacles and employ doglike agility skills to get past them.

Toward that noble goal, AI researchers at Stanford University and Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute say they have developed a new vision-based algorithm that helps robodogs scale high objects, leap across gaps, crawl under thresholds, and squeeze through crevices – and then bolt to the next challenge. The algorithm represents the brains of the robodog.

“The autonomy and range of complex skills that our quadruped robot learned is quite impressive,” said Chelsea Finn, assistant professor of computer science and senior author of a new peer-reviewed paper announcing the teams’ approach to the world, which will be presented at the upcoming Conference on Robot Learning. “And we have created it using low-cost, off-the-shelf robots – actually, two different off-the-shelf robots.”

Insect Cyborgs: Towards Precision Movement

Image Credit: ©Dai Owaki

Insect cyborgs may sound like science fiction, but it's a relatively new phenomenon based on using electrical stimuli to control the movement of insects. These hybrid insect computer robots, as they are scientifically called, herald the future of small, high mobile and efficient devices.

Despite significant progress being made, however, further advances are complicated by the vast differences between different insects' nervous and muscle systems.

In a recent study published in the journal eLife, an international research group has studied the relationship between electrical stimulation in stick insects' leg muscles and the resultant torque (the twisting force that makes the leg move).

Pulling carbon dioxide straight from the air

John Hegarty and Ben Shindel with new ions to facilitate carbon capture
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Northwestern University

Even as the world slowly begins to decarbonize industrial processes, achieving lower concentrations of atmospheric carbon requires technologies that remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — rather than just prevent the creation of it.

Typical carbon capture catches CO2 directly from the source of a carbon-intensive process. Ambient carbon capture, or “direct air capture” (DAC) on the other hand, can take carbon out of typical environmental conditions and serves as one weapon in the battle against climate change, particularly as reliance on fossil fuels begins to decrease and with it, the need for point-of-source carbon capture.

New research from Northwestern University shows a novel approach to capture carbon from ambient environmental conditions that looks at the relationship between water and carbon dioxide in systems to inform the “moisture-swing” technique, which captures CO2 at low humidities and releases it at high humidities. The approach incorporates innovative kinetic methodologies and a diversity of ions, enabling carbon removal from virtually anywhere.

Morphing robots designed at CSU can grip, climb and crawl like insects

Pulling inspiration from the natural world, researchers at Colorado State University have developed a trio of robots that can morph their bodies and legs as needed.

Video Credit: Colorado State University

Pulling inspiration from the natural world, researchers at Colorado State University have developed a trio of robots that can morph their bodies and legs as needed to better crawl, shimmy or swim over difficult terrain.  These new robotic systems are designed to mimic the way biological organisms adapt their shape depending on their life cycle or environment and were developed by a team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The work is described in a new paper published in Nature Communications which outlines the three robotic types and their different abilities including gripping, climbing and amphibious travel.

Associate Professor Jianguo Zhao led the research team on campus in the Department of Mechanical Engineering with recent Ph.D. graduate Jiefeng Sun serving as lead author for the paper. Zhao said these robots are made of materials that can become soft or rigid with changes in temperature and are able to move without the need for bulky power systems such as magnetic coils. That makes them more versatile and better equipped to potentially help humans search tight disaster areas for survivors in the future.

‘Impossible’ Millimeter Wave Sensor Has Wide Potential

This prototype millimeter-wave radar sensor developed at UC Davis is capable of measuring extremely small vibrations and movements while being energy-efficient and cheap to produce.
Photo Credit: Omeed Momeni/University of California, Davis

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have developed a proof-of-concept sensor that may usher in a new era for millimeter wave radars. In fact, they call its design a “mission impossible” made possible.

Millimeter wave radars send fast-moving electromagnetic waves to targets to analyze their movement, position and speed from the waves bounced back. The benefits of millimeter waves are their natural sensitivity to small-scale movements and their ability to focus on and sense data from microscopic objects.

The new sensor uses an innovative millimeter wave radar design to detect vibrations a thousand times smaller, and changes in a target’s position one hundred times smaller, than a strand of human hair, making it better or on par with the world’s most accurate sensors. Yet unlike its peers, this one is the size of a sesame seed, is cheap to produce and features a long battery life.

Professor Omeed Momeni and his lab in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering led the effort. It is part of an ongoing project funded by the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, or FFAR, to develop a low-cost sensor capable of tracking the water status of individual plants. This new radar is the necessary steppingstone that proves it is possible. The work is published in the September 2023 issue of IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

Ultrasound may rid groundwater of toxic ‘forever chemicals’

PFAS is notoriously difficult to clean from the environment, but ultrasound may offer a more effective solution compared to past efforts.
Photo Credit: Edward Jenner

New research suggests that ultrasound may have potential in treating a group of harmful chemicals known as PFAS to eliminate them from contaminated groundwater.

Invented nearly a century ago, per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals,” were once widely used to create products such as cookware, waterproof clothing and personal care items. Today, scientists understand that exposure to PFAS can cause a number of human health issues such as birth defects and cancer. But because the bonds inside these chemicals don’t break down easily, they’re notoriously difficult to remove from the environment.

Such difficulties have led researchers at The Ohio State University to study how ultrasonic degradation, a process that uses sound to degrade substances by cleaving apart the molecules that make them up, might work against different types and concentrations of these chemicals.

By conducting experiments on lab-made mixtures containing three differently sized compounds of fluorotelomer sulfonates – PFAS compounds typically found in firefighting foams – their results showed that over a period of three hours, the smaller compounds degraded much faster than the larger ones. This is in contrast to many other PFAS treatment methods in which smaller PFAS are actually more challenging to treat.

Revolutionary X-ray microscope unveils sound waves deep within crystals

Scientists developed a groundbreaking technology that allows them to see sound waves and microscopic defects inside crystals, promising insights that connect ultrafast atomic motion to large-scale macroscopic behaviors.
Photo Credit: Olivier Bonin/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Scientists developed a groundbreaking technology that allows them to see sound waves and microscopic defects inside crystals, promising insights that connect ultrafast atomic motion to large-scale macroscopic behaviors.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Stanford University, and Denmark Technical University have designed a cutting-edge X-ray microscope capable of directly observing sound waves at the tiniest of scales – the lattice level within a crystal. These findings, published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could change the way scientists study ultrafast changes in materials and the resulting properties.

“The atomic structure of crystalline materials gives rise to their properties and associated ‘use-case’ for an application,” said one of the researchers, Leora Dresselhaus-Marais, an assistant professor at Stanford and SLAC. “The crystalline defects and atomic scale displacements describe why some materials strengthen while others shatter in response to the same force. Blacksmiths and semiconductor manufacturing have perfected our ability to control some types of defects, however, few techniques today can image these dynamics in real-time at the appropriate scales to resolve how those the distortions connect to the bulk properties.”

Tiny CRISPR tool could help shred viruses

Model of a minimal CRISPR-Cas13bt3 molecule generated with a cryo-electron microscope. The RNA to be recognized and cleaved is colored in light blue, while the scissor is formed by the magenta and cyan colored domains. The two loops for controlling the CRISPR-Cas13bt3 are shown in green and red.
 Illustration Credit: Courtesy of the Yang Gao lab/Rice University

Small and precise: These are the ideal characteristics for CRISPR systems, the Nobel-prize winning technology used to edit nucleic acids like RNA and DNA.

Rice University scientists have described in detail the three-dimensional structure of one of the smallest known CRISPR-Cas13 systems used to shred or modify RNA and employed their findings to further engineer the tool to improve its precision. According to a study published in Nature Communications, the molecule works differently than other proteins in the same family.

“There are different types of CRISPR systems, and the one our research was focused on for this study is called CRISPR-Cas13bt3,” said Yang Gao, an assistant professor of biosciences and Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Scholar who helped lead the study. “The unique thing about it is that it is very small. Usually, these types of molecules contain roughly 1200 amino acids, while this one only has about 700, so that’s already an advantage.”