Scientists gathering at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Dallas, Texas are exploring a quantum physics theory of explaining how smell works. Current theories of human smell hold that molecules have certain shapes. When they enter our noses, they fit like a "key in a lock" with certain receptors in our sinus cavities.

However, new research from Dr. Luca Turin of MIT has suggested instead that the "vibrational" state of the molecule might have a bearing on smell. In experiments, flies were able to distinguish between similar molecules that had differing frequencies.

The BBC article above is very general, but if you'd like to read more specifically how quantum physics might intersect with smell, you can check out this paper in the Journal of Applied Physics by Dr. Andrew Horsfield of Imperial College London. Access will require a subscription.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have proposed a novel treatment for people infected with the AIDS virus. Rather than attempt to destroy the virus itself, they've instead suggested patients be injected with a stripped-down, harmless version of HIV. By placing HIV in competition with another virus for the same resources, they hope to slow the onset of AIDS by another 5-10 years.

The treatment isn't without risks, as it ultimately relies upon a rapidly evolving virus to fight another rapidly evolving virus. Animal trials will have to follow.

“The concept and computational model are intriguing, but I’d like to see a clear demonstration of this in animal models,” said computational biologist Allen Rodrigo of Duke University, who wasn’t involved in the study. “So far, it has been almost impossible to design a strategy that HIV can’t escape from.”

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center have discovered that the human body contains two avenues by which it replicates cellular DNA. Just like reaching a fork in the road, one path is considered "elite" where the body slowly and carefully copies crucial DNA during cell division, and the other path is more standard and swift. 

The elite path consumes more resources from the body, but these DNA copies tend to govern extremely important functions in the body.  

Led by Dr. Robert Bambara, the next step is to figure out how to trigger the elite process for more of the DNA. If successful, this research will not only length the average life span, but also make it more disease-free. Bambara estimates his research will lead to some kind of therapy within 25 years.

Working with the Department of Energy, Berkeley Lab has developed a new way to store hydrogen using nano-particles of magnesium metal to absorb and release the gas in a controlled fashion.

Hydrogen is seen as one of the most promising energy alternatives to fossil fuels. When you burn it, the only byproduct is water. However, as the most volatile element in the universe, safely transporting it and storing it under high density is a huge obstacle that must be overcome. No one wants to drive the new GM Hydrogen Exploding Car model.

Now with this major breakthrough, they've brought a hydrogen-based economy one step closer to reality. 

Researchers at the University of Manchester discovered that nano-scale hairs off tunicates, also known as sea squirts, can be used to create "cell alignment" which allows for artificial muscle growth. When placed in parallel, muscle tissue rapidly grows and fuses along the hairs as a guiding structure. 

This announcement is actually pretty huge news despite the brevity of the linked press release above. The ability to create artificial muscle tissue will revolutionize many areas of healthcare. Even better, the same technique can be used to regrow other critical human tissue such ligaments and even nerves.

These are tunicates. They grow on rocks and even artificial man-made structures. Lovely, yes?

Scientists at Northwestern University have successfully transported entangled particles of light through a fiber optic cable without losing the entangled information.  

Entanglement is simply a term that describes an unexplainable phenomena between quantum particles. No matter how far apart two entangled particles are, they will always share the same physical state. Current day physics cannot explain how this instantaneous transfer of data happens. Einstein called entanglement, "The ghost in the machine."

Nonetheless, we don't have to understand any physical phenomena completely in order to exploit it. Who wouldn't want instantaneous communication?

Readers who remember basic high school computer science know that computer software is built on a vast foundation of 1's and 0's...binary code.

The attraction of quantum data, the basic unit being the qubit, is that it can simultaneously be 1 and 0, in addition to being 1 or 0. In addition, qubits contain ...

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According to this latest study, a metastatic cancer's resistance to chemotherapy contributes to 90% of treatment failures. Overcoming a cancer's ability to resist chemotherapy would dramatically increase survive rates. 

Enter nano-diamonds.

In earlier Logic-Cool posts, we’ve highlighted attempts to use nano-particles to treat cancer…in particular gold nano-particles. Now, diamond nano-particles have joined the fight.

This time, the effects are a little different. The diamond nano-particles enable chemotherapy to stay inside tumors for longer periods of time. In drug-resistant cancer, the body’s normal response to expel the drugs prevents chemotherapy treatment from having enough time to work on the disease.

Scientists found that diamond nano-particles allow chemotherapy drugs to stay inside the body 10 times longer. In addition, the drugs remained inside the tumors longer as well. The study suggests that diamond nano-particulars will enable them to substantially reduce the chemotherapy dosage required for treatment, lessening ...

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Scientists at the Medical University of South Carolina have developed a prototype replacement disc by printing an organ scaffold and seeding it with living cells.  Their new spinal implant disc closely mimics the basic structure of a real spinal disc.

Currently, the only options for someone suffering chronic back pain from damaged discs would be 1) infuse the bones, which limit movement and risk damaging other discs, or 2) implant a metal or plastic disc which risks infection and has no shock absorption.

Either way, people who suffer chronic back pain injuries may soon find permanent relief in the coming years.

“Compared to the metal and plastic implants used today, an artificial scaffold swathed in living tissue could repair itself…Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina, led by Xuejun Wen, professor of bioengineering and regenerative medicine at Clemson University and the Medical University of South Carolina, tried to ...

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An international team led by engineers from the University of Queensland in Australia have overcome a key hurdle to the real-life applications of quantum computing. In essence, using current technology, engineers have no way of efficiently measuring the behavior of qubits. Like computer bits, "qubits" are the smallest measure of quantum information. According to the article, just an 8-qubit quantum computer would require over a billion measurements. The measuring tasks increase exponentially with the number of qubits.

Dr. Alessandro Fedrizzi, co-author of this study published in Physical Review Letters states:

“Imagine that you're building a car but you can't test-drive it.This is the situation that quantum engineers are facing at the moment.”

The team developed a "compressive sensing algorithm" that for the first time allowed drastic simplification for measuring quantum processes.

Quantum computing is the holy grail of computer technology. We've covered quantum technology developments a ...

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Scientists at the National Institute of Materials Science in Japan found that by immersing iron compound pellots in alcohol such as red wine, sake and shochu they could induce superconductivity.

Superconductivity occurs when electricity passes through materials with zero resistance. Breakthroughs in superconduction will lead to Science Fiction goodies like levitating skateboards and other such devices. It would revolutionize electric motors and the energy industry. Currently, superconducting magnets are used in particle accelerators, like the Large Hadron Collider, MRI and NMR machines, and mass spectrometers.

Professor Yoshihiko Takano, Nano Frontier Materials Group at the National Institute for Materials Science, Japan, said, "The iron compound becomes superconductive by air exposure but the sample needs to be exposed to air for a few months to show superconductivity. This is a very, very long time.

"However, the sample immersed in the red wine becomes superconductive only in one day, much faster than air-exposure."

Videos like this make me wish Logic-Cool was a single-column blog. To be honest, I wish the array wasn't in the shot. It does add a certain aesthetic, but the sky alone can fill the video.

As readers are probably aware, researchers are currently using stem cells to create treatments for a breathtaking array of diseases. However, before scientists can be sure they're using "pluripotent" stem cells in their research, their cell lines must pass through an exhaustive quality control test that can take 6-8 weeks and involves animal testing.

No longer.

In a study published by Nature Methods, Scripps researchers have developed a way to test stem cells in 10 minutes or less, without using animals. The only task required of stem cell researchers is to upload thousands of DNA sequences from their cells online and compare them to an enormous database of genetic information compiled by Scripps.

By shaving roughly 2 months off of research time, we'll soon see even faster research breakthroughs in the use of stem cells.

The New York Times has a great article summarizing current trends in AI spreading throughout the economy. Computer AI has become so advanced that it's now starting to replace and automate higher-level jobs. Case in point, back in 1978 a lawsuit against CBS forced the company to spend $2.2 million to hire a team of lawyers and paralegals to sift through 6 million documents for several months.

Fast-forward to today.  In January 2011, a company called Blackstone Discovery in Palo Alto, helped analyze 1.5 million documents for less than $100,000 and, of course, taking FAR less time.

Some law bloggers have noted the difficulty for recent law graduates to find jobs, noting that perhaps the trend is due to the bursting of a higher education bubble combined with the current economy. That probably is also the case, but this truly cost-cutting technology probably foreshadows that those ...

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In research promising major breakthroughs in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, researchers at Northwestern University have successfully converted stem cells into brain cells that are crucial to sustain human memory.

Led by Dr. Jack Kessler, the research team reprogrammed ordinary skin cells to create pluripotent stem cells, which in turn, were used to create fresh brain cells.

Currently, there exist no treatments or drugs that prevent Alzheimer's disease from progressing. Dr. Kessler's work promises to change that fact in the next decade.

An overwhelming amount of tech news was released today in various media. The first that caught my eye was two independent research teams have found ways to cause cancer cells to commit suicide. 

At Queen's University in Belfast, Dr. Helen McCarthy successfully packaged genes into nano-particles, which then directly transported the gene into breast cancer cells. The gene is iNOS and forces cancer cells to produce toxic nitric oxide which accumulate and self-destruct the breast cancer. Her technique leaves no negative side effects. Dr. McCarthy expects to begin human trials within 5 years. Her next step will be figuring out how to turn the nano-particles into a dried powder that can easily be transported through the health industry and then reconstituted for treatment in patients. 

And then, halfway around the world, a team of researchers at Wayne University in Michigan have developed a "personalized" therapy by which naturally occurring ...

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The United States Geological Survey has found that the magnetic north pole of the Earth is shifting 40 miles per year.  The rate represents a 36% increase over the last decade.  This means that hikers, campers, boaters and wilderness explorers of all kinds must calibrate for the shift or risk finding themselves potentially hundreds of miles off-course.

Many of the more expensive compasses and GPS technologies take into account the Earth's shifting poles, but the cheap compasses with just a floating magnetic needle pointing north could be wrong.  Experts warn it just depends on where you are and how the field is fluctuating. However, Airports have already been forced to recalculate flight paths due to the pole shifts.

Other unfortunate aspects of the shifting pole: Americans are less likely to see the Northern lights as they move towards Russia. 

Microscopic robotic assembly and rearrangement of DNA just took a great leap forward.  Oxford physicists have successfully created a molecular robot (also called a nanobot or nanite) that can move in any direction along a branched track. Previously, control of such small machines had been impossible. 

The Oxford team built a molecule-sized "motor" with legs that allows it to walk instead of wander about randomly.  The next step involves the researchers teaching the nanobots to move between locations and pick up ingredients.

(h/t Instapundit)

A team of researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have discovered that hearts in newborn mice can regenerate major injuries within 3 weeks of birth. Researchers led by Drs. Eric Olson, Hesham Sedak and Enzo Porrello believe they can eventually use this information to remind adult human hearts how to regenerate as well.

“The inability of the adult heart to regenerate following injury represents a major barrier in cardiovascular medicine...This work demonstrates that cardiac regeneration is possible in the mammalian heart during a window of time after birth, but this regenerative ability is then lost. Armed with this knowledge, we can next work to discover methods to reawaken cardiac regeneration in adulthood.”

In an amazing breakthrough, brain researchers at Lund University led by Tadeuz Wieloch have discovered a substance that reverses at least some brain damage caused by strokes. Previously, only 10% of stroke victims are able to receive anti-clotting medication in time to prevent permanent brain damage. This new research has opened up the possibility for treating stroke victims two whole days after the attack. Their new substance stimulates the brain's own ability to regenerate.

This project reflects the most recent culmination of 15 years of research and has already found its way into clinical human trials in Japan.

 

  

USC cell biologist Valter Longo believes a small Ecuadorian village contains the genetic key to resisting chronic disease. In a study released by the journal Science Translational Medicine, Long claims that none of the 100 villagers ever develop any illnesses associated with aging.

There's one catch. All the villagers share a gene mutation that suppresses a critical growth hormone. They're all dwarves. Any relatives of the villagers who grow to normal heights are all susceptible to normal human diseases. Just how healthy are these little people?

"Their obesity prevalence is higher. . . and yet in 23 years of direct monitoring, not a single one of them ever developed diabetes..One of them got cancer, that we know of, in the last 100 years...They opened her up and decided to give her chemo thinking she was going to die of this. Three years later there was no evidence of ...

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