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These Mad Scientists Want to Replace Solar Panels With Potted Plants

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqKrLupbNjo4SnVll9aGiyXe2vOi9cLTSYbNf6hC6HYLMLMQmed40vSd9tPBSm1oDD8C-O0hJ5fim_eeF-Lpc_HlpYxyivJce0l8iw1LPLXQITUrQgxJsp4fkxPs4nUYI3rNboBpjyZqPK/s1600/moss-09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqKrLupbNjo4SnVll9aGiyXe2vOi9cLTSYbNf6hC6HYLMLMQmed40vSd9tPBSm1oDD8C-O0hJ5fim_eeF-Lpc_HlpYxyivJce0l8iw1LPLXQITUrQgxJsp4fkxPs4nUYI3rNboBpjyZqPK/s1600/moss-09.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Designer Fabienne Felder wants to
reupholster jumbo jets with moss. In her vision, passengers will sit on verdant
tufts while the bryophytes purify the air and use electrons captured during
photosynthesis to power the Direct TV panels on the seat backs. Many would
think Felder was crazy, but biochemist Dr. Paolo Bombelli and plant scientist
Ross Dennis from the University of Cambridge were impressed with her brio and
offered her the opportunity to collaborate with their lab.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The scientists are researching the potential
of photo microbial fuel cells, or photo-MFCs, which are essentially potted
plants that act like miniature power plants and transform sunlight into
electricity that can power iPads. They aren’t as efficient as traditional
photovoltaic solar cells, but are more eco-friendly to manufacture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Bombelli and Dennis have worked with designers
previously and created a concept design called the Moss Table—a surface covered
in photo-MFCs that could supposedly power a lamp. In reality, all the prototype
cells could power was a small LCD display, but it illustrated the potential.
While they appreciated Felder’s gonzo vision, the scientists proposed a project
that would be possible this year instead of a decade in the future and decided
to build a humble FM radio.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The result is a sound system comprised of ten
photo-MFCs housed in a frame meant to evoke the feel of a biochemistry lab. It
looks like a science experiment, but Felder’s biophilic boombox can generate
enough power to play a short song. The array and a hidden capacitor can only
power the radio for a few minutes at a time, and listening to an entire
baseball game would require hundreds of plants, but she’s still bullish on the
potential of truly green energy. “Give the researchers a few more years and it
will all change,” says Felder. “But despite these little steps forward, the
breakthrough we’ve had with the radio is not to be underestimated.”</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“I like the idea of getting closer to nature
again–to use it in ingenious ways, without exploiting it.”</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The University of Cambridge holds a patent on
this technology and they’re finalizing an educational kit that will surely
replace potato clocks in 3rd grade classrooms around the country. Beyond that,
stabilizing the technology and expanding its efficiency is the next order of
business. Finding the perfect moss and growing them directly onto conductive
surfaces could lead to efficiency gains, but more experiments are required.
There are over 20,000 species of moss growing in Britain alone and aside from
their ability to produce electricity they also insulate, muffle noises, filter
the air, and have anti-fungal/bacterial properties.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“On a small scale I think we could soon-ish
convert people’s normal houseplants into little power-generators for charging
phones,” says Felder. “On a large scale, especially outdoors, the right mix of
plants will be crucial and that will need more research, both in terms of
plants and irrigation systems, maintenance, etc.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The team’s well aware that it may take years
before the technology is viable in the market. Even at maturity it might only
make sense in developing countries. Despite the challenges, Felder is excited
by the fact that current setups only convert approximately 0.1% of the
electrons the mosses are exposed to. Even with that meager efficiency, if a
quarter of London’s residents used moss to charge their mobile phones for 2
hours every other day, it would save 42.5 million kilowatt hours, nearly $12
million dollars per year, and keep approximately 40 tons of carbon dioxide from
the environment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“I like the idea of getting closer to nature
again and to use it in ingenious ways, without exploiting it,” says Felder. “I
am a designer by trade, but a scientist at heart.”</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_eyVagYE8wFPhLuBDi5teHJiE789qaHPjSV4UgSmcDVnWhOOTn8yJKQMHg7StuPw9KZgWN1Gn85aL64Btdp2GWX4Lw9r0i_kyfwWy6nMaiHMKme201ld4EOTWfXrF94YolvtCm6ryKnoR/s1600/531e28530924as5uIfaVVcO.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_eyVagYE8wFPhLuBDi5teHJiE789qaHPjSV4UgSmcDVnWhOOTn8yJKQMHg7StuPw9KZgWN1Gn85aL64Btdp2GWX4Lw9r0i_kyfwWy6nMaiHMKme201ld4EOTWfXrF94YolvtCm6ryKnoR/s1600/531e28530924as5uIfaVVcO.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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These Mad Scientists Want to Replace Solar Panels With Potted Plants

Designer Fabienne Felder wants to reupholster jumbo jets with moss. In her vision, passengers will sit on verdant tufts while the ...

21:20

First test to predict Alzheimer's years in advance

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgnzFR51ofBw0KWgfXY6806-gcdHS_RV7ROCONHPqSkwNssgnGwfDqL9YEcM0-La7O59TUpax9GCPyzRpNcyiR7_GbzO5ra9gkB7PR9ALApwCtNVesT6HaheYibFnwkelDeQc3F8U9NK5v/s1600/1911688_10152338299067518_1180552327_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgnzFR51ofBw0KWgfXY6806-gcdHS_RV7ROCONHPqSkwNssgnGwfDqL9YEcM0-La7O59TUpax9GCPyzRpNcyiR7_GbzO5ra9gkB7PR9ALApwCtNVesT6HaheYibFnwkelDeQc3F8U9NK5v/s1600/1911688_10152338299067518_1180552327_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The world's first blood test to
predict Alzheimer's disease before symptoms occur has been developed. The test
identifies 10 chemicals in the blood associated with the disease two to three
years before symptoms start, but it might be able to predict Alzheimer's
decades earlier.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Globally, 35 million people are
living with Alzheimer's. It is characterised by a toxic build up of amyloid and
tau proteins in the brain, which destroys the neurons. Several blood tests can
diagnose the disease, but until now, none has had the sensitivity to predict
its onset.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Howard Federoff at Georgetown
University in Washington DC and his colleagues studied 525 people aged 70 and
over for five years. The group showed no signs of mental impairment at the
start of the study. Each year, the team performed a detailed cognitive
examination and took blood samples from all the participants. During this time,
28 people developed Alzheimer's or mild cognitive impairment, thought to be the
earliest noticeable sign of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">An analysis of the participants'
blood highlighted 10 metabolites that were depleted in those with mild
cognitive impairment who went on to get Alzheimer's compared with those who
didn't. In subsequent trials, the team showed these chemicals could predict who
would go on to get Alzheimer's within the next three years with up to 96 per
cent accuracy.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #717171; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Decades of warning?</span></b></div>
</div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The 10 metabolites play a key role
in supporting cell membranes, maintaining neurons or sustaining energy processes.
"We think the decrease in these chemicals reflects the breakdown of neural
populations in the brain," says team member Mark Mapstone at the
University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Once verified in a larger group,
the test should provide a cheap and quick way of predicting Alzheimer's.
Mapstone says that it may even be able to predict the disease much earlier,
because the brain changes associated with Alzheimer's begin many years before
symptoms occur. "These metabolic changes might occur 10 or 20 years
earlier – that would give us a real head start on predicting the disease,"
he says.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The team is hoping to investigate
this by looking back at other dementia studies in which blood has been taken
over decades and seeing whether the chemical changes can be detected that
early, says Federoff.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The group also analysed the full
genome sequence of all of the participants in the study. That work has yet to
be published, but Federoff says the changes in genes over the five years of the
study are even more powerful than the metabolites at predicting who will
develop dementia. "The gene changes are linked to the metabolite changes,
so we're hoping to put all this together to provide a more complete description
of the underlying pathology of the disease," he says. "What's most
exciting is that we know the function of all the affected genes so if we can
intercept these changes, they might make good candidates for new drugs."</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #717171; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Knowledge is power</span></b></div>
</div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But with no treatments available,
would anyone want to take these tests?</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Mapstone says yes. "In my
experience, the majority of people are very interested to know whether they
will get Alzheimer's. They believe that knowledge is power – particularly when
it comes to your own health. We may not have any therapy yet but there are
things we can do – we can get our financial and legal affairs in order, plan
for future care, and inform family members."</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">If the test could predict the
disease 20 years before symptoms appear, the implications are huge, he says.
"Imagine what you would do in your early 40s to slow the onset of the
disease. You could eat the right foods, avoid head trauma or do
more exercise."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 7.5pt; margin-right: 15.0pt; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 13.45pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">"In the short term, I think
some people would want to know and some wouldn't," says Tracy
Young-Pearse, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School. However, if treatments
are developed that are only effective before neurons have started dying in
large numbers, then it will be an easy decision to choose to take the blood
test, she says.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Meanwhile, the new test will be
valuable for drug discovery efforts, she says. Years of failed drugs trials
have shown that you have to catch the disease early to have any influence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 7.5pt; margin-right: 15.0pt; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 13.45pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Three studies starting this year
hope to do just that. One will test anti-amyloid drugs on healthy people with a
rare mutation that gives them early onset Alzheimer's by age 45 (see
"Testing a drug for the memory curse").</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The second will take advantage of
a chemical developed last year that can be injected into the body and which accumulates
in tau tangles. It will allow researchers to track the progression of tau in
the living brain.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A third trial will investigate
whether anti-amyloid drugs can prevent Alzheimer's in older people who don't
yet have memory problems but do have amyloid building up in their brain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 7.5pt; margin-right: 15.0pt; margin-top: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 13.45pt;">
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pre-clinical population could be identified with this blood test, it could be
game changing," says Young-Pearse.</span></div>
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First test to predict Alzheimer's years in advance

The world's first blood test to predict Alzheimer's disease before symptoms occur has been developed. The test identifies 10 ...

21:46

Elephants recognise human voices

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Elephants are able to 
differentiate between ethnicities and genders, and can tell an adult 
from a child - all from the sound of a human voice.</div>
This is according to a study in which researchers played voice recordings to wild African elephants.  <br />

The animals showed more fear when they heard the voices of adult Masai men.   <br />

Livestock-herding Masai people do come into conflict with 
elephants, and this suggests that animals have adapted to specifically 
listen for and avoid them. <br />

The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. <br />

<div class="story-feature wide ">
 <br />  <h2>
Nature's giants</h2>
<div class="caption body-narrow-width">
  <img alt="African elephant (Image: Graeme Shannon)" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70846000/jpg/_70846741_70827687.jpg" />

</div>
<ul>
<li> African elephants are the largest living land animals</li>
<li> Until recently there was one species of elephant in Africa - 
but they are now classified as either forest or bush (or savannah) 
elephants</li>
<li> Forest elephants, as the name suggests, are found in equatorial forests and have straighter trunks and rounded ears</li>
<li> Bush elephants are more widespread, mostly south of the Sahara in a range of habitats including savannah, swamps and deserts</li>
</ul>
<em><br /></em><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature"></a>

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<div id="story_continues_2">
Prof Karen McComb and Dr Graeme 
Shannon from the University of Sussex, who led the study, explained that
 in previous research they had used similar playback experiments to 
reveal that elephants could tell - from the sound of a lion's roar - 
whether the animal was a female or a more dangerous male. </div>
Other studies have shown that elephants respond with fear to the scent and even to the red colour of the Masai clothing. <br />

"I've experienced that," explained Prof McComb. <br />

"If you give a Masai man a lift in your car, you can see the elephants behave in a different way around you. <br />

"They're much more wary of the car and you see a lot of smelling and listening." <br />

Prof McComb wanted to find out if the animals used their very
 acute sense of hearing to identify a potential threat from humans. <br />

The scientists recorded Masai men, women and children saying,
 in their own language, "look, look over there, a group of elephants is 
coming". <br />

They also recorded Kamba men saying this phrase. <br />

While cattle-herding Maasai people often encounter 
free-ranging elephants, which can result in violent conflict, the Kamba 
people's more agricultural lifestyle does not generally bring them into 
aggressive contact with the animals. <br />

When the team played recordings of these different voices 
through a camouflaged loudspeaker, they found that elephant family 
groups reacted more fearfully in response to the voice of a Masai man, 
than to a Kamba man's voice - retreating and bunching together 
defensively.<br />

And the adult male Masai voices triggered far more of these defensive reactions than the voices of women or boys.<br />

<span class="cross-head">Hidden sounds</span>
       An additional and unexpected finding was that when the 
researchers changed the pitch and frequency of the voices - making a 
male Masai voice sound more female - the elephants would still react in 
the same way as they did to the original recording. <br />

<span style="width: 624px;">The matriarch in a family of elephants acts as an anchor - keeping her group together in the face of danger</span>
  </div>
"That suggests they're using completely different cues [to us] in order to attribute gender," said Prof McComb. <br />

Frans van der Waal from the Yerkes National Primate Research 
Center at Emory University, a researcher and the author of several books
 on animal behaviour, wrote in an accompanying article in PNAS that this
 finding suggested we had "much to learn about how elephants make 
decisions".<img height="360" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70373000/jpg/_70373006_70369326.jpg" width="640" /><br />
In this brief clip, Professor Richard Byrne describes how elephants respond to human pointing<div class="videoInStoryC">
<div class="caption">
<br /></div>
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He added in an interview with BBC News: "Making these kinds of fine distinctions in human voice patterns is quite remarkable."<br />

Prof McComb said the research showed that elephants were "trying to adapt" to human threat<br />
s.  <br />

"Humans are undoubtedly the most dangerous and versatile predators the elephants are face<br />
d with these days," she said.  <br />

Prof de Waal added: "The more we understand about how 
elephants navigate their physical and social worlds, and how their 
behaviour continues to adapt to ever-changing threats, the better able 
we will be to effectively work to protect them in the wild."<br />
<em>Source: </em>BBC Nature<br />
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Elephants recognise human voices

Elephants are able to differentiate between ethnicities and genders, and can tell an adult from a child - all from the sound of a ...