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Researchers developed a novel technique to produce precise, high-performing biometric sensors printed directly on skin

Ashley J. WennersHerron
The Pennsylvania State University
Fri, 09 Oct 2020 17:37 UTC
Biometric Sensor
© Ling Zhang, Penn State/Cheng Lab and Harbin Institute of Technology
With a novel layer to help the metallic components of the sensor bond, an international team of researchers printed sensors directly on human skin.
University Park, Pa. — Wearable sensors are evolving from watches and electrodes to bendable devices that provide far more precise biometric measurements and comfort for users. Now, an international team of researchers has taken the evolution one step further by printing sensors directly on human skin without the use of heat.

Led by Huanyu "Larry" Cheng, Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Professor in the Penn State Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, the team published their results in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

"In this article, we report a simple yet universally applicable fabrication technique with the use of a novel sintering aid layer to enable direct printing for on-body sensors," said first author Ling Zhang, a researcher in the Harbin Institute of Technology in China and in Cheng's laboratory.

Cheng and his colleagues previously developed flexible printed circuit boards for use in wearable sensors, but printing directly on skin has been hindered by the bonding process for the metallic components in the sensor. Called sintering, this process typically requires temperatures of around 572 degrees Fahrenheit (300 degrees Celsius) to bond the sensor's silver nanoparticles together.

"The skin surface cannot withstand such a high temperature, obviously," Cheng said. "To get around this limitation, we proposed a sintering aid layer — something that would not hurt the skin and could help the material sinter together at a lower temperature."

By adding a nanoparticle to the mix, the silver particles sinter at a lower temperature of about 212 F (100 C).
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Info

Anatomical change could become the norm


Cosmos Magazine
Sat, 10 Oct 2020 15:29 UTC
Human Arm
© Imran Kadir Photography/Getty Images
The human body continues to evolve in intriguing ways. New research in Australia has confirmed that more and more adults have a median artery in their forearms.

Or, more accurately, they have retained the median artery. It is the main vessel that supplies blood to the forearm and hand in the womb, but usually disappears once the radial and ulnar arteries develop.

Usually, but not always. Since the 18th century, anatomists have been studying its existence in adults, and the new study suggests it could soon become the norm.

"The prevalence was around 10% in people born in the mid-1880s compared to 30% in those born in the late 20th century, so that's a significant increase in a fairly short period of time, when it comes to evolution," says Teghan Lucas, from Flinders University.

"This increase could have resulted from mutations of genes involved in median artery development or health problems in mothers during pregnancy, or both actually. If this trend continues, a majority of people will have median artery of the forearm by 2100."
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Arrow Up

Breakout paper in journal of theoretical biology explicitly supports intelligent design


Evolution News
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 12:12 UTC
red poppy
As John West noted here last week, the Journal of Theoretical Biology has published an explicitly pro-intelligent design article, "Using statistical methods to model the fine-tuning of molecular machines and systems." Let's take a closer look at the contents. The paper is math-heavy, discussing statistical models of making inferences, but it is also groundbreaking for this crucial reason: it considers and proposes intelligent design, by name, as a viable explanation for the origin of "fine-tuning" in biology. This is a major breakthrough for science, but also for freedom of speech. If the paper is any indication, appearing as it does in a prominent peer-reviewed journal, some of the suffocating constraints on ID advocacy may be coming off.

The authors are Steinar Thorvaldsen, a professor of information science at the University of Tromsø in Norway, and Ola Hössjer, a professor of mathematical statistics at Stockholm University. The paper, which is open access, begins by noting that while fine-tuning is widely discussed in physics, it needs to be considered more in the context of biology:
Fine-tuning has received much attention in physics, and it states that the fundamental constants of physics are finely tuned to precise values for a rich chemistry and life permittance. It has not yet been applied in a broad manner to molecular biology.
The authors explain the paper's main thrust:

Comment: The editors of the journal capitulated to the gatekeepers and put a disclaimer on the paper saying they aren't actually "pro-ID". Their excuse for allowing it? They were "unaware" that the keyword "intelligent design" was used:
As John West reported, the co-Chief Editors of the Journal of Theoretical Biology capitulated to intelligent design (ID) critics and added a disclaimer to a groundbreaking peer-reviewed article on intelligent design. They say they were "unaware" that the authors had added the keyword "intelligent design" to the paper. Is this complaint credible? Let's take a look.

The implication is that the editors — Denise Kirschner, Mark Chaplain, and Akira Sasaki — did not realize the article was about intelligent design. That is three people, working together, all failed to notice the obvious. Further, it's implied that the authors inappropriately snuck intelligent design into the keywords when, it would seem from the disclaimer, this was unwarranted. But if the paper is about ID, avowedly so, wouldn't it make sense to put ID in the keywords? After all, that's how keywords work. More on that in a moment. But the precise details of how and when the keyword was added become trivial when you realize that the entire paper is framed around investigating intelligent design, and trying to determine if a scientific methodology for detecting design can be developed. It is completely non-credible for the journal's editors to feign surprise that intelligent design is a core concept in the paper. Had any of them simply read the paper, it would have been evident that the paper has a major focus on ID.

[...]

Perhaps pro-censorship groups like the National Center for Science Education feed science publishers the same talking point when publishers accidentally forget to blacklist ID-friendly viewpoints: "Don't worry about the details or the facts. Just claim you were 'unaware' of the intelligent design connections, and make it look like those devious ID guys tried to sneak it past the reviewers." But as we can see, the article's interest in investigating ID is open, unhidden, and plain to all readers. The only scandal here is on the part of the editors. Either they don't read what they publish, or they are pretending they were "unaware" of the ID connections in the article.


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Fireball 5

Tunguska explosion in 1908 caused by asteroid grazing Earth says new theory


Astronomy
Fri, 09 Oct 2020 18:44 UTC
A new theory explains the mysterious explosion in Siberia, scientists say, suggesting Earth barely escaped a far greater catastrophe.
Asteroid
© Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock
In the early morning of June 30, 1908, a massive explosion flattened entire forests in a remote region of Eastern Siberia along the Tunguska River. Curiously, the explosion left no crater, creating a mystery that has puzzled scientists ever since — what could have caused such a huge blast without leaving any remnants of itself?

Now Daniil Khrennikov at the Siberian Federal University in Russia and colleagues have published a new model of the incident that may finally resolve the mystery. Khrennikov and co say the explosion was caused by an asteroid that grazed the Earth, entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle and then passing out again into space.

"We argue that the Tunguska event was caused by an iron asteroid body, which passed through the Earth's atmosphere and continued to the near-solar orbit," they say. If they are correct, the theory suggests Earth escaped an even larger disaster by a hair's breadth.

First some background. Scientists have long speculated on the cause of the Tunguska impact. Perhaps the most widely discussed idea is that the explosion was the result of an icy body, such as a comet, entering the atmosphere. The ice then rapidly heated up and evaporated explosively in mid-air but without ever hitting the ground.
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Evil Rays

Pentagon to dish out $600M in contracts for '5G dual-use experimentation' at 5 US military sites, including to 'aid lethality'


RT
Fri, 09 Oct 2020 00:42 UTC
Pentagon, 5G
© Reuters/Al Drago/Pascal Rossignol
The US military has partnered with more than a dozen companies for "large-scale experimentation" with 5G technology, including efforts to enhance the "lethality" of certain systems, in what's slated to be a $600 million project.

Dubbing 5G tech a "foundational enabler for all US defense modernization," the Pentagon announced the massive research initiative on Thursday, which will hand hundreds of millions to 15 private contractors to conduct testing at five US military installations. The Pentagon, adding that it would bring together experts from several industries and disciplines, said in a statement:
"Today, the Department of Defense announced $600 million in awards for 5G experimentation and testing at five US military test sites, representing the largest full-scale 5G tests for dual-use applications in the world.

"Projects will include piloting 5G-enabled augmented/virtual reality for mission planning and training, testing 5G-enabled Smart Warehouses, and evaluating 5G technologies to enhance distributed command and control."
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Sun

Solar storm: Huge flare bursts from the Sun - Watch NASA video

SeanMartin
The Express (UK)
Fri, 09 Oct 2020 18:14 UTC
Solar storm: Huge flare bursts from the Sun

Solar storm: Huge flare bursts from the Sun
A HUGE solar flare burst out of the Sun, and the phenomenon was caught in stunning detail by NASA cameras.

The Sun is constantly bubbling and erupting, releasing huge solar flares into space and when it does, it releases a barrage of solar particles into the cosmos. NASA has just released a video of a massive solar flare, which if it had been released earlier, the bombardment of solar particles would have been on a collision course with Earth.

The video from NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite shows the Sun beginning to murmur, before a huge flare is released.

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Cassiopaea

Scientists study the rugged surface of near-Earth asteroid Bennu - evidence of carbonate compounds found


Science Daily
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 18:12 UTC
asteroid Bennu
© (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/AP) By Joel Achenbach December 25
This mosaic image collected on Dec. 2 and provided by NASA shows the asteroid Bennu, which is being studied by the NASA probe Osiris-REx. Bennu regularly crosses Earth's orbit and will pass close to our planet in about 150 years.
As the days count down to NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's Touch-And-Go asteroid sample collection attempt, Southwest Research Institute scientists have helped determine what the spacecraft can expect to return from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu's surface. Three papers published online by Science on Oct. 8 discuss the color, reflectivity, age, composition, origin and distribution of materials that make up the asteroid's rough surface.

On October 20, the spacecraft will descend to the asteroid's boulder-strewn surface, touch the ground with its robotic arm for a few seconds and collect a sample of rocks and dust -- marking the first time NASA has grabbed pieces of an asteroid for return to Earth. SwRI scientists played a role in the selection of the sample sites. The first attempt will be made at Nightingale, a rocky area 66 feet in diameter in Bennu's northern hemisphere. If this historic attempt is unsuccessful, the spacecraft will try again at a secondary site.

Comment: RT adds:
Elsewhere in the research, an abundance of carbonate minerals were located in the asteroid's geology, which suggest extensive hydrothermal systems, containing both water and carbon dioxide, throughout Bennu and its now-deceased parent asteroid.

This adds further credence to the theory that asteroids may work as some form of seeder for life across the universe.

Researchers now suspect that the space rock is more dense at its surface and more porous towards its core, which may help explain the random ejections of material that occur all the time. These ejections have been invaluable to studying the asteroid's gravity, as the debris falls back down near where it was thrown out, all under the watchful eye of the NASA probe.



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Cow

Majority of respondents support chimeric animal research


TheScientist
Thu, 01 Oct 2020 00:00 UTC
pigs
Almost 60 percent of people in a new study on attitudes in the US felt comfortable using animals to grow human organs from induced pluripotent stem cells.

Human-animal chimeric embryos — organisms created using cells from two or more species — have the potential to change how researchers study disease and generate organs and tissues for human transplants. One day, scientists have proposed, it may be possible for someone with, say, pancreatic cancer to have their stem cells injected into a modified swine embryo lacking its own pancreas so it can grow the human organ for donation.

Already, human-animal chimeric embryos (HACEs) have been created using human cells injected into pigs, sheep, mice, rats, and monkeys, although none in the US have been brought to term. In fact, their very existence is ethically contentious. What happens, for example, if scientists were to grow a human brain in an animal, blurring the line between species?

In response to ethical, social, and legal concerns, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a moratorium on funding for HACE research in 2015 pending the development of a new set of regulatory guidelines. While research continues in other countries — and even in the US, through collaborations with foreign researchers and private funding — the NIH has yet to reverse its decision, despite previous announcements that it would do so.

Comment: It will be interesting to see how far this research goes, and where it actually leads to. But considering how values, morality and a denial or higher intelligence seems to be in ever shorter supply in some quarters we shouldn't be too surprised to see more monstrosities presented to the world under the guise of a "wonderful scientific breakthrough!". In fact, the work of it already appears to be well underway.

See:

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Attention

A scientific review of the science behind lockdown concludes the policy was a MISTAKE & will have caused MORE deaths from Covid-19

Rob Lyons
RT
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 00:16 UTC
Anti-lockdown protest in London
© REUTERS / Henry Nicholls
Anti-lockdown protest in London, Britain, August 29, 2020
The report, analysing the information available to UK policymakers in March, says schools shouldn't have shut, that only vulnerable groups like the old should have been isolated, & that herd immunity may have been a better route.

A new paper by researchers at Edinburgh University suggests that lockdowns do not help to reduce the death toll from Covid-19, but may simply postpone those deaths. It's another piece of evidence that suggests that a different strategy to combat the pandemic - one that doesn't impose blanket restrictions across society - is needed.

The research was done by a team from Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy. If that sounds odd, Professor Graeme Ackland, one of the authors, has a good explanation. He told me: "From March, every serious epidemiologist has been seconded to SPI-M (the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling) and SAGE (the main Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), producing new research on a timescale of days. There simply aren't enough of them to also do replication or even careful peer review. But there were thousands of people who could do data-cleaning, code checking, validation and replication."

Ackland and his colleagues were, he says, "tasked by SPI-M and SAGE with exploring any 'reservations'. SPI-M understood very well the problem of groupthink in a closed community, and asked us to 'kick the tyres' on everything. Another thing real epidemiologists would do themselves given enough time."

Their paper is not really a criticism of the original modelling done before lockdown. In fact, it uses the model used by Imperial College to assess a wider range of scenarios than was done at the time. "My overall opinion", says Ackland, "is that the government's experts have reliably produced better predictions than the 'newspaper experts'."


Comment: In other words, flawed as the official data is, that very data shows the lockdowns were idiotic and dangerous.


Comment: Government logic: Okay, but let's have another lockdown, because Covid.

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Info

Researchers have developed a hydrogel that could help repair damaged nerves


American Chemical Society
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 19:14 UTC
Conductive polymer hydrogel
© Adapted from ACS Nano 2020, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c05197
A conductive polymer hydrogel could help repair damaged peripheral nerves.
Injuries to peripheral nerves -- tissues that transmit bioelectrical signals from the brain to the rest of the body ­­-- often result in chronic pain, neurologic disorders, paralysis or disability. Now, researchers have developed a stretchable conductive hydrogel that could someday be used to repair these types of nerves when there's damage. They report their results in ACS Nano.

Injuries in which a peripheral nerve has been completely severed, such as a deep cut from an accident, are difficult to treat. A common strategy, called autologous nerve transplantation, involves removing a section of peripheral nerve from elsewhere in the body and sewing it onto the ends of the severed one. However, the surgery does not always restore function, and multiple follow-up surgeries are sometimes needed. Artificial nerve grafts, in combination with supporting cells, have also been used, but it often takes a long time for nerves to fully recover. Qun-Dong Shen, Chang-Chun Wang, Ze-Zhang Zhu and colleagues wanted to develop an effective, fast-acting treatment that could replace autologous nerve transplantation. For this purpose, they decided to explore conducting hydrogels -- water-swollen, biocompatible polymers that can transmit bioelectrical signals.

The researchers prepared a tough but stretchable conductive hydrogel containing polyaniline and polyacrylamide. The crosslinked polymer had a 3D microporous network that, once implanted, allowed nerve cells to enter and adhere, helping restore lost tissue. The team showed that the material could conduct bioelectrical signals through a damaged sciatic nerve removed from a toad. Then, they implanted the hydrogel into rats with sciatic nerve injuries. Two weeks later, the rats' nerves recovered their bioelectrical properties, and their walking improved compared with untreated rats. Because the electricity-conducting properties of the material improve with irradiation by near-infrared light, which can penetrate tissues, it could be possible to further enhance nerve conduction and recovery in this way, the researchers say.
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