Needle-free tattoos, smart and otherwise

September 10, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

Before getting to the research news from the University of Twente (Netherlands), there’s this related event which took place on April 18, 2019 (from the Future Under Our Skin webpage (on the University of Twente website) Note: I have made some formatting changes, Why this event? Our skin can give information about our health, mood and surroundings. Medical and recreational tattoos have decorated humans for centuries. But we can inject other materials besides ink, such…

Art/science and a paintable diagnostic test for cancer

September 9, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

One of Joseph Cohen’s painting incorporating carbon nanotubes photographed in normal light. Photo courtesy of Joseph Cohen. [downloaded from https://news.artnet.com/art-world/carbon-nanotube-cancer-paint-1638340?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Global%20September%202%20PM&utm_term=artnet%20News%20Daily%20Newsletter%20USE%20%2830%20Day%20Engaged%20Only%29] The artist credited with the work seen in the above, Joseph Cohen, has done something remarkable with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Something even more remarkable than the painting as Sarah Cascone recounts in her August 30, 2019 article for artnet.com (Note: A link has been removed), Not every artist can say that his or her work…

First 3D heart printed using patient’s biological materials

September 6, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

This is very exciting news and it’s likely be at least 10 years before this technology could be made available to the public. Caption: A 3D-printed, small-scaled human heart engineered from the patient’s own materials and cells. Credit: Advanced Science. © 2019 The Authors. An April 15, 2019 news item on ScienceDaily makes a remarkable announcement, In a major medical breakthrough, Tel Aviv University researchers have “printed” the world’s first 3D vascularised engineered heart using…

Breakthrough with Alpaca nanobodies

September 5, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

Caption: Bryson and Sanchez, two alpacas who produce unusually small antibodies. These ‘nanobodies’ could help highly promising CAR T-cell therapies kill solid tumors, where right now they work only in blood cancers. Credit: Courtesy of Boston Children’s Hospital Bryson and Sanchez are not the first camelids to grace this blog. ‘Llam’ me lend you some antibodies—antibody particles extracted from camels and llamas, a June 12, 2014 posting, and Llama-derived nanobodies are good for solving crystal…

September 2019’s science’ish’ events in Toronto and Vancouver (Canada)

September 4, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

There are movies, plays, a multimedia installation experience all in Vancouver, and the ‘CHAOSMOSIS mAchInesexhibition/performance/discussion/panel/in-situ experiments/art/ science/ techne/ philosophy’ event in Toronto. But first, there’s a a Vancouver talk about engaging scientists in the upcoming federal election. . Science in the Age of Misinformation (and the upcoming federal election) in Vancouver Dr. Katie Gibbs, co-founder and executive director of Evidence for Democracy, will be giving a talk today (Sept. 4, 2019) at the University of…

The latest and greatest in gene drives (for flies)

September 3, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

This is a CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) story where the researchers are working on flies. If successful, this has much wider implications. From an April 10, 2019 news item on phys.org, New CRISPR-based gene drives and broader active genetics technologies are revolutionizing the way scientists engineer the transfer of specific traits from one generation to another.Scientists at the University of California San Diego have now developed a new version of a gene…

Computers made of gold embroidery and an Organic Bioelectronics conference (ORBITALY) in Naples, Italy

September 2, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

Spend enough time reading about emerging technologies and, at some point, you will find yourself questioning some of your dearly held beliefs. It gives a whole new meaning to term, mind altering (also, mind blowing or mind expanding), which in the 1960s was used to refer to the effects of LSD and other hallucinogens. Today <September 1, 2019 (Labour Day in Canada and elsewhere), I have two news bits that could be considered mind expanding,…

The Joy Of Thinking

September 1, 2019 Dan Gillis Communication, Education and Outreach, Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

On this day one year ago, I woke up, stretched, poured myself a coffee, and inhaled my first ever day of sabbatical. It was weird and slightly disconcerting to wake up to the idea that I might not need to step foot on campus for months. The first few weeks of sabbatical were awkward forContinue reading "The Joy Of Thinking"

Nanowires with fast infrared light (IR) response and more

August 30, 2019 Maryse de la Giroday Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

An April 10, 2019 news item on Nanowerk points the way to improved high-speed communication with nanowires (Note: A link has been removed), Chinese scientists have synthesized new nanowires with high carrier mobility and fast infrared light (IR) response, which could help in high-speed communication. Their findings were published in Nature Communications (“Ultra-fast photodetectors based on high-mobility indium gallium antimonide nanowires”). Below, you will find an image illustrating the researchers’ work , Caption: The growth…

25 Years Later

August 29, 2019 Dan Gillis Communication, Education and Outreach, Science in Society, Technology and Engineering

Depending on the university, there’s a good chance that undergraduate students have been or will be moving back to campus this week. This is exactly the case for more than 5000 first year University of Guelph students who will begin moving into residence tomorrow. While move-in has been orchestrated in such a way as toContinue reading "25 Years Later"

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