Who knew an artificial neural network could be so pretty? The winners of Princeton's annual science photography contest, Art of Science, were announced a few days ago. And boy, are some of these images beautiful.
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In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face. Sounds obvious today. But in 1968, a full year before ARPANET made its first connection? It was downright clairvoyant.
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If your city is one of the many that's part of Sprints ongoing LTE rollout (or will be soon), then the network's just announced three tri-band mobile broadband devices for your consideration. The hope, it seems, is that as different parts of Sprint's LTE spectrum become available (including spectrum from Clearwire), coverage and network performance of the devices will improve. The hardware offerings are Novatel's MiFi 500 LTE, the Netgear Zing Mobile Hotspot and 341U USB dongle, and are slated to be available by summer. No confirmed availability dates or prices just yet. Sprint also hints at tri-band LTE phones from Samsung and LG to follow. In the meantime, however, you'd better get set up with your Data Link and Static IP.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Sprint
Via: Phonescoop
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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/51958597/
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Stress makes its mark on the female face, according to a new study that finds men judge women with high levels of a stress hormone less attractive. More??
LiveScience.com - 55 mins agoNASA has doled out a research grant to develop a prototype 3D printer for food, so astronauts may one day enjoy 3D-printed pizza on Mars. More??
SPACE.com - 1 hr 58 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Twitter is booming as a social media destination for teenagers who complain about too many adults and too much drama on Facebook, More??
AP - 2 hrs 6 mins agoSource: http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/techblog
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Prepared by: Wes Huffman (whuffman@wpllc.net)
The House Education and the Workforce Committee met yesterday to markup two pieces of legislation, H.R. 1911, the ?Smarter Solutions for Students Act,? and, H.R. 1949, the ?Improving Postsecondary Education Data for Students (IPEDS) Act.?
Summary
H.R. 1911, which would convert Stafford and PLUS loans to a variable rate tied 10-year Treasuries (up to a cap), was reported out of the House Education and the Workforce Committee with a couple of Democrats joining Republicans in supporting the measure.? The Committee agreed to report the legislation on a largely party line vote of 24-15, but Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) and Rep. John Yarmouth (D-KY) crossed the aisle to support the bill.
However, the markup was highly partisan.? Though there is some common ground among Republicans and the White House (and some Democrats) on tying the underlying rate for federal loans to an index, the stark differences among the two parties are very apparent, and the question remains whether the Congress will move to significantly modify the underlying interest rates or wait to address all of these issues via HEA reauthorization.
Republicans, led by Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and Subcommittee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), argued the bill would remove politics and uncertainty from establishing student loan interest rates, while Democrats, led by Ranking Member George Miller (D-CA), criticized the legislation as raising costs on the ?backs of students and families.?
Democrats were quick to point to a new CBO report which states the student loan programs will earn a ?profit? of $51 billion.? Of course, the report uses Federal Credit Reform Act to show these ?profits,? but the questions surrounding student loan accounting, as well as CBO?s admission this figure does not include administrative costs, were absent from these arguments.
With a variable rate solution, projections over future interest rates were a key part of the markup.? Using CBO projections, a report from the Congressional Research Service indicated students were likely to pay more over the life of the loan with a variable rate than a 6.8 percent interest rate.? This led to numerous references from Democrats on the Committee that students would be better off if the rate were simply allowed to double than with the Republican plan.? However, one Democratic supporter of the proposal, Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) pushed back on this argument, noting projections much lower than CBO?s interest rate assumptions.
There was also much discussion over the root cause of the interest rate cliff and a re-debate of previous debates.? Republicans placed the blame on the 2006 Democratic campaign promises and the subsequent College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) of 2007, while Democrats pointed to previous budget reconciliation legislation which switched to fixed rates.
In addition to H.R. 1911, the Committee approved H.R. 1949, the IPEDS Act, which calls for creation of advisory committee for improving the data collection, reporting, and dissemination.? The Committee agreed to report this legislation on a voice vote. If you are interested in the language for the Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute, please email Wes Huffman (whuffman@wpllc.net)
Members who spoke on the bill were supportive, but Rep. Rob Andrews did indicate he hoped it would not delay the current legislative efforts (Wyden-Rubio, Hunter-Andrews) to provide this consumer information is an easy to use format.
H.R. 1911:? Member Comments & Amendment Votes
After the approving H.R. 1949, the markup turned to the more controversial legislation, H.R. 1911.? Subcommittee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) introduced an amendment in the nature of substitute, which she indicated was only ?technical in nature.?? Foxx opened with remarks on the bill, describing the proposal as an effort to remove ?politics and confusion? from federal loan interest rates.? Foxx warned against more ?can kicking,? a reference to Democratic proposals to simply extend the rate for two more years.? She noted similarities between the President?s proposal and Republican proposals with ?hope to build on common ground? and said she hoped to put an ?end to temporary fixes and campaign promises?
Ranking Member George Miller (D-CA) followed, describing the bill as ?very unfair to students? and expressed concerns with a ?truly variable? rate.? He was visibly angered by Republicans emphasizing the rate is lower than the current rate for most borrowers.? He said the bill would cost students $6,000 more over the life of the loan, the first of many references to the CRS report during the debate, and said the student loan program earned $61 billion on ?the backs of students and families.?? He indicated that Republicans want to cut the deficit, but said they are ?bypassing the people who contribute nothing to society? by not taxing corporations.? He added, ?Students are better off if the interest rates double on July 1st than with the Republican program.?
Despite the visible outrage, Miller noted his previous efforts on college costs with Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), the former Chairman of the Committee.? As far as using student loans to make college more affordable, Miller indicated he thought the Committee had ?run that string out? and urged the Committee to extend the rate at 3.4 percent and get to work on HEA reauthorization on a bipartisan basis.
Next to speak was Subcommittee Ranking Member Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), who described the variable rates in the bill as ?bait and switch marketing.?? Like many of his colleagues, Hinojosa referenced the CBO document indicating the government earned profits of $51 billion on student loans (Miller misspoke with $61 billion earlier), said he found it troubling, and indicated student debt affects all aspect of borrower?s lives.
Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) was the next to speak, referencing his work as a trustee at multiple Tennessee universities, and indicating he sympathizes with rapidly increasing cost of college.? He said he would love to subsidize students as much as possible, but the ?cost of borrowing is what it is.?? In response to charges that rates may skyrocket, he noted the cap included in the bill and said ?no one know what interest rates will be.?? He indicated that private loans averaged between 7-7.5 percent.? He closed by noting the real issue is with college costs, which he hoped to address through HEA reauthorization.
Rep. David Loebsack (D-IA) followed Roe, and said he was opposed to the bill.? He continued with many of the same themes of concerns with increasing costs on students.? However, he also said he hoped HEA could provide an avenue for using ?customer service capacity? of state agencies in higher education policy.
Next to speak was Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT), who offered an amendment (and sponsored legislation) to simply extend the rates on Subsidized Stafford Loans for two-years.? He opened his comments by pushing back against Republican statements on the nexus of the annual interest rate crisis, the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, instead arguing it was budget reconciliation legislation from 2002 that was at the root of the crisis.? Courtney referenced his previous work in real estate, stating ?buyer beware? in terms of variable interest rates and arguing they were at the root of the subprime mortgage crisis.? He closed his comments by stating Congress needs to look at all student loan issues via HEA reauthorization, including better information for high school students and improved options for refinancing.
Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) followed, opening by noting the decline of the US in terms of proportion of college graduates in recent years.? He also pointed to the $4 billion in deficit savings and said, ?If you make something more expensive, you get less of it.?? He said we need more federal investment in education and this was not it.? He urged the Committee to consider the wide array of student loan proposal in HEA.
Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), who has his own variable rate legislation and offered a two-year extension of Subsidized Stafford Loans at the primary rate of the Federal Reserve discount window as an amendment, pushed hard against the contention the CCRAA was the cause of this crisis.? He referenced the CBO report on $51 billion in profits.? He said the Republican bill would further ?use students to make money to pay back bad decisions,? specifically mentioning the Bush tax cuts, Iraq, and Medicare Part D
Following Tierney was Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), he noted the CRS report suggesting that, over time, students may pay more than under fixed 6.8 percent interest rates.? However, he was not immediately dismissive of variable interest rates, stating he could support maintaining the 3.4 percent fixed rate or a much lower rate than the Republican proposals.
Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) continued many of the Democratic themes, putting them in some of the strongest terms.? He referenced the $51 billion in profits, arguing that it was obvious the student loan program ?pays for itself,? and was highly critical of the deficit reduction in the legislation.? He was also critical of variable rates, saying they provide uncertainty, and argued the bill was fundamentally the wrong direction for the country.? Holt closed by stating disinvestments in education were ?hobbling ourselves? economically and described the Republican bill as ?dumb.?
Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) began by noting the $4 billion in deficit reduction.? She then recounted her days at UC-Berkeley, noting that she felt her state was ?investing in me? through public colleges and that does not seem to be the case today.? She also emphasized concerns with variable rates, specifically mentioning the rate of 10.25 percent on PLUS loans and stating, ?the government should not be operating a subprime loan program.?
Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) followed Davis, opening by stating his general concerns with college affordability and stating, ?this bill isn?t perfect by any means.?? However, he then called the legislation ?fundamentally sound? and said he support it.? In terms of seriouPolis pulled Wall Street estimates on interest rates vs. CBO rates and noted that, in 2017, rates would be 7.4 percent under CBO projections and 6.25 percent by Goldman Sachs? projections. He said he would like to see the margin on the index a bit lower, referencing the President?s proposal. Polis noted he recently signed on as a cosponsor of Rep. Tom Petri?s (R-WI) EXCEL Act, the proposal for automated wage garnishment as proportion of income as better for students and? ?cutting down on paperwork? for the government.? He closed by stating the bill saves money for families in short term, is likely to do so in the medium term, and it is uncertain about the long term.? He called it a step towards the President?s proposal and HEA reauthorization
Rep. Scott DeJarlais (R-IN) followed Polis, stating his support for the bill.? He indicated the student loan program is broken and operating at a lost.? DeJarlais yielded to a question from Rep. Tierney about the reports of $51 billion in profits.? He was somewhat perplexed by the report and reclaimed his time.? He closed by noting the importance of personal responsibility of students.
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) stated she was ?vehemently opposed? to this ?bad, bad bill.?? She cited statistics on stagnating wages, pointed to the $51 billion in profits reports, and indicated it was ?unethical to raise collection costs? on students (an apparent reference to overall costs).
After the first round of comments, Chairman Kline responded, beginning with the charge that Republicans were attempting to use students to reduce the deficit.? He said, ?We live and breathe by CBO and the gets you into some interesting places.? He noted the exhaustive work of Amy Jones and others on the Committee staff to try to get the bill to a completely neutral score, but it is pretty much impossible.? He acknowledged differences between Republican proposals and the President?s, but noted there were many similarities.
Ranking Member Miller responded with more outrage.? He noted that most Pell Grant recipients also borrowed, arguing the bill would make college more expensive for low-income families.? He then began with a broad attack on the wisdom of the ?market,? before pivoting to private student loans themselves.? He specifically referenced JP Morgan Chase, stating the lender?s average interest was 8 percent and 13 percent for the typical Pell recipient.? He then harshly criticized variable rates, saying they ?obfuscate? future costs and making a reference to the wind down of QE2.
Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), a former Chairman of the Committee, spoke to the real issue being the cost of college itself.? He indicated if someone just listened to Congress recently, they ?would think the total cost of college hinged on student loan interest rates?
Closing the discussion, Chairman Kline again discussed budgetary issues and addressed the Democratic claims of increasing costs on students.? He noted there are multiple forms of scoring and discussed the differences between Federal Credit Reform Act accounting vs. Fair-Value accounting.? He noted that under Fair-Value accounting, the programs score as a cost.
Amendment Votes
After the thorough discussion on the underlying bill, the discussion turned to amendments.? The first amendment came from Rep. Tierney, which would use the primary rate at the Federal Reserve discount window as the student loan rate for the next two years.?? After Rep. Holt spoke in favor of the bill, saying it would not amount to a ?giveaway for students.?? Rep. Polis followed, explaining that the rates of short-term lending from a central bank are far different than those of a long-term student loan.? He said he understood the rhetorical argument, but it was ?apples and oranges.?
The amendment failed 14-23.? All Democrats, with the exception of Polis, voted for the measure and all Republicans voted against it.
Rep. Courtney offered an amendment for a two-year extension of the 3.4 percent rate.? Courtney noted the multiple student loan bills and said, ?We are having a vigorous exchange of ideas on addressing this terrible problem for students and families.?? He then asked if Congress can sort through all of this in the ?next 45 days? and pushed for addressing the issues via HEA reauthorization.? Notably, Polis said he would support this approach.? However, Chairman Kline said he opposed the amendment for multiple reasons.? Chiefly, it continues to ?kick the can? and it does not contain a pay-for.
The Courtney amendment failed on a party line vote of 15-21.
Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV) offered two amendments, both directing the savings from the legislation to student aid.? His first amendment directed the savings to Pell Grants.? The second related to restoring certain ?borrower benefits,? which were eliminated by the Budget Control Act. Both amendments were withdrawn, but Heck indicated he would continue working on these issues.
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In a chilling move sure to rile defenders of civil liberties, an FBI agent also accused Rosen of breaking anti-espionage law with behavior that? as described in the agent's own affidavit ? falls well inside the bounds of traditional news reporting. (Disclosure: This reporter counts Rosen among his friends.)
The revelations surfaced with President Barack Obama?s administration already under fire for seizing two months of telephone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press. Obama last week said he makes ?no apologies? for investigations into national security-related leaks. The AP's CEO, Gray Pruitt, said Sunday that the seizure was "unconstitutional."
The Obama administration has prosecuted twice as many leakers as all previous administrations combined.
?The president is a strong defender of the First Amendment and a firm believer in the need for the press to be unfettered in its ability to conduct investigative reporting and facilitate a free flow of information,? White House press secretary Jay Carney insisted last week. ?He also, of course, recognizes the need for the Justice Department to investigate alleged criminal activity without undue influence.?
The details of the government's strategy against Rosen sound like something out of a spy novel.
Investigators looking into disclosures of sensitive information about North Korea got Rosen?s telephone records and a warrant for his personal emails but also used his State Department security badge to track his movements in and out of that building, the Post reported, citing court documents.
The case began when Rosen reported on June 11, 2009, that U.S. intelligence believed North Korea might respond to tighter United Nations sanctions with new nuclear tests. Rosen reported that the information came from CIA sources inside the hermetic Stalinist state.
Investigators zeroed in on State Department arms expert Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, who was among a small group of intelligence officials to receive a top-secret report on the issue the same day that Rosen's piece ran online.
But FBI agent Reginald Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, ?at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator,? the Post said.
And just what did Rosen do? Here's Reyes, in an affidavit to support his request for a search warrant:
?From the beginning of their relationship, the Reporter asked, solicited and encouraged Mr. Kim to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information about the Foreign Country," the FBI agent wrote. "The Reporter did so by employing flattery and playing to Mr. Kim?s vanity and ego.?
"Much like an intelligence officer would run an clandestine intelligence source, the Reporter instructed Mr. Kim on a covert communications plan," Reyes said, explicitly comparing reportorial tactics to espionage.
Here is how the Post described another section of Reyes' report:
Using italics for emphasis, Reyes explained how Rosen allegedly used a ?covert communications plan? and quoted from an e-mail exchange between Rosen and Kim that seems to describe a secret system for passing along information.
In the exchange, Rosen used the alias ?Leo? to address Kim and called himself ?Alex,? an apparent reference to Alexander Butterfield, the man best known for running the secret recording system in the Nixon White House, according to the affidavit.
Rosen instructed Kim to send him coded signals on his Google account, according to a quote from his e-mail in the affidavit: ?One asterisk means to contact them, or that previously suggested plans for communication are to proceed as agreed; two asterisks means the opposite.?
He also wrote, according to the affidavit: ?What I am interested in, as you might expect, is breaking news ahead of my competitors? including ?what intelligence is picking up.? And: ?I?d love to see some internal State Department analyses.?
The communications system is a bit cloak-and-dagger, but it's not clear from the Post report or the affidavit that Rosen did anything outside the bounds of traditional reporting. People who know Rosen will smile at the Butterfield reference: The tenacious Fox News reporter is known as a Beatles fanatic, Tom Wolfe devotee and Watergate obsessive.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-admin-spied-fox-news-reporter-james-rosen-134204299.html
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran's state radio says authorities have executed two men convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad and the American CIA spy agency.
Sunday's report says Mohammad Heidari, who was accused of providing Mossad with classified information in return of money, and Kourosh Ahmadi, who allegedly gave the CIA intelligence on Iran, were hanged.
The report didn't say when the men were arrested or tried.
Iran occasionally says it has dismantled Western spying networks in the country and announces arrests of individuals on espionage charges.
Tehran accuses Israel and the U.S. of spying on its vital interests, particularly its nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at producing an atomic weapon. Tehran denies the charge.
Both Israel and the U.S have not ruled out a military option against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/report-iran-hangs-2-men-convicted-spying-060923892.html
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While you are hanging out on the Internet (in your underwear, maybe?) on a Saturday, kids that are smarter than either of us are out there getting ready to change the world. 18-year-old Eesha Khare (left), for instance, not only invented a supercapacitor that could someday be a phone battery that charges in just a couple of seconds; she also won $50,000 for it.
Khare is one of the three big winners from the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. She and 17-year-old Henry Lin (right)?who created a model that simulates thousands of galaxies?picked up Intel Foundation Young Scientist Awards. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Ionut Budisteanu won the Gordon E. Moore Award and $75,000 for his AI model that could lead to a cheaper self-driving car. Khare's invention is the one with some really immediate potential though, and quick-charging phones is something we all want.
So far, the supercapcitor has only been tested to light up a LED, but it was able to do that wonderfully and the prototypes new format holds potential to be scaled. It's also flexible and tiny, and should be able to handle 10,000 recharge cycles, more than normal batteries by a factor of 10.
It's a great step in the right direction, especially since we all know that battery life is the most important feature a phone can have
Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-18-year-olds-invention-could-make-your-future-pho-508532491
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ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) ? Mirjana Filipovic is still haunted by the land mine blast that killed her boyfriend and blew off her left leg while on a fishing trip nearly a decade ago. It happened in a field that was supposedly de-mined.
Now, unlikely heroes may be coming to the rescue to prevent similar tragedies: sugar-craving honeybees. Croatian researchers are training them to find unexploded mines littering their country and the rest of the Balkans.
When Croatia joins the European Union on July 1, in addition to the beauty of its aquamarine Adriatic sea, deep blue mountain lakes and lush green forests, it will also bring numerous un-cleared minefields to the bloc's territory. About 750 square kilometers (466 square miles) are still suspected to be filled with mines from the Balkan wars in the 1990s.
Nikola Kezic, an expert on the behavior of honeybees, sat quietly together with a group of young researchers on a recent day in a large net tent filled with the buzzing insects on a grass field lined with acacia trees. The professor at Zagreb University outlined the idea for the experiment: Bees have a perfect sense of smell that can quickly detect the scent of the explosives. They are being trained to identify their food with the scent of TNT.
"Our basic conclusion is that the bees can clearly detect this target, and we are very satisfied," said Kezic, who leads a part of a larger multimillion-euro program, called "Tiramisu," sponsored by the EU to detect land mines on the continent.
Several feeding points were set up on the ground around the tent, but only a few have TNT particles in them. The method of training the bees by authenticating the scent of explosives with the food they eat appears to work: bees gather mainly at the pots containing a sugar solution mixed with TNT, and not the ones that have a different smell.
Kezic said the feeding points containing the TNT traces offer "a sugar solution as a reward, so they can find the food in the middle."
"It is not a problem for a bee to learn the smell of an explosive, which it can then search," Kezic said. "You can train a bee, but training their colony of thousands becomes a problem."
Croatian officials estimate that since the beginning of the Balkan wars in 1991, about 2,500 people have died from land mine explosions. During the four-year war, around 90,000 land mines were placed across the entire country, mostly at random and without any plan or existing maps.
Dijana Plestina, the head of the Croatian government's de-mining bureau, said the suspected devices represent a large obstacle for the country's population and industry, including agriculture and tourism. In the nearly two decades since the end of the war, land mines have taken the lives of 316 people, including 66 de-miners, she said.
"While this exists, we are living in a kind of terror, at least for the people who are living in areas suspected to have mines," she said. "And of course, that is unacceptable. We will not be a country in peace until this problem is solved."
In 2004, Filipovic and her boyfriend were on a fishing trip that took them to a river between Croatia and Bosnia.
"As we were returning hand-in-hand, my boyfriend stepped on a mine," the 41-year-old Filipovic said. "It was an awful, deafening explosion ... thousands of shrapnel parts went flying, hundreds ending up in my body. He was found dead several meters away, while I remained in a pool of blood sitting on the ground."
She sued the Croatian government, saying the area wasn't clearly marked as a former minefield.
"At first I thought I was asleep," she recalled. "Then I heard the voice of my father. I opened my eyes, and saw nothing. I thought I lost my eyes."
The government admitted guilt in the case for failing to keep the minefield sign, but the court has yet to determine financial compensation.
It may be a while before the honeybees hit real minefields, Kezic said. First, they will conduct controlled tests, with real mines but which are marked.
Kezic said American researchers have in the past experimented with mine-searching bees, but TNT ? the most common explosive used in the Balkan wars ? wasn't part of their experiment because its smell evaporates quickly, and only small traces remain after time. Rats and dogs are also used to detect explosives worldwide, but unlike bees, they could set off blasts on the minefields because of their weight.
Even after the de-miners have done their job in an area, some land mines are missed and remain in the soil, and they are most often the cause of deadly explosions. Once the experiment with bees proves scientifically reliable, the idea is to use them in the areas that have already been de-mined, where their movement would be followed with heat-seeking cameras, Kezic said.
"We are not saying that we will discover all the mines on a minefield, but the fact is that it should be checked if a minefield is really de-mined," he said. "It has been scientifically proven that there are never zero mines on a de-mined field, and that's where bees could come in."
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As an update to a previous blog post detailing changes to its prepaid plans, Verizon stealthily made yet another change that will give prepaid customers even more data. Verizon keeps things simple on its prepaid smartphone offerings, with two tiers -- $60 and $70. Both have unlimited talk and text, and previously either 500MB or 2GB of data. Verizon is now bumping those up to 2GB and 4GB, respectively, with no price increase. The plan changes go into effect right away for existing customers that have either of the two plans, but new customers will have to wait until June 6th to have the option available when starting a line.
If you're new to Verizon's prepaid plans, you have to also remember that they are restricted to just its 3G service, and there's no indication of when (if ever) LTE will be included. With that being said, these are still a couple of good options that just got a little more competitive in the steadily expanding prepaid market.
Source: Verizon
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/tnsIk_bZWMs/story01.htm
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Just about six months ago, Uber won a big battle with D.C. regulators to have its on-demand car service approved for operation within the nation's capital. But new regulations from the D.C. Taxi Commission could severely hamper the company's ability to offer low-cost services in the nation's capital.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/w7USEGUbhWs/
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Fatale #14 by Sean Phillips
Why did it have to be toothy Cthulu faces? I hate toothy Cthulu faces! The eerie use of black and white works quite well with this cover, followed by the stunning red center drawing attention to our femme fatale. She?s got her Chicago Typewriter prepped and ready for action. Judging from her outfit and the iron eagle looking symbol at the bottom, if I didn?t know any better I?d guess this issue take place during World War II! With a cover as intriguing as this one, I?m willing to check to see if I guessed right.
In this issue, Conan embraces the hippie culture of the 1960s in Cimmeria, drops acid, and takes advantage of all the free love going around. All kidding aside, this is truly a beautiful cover. Carnevale just goes wild with the coloring, making it a pleasure to let your eyes wander and really soak-in the cover in its entirety. Great contrast of warm and cool colors, and creepy use of the dangling hands.
Speaking of contrasts, major props to Ross for this bloody masterpiece. It brings chills seeing the Shadow in the reflection, for it looks as if he?s trapped in a doomed city of some kind. The lady in white doesn?t look all that innocent for no matter who you are, everyone has someone?s blood on their hands (including her). Ross always succeeds with the angelic glow technique, for just from looking at this cover you?re lead to believe that she must be innocent in all of this. Absolute stunning job by Ross.
?Always the artists,? ?Mance Rader. Great use of faces forming from the blood, as it spirals out of a lifeless corpse front and center. It?s almost like following the yellow brick road, only nastier. The expressions on the faces are those of pure horror, for this death was shocking to everyone it seems, and Yardin does a fabulous job conveying that in a few brush strokes. The real question isn?t ?who did it,? but rather ?who is going to clean up this mess??
I now know what?s black and white and red all over (spoiler: it?s not a newspaper). Williams III does a superb job incorporating Gotham City and the occult-looking archeology into Batwoman?s cape, having it all connect together as a whole. It?s a great use of layout, something Williams III has been displaying for the past 20 issues with ease. The blood spatter up top only makes the cover that much more thrilling.
This is my favorite cover of the week, hands down. The sleek grayscale look of Wonder Woman and her logo is so cold feeling, that the swarm of red-hot hands make for an intense scene. The god baby with the blue eyes and aura is a little unsettling, but obviously it?s somehow special enough to warrant being surrounded by would-be babynappers. The arms alone remind me of the style of Saul Bass, which always scores extra point in my book. Bravo to Chiang for making a cover design so simple spring to life with just the right use of color.
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Cameron Hatheway is the host of Cammy?s Comic Corner and Arts & Entertainment Editor of the Sonoma State STAR. You can take him to the river and drop him in the water on Twitter @CamComicCorner.
Source: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/05/18/cammys-covers-fatale-to-wonder-woman/
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Copyright ? 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
IRA FLATOW, HOST:
This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. This week, scientists at the Oregon Health and Science University, OHSU, announced a breakthrough in cloning of a human embryo. They took adult cells, put the cells into specially prepared human eggs and created genetically identical embryos. It's something lots of stem cell researchers have been trying to do for years without success.
How did they get it to work, and what happens next? Will the technique be used to treat disease? We have other ways of creating stem cells, ways that don't involve creating embryos. What makes this different, and what are the ethical questions we need to consider? That's what we'll be talking about, our number 1-800-989-8255. Let me introduce my guests.
George Daley is a professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Boston Children's Hospital. Josephine Johnston is a research scholar at the Hastings Center, that's a bioethics think tank based in Garrison, New York. Welcome to the program Dr. Johnston, Dr. Daley.
GEORGE Q. DALEY: Good to be here.
Thank you very much.
FLATOW: Dr. Daley, let me ask you: Is this a real breakthrough in the true sense?
DALEY: Oh, it definitely is. I mean, technically this has been a challenge that dozens of labs have really been working hard at across the world for, say, 10 or 15 years, and this is really the first time that it's worked in humans.
FLATOW: Give us a little bit of an inside baseball, a few details of what they did.
DALEY: They fundamentally used the same technique that was used by Campbell and Wilmette to make Dolly the Sheep in 1997. But instead of going all the way to making a baby, which is not anything anyone wants to propose, they copied cells. What that really involved was taking an egg from a woman who was paid to donate that egg, removing the DNA from the egg and replacing it with the DNA from a donor cell.
They did it both from a kind of generic fibroblast but also from the donor cells of a patient with a particular disease. What that does then is it actually starts the process of early human development, there's a small embryo created from which one can harvest stem cells. So they made patient-derived stem cells that would have been identical to that individual with the disease.
FLATOW: Did it go as far as the cell to actually develop stem cells in it?
DALEY: Yes, so they - their breakthrough was being able to reproduce the sort of early stage blastocyst, you know, this earliest stage of human development, when we're really a small cluster of cells, a couple hundred cells at most, but those are the substrates for deriving these master cells, these embryonic stem cells that can be any tissue in the human body.
FLATOW: And theoretically, then, there was no father to this embryo, it was just a mother's egg?
DALEY: Well yes, I mean, the mother's egg is involved, but fundamentally we're talking about the DNA, in the case of the patient, the DNA is a combination of that patient's mother and father. I mean, it's the identical nucleus and DNA from the patient.
FLATOW: Now I heard in the technique there was involved using caffeine. What was that about?
(LAUGHTER)
DALEY: Yeah, the Starbucks experiment, in a sense. Well, one of the challenges that many groups have faced, than when you manipulate the egg, when you stick an eye needle into it to pull out its chromosomes, that tends to shock the egg and activate it, and it tends to start to develop. Caffeine, we know, actually inhibits some of the enzymes that are involved in activating the egg.
And so by adding caffeine to the culture, the mix, the sort of broth in which these cells are grown, they could stick the needle in without starting this process. So it was an important contribution to getting this all to work.
FLATOW: Dr. Johnston, as a bioethicist, what are some of the possible landmines here?
JOSEPHINE JOHNSTON: Well, we're back to a situation where we're talking about the creation of an embryo, which will then be destroyed for research purposes, which of course is still controversial in the United States and in other countries. And because of the nature of this particular experiment, it reopens the debate about reproductive cloning and whether this technology takes us a step further towards, or closer towards being able to do reproductive cloning.
One of the other issues that is, you know, still debated to some extent is the involvement of egg donors in research and the compensation that is provided to them. So there are at least - those are at least a few of the unresolved debates that this particular study sort of reignites.
FLATOW: Does it matter that these are not fertilized eggs?
JOHNSTON: So, does it matter for...
FLATOW: People who are concerned about...
JOHNSTON: So I think this question of whether or not this kind of embryo is - morally has the same status as an embryo that was created by fertilization is an unresolved question. A lot of people are opposed to the destruction of embryos created by fertilization, and now we have one created by cloning, and the question is is it the same kind of thing in terms of its status?
And that's not a question I can answer for - it's a very contentious, about which a lot of people have different feelings about what is a human embryo and what is its moral status, and what can we do with it.
FLATOW: George Daley, we have another type of technology to get these types of cells, don't we, without creating embryos?
DALEY: Yes, in fact it was the subject of this past year's Nobel Prize. Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese scientist, taught us that if you take just a couple of genes that are normally expressed in embryo-derived stem cells and transfer those genes into let's say a skin cell from a particular patient, you can reset the skin cell back to its embryonic state. These are called induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPS cells.
And IPS cells look to all of us to be virtually identical to embryo-derived stem cells. They have, you know, tremendous potential for teaching us about disease and maybe one day for actually treating disease. Now in reality, though, when we look very carefully at the molecular details of the IPS cells, there are still some lingering questions as to whether they are identical to the embryo-derived cells.
We did an experiment a few years ago in mice where we very carefully compared these IPS cells to embryo-derived stem cells and to this new type of stem cell, the ones derived by cloning or nuclear transfer. And in that experiment it looked like the cloned stem cells had very subtle advantages. They were slightly more similar to the natural stem cells.
And whether that's going to be relevant in the human context to studying disease or treating disease, we don't know. But this new breakthrough, this human nuclear transfer stem cell, now gives us the ability to make that ultimate comparison. So from a scientific point of view, this is in fact an important contribution.
FLATOW: There is another difference in that you are inserting the nucleus, the DNA, into the cytoplasm, right, of the...
DALEY: Yes, this is a very important point, as well. So one of the real advantages of nuclear transfer, if you will, is to potentially treat a range of diseases that are called mitochondrial disorders. Now in the egg, the - obviously the DNA encodes for most of the genes, but there are these little factories, these sort of power plants of the cell, called mitochondria, which are small structures that live outside of the nucleus.
They are inherited from the mother in her cytoplasm. Now if you have defective mitochondria, you can have a range of diseases called Kearns-Sayre syndrome or Pearson's syndrome. These can be devastating diseases. They can be associated with eye muscle abnormalities or muscle weakness or bone marrow failure. We've seen kids here at the Children's Hospital who die of these diseases.
Nuclear transfer actually allows you to generate an egg or an early embryo, which has the DNA of the parents but has replaced any defective mitochondria with healthy mitochondria. So this general strategy of nuclear transfer does have a legitimate medical application in the treatment of mitochondrial diseases.
But I want to go on record as saying that there's a clear, bright line between legitimate scientific applications of nuclear transfer, of cloning, and that is to make stem cell, that is different from what I would say is an illegitimate and unsafe application, which would be in reproduction, in making babies.
I don't think any legitimate scientist wants to take this technology forward to making babies, but to make cells and to study cells is of great medical value.
FLATOW: Dr. Johnston?
JOHNSTON: Well, I think that Dr. Daley is right in pointing out that there is a significant, significant consensus against the use of this technology for reproductive cloning in the scientific community. And that's reflected also in some state laws in the U.S. and also some laws in other countries that have distinguished between reproductive uses and research and therapeutic uses of this technology.
I would say that I don't think we've had a really significant public debate about reproductive cloning and what would - why we would ever want to do it and what any reasons might be for doing it. It's fairly widely assumed to be a negative use, and many people are opposed to it.
We don't have a national law on that, but a number of states that have put money into stem cell research have gone - have passed laws at a state level that permit therapeutic uses of this technology but ban reproductive uses. So it is a very popular and important distinction.
FLATOW: But do you suspect someone might do it someplace, somewhere?
DALEY: Well, you know, it's...
FLATOW: I mean, we had Dolly the Sheep.
DALEY: We don't know what is going to be practiced, and in fact there was one published attempt some years ago of the use of nuclear transfer to create a cloned embryo and to do a transfer to create a pregnancy. That was done offshore. The Food and Drug Administration is on record as saying that it would fall within their jurisdiction if this type of approach were practiced for human fertility.
FLATOW: OK, let me interrupt you. We'll get - we have to take a break. We'll talk lots more about that, our number 1-800-989-8255, talking with Josephine Johnston and George Daley on SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow, this is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY; I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking this hour about the breakthrough announced this week in cloning of a human embryo with my guests, we were talking about this, George Daley of Boston Children's Hospital, Josephine Johnston of The Hastings Center.
When I rudely interrupted you, Dr. Daley, you were talking about whether you think anybody would ever actually go down the full Dolly path and clone a human, and you said this is under FDA regulation, and that it probably, most likely, for sure, the FDA would not permit this. But I'm thinking of somewhere around the other parts of the world, where there is no tight regulation of this.
DALEY: And that's true, and I think there is - there is one published account of an attempt. I mean, I think the question that's raised is, you know, does there need to be, you know, a new law, and I'm making the point that the Food and Drug Administration already has jurisdiction and would step in and prevent this.
And so my concern is that any new law, as it's been debated in the past in the U.S. Congress, has tended to conflate the legitimate scientific applications of nuclear transfer, the so-called therapeutic cloning, and the illegitimate reproductive aspect. I'm worried that the politicization of this issue would end up with a law that would outlaw all sorts of nuclear transfer research, and that would be, I think - have a very, very negative effect on the science, which is extremely valuable and should continue.
FLATOW: Dr. Johnston, does it matter ethically that the women were paid for using their eggs?
JOHNSTON: Well, this is something that's - about which there's a significant debate. So I personally have come forward towards the end of believing that it is permissible to pay participants in research for their participation, and I don't see why would treat egg donors any differently in that regard than we treat other people who are involved in research and often compensated for their time.
So I don't see that as inherently trouble. I will point out, of course, that egg donation carries risks with it, and so we want to be very careful that we understand those risks and that they're clearly communicated and that they are balanced against the benefits of the research.
FLATOW: Let me go to one call from Ron(ph) in Manchester, New Hampshire. Hi Ron.
RON: Hi, amazing topic, and I (unintelligible), correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding is a major difference between a regular somatic cell and a cell derived - you know, an embryo derived the conventional way has to do with the telomeres on the chromosomes, that, you know, the gonadal tissues that give rise to the reproductive cells can clip the telomeres and make them young.
But like, if you start with an adult cell, and the cell - the chromosomes have already aged, and they have these longer telomeres, you know, one would think that would be a major difference between these embryos and conventionally derived embryos.
DALEY: Yeah, so telomeres are like the little plastic at the end of your shoelace that keeps it from fraying. The telomeres are on the ends of each of the human chromosomes, and they end in the cells of the gonads and let's say the sperm and the egg, they tend to be kind of rejuvenated with each cycle of life.
The cloning process, as with the reprogramming process that Yamanaka taught us about, actually re-grows the telomeres. So we believe that the stem cells that arise from the process are in a way rejuvenated, and so we wouldn't have to worry about the aging of these chromosomes by deterioration of telomeres. So the stem cells really function very well.
FLATOW: If you then created new body parts or use them therapeutically, the stem cells, and they had rejuvenated telomeres, would - does it mean that those body parts are younger?
DALEY: Well, I mean, to say that all aging has to do with the deterioration of the telomeres is a - you know, that's simplistic. Aging is a very complex process that affects lots of aspects of the cells. But if you're just looking at telomeres, when we make stem cells in a Petri dish and tissues from them, they have been rejuvenated at the level of their telomeres. So yes, they would be healthier and younger, if you will.
JOHNSTON: Can I...?
FLATOW: Sure.
JOHNSTON: One thing that the caller raises in my mind is that we have had some experience with cloning in animals, reproductive cloning, and there have been - it seems that there are medical problems with the offspring. And so what the caller's question made me think about the fact that even if the cells, the stem cells that we get out of the cloned embryos are medically useful and helpful, it's not clear that any reproductive use of those embryos would result in healthy children, which is one of the reasons why there is so much concern about reproductive cloning and why that would represent a significant ethical question about whether it could be done safely, if it would be done at all.
DALEY: Yeah, I would echo that. We have had experience with cloning over a dozen different mammals, from mice to pigs to cats, dogs, cows and the like, and, you know, where you can tell, these cloned animals have had significant medical problems: shortened life spans; problems with obesity and the like.
And so for that reason I don't think any scientists are comfortable thinking that you're going to use these embryos in reproduction.
FLATOW: One question for you before we go. If you were going to use them therapeutically, as you're speaking, would there be any advantage - let's say a woman needs some therapeutic use of these stem cells - would there be any advantage in taking an egg from the same person that you would take the skin cells to produce the stem cells from?
DALEY: Well you ask an interesting question. I mean whether or not there's any immunogeneticy or an immune response to proteins of the mitochondria, and there is some evidence that that can be - so your question is - yeah, there might be some advantages, but we have the IPS approach.
So if I took a skin biopsy from that woman and reprogrammed her skin cells, I'd be bringing along with it not only her nuclear DNA but her mitochondria, and they would be identical to her. So the real question is: Does a cloned cell have any scientific advantage or medical value that we don't already get from IPS cells?
JOHNSTON: And it's an important question. I happen to think IPS cells are much more flexible and easier to use and will ultimately be the dominant platform, but we have to do the comparison, and we have to answer the questions.
FLATOW: Well, thank you very much for taking time to talk with us about this very interesting subject, George Daley, professor at Harvard Med School, director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Boston Children's Hospital; Josephine Johnston, research scholar at The Hastings Center, that's a bioethics think tank based in Garrison, New York. Thank you both.
DALEY: Thank you for your interest.
JOHNSTON: Thank you very much.
FLATOW: You're welcome.
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KUNMING, China (AP) ? More than 2,000 people in southern China unfurled banners and shouted "Protest! Protest!" on Thursday to oppose plans for a petroleum refinery, in a large environmental rally that local authorities allowed to go forward in order to let the public vent frustration.
The gathering in downtown Kunming ? the second one in the city this month ? was largely peaceful, though there were minor scuffles with police. Witnesses said at least two people were briefly detained, though it was noteworthy that authorities ? apparently eager to appear open and inclusive ? made no effort to shut down the rally.
A city vice mayor, He Bo, even tried to meet with the demonstrators, but his attempts to explain the refinery project to the crowd were cut short by the cries of a protester.
Kunming officials said this week that the refinery planned by powerful state company PetroChina Co. will meet environment standards and is crucial for the local economy, but residents are worried about the air and water pollution that will result.
"We don't need speedy development. What we need is a healthy and peaceful country," Kunming resident Liu Yuncheng said. "I still haven't given birth to a baby. I want to be pregnant and I want a healthy baby."
But while police allowed the protest to proceed, censors scrubbed posts in China's social media that were critical of the project planned by the powerful state Petro China Co., and employees of state companies were asked to promise not to participate in any rally or talk about the project in public venues or online.
The scene in Kunming was in contrast to a planned protest against a petrochemical plant earlier this month in the city of Chengdu , where authorities thwarted the gathering by flooding the streets with police in a supposed earthquake drill, reflecting the balancing act of Chinese officials as they seek to promote economic growth while maintaining social stability.
Members of China's public, especially among the rising middle class, have become increasingly outspoken against environmentally risky factories, in reaction to a decade of development-at-all-costs policies that have polluted the country's air and waterways.
However, they have virtually no say on industrial projects, and have instead turned to organizing protests. Several of those turned violent last year, in some cases prompting local governments to scrap plans for factories.
In response to a May 4 protest by Kunming residents, local government officials and PetroChina held a series of public meetings and promised that operations at the 20 billion yuan ($3 billion) refinery would be environmentally clean. The facility is expected to produce up to 10 million tons of refined oil annually.
But officials also said the project's environmental evaluation report remains confidential, aggravating a public already upset with a lack of information about the project. Residents remain skeptical about any government claim that the project will be safe.
"We cherish blue skies and white clouds, as well as good air. If you want to build a refinery with 10 million tons of capacity here in the place where we live, we resolutely oppose it," said a Kunming resident who identified herself only by her surname, Liu. "We want a good life. We women want to be beautiful."
Kunming Mayor Li Wenrong was quoted in state media last week as saying the public's opinion would be taken into account in a democratic way in the approval process for another upcoming project ? plans to build factory that would produce p-xylene, a toxic chemical used in the production of polyester and other materials.
The refinery is connected to operations of the upcoming Myanmar-China pipeline, which originally was due to start pumping oil and gas at the end of this month after eight years of planning and construction.
China has invested heavily for access to resources from neighboring Myanmar and to establish a new, shorter route for the procurement of oil and gas, as an alternative to shipping routes.
Opposition to the pipeline has been strong on both sides of the border. Myanmar officials recently said its operations would be delayed.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/residents-shout-protest-over-refinery-china-115349759.html
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Public release date: 16-May-2013
Share ] Contact: Sarah McDonnell
s_mcd@mit.edu
617-253-8923
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Injectable nanoparticles developed at MIT may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin.
The nanoparticles were designed to sense glucose levels in the body and respond by secreting the appropriate amount of insulin, thereby replacing the function of pancreatic islet cells, which are destroyed in patients with Type 1 diabetes. Ultimately, this type of system could ensure that blood-sugar levels remain balanced and improve patients' quality of life, according to the researchers.
"Insulin really works, but the problem is people don't always get the right amount of it. With this system of extended release, the amount of drug secreted is proportional to the needs of the body," says Daniel Anderson, an associate professor of chemical engineering and member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.
Anderson is the senior author of a paper describing the new system in a recent issue of the journal ACS Nano. Lead author of the paper is Zhen Gu, a former postdoc in Anderson's lab. The research team also includes Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, and researchers from the Department of Anesthesiology at Boston Children's Hospital.
Mimicking the pancreas
Currently, people with Type 1 diabetes typically prick their fingers several times a day to draw blood for testing their blood-sugar levels. When levels are high, these patients inject themselves with insulin, which breaks down the excess sugar.
In recent years, many researchers have sought to develop insulin-delivery systems that could act as an "artificial pancreas," automatically detecting glucose levels and secreting insulin. One approach uses hydrogels to measure and react to glucose levels, but those gels are slow to respond or lack mechanical strength, allowing insulin to leak out.
The MIT team set out to create a sturdy, biocompatible system that would respond more quickly to changes in glucose levels and would be easy to administer.
Their system consists of an injectable gel-like structure with a texture similar to toothpaste, says Gu, who is now an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and molecular pharmaceutics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. The gel contains a mixture of oppositely charged nanoparticles that attract each other, keeping the gel intact and preventing the particles from drifting away once inside the body.
Using a modified polysaccharide known as dextran, the researchers designed the gel to be sensitive to acidity. Each nanoparticle contains spheres of dextran loaded with an enzyme that converts glucose into gluconic acid. Glucose can diffuse freely through the gel, so when sugar levels are high, the enzyme produces large quantities of gluconic acid, making the local environment slightly more acidic.
That acidic environment causes the dextran spheres to disintegrate, releasing insulin. Insulin then performs its normal function, converting the glucose in the bloodstream into glycogen, which is absorbed into the liver for storage.
Long-term control
In tests with mice that have Type 1 diabetes, the researchers found that a single injection of the gel maintained normal blood-sugar levels for an average of 10 days. Because the particles are mostly composed of polysaccharides, they are biocompatible and eventually degrade in the body.
The researchers are now trying to modify the particles so they can respond to changes in glucose levels faster, at the speed of pancreas islet cells. "Islet cells are very smart. They can release insulin very quickly once they sense high sugar levels," Gu says.
Before testing the particles in humans, the researchers plan to further develop the system's delivery properties and to work on optimizing the dosage that would be needed for use in humans.
###
The research was funded by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and the Tayebati Family Foundation.
Written by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 16-May-2013 Share ] Contact: Sarah McDonnell
s_mcd@mit.edu
617-253-8923
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Injectable nanoparticles developed at MIT may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin.
The nanoparticles were designed to sense glucose levels in the body and respond by secreting the appropriate amount of insulin, thereby replacing the function of pancreatic islet cells, which are destroyed in patients with Type 1 diabetes. Ultimately, this type of system could ensure that blood-sugar levels remain balanced and improve patients' quality of life, according to the researchers.
"Insulin really works, but the problem is people don't always get the right amount of it. With this system of extended release, the amount of drug secreted is proportional to the needs of the body," says Daniel Anderson, an associate professor of chemical engineering and member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.
Anderson is the senior author of a paper describing the new system in a recent issue of the journal ACS Nano. Lead author of the paper is Zhen Gu, a former postdoc in Anderson's lab. The research team also includes Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, and researchers from the Department of Anesthesiology at Boston Children's Hospital.
Mimicking the pancreas
Currently, people with Type 1 diabetes typically prick their fingers several times a day to draw blood for testing their blood-sugar levels. When levels are high, these patients inject themselves with insulin, which breaks down the excess sugar.
In recent years, many researchers have sought to develop insulin-delivery systems that could act as an "artificial pancreas," automatically detecting glucose levels and secreting insulin. One approach uses hydrogels to measure and react to glucose levels, but those gels are slow to respond or lack mechanical strength, allowing insulin to leak out.
The MIT team set out to create a sturdy, biocompatible system that would respond more quickly to changes in glucose levels and would be easy to administer.
Their system consists of an injectable gel-like structure with a texture similar to toothpaste, says Gu, who is now an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and molecular pharmaceutics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. The gel contains a mixture of oppositely charged nanoparticles that attract each other, keeping the gel intact and preventing the particles from drifting away once inside the body.
Using a modified polysaccharide known as dextran, the researchers designed the gel to be sensitive to acidity. Each nanoparticle contains spheres of dextran loaded with an enzyme that converts glucose into gluconic acid. Glucose can diffuse freely through the gel, so when sugar levels are high, the enzyme produces large quantities of gluconic acid, making the local environment slightly more acidic.
That acidic environment causes the dextran spheres to disintegrate, releasing insulin. Insulin then performs its normal function, converting the glucose in the bloodstream into glycogen, which is absorbed into the liver for storage.
Long-term control
In tests with mice that have Type 1 diabetes, the researchers found that a single injection of the gel maintained normal blood-sugar levels for an average of 10 days. Because the particles are mostly composed of polysaccharides, they are biocompatible and eventually degrade in the body.
The researchers are now trying to modify the particles so they can respond to changes in glucose levels faster, at the speed of pancreas islet cells. "Islet cells are very smart. They can release insulin very quickly once they sense high sugar levels," Gu says.
Before testing the particles in humans, the researchers plan to further develop the system's delivery properties and to work on optimizing the dosage that would be needed for use in humans.
###
The research was funded by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and the Tayebati Family Foundation.
Written by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/miot-nch051613.php
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