Category: Science &Technology

When US National Space Agency NASA needs to move a super-sized load of cargo, the Aero Spacelines Super Guppy is the plane it turns to. It’s the only aeroplane in the world capable of transporting the huge parts that make up the spaceships NASA uses, as each component is tested and developed in different facilities across the globe.

With a gigantic cargo bay, the Super Guppy is fitted with four Allison 501-D22C turbo-prop engines that give it the power it needs to get off the ground with a payload of up to 24,000kg or 52,500lbs. Its total maximum take-off weight is 77,110kg or 170,000lbs.

{{Artificially created blood could one day replace donations as the norm for blood transfusions.}}

That’s according to researchers at the University of Edinburgh who have been using stem cells to create red blood cells.

And in 2016 they are planning to conduct a groundbreaking trial that, for the first time, will test artificial blood made from stem cells in patients.

The £5 million project is being pioneered by the University of Edinburgh and comes after years of research into growing red blood cells.

{{How is the Blood Made?}}

The process involves using adult skin or blood cells that have been genetically modified into stem cells, known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

These iPS cells are then cultured in biologic conditions that mimic the human body, eventually leading to their transition into mature red blood cells.

The trick so far has been increasing the efficiency of this transition process, as not all the cells are capable of becoming red blood cells.

The red blood cells are then separated from the rest of the cells in a centrifuge.

Their next step will be to trial the blood in patients in 2016.

The process involves using adult skin or blood cells that have been genetically modified into stem cells, known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

These iPS cells are then cultured in biologic conditions that mimic the human body, eventually leading to their transition into mature red blood cells.

The trick so far has been increasing the efficiency of this transition process, as not all the cells are capable of becoming red blood cells.

The team at the University of Edinburgh has got this efficiency to approaching 50% in a process that takes about a month.

The red blood cells are then separated from the rest of the cells in a centrifuge.

Their next step will be to trial the blood in patients in 2016.

This will most likely be three patients who need regular transfusions due to a red blood cell disorder known as thalassaemia.

According to Professor Marc Turner, artificial blood could replace donated blood as the norm for transfusions in the next 20 years

Ideally, artificial blood would be made from a person of the rare universal blood type ‘O’ as this can be transfused into other patients of any blood type.

‘Producing a cellular therapy which is of the scale, quality and safety required for human clinical trials is a very significant challenge,’ says Professor Marc Turner, medical director at Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) who is leading the study for the University of Edinburgh.

‘But if we can achieve success with this first-in-man clinical study it will be an important step forward to enable populations all over the world to benefit from blood transfusions.

‘These developments will also provide information of value to other researchers working on the development of cellular therapies.’

It was stressed, however, that it will be at least 20 years until artificial blood overtakes donated blood as the source for blood transfusions and that people should not stop donating any time soon.

If artificial blood does one day become the norm, however, it is hoped the cost of blood per unit could drop from the current price of £120.

Artificial blood may also carry with it health advantages due to blood regeneartion.

Blood cells last around 100 days but not all cells are born at the same moment, so donated blood is a mixture of old and new cells.

Artifical blood, on the other hand, would be entirely new blood cells.

The major problem at the moment is scaling up production from a trial to industrial levels.

Nonetheless if the trial proves to be a success, it would be a big step in the right direction towards making blood transfusions more widely available at a reasonable cost.

{This graphic shows how the artificial red blood cells are made from stem cells in the team’s research}

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{{The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is warning countries to step up monitoring, reporting and prevention of one of the world’s most destructive banana diseases, Fusarium wilt, which recently spread from Asia to Africa and the Middle East, and which has the potential to affect countries in Latin America.}}

The TR4 race of the disease, which is also known as Panama disease, is posing a serious threat to production and export of the popular fruit, with serious repercussions for the banana value chain and livelihoods, FAO said in an information brief.

Banana is the eighth most important food crop in the world and the fourth most important food crop among the world’s least-developed countries, according to FAOSTAT, the UN agency’s data-gathering and analysis service.

“Any disease or constraint that affects bananas is striking at an important source of food, livelihoods, employment and government revenues in many tropical countries,” said Gianluca Gondolini, Secretary of the World Banana Forum.

The Forum, whose Secretariat is based at FAO headquarters, promotes sustainable banana production and trade.

“The spread of Fusarium wilt banana disease could have a significant impact on growers, traders and families who depend on the banana industry,” Fazil Dusunceli, a plant pathologist at FAO, said.

“Countries need to act now if we are to avoid the worst-case scenario, which is massive destruction of much of the world’s banana crop,” said Dusunceli.

{{Recommended action }}

At the country level, FAO specifically advises:

Awareness raising at all levels and adoption of appropriate risk assessment, surveillance and early warning systems;

Implementation of phytosanitary measures to prevent the spread of the disease through agricultural practices, irrigation and drainage systems, transportation, vehicles, containers, tools or visitors;

Preventive measures, including quarantines, the use of disease-free planting materials, prevention of movement of infected soil and planting materials into and out of farms, and disinfection of vehicles;

Capacity building in National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPO) in planning, extension and research, including the use of rapid and accurate diagnostic tools;
Training of technical officers, producers and farm workers in disease identification, prevention and management under field conditions, and appropriate instructions to visitors.

While other races of the disease have existed for many years, TR4 has caused significant losses in banana plantations in Southeast Asia over the last two decades, and has recently been reported in Mozambique and Jordan.

TR4 infects the Cavendish banana varieties, which dominate global trade, as well as other susceptible varieties used for local consumption and markets. Despite damage to the banana plant and to production, the fruit itself remains edible.

{{Soil-borne disease }}

Fusarium wilt is caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc). The disease is soil-borne and the fungus can remain viable for decades.

Once the disease is present in a field, it cannot be fully controlled by currently available practices and fungicides.

The best way to fight the disease is to prevent its spread, which includes avoiding movement of diseased plant materials and infected soil particles.

“We need to raise awareness of this threat, coordinate efforts among countries and institutions for effective implementation of appropriate quarantine measures, and also work with banana producers, traders, plantation employees and smallholder farmers to help to minimize the spread of the disease,” Dusunceli said.

He also highlighted the importance of research in better understanding the disease and developing alternative varieties that are disease resistant.

FAO’s information note stresses the importance of using disease-free seedlings and avoiding movement of infected soil and planting materials into, and out of, farms, through transportation, visitors or other means.

“A concerted effort is required from stakeholders including the industry, research institutions, governments and international organizations to prevent spread of the disease,” the note reads.

{{Raising awareness }}

FAO and its partners, including the World Banana Forum (WBF), the scientific community and the banana industry are among those making efforts to increase awareness of the inherent threat of TR4.

The issue will be on the agenda of a series of upcoming meetings in Kenya, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago, with the aim of addressing a range of issues related to TR4, including developing action plans for its prevention, monitoring and containment.

The banana crop is vulnerable to a number of diseases in various parts of the world, including the Black Sigatoka disease, Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW), Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD) and Fusarium Wilt, but Fusarium’s soil-borne nature makes it especially challenging.

{{The latest version of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy smartphone went on sale worldwide Friday, days after the electronics giant announced it was facing a second consecutive quarter of profit decline.}}

The Galaxy S5 has a lot riding on it to steer the South Korean firm’s profit making machine back on track as growth in smartphone sales slows, with mature markets like North America and Europe near saturation.

Reviews of the S5 have mostly concluded that it is one of the best high end smartphones on the market, but there is also a general consensus that it lacks the “wow” factor needed to differentiate it from its predecessors and competitors.

“It can swim, but it won’t make any waves,” was the verdict of the Wall Street Journal, referring to one innovation in the S5′s waterproof covering.

“The Galaxy S5 is a good phone. It earns an unreserved recommendation,” said the Washington Post.

“But the truth of the matter is that there’s really nothing here that’s worth breaking your contract to buy,” it added.

Samsung’s mobile unit has been the driving force behind the record profits of recent years, and it needs the S5 to perform well as a retort to doom mongers who say the company lacks a clear strategy to flourish in an increasingly competitive, saturated market.

Samsung made more than 30 percent of all smartphones sold in the world last year, nearly twice the share of its arch rival Apple.

But on Tuesday, the company estimated its first quarter operating profit at 8.4 trillion won ($7.96 billion), marking a second straight year-on-year decline.

As well as the constant challenge from Apple, Samsung has had to face the rapid expansion of smaller rivals like China’s Huawei, which has pressured it into rolling out cheaper handsets to woo consumers in emerging markets, especially China.

– Falling smartphone prices –

In a sign of the challenge the company faces, the S5 was priced lower at its commercial launch Friday than the previous S4 model.

Research firm IDC estimated the average selling price of smartphones will fall to $265 globally by 2017 from $337 in 2013 and $387 in 2012.

Samsung is believed to have reduced its marketing spend on the S5 and is also under pressure to set aside more cash for legal bills as years-long patent battles against Apple continue.

The two have locked horns in patent suits in several nations involving design and technologies on their smartphones and tablet computers.

A fresh patent trial opened in the United States last week, with Apple vowing to prove that Samsung flagrantly copied iPhone features and should pay more than $2 billion in damages.

Major handset makers have recently stepped up efforts to develop wearable devices, seen as a new source for growth though few have managed to garner large consumer excitement or sales.

Samsung’s first Internet-enabled smartwatch, introduced last September, was greeted coldly by consumers who viewed it unfashionable. Its second edition, the Gear 2, was launched in February.

Apple is believed to be planning its own smartwatch launch soon, while Google is moving towards a wider consumer launch of its Internet enabled eyewear Glass.

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{{Scientists have begun to examine the ways we absorb and process information now, what with our Internets and social medias affecting the way we read.

In short, humans are losing the capacity to understand complex sentences and our attention spans are rapidly shrinking. Hopefully we didn’t already lose you.}}

The Washington Post reports some scientists have noticed that the way we read on paper and on a screen is changing the way the brain processes information. Reading novels after a long day spent emailing, Facebooking, tweeting and IMing can be difficult, which is a drastic shift away from thousands of years of brain function:

“The Internet is different. With so much information, hyperlinked text, videos alongside words and interactivity everywhere, our brains form shortcuts to deal with it all — scanning, searching for key words, scrolling up and down quickly.

This is nonlinear reading, and it has been documented in academic studies. Some researchers believe that for many people, this style of reading is beginning to invade when dealing with other mediums as well.”

Humans now are trained to scan for the most important bits of information and move on, like how we read online. But that’s not how you’re supposed to read Moby Dick, or Middlemarch. Longer sentences require concentration and attention, not a break to check Twitter every 45 seconds.

The Internet, and how it has changed our reading habits, is making it difficult for people, particularly young people, to read classic works of literature because our brains are trained to bob and weave from one piece of writing to the next.

And 600 pages is just so many pages, you know? Pagination is like, the worst thing to happen to my life, and without a “Read All” option? Melville definitely needed a UX developer.

There is some hope the brain won’t completely shift from one form of reading to another. “We should be simultaneously reading to children from books, giving them print, helping them learn this slower mode, and at the same time steadily increasing their immersion into the technological, digital age,” Maryanne Wolf, a Tufts University cognitive neuroscientist, told the Post.

We need to train our minds to read both on the page and on a screen, and incorporate a healthy diet of both into our daily lives. That means putting down your tablet to read a physical copy of a newspaper, a magazine, or — gasp! — a novel.

If you don’t learn to regulate your digital diet, your relationship could suffer too. Russell Clayton, a doctoral student at the University of Missouri’s school of journalism, performed two studies from which he discovered that social media use, whether on Facebook or Twitter, increased a couple’s chances that their relationship would end in disaster — either a break-up, a divorce, or an affair.

The sample size is relatively small, so this should be taken with a healthy grain of salt, but generally you should look up from your screen more often and talk to your boyfriend or girlfriend, in real life. Don’t tweet how much you love them, or they’ll leave you.

{Agencies}