Researchers carried out the first chemical analysis of food residues in pottery up to 15, 000 years old from the late glacial period. Through chemical analysis of organic compounds extracted from charred surface deposits, the team was able to determine the use of hunter-gatherer “Jōmon” ceramic vessels found in Japan.

“Foragers first used pottery as a revolutionary new strategy in the processing of marine and freshwater fish, but perhaps most interesting is that this fundamental adaptation emerged over a period of severe climate change,” said Dr Oliver Craig from the Department of Archaeology and Director of the BioArch research centre at York.

The authors of the paper published in Nature suggest that this initial phase of ceramic production may paved the way for further intensification of pottery use by hunter-gatherers in the early Holocene era.

The researchers recovered diagnostic lipids from the pottery which were analysed for their carbon isotope composition using the isotope facility at University of Liverpool. The results revealed that that the lipids in most of the charred deposits were from high tropic level aquatic foods.

“The carbon isotopes provided us with information on the biological and chemical origin of these fatty acids and we were able to confirm that the principle fats sorbed in the pottery were of aquatic rather than land origin,” explained Dr Anu Thompson, from the School of Environmental Sciences at Liverpool.

Ceramic container technologies were previously associated with the arrival of farming but it is now known they were adapted by hunter-gatherers much earlier, but the reasons for their emergence and subsequent widespread uptake have until now been poorly understood.

“This study demonstrates that is possible to analyse organic residues from some of the world’s earliest ceramic vessels. It opens the way for further study of hunter-gatherer pottery from later periods to clarify the development of what was a revolutionary technology,” said Craig.

Earliest evidence for the use of pottery

The new type of printed material consists of thousands of connected water droplets, encapsulated within lipid films that are able to perform some of the same functions as our cells.

“We aren’t trying to make materials that faithfully resemble tissues but rather structures that can carry out the functions of tissues,” said Professor Hagan Bayley at Oxford University’s Department of Chemistry, who led the research.

“We’ve shown that it is possible to create networks of tens of thousands of connected droplets. The droplets can be printed with protein pores to form pathways through the network that mimic nerves and are able to transmit electrical signals from one side of a network to the other.”

These printed ‘droplet networks’ are entirely synthetic, have no genome and do not replicate, and thus avoid some of the rejection problems with other approaches to creating artificial tissues.

Each water droplet is around 50 microns in diameter – around five times larger than living cells but the researchers believe there is no reason why they could not be made smaller. The networks remain stable for weeks.

“Conventional 3D printers aren’t up to the job of creating these droplet networks, so we custom built one in our Oxford lab to do it, said Bayley. “At the moment we’ve created networks of up to 35,000 droplets but the size of network we can make is really only limited by time and money. For our experiments we used two different types of droplet, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t use 50 or more different kinds.”

The droplet networks can be designed to fold themselves into different shapes after they’ve been printed. In one experiment, a flat network that resembled the petals of a flower was programmed to fold itself into a hollow ball. The folding resembles muscle movement and is powered by osmolality differences that generate water transfer between droplets.

Gabriel Villar, who built the printer and is lead author of the study, said: “We have created a scalable way of producing a new type of soft material. The printed structures could in principle employ much of the biological machinery that enables the sophisticated behaviour of living cells and tissues.”

The research is published in Science.

A tissue-like printed material 

The new galaxy, called HFLS3, looks like a faint red smudge in images from the European Space Agency’s Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES). The images represent the galaxy producing new stars from gas and dust, which makes it a ‘starburst galaxy’.

“This particular galaxy got our attention because it was bright, and yet very red compared to others like it,” said Herschel researcher Dr Dave Clements from the Department of Physics at Imperial College London.

HFLS3 is one of tens of thousands of massive, star-forming galaxies that have been imaged as part of HerMES. The telescope has produced images of the galaxy as it was when the Universe was less than a billion years old.

The astronomers calculated that light from HFLS3 has travelled for almost 13 billion years across space and that by now, it may have expanded to be the same size as the largest known galaxies in the local universe.

This is the most active astronomers have seen such a young galaxy; it produces more than 2000 new stars each year and its rate of star formation is over a thousand times faster than the Milky Way’s. But according to current theories of galaxy evolution, galaxies as large as HFLS3 should not be present so soon after the Big Bang.

“The basic idea behind galaxy formation and evolution models is something called hierarchical clustering, whereby small young galaxies gradually merge together and accrete more material to become bigger. This takes time, so in the early stages of the universe you would expect nearly all galaxies to be small and to be forming stars at a fairly low rate because of this.” Clements told Laboratory News.

HFLS3’s existence challenges current theories of early galaxy formation, which predict that only much later will they reach such large masses.

“Exactly how this gets solved is unclear. There may be differences in the way stars form in dusty objects like HFLS3, compared to the more numerous, less star forming galaxies seen by Hubble, or it may be that some other things in the models need to be changed. The next step for us, already under way, is to find more sources like HFLS3 so we can properly characterise this population,” said Clements.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.4256

The study, led by Leeds University, revealed how a chemical, similar to one now found in all living cells, could have been created when phosphorus-containing meteorites landed in hot, acidic pools of liquid around volcanoes that were likely present across the early Earth.

“The mystery of how living organisms sprung out of lifeless rock has long puzzled scientists, but we think the unusual phosphorus chemicals we found could be a precursor to the batteries that now power all life on Earth. But the fact that it developed simply, in conditions similar to the early Earth, suggests this could be the missing link between geology and biology,” said Dr Terry Kee, from the University’s School of Chemistry, who led the research.

Life on Earth is powered by chemiosmosis, where adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is broken down and re-formed during respiration to release the energy that drives metabolism.

Phosphorus is the key element in ATP and the form it commonly takes on Earth is largely insoluble in water with low chemical reactivity. But the early Earth was regularly bombarded by meteorites and interstellar dust rich in exotic materials such as the more reactive form of phosphorus, the iron-nickel-phosphorus mineral schreibersite.

The researchers place samples of Sikhote-Alin meteorite, which fell in Siberia in 1947, in acid taken from the Hveradalur geothermal area in Iceland. They left the rock to react with the acid in test tubes incubated by the surrounding hot spring for four days, followed by a further 30 days at room temperature.

The resulting solution contained pyrophosphite, a molecular ‘cousin’ of pyrophosphate – the part of ATP responsible for energy transfer. The authors of the work published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, speculate this compound could have acted as an earlier form of ATP.

“Chemical life would have been the intermediary step between inorganic rock and the very first living biological cell. You could think of chemical life as a machine – a robot, for example, is capable of moving and reacting to surroundings, but it is not alive. With the aid of these primitive batteries, chemical became organised in such a way as to be capable of more complex behaviour and would have eventually developed into the living biological structures we see today,” said Kee.

 Hydrothermal modification of the Sikhote-Alin iron meteorite under low pH geothermal environments. A plausibly prebiotic route to activated phosphorus on the early Earth, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Volume 109, 15 May 2013, Pages 90-112

Their findings reveal that this rain influences the composition and temperature structure of parts of the planet’s upper atmosphere. The research is published in Nature.

“Saturn is the first planet to show significant interaction between its atmosphere and ring system,” said James O’Donoghue, the paper’s lead author and a postgraduate researcher at Leicester. “The main effect of ring rain is that it acts to ‘quench’ the ionosphere of Saturn. In other words, this rain severely reduces the electron densities in regions in which it falls.”

The ring’s effect on electron densities is important because it explains why observations have shown those densities to be unusually low at certain latitudes on Saturn for many decades.

“It turns out that a major driver of Saturn’s ionospheric environment and climate across vast reaches of the planet are ring particles located some 36,000 miles overhead” said Kevin Baines from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a co-author on the paper. “The ring particles affect both what species of particles are in this part of the atmosphere and where it is warm or cool.”

The team observed the planet in near-infrared wavelengths with the W.M Kech Observatory on Mauna Kea, in Hawaii.

The ring rain’s effect happens in Saturn’s ionosphere, where charged particles are produced when the otherwise neutral atmosphere is exposed to a flow of energetic particles or solar radiation.

The researchers tracked the pattern of emissions of a hydrogen ion with three protons –triatomic hydrogen. They were expecting to observe a uniform planet-wide infrared glow, but instead witnessed a series of light and dark bands – with areas of reduced emission spectrum corresponding to water-dense portions of Saturn’s rings.

The results revealed that charged water particles from the rings were being drawn towards the planet along Saturn’s magnetic field lines and were able to neutralise the glowing triatomic hydrogen ions, leaving large ‘shadows’ in the otherwise planet-wide infrared glow.

“Where Jupiter is glowing evenly across its equatorial regions, Saturn has dark bands where the water is falling in, darkening the ionosphere. We’re now also trying to investigate these features with an instrument on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. If we’re successful, Cassini may allow us to view in more detail the way that water is removing ionised particles, such as any changes in altitude of effects that come with the time of day,” said Tom Stallard, a paper co-author, also from Leicester.

In a study detailed in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, a perceptual illusion experiment is described where volunteers experience having an invisible hand. The experiment involves the participant siting at table with their right arm hidden from their view behind a screen. To evoke the illusion, the scientist touches the right hand of the participant with a small paintbrush while imitating the exact movements with another paintbrush in mid-air within full view of the participant.

“We discovered that most participants, within less than a minute, transfer the sensation of touch to that region of empty space where they see the paintbrush move, and experience an invisible hand in that position” said Arvid Guterstam from the Karolinska Institutet who led the study.

The experiment was inspired by the classic rubber-hand illusion devised by Princeton scientists in the 1990s – where a fake hand is stroked in time with the participant’s real one.  This study is the first to demonstrate that empty space can be accepted by the brain as a part of the body.

Eleven experiments explored in detail the illusory experience, and 234 volunteers were enrolled. To further demonstrate the illusion, the researchers would make a stabbing motion with a knife towards the empty space occupied by the invisible hand. Measuring participants sweat response to the perceived threat, they discovered that a stress response was elevated while experiencing the illusion, but absent when it was broken.

The researchers also measured the brain activity of the volunteers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). When volunteers perceived the invisible hand, increased activity was seen in the same parts of the brain that are usually active when people see their real hand being touched or when participants experience a prosthetic hand as their own.

The researchers hope the work will give insight into the feeling of invisible limbs that the majority of amputees experience.

“These results add to understanding of how phantom sensations are produced by the brain, which can contribute to future research on alleviating phantom pain in amputees,” said Dr Henrik Ehrsson, principal investigator.

The robot is designed to move across a patient’s internal abdominal wall and would enable surgeons to see what they are doing on a real-time video feed.

Lead researchers Professor Anne Neville, Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies at the University of Leeds, said: “Tree frogs have hexagonal patterned channels on their feet that in a wet surface build capillary bridges, and hence an adhesion force. It is the same kind of idea as a beer glass sticking to a beer mat, but the patterns build a large number of adhesion points that allow our robot to move around on a very slippery surface when it is upside down.”

Using basic capillary action for adhesion is ineffective as soon as there is movement, so the researchers looked at the tiny mechanisms used in nature to develop their device.

“It is only if you look at the scale of a thousandth of a millimetre, that you can get enough adhesion to give the robust attachment we need,” said Neville.

The frog-like robot has four feet which are each capable of holding a maximum of around 15 grams for each square centimetre in with a slippery surface. The researchers hope to build a device that is 20x20x20 mm, but the current prototype is double that size.

If they can halve the size of the prototype, it will be able to fit through the incisions made during keyhole surgery.

“To work effectively, this robot will have to move to all areas of the abdominal wall, turn and stop under control, and stay stable enough to take good quality images for the surgeons to work with,” added Neville.

The device is one of a number of bio-inspired robots created by University of Leeds’ researchers, including an electric ‘mole’ designed to dig through rubble in disaster zones and a giant ‘robo-worm’ that mimics the nervous system of a real nematode worm.

This discovery could help feed our growing global population which is estimated to reach nine billion by 2050.

“Cellulose and starch have the same chemical formula,” explained team leader Y.H. Percival Zhang, an associate professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Engineering.

“The difference is in their chemical linkages. Our idea is to use an enzyme cascade to break up the bonds in cellulose, enabling their reconfiguration as starch.”

Cellulose, the supporting material in plant cell walls, is the most common carbohydrate on earth. The researchers suggest that food could be made from any plant, reducing the need for crops to be grown on valuable land.

The starch that Zhang’s team produced is amylose, a linear resistant starch that is not broken down in digestion and is a good source of fibre.

The approach takes cellulose from non-food plant material, such as corn stover – the stem, leaves and husk of the corn plant which remains after the ears of corn are harvested.  The process converts about 30% to amylose and hydrolyses the remainder to glucose suitable for ethanol production.

The method called ‘simultaneous enzymatic biotransformation and microbial fermentation’ involves cascading enzymes to transform one carbohydrate into another. It is easy to scale up for commercial production and is environmentally friendly because it doesn’t require expensive equipment, high temperatures or chemical reagent and is waste-free.

The discovery also holds promise in applications beyond food systems.

“Besides serving as a food source, the starch can be used in the manufacture of edible clear films for biodegradable food packaging. It can even serve as a high-density hydrogen storage carrier that could solve problems related to hydrogen storage and distribution,” said Zhang.

The research was published the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw have developed an efficient electrode for use in biofuel cells or zinc-oxygen batteries. The batteries will use a special cathode that will work at full-efficiency when it takes oxygen directly from air.

“One of the most popular experiments in electrochemistry is to make a battery by sticking appropriately selected electrodes into a potato,” said Dr Jönsson-Niedziółka who led the research. “We are doing something similar, the difference is we’re focussing on biofuel cells and improving the cathode. And, of course, to have the whole project working, we’d rather replace the potato with… a human being.”

The IPC team’s zinc-air battery operates much like a traditional battery such as those used in hearing aids.  These work with a zinc anode that gets oxidised, moving electrons across a circuit to a carbon cathode. But the difference with this technology is that the conventional cathode is replaced by what the IPC researchers call a biocathode.

The biocathode consist of a bilirubin oxidase enzyme core, wrapped in carbon nanotubules and encapsulated in a porous structure.

The enzymes reduce the oxygen in the air to produce a lot of power. The carbon nanotubes help transport the electrons, which in turn increases the power output.

The cathode would be implanted into a patient and when paired with the zinc-air battery could supply power with a voltage of 1.75 volts for up to 10 days from oxygen inside the patient.

However, the cell’s efficiency decreases with time, which is likely due to a gradual deactivation of the enzyme on the biocathode.

“Here not everything is dependent on us, but on the progress in biotechnology. The lifetime of biofuel cells with our biocathode could be significantly prolonged, if the enzyme regeneration processes are successfully developed,” said Jönsson-Niedziółka.

Researchers in China used a mathematical model to analyse the way bumblebees fly at different speeds. They found that the bumblebee is unstable when it flies slowly or hovers but becomes neutral at medium and high flight speeds.

“Dynamic flight stability is of great importance in the study of biomechanics of insect flight. It is the basis for studying flight control, because the inherent stability of a flying system represents the dynamic properties of the basic system. It also plays a major role in the development of insect-like micro-air vehicles,” said Mao Sun from Bejing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and co-author of the paper.

The researchers suggest the instability at hovering is mainly due to a sideways wind made by the movements of the wings – what they call a ‘positive roll moment’. When the bees increase the speed of their flight, their wings bend towards the back of their bodies and reduce the effect of the sideways wind, making the flight more stable.

In 1934 scientists suggested that according to the laws of physics, bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly. French entomologist August Magnan is quoted in Le Vol Des Insects as saying: “First prompted by what is done in aviation, I applied the laws of air resistance to insects, and I arrived at the conclusion that their flight is impossible.”

But this new research looks at the flight of the bumble using quantum mechanics. Average measurements such as wing size and shape, body mass, and upwards and downwards forces were used to make a stability analysis of the bee in mathematically the same way as that for a rigid aeroplane.

“The computational approach allows simulations of the inherent stability of a flapping motion in the absence of active control, which is very difficult, even impossible, to achieve in experiments using real insects,” said Sun.

The authors hope the results will be useful in the development of small flying machines like robotic insects.