ECE GYAN

For environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, infrastructure maintenance and certain security applications, slow and energy efficient can be better than fast and always needing a recharge. That's where "SlothBot" comes in. Powered by a pair of photovoltaic panels and designed to linger in the forest canopy continuously for months, SlothBot moves only when it must to measure environmental changes -- such as weather and chemical factors in the environment -- that can be observed only with a long-term presence. The proof-of-concept hyper-efficient robot, described May 21 at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Montreal, may soon be hanging out among treetop cables in the Atlanta Botanical Garden. "In robotics, it seems we are always pushing for faster, more agile and more extreme robots," said Magnus Egerstedt, the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute ...

Children who spend half an hour a day outside in the sun reduce their risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU). More than 800,000 people live with the two life-long disorders which make up IBD -- Crohn's Disease and ulcerative colitis. The paediatric study was based in Melbourne and led by Professor Robyn Lucas, from the ANU College of Health and Medicine. "Taking children to play outside in the sun could be life-changing," Professor Lucas said. "It doesn't have to be all at the same time. But, we found children who were outside and exposed to the sun for an extra half hour a day in total, had a lower risk of developing IBD by almost 20 per cent." The researchers found even short periods of sun exposure were associated with lower risk of children developing IBD. "We found every 10 minutes of sun exposure was associated with a lower risk of developing inflammatory bow...

Brigham surgical teams have performed face transplants for people who have suffered from severe facial injuries. The surgery holds the promise of improving physical and mental health for patients who have been severely disfigured and have no other treatment options. Today, in the  New England Journal of Medicine , a Brigham team presents the longer-term outcomes for six patients who had been followed for up to 5 years after surgery, representing the largest cohort of patients in the U.S. Overall, patients had a robust return of motor and sensory function of their face, and all but one patient reported improvements in quality of life. "From the data, you can see the clear benefits that our patients have obtained. It is important to keep in mind that there are no functional prosthetic options for face." said co-senior author Bo Pomahac, MD, the Roberta and Stephen R. Weiner Distinguished Chair in Surgery and director of Plastic Surgery Transplantation at the Brigham, who l...

Youth who said they were teased or ridiculed about their weight increased their body mass by 33 percent more each year, compared to a similar group who had not been teased, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The findings appear to contradict the belief that such teasing might motivate youth to change their behavior and attempt to lose weight. The study was conducted by Natasha A. Schvey, Ph.D., of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD, and colleagues at NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. It appears in  Pediatric Obesity . The study involved 110 youth who were an average of 11.8 years of age when they enrolled. The participants were either overweight (defined as a body mass index above the 85th percentile) when they began the study or had two parents who were overweight or obese. At enrollment, th...

UV light damages the DNA of skin cells, which can lead to skin cancer. But this process is counteracted by the DNA repair machinery, acting as a molecular sunscreen. It has been unclear, however, how repair proteins work on DNA tightly packed in chromatin, where access to DNA damage is restricted by protein packaging. Using cryo electron microscopy, researchers from the Thomä group at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) have identified a new mechanism whereby repair proteins detect and bind to damaged DNA that is densely packed in nucleosomes. Ultraviolet (UV) light damages DNA, producing small lesions. These UV lesions are first detected by a protein complex known as UV-DDB and -- once the lesions have been identified -- the rest of the DNA repair machinery swings into action. The question is, how can UV-DDB bind to lesions when the DNA is coiled around the histone protein core of the so-called nucleosome (the basic unit of chromatin -- the DNA packagin...

Our cells' process for transforming genes into useful proteins works much like an automobile factory's assembly line; there are schematics, parts, workers, motors, quality control systems and even recycling crews. If the cell's recycling process falters, abnormal protein fragments accumulate, potentially causing the cell's death. In nerve cells, the process is linked to a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS and dementia. A new study from the lab of Claudio Joazeiro, PhD, published on line in the journal  Cell  on May 30, uncovers how simpler organisms -- bacteria and archaea -- manage the recycling of incomplete proteins. The discoveries not only offer new directions for fighting the virulence of some of humanity's most dangerous pathogens, including listeria, staph and streptococcus, they have implications for our understanding of how life itself evolved. Joazeiro's group found the mechanism isn't so different from one they previousl...

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have designed a new, organic cathode material for lithium batteries. With sulfur at its core, the material is more energy-dense, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly than traditional cathode materials in lithium batteries. The research was published in  Advanced Energy Materials  on April 10, 2019. Optimizing cathode materials From smartphones to electric vehicles, the technologies that have become central to everyday life run on lithium batteries. And as the demand for these products continues to rise, scientists are investigating how to optimize cathode materials to improve the overall performance of lithium battery systems. "Commercialized lithium-ion batteries are used in small electronic devices; however, to accommodate long driving ranges for electric vehicles, their energy density needs to be higher," said Zulipiya Shadike, a research associate in Brookhaven's C...