Stem cells cloned first time from a man's skin

In a major breakthrough, scientists have for the primary time grownup stem cells from a man's skin using cloning techniques. 

While the advancement may open the talk over ethics of human biological research, it may additionally cause development of tissue in a very workplace that would be used for treating a good vary of adult diseases, as well as Alzheimer's. 

Scientists cloned a vertebrate, Dolly the sheep for the primary time in 1996. 

"What we have a tendency to show for the primary time is that you simply will actually take skin cells, from a old 35-year-old male, however additionally from an older, 75-year-old male" and use the DNA to form tissue with cells of a definite match, aforesaid Robert Lanza, a prof at Wake Forest University college of medicine. 

"I am happy to listen to that our experiment was verified and shown to be real," said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a development scientist at Oregon Health and Science University within the United States. 

Starting with a top quality human egg is vital to the cloning method, confirmed the study. 

The researchers replaced the first DNA in an unfertilized egg with the donor DNA, then cultivated the cells in a very laboratory dish. 

They found that the stem cells were a definite match to the donor's DNA and thus they may then be changed into varied tissue types. 

"In theory, you'll use those stem cells to provide nearly any reasonably cell and provides it back to an individual as a medical aid," Paul Knoepfler, associate prof at the University of Calif. at Davis was quoted as saying. 

The study appeared within the journal Cell stem cell.

Thousands of tiny robots cluster developed to carry out tasks

                                This shows the puck robots used in the research.

                                   Credit: University of Sheffield, UK

The team, operating within the metropolis Centre for artificial intelligence (SCentRo), within the University's college of Engineering, has programmed very simple robots that are able to built a dense cluster without any necessity for advanced computation, in a very similar work to that a swarm of bees or a flock of birds available to carry out tasks together.

The work, revealed on Apr seventeen, 2014 within the International Journal of artificial intelligence analysis, paves the approach for mechanism 'swarms' to be employed in, for instance, the agricultural trade wherever preciseness farming strategies may benefit from the employment of enormous numbers of terribly straightforward and low-cost robots.

A group of forty robots has been programmed to perform the agglomeration task and therefore the researchers have shown, exploitation laptop simulations, that this might be enlarged to incorporate thousands of robots.

Each mechanism uses only 1 sensing element that tells them whether or not they will 'see' another mechanism ahead of them. Supported by whether or not they will see another mechanism, they're going to either rotate on the spot, or move around in a very circle till they will see one.

In this approach they're able to step by step type and maintain a cluster formation. The system's ingenuity lies in its simplicity. The robots don't have any memory, don't ought to perform any calculations and need solely little info regarding the setting.

Until now robotic swarms have needed advanced programming, which implies it might be very troublesome to reduce the individual robots.

With the programming developed by the metropolis team, however, it might be attainable to develop very tiny -- even nanoscale -- machines.

The metropolis system conjointly shows that although the data perceived by the robots gets part corrupted, the bulk of them can still be able to work along to complete the task.

Roderich Gross, of SCentRo, explains: "What we've shown is that robots do not ought to reason to resolve issues like that of gathering into one cluster, and also the same might be true for swarming behaviours that we discover in nature, like in bacterium, fish, or mammals."

"This means that we are ready to 'scale up' these swarms, to use thousands of robots that might then be programmed to perform tasks. in a very gloabal situation, this might involve observing the degree of pollution within the environment; we could additionally see them getting used to perform tasks in areas wherever it might be dangerous  for humans to travel. as a result of they're thus straightforward, we might additionally imagine these robots being employed at the micron-scale, for instance in aid technologies, wherever to hold travel through the human vascular  network to supply identification or treatment in a very non-invasive approach."

The researchers area unit currently specializing in programming the robots to accomplish straightforward tasks by interacting with different objects, for instance by moving them around or by sorting them into teams.

Video of the swarming robots can be watched at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO9JxFLgh94&feature=youtu.be

Filter that lets light only from one direction pass through

A new filter lets light pass through — but only if it's coming from just the right angle. Here, a light ray coming in at the 1-o’clock position reflects off the filter. But the other beam streaks straight on through.

Scientists have simply created a replacement reasonably diffusing screen that is exceptionally fastidious. Engineered from a stack of clear materials, it solely permits lightweight that comes from a specific direction. Everything else can simply mirror off of it.

Such a tool may improve cameras by reducing glare from the sun. The new filter may increase the sensitivity of telescopes by obstructing light from bright stars which may otherwise wash out rheostat objects. It'd boost the performance of star cells, that convert lightweight into electricity. It'd even forestall busybodies from concealing a sideways peek at what’s on your video display.

People have filtered lightweight for thousands of years. glass, as an example, permits lightweight of only 1 color to go through. Every lens in an exceedingly combine of 3D glasses solely permits bound lightweight to go through. (Each eye receives a distinct image. Only the brain combines those 2 separate pictures into one will a picture seem to leap off the screen.) The new filter is that the 1st to pick for lightweight from one specific direction.

Yichen Shen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, worked on the new device. As a man of science, he and his fellow scientists perceive lots concerning however lightweight behaves. They knew that once it passes through one material and enters another, it should amendment direction. (You will see this modification for yourself in however a tube in an exceedingly glass of water seems to bend wherever the water meets the air.) Lightweight conjointly might get mirrored. However if lightweight strikes the second material at simply the proper angle, it continues unchanged. Scientists sit down with that because the Brewster angle.

Shen and his colleagues designed their new filter exploitation alternating layers of glass and metallic element compound. That second material is usually accustomed build lenses. The scientists knew that the Brewster angle for lightweight traveling through the one material and into the second was fifty five degrees from vertical.

The specialists wished to form positive that lightweight returning from the other angle would be utterly blocked. in order that they stacked eighty four ultra-thin layers of their 2 clear materials. This created up their new filter. Now, any unwanted lightweight ought to be mirrored or bent because it travels from one layer to consequent. With such a lot of layers, the filter eventually would mirror all unwanted lightweight. Solely lightweight from the required angle ought to shine through. And therefore the researchers according achieving success March twenty seven in Science.

“It’s a awfully clever approach,” Peter Bermel told Science News. Associate in Nursing technologist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., he failed to work on the new filter.

Shen and his colleagues tested their 2-by-4 cm (0.8-by-1.6 inch) filter by putting it between a camera and an image of a rainbow. From with reference to each position during which they revolved the filter, it worked sort of a mirror. At every of those angles, the rainbow remained blocked from read. however once the scientists placed the filter at Associate in Nursing angle to the camera of fifty five degrees (from vertical), the device became clear. eventually the rainbow showed through.

Shen and his colleagues report that each color gone through the filter just. Identical approach ought to work by stacking nearly any combine of clear materials, Shen told Science News.