Saturday, April 15, 2023

SPACE NEWS

Giant Galaxy Seen in 3D by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Keck Observatory


Peer-Reviewed Publication

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

HUBBLE IMAGE AND 3D MODEL OF M87 

IMAGE: A PHOTO OF THE HUGE ELLIPTICAL GALAXY M87 [LEFT] IS COMPARED TO ITS THREE-DIMENSIONAL SHAPE AS GLEANED FROM METICULOUS OBSERVATIONS MADE WITH THE HUBBLE AND KECK TELESCOPES [RIGHT]. BECAUSE THE GALAXY IS TOO FAR AWAY FOR ASTRONOMERS TO EMPLOY STEREOSCOPIC VISION, THEY INSTEAD FOLLOWED THE MOTION OF STARS AROUND THE CENTER OF M87, LIKE BEES AROUND A HIVE. THIS CREATED A THREE-DIMENSIONAL VIEW OF HOW STARS ARE DISTRIBUTED WITHIN THE GALAXY. view more 

CREDIT: ILLUSTRATION: NASA, ESA, JOSEPH OLMSTED (STSCI), FRANK SUMMERS (STSCI) SCIENCE: CHUNG-PEI MA (UC BERKELEY)

Though we live in a vast three-dimensional universe, celestial objects seen through a telescope look flat because everything is so far away. Now for the first time, astronomers have measured the three-dimensional shape of one of the biggest and closest elliptical galaxies to us, M87. This galaxy turns out to be "triaxial," or potato-shaped. This stereo vision was made possible by combining the power of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the ground-based W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii.

In most cases, astronomers must use their intuition to figure out the true shapes of deep-space objects. For example, the whole class of huge galaxies called "ellipticals" look like blobs in pictures. Determining the true shape of giant elliptical galaxies will help astronomers understand better how large galaxies and their central large black holes form.

Scientists made the 3D plot by measuring the motions of stars that swarm around the galaxy's supermassive central black hole. The stellar motion was used to provide new insights into the shape of the galaxy and its rotation, and it also yielded a new measurement of the black hole's mass. Tracking the stellar speeds and position allowed researchers to build a three-dimensional view of the galaxy.

Astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, were able to determine the mass of the black hole at the galaxy's core to a high precision, estimating it at 5.4 billion times the mass of the Sun. Hubble observations in 1995 first measured the M87 black hole as being 2.4 billion solar masses, which astronomers deduced by clocking the speed of the gas swirling around the black hole. When the Event Horizon Telescope, an international collaboration of ground-based telescopes, released the first-ever image of the same black hole in 2019, the size of its pitch-black event horizon allowed researchers to calculate a mass of 6.5 billion solar masses using Einstein's theory of general relativity.

The stereo model of M87 and the more precise mass of the central black hole could help astrophysicists learn the black hole's spin rate. "Now that we know the direction of the net rotation of stars in M87 and have an updated mass of the black hole, we can combine this information with data from the Event Horizon Telescope to constrain the spin," said Chung-Pei Ma, a UC Berkeley lead investigator on the research.

Over ten times the mass of the Milky Way, M87 probably grew from the merger of many other galaxies. That's likely the reason M87's central black hole is so large – it assimilated the central black holes of one or more galaxies it swallowed.

Ma, together with UC Berkeley graduate student Emily Liepold (lead author on the paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters) and Jonelle Walsh at Texas A&M University were able to determine the 3D shape of M87 thanks to a new precision instrument mounted on the Keck II Telescope. They pointed Keck at 62 adjacent locations of the galaxy, mapping out the spectra of stars over a region about 70,000 light-years across. This region spans the central 3,000 light-years where gravity is largely dominated by the supermassive black hole. Though the telescope cannot resolve individual stars because of M87's great distance, the spectra can reveal the range of velocities to calculate mass of the object they're orbiting.

"It's sort of like looking at a swarm of 100 billion bees," said Ma. "Though we are looking at them from a distance and can't discern individual bees, we are getting very detailed information about their collective velocities."

The researchers took the data between 2020 and 2022, as well as earlier star brightness measurements of M87 from Hubble, and compared them to computer model predictions of how stars move around the center of the triaxial-shaped galaxy. The best fit to this data allowed them to calculate the black hole's mass. "Knowing the 3D shape of the 'swarming bees' enabled us to obtain a more robust dynamical measurement of the mass of the central black hole that is governing the bees' orbiting velocities," said Ma.

In the 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble first classified galaxies according to their shapes. Flat disk spiral galaxies could be viewed from various projection angles of the sky: face-on, oblique, or edge-on. But the "blobby-looking" galaxies were more problematic to characterize. Hubble came up with the term elliptical. They could only be sorted out by how great the ellipticity was. They didn't have any apparent dust or gas inside of them for better distinguishing between them. Now, a century later astronomers have a stereoscopic look at a prototypical elliptical galaxy.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble and Webb science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.

3D MODEL OF M87 [VIDEO] 

How different were galaxies in the early universe?

Astronomers are one step closer to discovering the secrets of the cosmic dawn

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

The HERA radio telescope at night 

IMAGE: THE HERA RADIO TELESCOPE, LOCATED IN KAROO IN SOUTH AFRICA, CONSISTS OF 350 DISHES POINTED UPWARD TO DETECT RADIO WAVES FROM THE EARLY UNIVERSE. view more 

CREDIT: DARA STORER

An array of 350 radio telescopes in the Karoo desert of South Africa is getting closer to detecting the “cosmic dawn” — the era after the Big Bang when stars first ignited and galaxies began to bloom.

A team of scientists from across North America, Europe, and South Africa has doubled the sensitivity of a radio telescope called the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). With this breakthrough, they hope to peer into the secrets of the early universe.

“Over the last couple of decades, teams from around the world have worked towards a first detection of radio waves from the cosmic dawn. While such a detection remains elusive, HERA’s results represent the most precise pursuit to date,” says Adrian Liu, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics and the Trottier Space Institute at McGill University.

The array was already the most sensitive radio telescope in the world dedicated to exploring the cosmic dawn. Now the HERA team has improved its sensitivity by a factor of 2.1 for radio waves emitted about 650 million years after the Big Bang and 2.6 for radio waves emitted about 450 million years after the Big Bang. Their work is described in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Although the scientists have yet to detect radio emissions from the end of the cosmic dark ages, their results provide clues about the composition of stars and galaxies in the early universe. So far, their data suggest that early galaxies contained very few elements besides hydrogen and helium, unlike our galaxies today. Today’s stars, have a variety of elements, ranging from lithium to uranium, that are heavier than helium.

Ruling out some theories

When the radio dishes are fully online and calibrated, the team hopes to construct a 3D map of the bubbles of ionized and neutral hydrogen – markers for early galaxies – as they evolved from about 200 million years to around 1 billion years after the Big Bang. The map could tell us how early stars and galaxies differed from those we see around us today, and how the universe looked in its adolescence, say the researchers.

According to the researchers, the fact that the HERA team has not yet detected these signals rules out some theories of how stars evolved in the early universe. “Our data suggest that early galaxies were about 100 times more luminous in X-rays than today’s galaxies. The lore was that this would be the case, but now we have actual data that bolsters this hypothesis,” says Liu.

Waiting for a signal

The HERA team continues to improve the telescope’s calibration and data analysis in hopes of seeing those bubbles in the early universe. However, filtering out the local radio noise to see the signals from the early universe has not been easy. “If it’s Swiss cheese, the galaxies make the holes, and we’re looking for the cheese,” says David DeBoer, a research astronomer in University of California Berkeley’s Radio Astronomy Laboratory.

“HERA is continuing to improve and set better and better limits,” says Aaron Parsons, principal investigator for HERA and a University of California Berkeley Associate Professor of astronomy. “The fact that we’re able to keep pushing through, and we have new techniques that are continuing to bear fruit for our telescope, is great.”

The HERA collaboration is led by University of California Berkeley and includes scientists from across North America, Europe, and South Africa, with support in Canada from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies, and from the Trottier Space Institute at McGill University. The construction of the array is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, with key support from the government of South Africa and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO).

About the study

Improved Constraints on the 21 cm EoR Power Spectrum and the X-Ray Heating of the IGM with HERA Phase I Observations” by the HERA Collaboration was published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Safe bioink for artificial organ printing

Development of 3D bioprinting ink that induces tissue regeneration without photocuring, Expected applications including patient-specific regenerative treatment technologies, such as artificial organs

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Figure 1 

IMAGE: TUNING MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF BIOINK ACCORDING TO TEMPERATURE AND 3D SCAFFOLD PRINTING view more 

CREDIT: KOREA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

 The development of biomaterials for artificial organs and tissues is active due to an increase in accidental injuries and chronic diseases, along with the entry into a super-aged society. 3D bioprinting technology, which uses cells and biomaterials to create three-dimensional artificial tissue structures, has recently gained popularity. However, commonly used hydrogel-based bioinks can cause cytotoxicity due to the chemical crosslinking agent and ultraviolet light that connect the molecular structure of photocuring 3D-printed bioink.

Dr. Song Soo-chang's research team at the Center for Biomaterials, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Yoon Seok-jin), revealed the first development of poly(organophosphazene) hydrogel-based temperature-sensitive bioink that stably maintained its physical structure only by temperature control without photocuring, induced tissue regeneration, and then biodegraded in the body after a certain period of time.

Current hydrogel-based bioinks must go through a photocuring process to enhance the mechanical properties of the 3D scaffold after printing, with a high risk of adverse effects in the human body. In addition, there have been possibility of side effects by transplanting externally cultured cells within bioink to increase the tissue regeneration effect. Accordingly, the research team developed a new bioink material using a temperature-sensitive poly(organophosphazene) hydrogel, which existed in a liquid form at low temperatures and changed to a hard gel at body temperature. This enabled the regeneration of tissues only by temperature control without chemical crosslinking agents or UV irradiation and the manufacture of a three-dimensional scaffold with a physically stable structure, minimizing the possibility of immune adverse effects in the human body.

The developed bioink also had a molecular structure that could interact with growth factors, which were proteins that help in tissue regeneration to preserve growth factors that regulated cell growth, differentiation, and immune responses for a long period of time. The research team was able to maximize the effect of tissue regeneration by creating an environment in which cell differentiation could be autonomously regulated within the 3D scaffold printed with bioink.

The research team fabricated the 3D scaffold by printing it with a 3D bioprinter using bioink containing transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1) and bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2), which were required for cell infiltration and bone regeneration, and conducted an experiment by implanting it into a damaged bone in a rat. As a result, cells from the surrounding tissue were migrated into the scaffold, and the defected bone was regenerated to a normal tissue level, and the implanted 3D scaffold slowly biodegraded in the body over 42 days.

Dr. Song Soo-Chang of KIST said, "The research team has transferred technology for the thermo-sensitive polyphosphazene hydrogel to NexGel Biotech Co., Ltd. in June 2022, and the development of products such as bone graft materials and cosmetic fillers is underway." "As the bioink developed this time has different physical properties, follow-up research to apply it to the regeneration of other tissues besides bone tissue is being conducted, and we expect to finally be able to commercialize bioink tailored to each tissue and organ," he said.

  

Biodegradation and bone regeneration effects after implanting the 3D-printed scaffold with bioink to the bone-damaged area

Image selected as the inside back cover

CREDIT

Korea Institute of Science and Technology

KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea. KIST now strives to solve national and social challenges and secure growth engines through leading and innovative research. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://eng.kist.re.kr/

This research was conducted through the KIST Major Projects supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Lee Jong-ho), and the research results were published as the inside back cover in the latest issue of Small (IF: 15.153, top 7.101% in the JCR field), an international academic journal in the field of materials.

Designing “human-centric” smart cities

Strategies and innovations for city development

Book Announcement

WORLD SCIENTIFIC

Smart City 2.0: Strategies and Innovations for City Development 

IMAGE: COVER FOR "SMART CITY 2.0: STRATEGIES AND INNOVATIONS FOR CITY DEVELOPMENT" view more 

CREDIT: WORLD SCIENTIFIC

Policy making, technology and data are useless without the heart of the people. Much has been written and is being written about smart cities. This suggests, first, that there are no simple answers and, second, that agreement about the topic is not yet total. As smart city projects proliferate worldwide, cultural differences and preferences, which are so difficult to capture in artificial intelligence, must be respected.

A Smart City cannot rest exclusively on information technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT). The Global Innovation Forum panel’s statements confirmed that we do not want to leave all smart city decisions to corporations and to the profit motive. City officials should become more knowledgeable about the needed technologies instead of outsourcing all decisions to an IT provider.

Decision makers may understand that we need innovation for sustainability, and that this kind of innovation is the common interest of technocities and smart cities. Smart City 2.0 will need to be designed bottom-up, based on dialogs with many constituencies, rather than top-down with functions dictated by a central authority. Here, the role of different ‘actors’ in the innovative smart city system also becomes important, particularly citizens, civic society and media. Efficiency versus innovation in the smart city, and top-down versus bottom-up design and governance are two very important issues explored in >Smart City 2.0: Strategies and Innovations for City Development

>Smart City 2.0 is co-edited by TANDO Institute Fellows Deog-Seong Oh and Fred Phillips, and Monash University Professor Avvari Mohan. It contains chapters by Oh, Phillips, and TANDO Institute Fellow Sheridan Tatsuno. The editors of this volume represent three countries, and the chapter authors offer international perspectives from four continents. These authors are authorities in technology-based economic development and city planning experts. They propose additional technologies for the smart city mix. They urge readers to view smart cities as balancing efficiency, quality of life and entrepreneurial potential.

Smart City 2.0 bookends these issues between Fritz Lang’s 100-year-old film Metropolis and a 2022 piece by columnist George Will. Lang’s film argued that a city must have heart, as well as a head and hands. Will writes that new capabilities for analyzing baseball statistics have led, for the first time, to more strikeouts than on-base hits in the typical game, with base-stealing all but a lost art. He fears this makes baseball less entertaining. He means that spectators do not want to see optimized (head-oriented) baseball; instead, we go to games to see outstanding examples of human heart, acuity, and guts. Like traditional baseball, the new smart cities will balance hands, heart, and head.

Smart City 2.0: Strategies and Innovations for City Development retails for US$148 / £130 (hardcover) and is also available in electronic formats. To order or know more about the book, visit http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12871.

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About the Editors

Deog-Seong Oh is the President of Woosong University and a former President of Chungnam National University (2016–2022), both in Daejeon, South Korea. Dr. Oh is an expert in public and urban policy, economic development and technology commercialization. Dr. Oh is a member of the UNESCO High Panel on Science for Development and Organizing Committee Chair for UNESCO’s Global Innovation Forum. He is a former Secretary-General of the World Technopolis Association. He received a Master of Urban Planning in 1979 and a Master of Science in Architecture from Seoul National University, Korea, in 1981. He earned a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from Hanover University, Germany, in 1989. He did post-doctoral research at the University of Sheffield, UK, in 1993, and was visiting professor at the University of Dortmund from 2002–2004. He previously served as vice president of the Korean Planners Association (2000–2002) and Korean Urban Management Association (2010–2012). He is also the chief editor of Asian Pacific Planning Review. He has published 250 papers on urban planning and design, sustainable development and regional innovation.

Fred Young Phillips is currently on faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA. He is the 2017 winner of the Kondratieff Medal, awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the President-Elect of the Academy of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Knowledge (ACIEK), Spain, a society of innovation and entrepreneurship scholars, and he coordinates TANDO, a think tank recently spun out of the University of Texas at Austin. Fred is a Fellow of the Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET). Dr. Phillips is the Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Elsevier’s international journal Technological Forecasting & Social Change. He has consulted worldwide on technology-based regional development. He is a founder of the Austin Technology Council and was also a Board member of the Software Association of Oregon, USA. Dr. Phillips attended the University of Texas, USA and Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, earning a Ph.D. at Texas (1978) in mathematics and management science.

Avvari V Mohan is the Professor and Deputy Head of Engagement & Impact at Monash University Business School, Malaysia. Mohan received his Ph.D. in Marketing and Innovation from the Department of Management Studies of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India, following which he visited South Korea on a Research Fellowship at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Prior to joining Monash University, he was the Associate Professor of Strategy & Innovation and the Director of Research at the Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) in the University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM). He also served as a member of the Faculty of Management at Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia. His research interests are in the areas of Strategy and Innovation with special interest in sustainability-oriented Strategies. He is particularly interested in collaborations or linkages firms develop with other organizations for Innovation and Sustainable Development. He has served as a Council Member of the Consumer Forum (CFM) for the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Industry, as a recourse person in World Technopolis Association (WTA)-UNESCO workshops, and recently as Innovation Auditor for the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT), Malaysia.

About World Scientific Publishing Co.

World Scientific Publishing is a leading international independent publisher of books and journals for the scholarly, research and professional communities. World Scientific collaborates with prestigious organisations like the Nobel Foundation and US National Academies Press to bring high quality academic and professional content to researchers and academics worldwide. The company publishes about 600 books and over 160 journals in various fields annually. To find out more about World Scientific, please visit www.worldscientific.com.

For more information, contact WSPC Communications at communications@wspc.com.

Treasure hunt in hot springs?

Success in recovering trace rare earth elements in environmental water

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OSAKA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

Overview of rare earth recovery using P-yeast 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS HAVE SUCCEEDED IN SELECTIVELY RECOVERING TRACE RARE EARTH ELEMENTS IN SYNTHETIC SEAWATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL WATER, SUCH AS HOT SPRING WATER, USING BAKER’S YEAST WITH A PHOSPHATE GROUP ADDED. view more 

CREDIT: MASAYUKI AZUMA, OSAKA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

The demand for precious metals and rare earths is expected to continue increasing in the future. Due to limited production areas, recycling from precision equipment and recovering from seawater and hot spring water are needed to ensure a stable supply.

A research group led by Professor Masayuki Azuma and Associate Professor Yoshihiro Ojima of the Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Engineering has successfully developed an adsorbent material that can selectively recover rare earth elements (REEs) using environmentally friendly and inexpensive baker’s yeast and trimetaphosphate, which is used as a food additive.

The research group conducted experiments using synthetic seawater and hot spring water to evaluate the performance of this material in a real environment. As a result, it was confirmed that the material can selectively adsorb REEs even when using hot spring water with an REE concentration of several to several tens of ppb (μg/L) and a very high content of other components.

“This new technology is expected to contribute to the realization of a metal resource-circulating society and a safe society through environmental purification. In the future, we will continue to conduct experiments on a variety of environmental water with the aim of establishing a system capable of treating large quantities of metal resources through continuous operation,” said Professor Azuma.

The results were published in the Environmental Technology & Innovation.

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About OMU 

Osaka Metropolitan University is a new public university established in April 2022, formed by merger between Osaka City University and Osaka Prefecture University. For more research news visit https://www.omu.ac.jp/en/ or follow @OsakaMetUniv_en and #OMUScience.

More structure, fewer screens makes for healthier kids in the school holidays

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA


Vacation care, sports programs, or performing arts – whatever your child’s interests, researchers say that adding structure to the school holiday is a great way to keep kids healthy and active over the break.

 

In the first Australian study of its kindUniversity of South Australia researchers found that when primary school children are on holidays, they’re less active, more likely to be on screens, and tend to have a worse diet than during the school term.

 

Assessing responses for 358 primary school students (Grade 4 and 5), researchers found that on holidays, children were likely to be 12 minutes less active each day, 27 minutes more sedentary, and have more than an hour extra of screen time.

 

During the school holidays, children (aged 9-10) spent 39 per cent more time using screens than during the school year.

 

UniSA researcher Dr Amanda Watson says children exercise less and eat more unhealthy food during the holidays, which may contribute to accelerated weight gain and poor health.

 

“Everyone is excited when school holidays come around – it’s a break from the daily routine, classrooms, and getting ready on time – but despite the obvious benefits, it can have some setback for kids,” Dr Watson says.

 

“Our study shows that during school holidays, children are more likely to display unhealthy behaviours, such as being less active, spending more time sitting, eating more junk food, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) watching a whole lot more TV or screens.

 

“Of course, it is important for children to get some quality downtime over the school break, but it’s equally important that they stay active and get enough exercise.

 

“If we add more structure to children’s days in the holidays – regular activities, planned lunch and snack breaks, as well as a limit on the amount of screen time kids have – we could encourage healthier behaviours to benefit them now and in the future.”

 

In Australia, one in four children (25 per cent) are overweight or obese, contributing to poorer health and wellbeing, as well as worse performance at school.

 

Senior researcher UniSA’s Professor Carol Maher says that screen time is one of the biggest risk factors for children’s inactivity.

 

“Managing screen time is a challenge for many parents, and not only in the holidays,” Prof Maher says.

 

“Being inactive for extended periods, either watching TV or playing games, is not good for anyone’s health, not the least children.

 

“So, when research shows us that even one extra hour of screen time a day corresponds with a 13 per cent increased risk of obesity, it is time to rethink computer time.

 

“Everyone can benefit from being more active. These holidays could be just what you need to make more positive changes to you and your children’s activity levels, overall wellbeing, and health.”

 

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Multi-compartment membranes for multicellular robots: Everybody needs some body

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TOHOKU UNIVERSITY

Figure 1 

IMAGE: A SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM OF HOW DROPLETS EXTRACTED FROM A SPONGE SELF-ASSEMBLE INTO A MULTICELLULAR BODY STRUCTURE. view more 

CREDIT: RICHARD ARCHER / SHIN-ICHIRO NOMURA

The typical image of a robot is one composed of motors and circuits, encased in metal. Yet the field of molecular robotics, which is being spearheaded in Japan, is beginning to change that.

Much like how complex living organisms are formed, molecular robots derive form and functionality from assembled molecules. Such robots could have important applications, such as being used to treat and diagnose diseases in vivo.

The first challenge in building a molecular robot is the same as the most basic need of any organism: the body, which holds everything together. But manufacturing complex structures, especially at the microscopic level, has proven to be an engineering nightmare, and many limitations on what is possible currently exist.

To address this problem, a research team at Tohoku University has developed a simple method for creating molecular robots from artificial, multicellular-like bodies by using molecules which can organize themselves into the desired shape.

The team, including Associate Professor Shin-ichiro Nomura and postdoctoral researcher Richard Archer from the Department of Robotics at the Graduate School of Engineering, recently reported their breakthrough in the American Chemical Society's publication, Langmuir.

"Our work demonstrated a simple, self-assembly technique which utilizes phospholipids and synthetic surfactants coated onto a hydrophobic silicone sponge," said Archer.

When Nomura and his colleagues introduced water into the lipid coated sponge, the hydrophilic and hydrophobic forces enabled the lipids and surfactants to assemble themselves, thereby allowing water to soak in. The sponge was then placed into oil, spontaneously forming micron sized, stabilized aqueous droplets as the water was expelled from the solid support. When pipetted on the surface of water, these droplets quickly assembled into larger planar macroscopic structures, like bricks coming together to form a wall.

"Our developed technique can easily build centimeter size structures from the assembly of micron sized compartments and is capable of being done with more than one droplet type," adds Archer. "By using different sponges with water containing different solutes, and forming different droplet types, the droplets can combine to form heterogeneous structures. This modular approach to assembly unleashes near endless possibilities."

The team could also turn these bodies into controllable devices with induced motion. To do so, they introduced magnetic nanoparticles into the hydrophobic walls of the multi-compartment structure. Archer says this multi-compartment approach to robot design will allow flexible modular designs with multiple functionalities and could redefine what we imagine robots to be. "Future work here will move us closer to a new generation of robots which are assembled by molecules rather than forged in steel and use functional chemicals rather than silicon chips and motors."

CAPTION

An actually formed multicellular body structure (top) and its enlarged view (bottom).

CREDIT

Richard Archer / Shin-Ichiro Nomura


Researchers developed an AI-based method to replace chemical staining of tissue

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TURKU

An example of virtual staining of tissue. 

IMAGE: IMAGE: AN EXAMPLE OF VIRTUAL STAINING OF TISSUE. UNSTAINED TISSUE ON THE LEFT, CHEMICALLY STAINED TISSUE IN THE MIDDLE AND VIRTUALLY STAINED TISSUE ON THE RIGHT. THE EXAMPLES ARE PROSTATE TISSUE. view more 

CREDIT: PEKKA RUUSUVUORI

Researchers from the University of Eastern Finland, the University of Turku, and Tampere University have developed an artificial intelligence-based method for virtual staining of histopathological tissue samples as a part of the Nordic ABCAP consortium. Chemical staining has been the cornerstone of studying histopathology for more than a century and is widely applied in, for example, cancer diagnostics.

“Chemical staining makes the morphology of the almost transparent, low-contrast tissue sections visible. Without it, analysing tissue morphology is almost impossible for human vision. Chemical staining is irreversible, and in most cases, it prevents the use of the same sample for other experiments or measurements,” says University Researcher and Vice Director of the Institute of Biomedicine at the University of Eastern Finland Leena Latonen, who led the experimental part of the study.

The artificial intelligence method developed in this study produces computational images that very closely resemble those produced by the actual chemical staining process. This virtually stained image can then be used for inspecting the morphology of the tissues. Virtual staining reduces both the chemical burden and manual work needed for sample processing while also enabling the use of the tissue for other purposes than the staining itself.

The strength of the proposed virtual staining method is that it requires no special hardware or infrastructure beyond a regular light microscopy and a suitable computer.

“The results are very widely applicable. There are plenty of topics for follow-up research, and the computational methods can still be improved. However, we can already envision several application areas where virtual staining can have a major impact in histopathology,” says Associate Professor Pekka Ruusuvuori from the University of Turku, who led the computational part of the study.

Ground-breaking research with international funding

One of the key factors enabling the study was the consortium funding obtained from the ERAPerMed joint transnational call. The ABCAP consortium consists of Nordic research groups developing artificial intelligence-based diagnostics of breast cancer towards personalised medicine and is funded by ERAPerMed, Nordic Cancer Union and the Academy of Finland. Both Latonen and Ruusuvuori lead their own subprojects.

“This research is truly cross-disciplinary. Without consortium funding, it would be very difficult to find enough resources for both the experimental laboratory work and the computational effort to enable studies like this,” acknowledge Ruusuvuori and Latonen.

This cross-disciplinary research is based on expertise in tissue biology, histological processes, bioimage informatics and artificial intelligence. The first part of the two-phase study focused on optimising the tissue sample processing and imaging steps, and was carried out by Doctoral Researcher Sonja Koivukoski from the University of Eastern Finland. Systematic assessment of histological feasibility was a unique component in the study.

“Development of computational methods using artificial intelligence often lacks proper assessment of the feasibility from the perspective of the end user. This may lead to methods being developed and published but eventually not really used in practice. Therefore, it is especially important to combine both computational and domain-based knowledge already in the development phase, as was done in our study,” state Latonen and Koivukoski.

Great potential of computational methods

Deep neural networks learning form large volumes of data have rapidly transformed the field of biomedical image analysis. In addition to traditional image analysis tasks, such as image interpretation, these methods are also well suited for image-to-image transforms. Virtual staining is an example of such a task, as was successfully shown in the two published parts of the work. The second part focused on optimising virtual staining based on generative adversarial neural networks, with Doctoral Researcher Umair Khan from the University of Turku as the lead developer.

“Deep neural networks are capable of performing at a level we were not able to imagine a while ago. Artificial intelligence-based virtual staining can have a major impact towards more efficient sample processing in histopathology,” says Khan.

In addition to the artificial intelligence algorithms, the key to success was the availability of high-performance computing services through CSC.

“In Finland, we have an excellent infrastructure for parallel high-performance computing. Computationally intensive research like this would not be possible without the capacity provided by CSC,” says Ruusuvuori.

The results of the study were published in two international peer-reviewed journals, Laboratory Investigation and Patterns.