Pro-survival proteins shift shapes

WALTER AND ELIZA HALL INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH

The structural change found in Bcl-w had not previously been reported for the pro-survival proteins. Image: cdascher/iStockphoto Researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have found a structural surprise in a type of protein that encourages cell survival, raising interesting questions about how the proteins function to influence programmed cell death. Programmed cell death, or apoptosis, is a natural process in which cells are instructed to die by members of the Bcl-2 family of proteins. It is important for controlling cell numbers and destroying defective or unwanted cells, but is also involved in the development of some cancers such as leukaemia and breast cancer in which the cells have an oversupply of pro-survival proteins, resisting signals that tell them to die. Dr Doug Fairlie, Dr Erinna Lee, and Professor Peter Colman from the institute’s Structural Biology division have shown that a pro-survival protein called Bcl-w can adopt a surprising structure unlike that seen in any other Bcl-2 family protein to date. The results were published today in the journal Structure. “We determined the structure of an unusual form of Bcl-w, a pro-survival protein discovered here at the institute,” Dr Fairlie said. “Unexpectedly, we found that, structurally, Bcl-w was able to change its shape significantly. Such a change had not previously been reported for the pro-survival proteins.” Researchers at the institute have spent many years studying the proteins involved in programmed cell death. Programmed cell death is controlled by pro-survival molecules, which stop cells from dying, and pro-death molecules, which instruct cells to die. “It is well known, from biochemical analyses, that these proteins have to change shape in order to function, but we don’t know how that shape change occurs or what it looks like,” Dr Fairlie said. “A number of our structural biologists are working on solving this particular problem.” Dr Lee said the research team was able to show that, with respect to Bcl-w at least, some of these shape changes can affect the protein’s function, perhaps in a negative way. “It could be a way of regulating what these proteins do within a cell, or it could be an inherent structural difference particular to the Bcl-w protein that makes it behave slightly differently to other pro-survival proteins,” she said. “We’re still trying to understand exactly what that means for the field.” Dr Fairlie said the research gave some idea of the types of changes these proteins can undergo, something that is not well understood. “Bcl-w is an interesting case because it does not seem to be associated with tumour growth and resilience to chemotherapy agents to the same extent as other pro-survival proteins. It may be that Bcl-w, unlike other Bcl-2 proteins and demonstrated in our structure, has evolved an inherent structural flexibility that restricts its pro-survival activity, which could explain why it is not often implicated in tumour development,” he said. “It will be particularly interesting to see whether the types of structural changes we see in Bcl-w also happen with the pro-death proteins, which would tell us a lot more about how these proteins work to kill a cell,” he said. The research involved Mr Marco Evangelista, Ms Anne Pettikiriarachchi and Dr Grant Dewson from the institute, as well as researchers at The Bio21 Institute. This work was supported by the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Cancer Research Foundation, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (US), Leukaemia Foundation of Australia and the Victorian Government Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Boys who email ‘brighter’

CURTIN UNIVERSITY

“So when we say that children who use the internet under certain circumstances are more popular – that’s true.” Image: RichVintage/iStockphoto Surveyed boys who used email at home were brighter and more popular than boys who did not – according to a recent study by an educational psychologist from Curtin University. The study by School of Education Senior Lecturer Genevieve Johnson analysed responses by 51 boys and 44 girls at a Canadian primary school. Dr Johnson likened the situation of boys who did not use email to that of boys from a generation or two before who did not watch TV. “Think back to when you were a little kid if one of your friends didn’t have a lunch box with the latest cartoon characters on it – because they didn’t watch TV – they were almost socially isolated because they didn’t know what was going on,” Dr Johnson told Curtin News. “So when we say that children who use the internet under certain circumstances are more popular – that’s true.” The girls surveyed by Dr Johnson were more likely than the boys to use email at home, but at school the girls and boys reported very similar use. The similarity between boys’ and girls’ email use suggested internet teaching at school may be closing the technology gender gap. It was considered likely that the gap was closing not because of decreased use by boys, but because of greater use by girls. Dr Johnson has completed many studies on how communications technologies affect the development of children. She said that throughout history parents and teachers had always been wary of how children would be affected by new technologies. “We’ve got this impression that the internet, including internet games, is something bad,” she told Curtin News. “This is totally inconsistent with the vast majority of my research. “I cannot say that every single online application is associated with positive developmental outcomes – but most are.” Dr Johnson said the same conclusion was broadly applicable to other communications technologies. “Any technology is going to have advantages and disadvantages in terms of children’s development,” she said. “To immediately assume that technologies like texting, like the internet, like video games, are a bad thing for children is so naive. “There’s much more evidence to suggest that technology can be quite a good thing for children.” Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Power cells from cheap silicon

NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

"The new thin-film silicon solar cells are designed to be made from cheaper, low grade silicon." Image: aprott/iStockphoto Researchers in Singapore have exploited advanced nanostructure technology to make a highly efficient and yet cheaper silicon solar cell. With this development, the researchers hope that the cost of solar energy can be halved. Developed jointly by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics (IME), the new thin-film silicon solar cells are designed to be made from cheaper, low grade silicon. However it is able to generate electricity currents close to that produced by traditional solar cells made from costly, high quality silicon. The new NTU-A*STAR nano-structured solar cells can produce a current of (34.3mA/cm2) – a world record for a silicon solar cell of its kind. This is made possible by creating a unique texture using nanostructures – which is thousands of times smaller than human hair – on the surface of the solar cell. The resulting electricity current output is close to those of traditional cells (40mA/cm2). Conventional thin film solar cells usually produce about half of the current that traditional cells produce. Adoption of solar energy around the world is hindered by the high cost of traditional solar panels, partially due to it being made from high grade crystalline bulk silicon. Using low-grade amorphous (shapeless) silicon thin film that has no texture – which is over 100 times thinner – addresses the material cost issue, but it is not as effective in converting sunlight to electricity, thus producing less energy. The newly developed nanostructure method, which creates a unique texture on the surface of amorphous silicon, improves the Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE) of the thin film silicon cell and so increases the energy output. The lead of the project from IME, Dr Navab Singh, Senior Scientist of IME’s NanoElectronics Programme, said: “To mitigate against reduced light absorption and carrier recombination in the amorphous silicon thin film cells, we designed and fabricated the novel nanostructures on silicon surface. The sole application of IME’s surface texturing strategy achieved a record high of short circuit current density with 5.26% PCE.” “The cell level power conversion efficiencies of bulk crystalline Si solar cells are 20 – 25 per cent. Given that short circuit current density is directly proportional to PCE, it is conceivable that subsequent efforts to improve fill factor and open circuit voltage would boost the final PCE of the silicon thin film solar cells greatly to match that of bulk Si solar cells. Our future research efforts will explore additional light trapping strategies such as plasmonics,” continued Dr Singh. Professor Cheng Tee Hiang, Chair of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said improving the efficiency of low-cost solar cells is critical in encouraging adoption of solar energy around the world. “Today’s world is faced with several challenges, which include the depletion of fossil fuels, increased cost of such fuels and a growing carbon footprint. At NTU, we are committed to develop the next generation of solar cells which are cheap, efficient and easy to manufacture, so as to enable solar energy to play a bigger role as a renewable resource.” Sustainability is one of NTU’s Five Peaks of Excellence which the university aims to make its mark globally under NTU 2015 five year strategic plan. The other four peaks include future healthcare, new media, the best of the East and West, and innovation. Professor Dim-Lee Kwong, Executive Director of IME, said, “The demand for thin film solar cells are expected to double by 2013. IME’s research efforts in this area are congruent with the world-wide movement towards renewable pro-environment and cost-viable energy solutions.” Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Boys who email ‘brighter’

CURTIN UNIVERSITY

“So when we say that children who use the internet under certain circumstances are more popular – that’s true.” Image: RichVintage/iStockphoto Surveyed boys who used email at home were brighter and more popular than boys who did not – according to a recent study by an educational psychologist from Curtin University. The study by School of Education Senior Lecturer Genevieve Johnson analysed responses by 51 boys and 44 girls at a Canadian primary school. Dr Johnson likened the situation of boys who did not use email to that of boys from a generation or two before who did not watch TV. “Think back to when you were a little kid if one of your friends didn’t have a lunch box with the latest cartoon characters on it – because they didn’t watch TV – they were almost socially isolated because they didn’t know what was going on,” Dr Johnson told Curtin News. “So when we say that children who use the internet under certain circumstances are more popular – that’s true.” The girls surveyed by Dr Johnson were more likely than the boys to use email at home, but at school the girls and boys reported very similar use. The similarity between boys’ and girls’ email use suggested internet teaching at school may be closing the technology gender gap. It was considered likely that the gap was closing not because of decreased use by boys, but because of greater use by girls. Dr Johnson has completed many studies on how communications technologies affect the development of children. She said that throughout history parents and teachers had always been wary of how children would be affected by new technologies. “We’ve got this impression that the internet, including internet games, is something bad,” she told Curtin News. “This is totally inconsistent with the vast majority of my research. “I cannot say that every single online application is associated with positive developmental outcomes – but most are.” Dr Johnson said the same conclusion was broadly applicable to other communications technologies. “Any technology is going to have advantages and disadvantages in terms of children’s development,” she said. “To immediately assume that technologies like texting, like the internet, like video games, are a bad thing for children is so naive. “There’s much more evidence to suggest that technology can be quite a good thing for children.” Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Microdots track wasp habits

THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Unmarked wasp on a pinhead Image: The Australian National University New research by scientists at The Australian National University will see wasps being tracked in the same way as stolen cars – using specialist microdot technology. The Research School of Biology researchers published a paper in the latest edition ofAgricultural and Forest Entomology outlining a successful new tracking technique, which allows them to study insects that were previously too small to track individually. Lead researcher Michael Whitehead was working with the parasitoid thynnine wasp to investigate its role in orchid pollination, but found available tracking methods impractical. “Bee tags were previously used to keep track of small animals, but they were too big in this case, and the electronic devices we could find weren’t going to work,” he said. “So my brother and I came up with the idea to test out microdots as a tracking system.” Microdots were developed by the Australian company DataDot Technology, as a way of tracking stolen property. The plastic microdots are half a millimetre in diameter and contain a personalised code which can be read under a magnifier. To test the method, the research team captured wasps around Black Mountain in Canberra and attached coded microdots to their backs with liquid paper or nail polish before releasing them.  After being recaptured, 84 per cent of tagged wasps retained a legible microdot, proving the method to be effective and durable. “When you’re able to individually mark the wasps you can get data on population size, movement and longevity,” Mr Whitehead said. “The method also opens the door to a whole range of applications beyond research, ranging from tracing oysters stolen from oyster farms to tracking elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns to combat poaching.” Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Feeding the world while protecting the planet

 by Biomechanism 

“International team of researchers designs global plan for sustainable agriculture” 

Agricultural lands of the world.

The problem is stark: One billion people on earth don’t have enough food right now. It’s estimated that by 2050 there will be more than nine billion people living on the planet.

Meanwhile, current agricultural practices are amongst the biggest threats to the global environment. This means that if we don’t develop more sustainable practices, the planet will become even less able to feed its growing population than it is today.

But now a team of researchers from Canada, the U.S., Sweden and Germany has come up with a plan to double the world’s food production while reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature.

By combining information gathered from crop records and satellite images from around the world, they have been able to create new models of agricultural systems and their environmental impacts that are truly global in scope.

McGill geography professor Navin Ramankutty, one of the team leaders on the study, credits the collaboration between researchers for achieving such important results.  “Lots of other scholars and thinkers have proposed solutions to global food and environmental problems. But they were often fragmented, only looking at one aspect of the problem at one time. And they often lacked the specifics and numbers to back them up. This is the first time that such a wide range of data has been brought together under one common framework, and it has allowed us to see some clear patterns. This makes it easier to develop some concrete solutions for the problems facing us.”

A five-point plan for feeding the world while protecting the planet

The researchers recommend:

1. Halting farmland expansion and land clearing for agricultural purposes, particularly in the tropical rainforest. This can be achieved using incentives such as payment for ecosystem services, certification and ecotourism. This change will yield huge environmental benefits without dramatically cutting into agricultural production or economic well-being.
2. Improving agricultural yields. Many farming regions in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe are not living up to their potential for producing crops – something known as “yield gaps”. Improved use of existing crop varieties, better management and improved genetics could increase current food production nearly by 60 per cent.
3. Supplementing the land more strategically. Current use of water, nutrients and agricultural chemicals suffers from what the research team calls “Goldilocks’ Problem”: too much in some places, too little in others, rarely just right. Strategic reallocation could substantially boost the benefit we get from precious inputs.
4. Shifting diets. Growing animal feed or biofuels on prime croplands, no matter how efficiently, is a drain on human food supply. Dedicating croplands to direct human food production could boost calories produced per person by nearly 50 per cent. Even shifting nonfood uses such as animal feed or biofuel production away from prime cropland could make a big difference.
5. Reducing waste. One-third of the food produced by farms ends up discarded, spoiled or eaten by pests. Eliminating waste in the path that food takes from farm to mouth could boost food available for consumption another 50 per cent.

The study also outlines approaches to the problem that would help policy-makers reach informed decisions about the agricultural choices facing them. “For the first time, we have shown that it is possible to both feed a hungry world and protect a threatened planet,” said lead author Jonathan Foley, head of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. “It will take serious work. But we can do it.”

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TOP FIVE MOST APPEALING JOBS

There is nothing better than loving your job and being able to brag about it to your friends. Having a job which pays well, sounds prestigious and makes you happy will allow you to lead a more fulfilling life. Find out some jobs which fit this criteria. Get the top 5 most appealing jobs here!

Payscale shares…

Senior Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions– Annual Salary $116,700

The meltdown of the financial markets has demonstrated that people who are smart and creative in structuring complex transactions will continue to be in demand, Cohen explains. “As stricter regulatory and compliance rules are introduced and implemented, so, too, are new ways to work around them,” he says. And what’s sexier than finding a loophole?

Healthcare IT Manager – Annual Salary $69,600

Joey Price, human resources director and founder of Push Consultant Group, finds medical information technology particularly hot. “It combines the use of cutting edge technology and data management with the classic, tried and true fields of medicine and pharmaceuticals,” he says. It’s definitely tantalizing to think of bridging the gap between keyboard clicks and a doctor’s touch.

Fashion Designer – Annual Salary $60,100

Could you get anything done surrounded by gorgeous models all day? Reality TV certainly plays a part in the rash of students heading off to design school. But Gandomi Lewis says the industry does have its share of celebrity interactions and wealth creation.

Marketing and PR Manager - Annual Salary $59,700

Amelia Gandomi Lewis an HR consultant and executive coach, points out that status-oriented Millenials who spent big bucks on pedigreed education, but still need to pay bills, find this gig working highly appealing to their generational values. They are happy to work with people to sell a brand they respect.

Private Equity Portfolio Analyst – Annual Salary $53,600

Roy Cohen, career coach and author of The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide says these jobs are desirable (and sexy) because they have the potential to pay substantial salaries, both base and bonus, as well as offer other incentives. “They often involve travel, sometimes international, and interaction with senior management of client companies,” notes Cohen. They tend to be intellectually challenging, too.

Get more job details at Payscale!

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A Tablet for the Blind?

An undergraduate in a Stanford course helped develop a Braille writer for a touchscreen. What does tablet computing offer the visually impaired?

DAVID ZAX 

An innovative app developed at Stanford University over the summer shows how tablet computing has the potential to transform the ways the blind interact with the world. During a two-month summer course, an undergraduate and two mentors developed a Braille writer for a touchscreen.

Braille, the alphabet for the blind built out of patterns of bumps, is the way the blind navigate the world of text. But how do blind people write Braille themselves? There exist specialized mechanical devices for the purpose, that look something like little typewriters, only with just a handful of keys. (There's a wealth of information on the panoply of Braille writers here.) Such devices are pricey, though--$3,000 to $6,000, often. A tablet, obviously, is an order of magnitude less expensive, and has greater capabilities.

While at Stanford's Army High-Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC) this past summer, Adam Duran, a rising senior from New Mexico State University, together with two mentors, Adrian Lew and Sohan Dharmaraja, developed the idea of technology to assist the blind. First they thought they'd work on a Braille reader. But then they realized they should aim higher. "The killer app was not a reader, but a writer," Dharmaraja told Stanford Report.

Touchscreens are funny creatures. One the one hand, they're touchscreens, specializing in the sense that the blind already use to read and write. On the other hand, they're touchscreens, meaning they're uniform and flat, and seemingly impossible to navigate without sight. Duran et al. knew that physical Braille writers had one major advantage: blind users could simply feel where the keys were. But how to solve that problem on a level sheet of glass?

Touchscreens have one other feature though--they're smart. The team realized that they didn't have to make keys in a set location that the user had to find; the user could simply set his fingers down, and the keys could orient themselves accordingly. Each time the user lifts all his fingers off the screen and sets them down again, the keyboard would adjust to the fingers' new location.

Apart from being smart, tablets are also customizable; Dharmaraja told Stanford Report that touchscreens "can accommodate users whose fingers are small or large, those who type with fingers close together or far apart, even to allow a user to type on a tablet hanging around the neck with hands opposed as if playing a clarinet."

A video demonstration of the app shows other neat tricks that a tablet equipped with computerized speech can pull; by dragging your finger to the side, you can activate a menu that lets you switch into different modes--a mathematical notation mode, say, or one for the symbols of chemistry.

What I wonder is if the proliferation of digital devices, optical character recognition, dictation software, and the like will render Braille itself obsolete, or at least archaic. In the same way that those who lament the death of paper and the loss of the pleasing heft of a book, will an older generation of the blind struggle to instill an appreciation for the tactile pleasures of Braille in the young crop of tablet-computing natives?

One Smart Phone, Two Personalities

Double duty: AT&T and others want Android phones to provide users separate work and personal modes on the same device.
Enterproid

COMMUNICATIONS

One Smart Phone, Two Personalities

Several companies are working on technology that would separate your personal stuff from your work data.

• BY TOM SIMONITE

Audio »

AT&T, the second largest wireless carrier in the U.S., and Qualcomm, which dominates the market for smart-phone processors, want to give your phone a split identity. The companies are separately adopting technology that can make a smart phone secure enough to keep IT bosses happy, but open enough to allow its owner to install apps or surf the Web.

AT&T will release its version of the technology, called Toggle, for Android phones this year. Someone using a device with Toggle installed taps the home button twice to flip between personal and work modes. The personal mode behaves like a regular phone and is fully under the user's control. The work mode looks like a separate phone with its own desktop and suite of apps and is secured by a password. Its functionality is constrained by a company's IT policy; all data stored or created under the work mode, whether e-mail, contacts, or Web downloads, is encrypted and can be remotely wiped if a phone is lost or stolen.

"People want to use their own smart phones and tablets for work, but that practice can create major headaches for businesses' IT departments," says Chris Hill, part of AT&T's Advanced Mobility Solutions group. "Toggle helps resolve the issue in a simple, affordable manner."

The smart phone boom triggered by Apple's iPhone has caused a sharp increase in the number of people using personal mobile gadgets at work, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD. Newer devices made the standard issue corporate BlackBerry look clunky, and come with apps that can aid productivity.

AT&T's Toggle is a rebranding of technology developed by Enterproid, a startup based in New York, which launched the technology in a closed beta trial earlier this year. Enterproid is also continuing to develop its own product, says cofounder Alexander Trewby. Android users can sign up to use Enterproid, which is currently free, here.

Trewby and colleagues are also working with chipmaker Qualcomm, which has made changes to forthcoming phone and tablet processor designs to better support Enterproid's approach. "We will be integrated with their Snapdragon line of processors so we can store the encryption keys that secure our data in the silicon," explains Trewby. That addresses a vulnerability where data could be stolen from a phone in work mode if an attacker gained root access to a phone and extracted Enterproid or Toggle encryption keys that are currently stored in the phone's memory. Storing those keys in a device's processor instead makes such an attack much more difficult, says Trewby, who notes it is even enough to satisfy military organizations.
Activating work mode on a device running Toggle or Enterproid allows access to a suite of basic apps for e-mail, Web browsing, and content management. Enterproid plans to launch its own app store to allow IT managers to remotely install apps on employees' phones. Trewby and colleagues also hope to encourage developers to contribute apps. "We're providing the platform for third-party developers, and they will be able to inherit our encryption and security into their own app."

The fact that two companies as influential as AT&T and Qualcomm are backing Enterproid's technology makes it possible that such a feature will become common for many smart phones and tablets. However, the approach will not work for the iPhone or iPad, which do not allow one app to run inside another. Apple also has tight guidelines for apps that rule out replicating Apple's default interface.

Trewby says Enterproid has a good relationship with Apple, and he hopes that in the future, the company will allow a dual-persona system. But for the moment, Enterproid is working on a more basic iPhone app that keeps a work contact list secure.

"We're seeing demand for a dual mode on iPhone, though, and our existing users on Android really like this approach," says Trewby, adding that an application for hacked iPads, called iUser, implemented such a system and "got great response."

Mike Sapien of the analyst firm Ovum says the Bring Your Own Device problem is serious enough to attract Apple's attention. His company's research suggests that 35 percent of people currently use a personal device for work data. Sapien says the number is likely higher because many people do so against company policy.

"I think it's a big enough trend that Apple will find its own solution for this, probably with some key partners," says Sapien, who notes that Enterproid could give Android phones a competitive advantage over Apple devices in the eyes of some consumers and company IT managers.