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Fuel Cell Runs on Brain Power
For centuries, humans
have used the power of their brains to solve complex mysteries, create
radical new inventions, and devise wondrous works of art. But now,
scientists have developed a technology that enables us to use our brains
to actually harvest electrical power.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have designed an implantable glucose fuel cell that can generate electricity from the cerebrospinal fluid around the brain. The results of these efforts, published this week in PLoS ONE, show that a few hundred microwatts of power could be harvested from glucose within the cerebrospinal fluid with no adverse physiological effects.
A few hundred microwatts is certainly not enough energy to power, say, a pair of Google glasses, or, for fans of The Matrix, an entire alternate reality. But it is enough to fuel futuristic, highly efficient brain implants that could allow paralyzed patients to regain the ability to move their arms and legs.
"We envision [the fuel cells] powering brain-machine interfaces for paralysis in the medium-term, or in the longer-term, those for blindness or deep-brain disorders," says team leader and computer scientist Rahul Sarpeshkar.
Currently, most experimental brain-machine interface devices are powered through inductive power transfer, in which power is transferred wirelessly, or single-use batteries that must be surgically replaced after several years. The new, micrometer-scale fuel cell is primarily composed of platinum, a material with a good track record of being safe in the body. Sarpeshkar posits that the new fuel cell could work for decades without being replaced, though he emphasizes that animal and human tests will be necessary to prove his contention.
The miniature fuel cell, shaped very similarly to a computer chip, was tested in a saline solution simulating cerebrospinal fluid, at sizes of 1 square millimeter and 2 square millimeters. It functions by oxidizing glucose from the brain's cerebrospinal fluid at the surface of an activated platinum anode and converting oxygen to water at the surface of a network of single-walled carbon nanotubes embedded at the cathode end of the cell. Electrons are stripped from the glucose, and the fuel cell uses them to generate electricity.
To the best knowledge of the researchers, this was the first time that cerebrospinal fluid was used as a medium for an implantable fuel cell. They viewed it as a promising niche environment because it is under minimal immune system surveillance, the fluid is practically devoid of cells, and glucose levels are comparable to that of blood. The fuel cell also utilized an oxygen gradient to prevent oxygen from reaching the anode and thus possibly creating electrochemical short circuits.
To gauge the fuel cell's safety, the researchers first evaluated whether brain glucose levels would be adversely affected. Using data from their earlier testing and available knowledge about the replenishment rate of glucose in the cerebrospinal fluid, they determined that their fuel cell would consume glucose at only 2.8% to 28% of the rate at which cerebrospinal fluid glucose is replenished, not nearly enough to cause adverse effects. The researcher s also analyzed the fuel cell's oxygen consumption to ensure that it wouldn't destabilize brain oxygen levels. The calculations revealed that it would not disrupt oxygen equilibrium within the cerebrospinal fluid.
Adam Heller, a chemical engineer at the University of Texas, Austin, says the device looks promising but that it still needs to be tested in an animal model. Sarpeshkar's team is currently planning for animal and human testing in the coming years and already has several candidate regions of the brain and spinal cord targeted for possible implantation.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have designed an implantable glucose fuel cell that can generate electricity from the cerebrospinal fluid around the brain. The results of these efforts, published this week in PLoS ONE, show that a few hundred microwatts of power could be harvested from glucose within the cerebrospinal fluid with no adverse physiological effects.
A few hundred microwatts is certainly not enough energy to power, say, a pair of Google glasses, or, for fans of The Matrix, an entire alternate reality. But it is enough to fuel futuristic, highly efficient brain implants that could allow paralyzed patients to regain the ability to move their arms and legs.
"We envision [the fuel cells] powering brain-machine interfaces for paralysis in the medium-term, or in the longer-term, those for blindness or deep-brain disorders," says team leader and computer scientist Rahul Sarpeshkar.
Currently, most experimental brain-machine interface devices are powered through inductive power transfer, in which power is transferred wirelessly, or single-use batteries that must be surgically replaced after several years. The new, micrometer-scale fuel cell is primarily composed of platinum, a material with a good track record of being safe in the body. Sarpeshkar posits that the new fuel cell could work for decades without being replaced, though he emphasizes that animal and human tests will be necessary to prove his contention.
The miniature fuel cell, shaped very similarly to a computer chip, was tested in a saline solution simulating cerebrospinal fluid, at sizes of 1 square millimeter and 2 square millimeters. It functions by oxidizing glucose from the brain's cerebrospinal fluid at the surface of an activated platinum anode and converting oxygen to water at the surface of a network of single-walled carbon nanotubes embedded at the cathode end of the cell. Electrons are stripped from the glucose, and the fuel cell uses them to generate electricity.
To the best knowledge of the researchers, this was the first time that cerebrospinal fluid was used as a medium for an implantable fuel cell. They viewed it as a promising niche environment because it is under minimal immune system surveillance, the fluid is practically devoid of cells, and glucose levels are comparable to that of blood. The fuel cell also utilized an oxygen gradient to prevent oxygen from reaching the anode and thus possibly creating electrochemical short circuits.
To gauge the fuel cell's safety, the researchers first evaluated whether brain glucose levels would be adversely affected. Using data from their earlier testing and available knowledge about the replenishment rate of glucose in the cerebrospinal fluid, they determined that their fuel cell would consume glucose at only 2.8% to 28% of the rate at which cerebrospinal fluid glucose is replenished, not nearly enough to cause adverse effects. The researcher s also analyzed the fuel cell's oxygen consumption to ensure that it wouldn't destabilize brain oxygen levels. The calculations revealed that it would not disrupt oxygen equilibrium within the cerebrospinal fluid.
Adam Heller, a chemical engineer at the University of Texas, Austin, says the device looks promising but that it still needs to be tested in an animal model. Sarpeshkar's team is currently planning for animal and human testing in the coming years and already has several candidate regions of the brain and spinal cord targeted for possible implantation.
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'Rhubarb' Battery Could Store Energy of Future
A molecule nearly identical to
one in rhubarb may hold the key to the future of renewable energy.
Researchers have used the compound to create a high-performance “flow”
battery, a leading contender for storing renewable power in the electric
utility grid. If the battery prototype can be scaled up, it could help
utilities deliver renewable energy when the wind is calm and the sun
isn’t shining.
Renewables are already big business, with wind and solar power accounting for about 7% of all new power-generating capacity installed worldwide. Many experts would love to see that number grow to limit carbon emissions from fossil fuels. But if utilities use wind and solar power to provide more than about 20% of their power, they run into trouble. Above that level, it’s hard for the backup sources to meet demand when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
Numerous technologies have been proposed to store excess renewable energy for later use. And many regions already pump water uphill and later run it through a generator to do just that. But that doesn’t work in the flatlands. Other options, such as conventional batteries, are still too expensive and have safety concerns.
Flow batteries are another option. Unlike conventional batteries, which pack the chemical reactants and electrodes together, flow batteries keep their reactants in separate tanks. Energy can be extracted, or fed into the reactants, simply by flowing the materials past two electrodes separated by a membrane. A full-scale pilot project of the leading flow battery contender, based on vanadium ions dissolved in water, is due to be completed next year in Japan for grid storage. But vanadium is expensive. The vanadium alone in a flow battery with the storage capacity to provide a kilowatt-hour of electricity now costs $81. Adding the other components raises the price to between $350 and $700 per kilowatt-hour. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the cost target for a viable grid storage technology is about $100 per kilowatt-hour.
Hoping to get closer to that mark, a team led by Michael Aziz, a physicist at Harvard University, decided to explore organic molecules called quinones. The compounds have long been known for being adept at grabbing and releasing electrons, a key requirement for a battery material. And they are plentiful in plants and even crude oil, making them potentially cheap. So Aziz says he and his students started testing a few different types of quinones in a flow battery and got fair results. That prompted them to team up with theoretical chemists led by Alán Aspuru-Guzik of Harvard to calculate the properties of more than 10,000 quinone molecules. That’s where they hit upon the rhubarblike compound.
Aziz and his team incorporated it into their flow battery setup. In one tank they place the quinone, abbreviated AQDSH2, dissolved in water. In a separate tank they place Br2, or bromine liquid. To get electricity out, they pump the two liquids past adjoining electrodes separated by a thin proton-conducting membrane. At one electrode, each quinone molecule gives up two electrons and two protons. The electrons zip through an outside circuit to the opposite electrode, where they meet up with the protons that passed through the membrane. The partners then combine with a bromine atom to make molecules of HBr. To store energy, the researchers simply run the pumps in reverse and provide energetic electrons. That coaxes the hydrogens to break away from bromine atoms and reattach themselves to the quinone at the opposite electrode. In a paper published online today in Nature, Aziz and his colleagues show that the quinone flow battery not only works, but also appears stable in early testing and provides considerable power. And perhaps best of all, Aziz notes that the cost of the quinones and bromine is about one-third the cost of vanadium, making it potentially a far cheaper option.
“It’s a great new materials set,” says Mike Perry, a flow battery expert at United Technologies Research Center in East Hartford, Connecticut, whose company is developing advanced vanadium flow batteries. But bromine is highly caustic, Perry notes, which may add to the cost of a final flow battery that relies on it. Aziz says his group is exploring other organics to replace the bromine as well. If it works, the novel batteries could energize efforts to add renewable power to the grid and curb society’s reliance on fossil fuel-generated power.
Renewables are already big business, with wind and solar power accounting for about 7% of all new power-generating capacity installed worldwide. Many experts would love to see that number grow to limit carbon emissions from fossil fuels. But if utilities use wind and solar power to provide more than about 20% of their power, they run into trouble. Above that level, it’s hard for the backup sources to meet demand when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
Numerous technologies have been proposed to store excess renewable energy for later use. And many regions already pump water uphill and later run it through a generator to do just that. But that doesn’t work in the flatlands. Other options, such as conventional batteries, are still too expensive and have safety concerns.
Flow batteries are another option. Unlike conventional batteries, which pack the chemical reactants and electrodes together, flow batteries keep their reactants in separate tanks. Energy can be extracted, or fed into the reactants, simply by flowing the materials past two electrodes separated by a membrane. A full-scale pilot project of the leading flow battery contender, based on vanadium ions dissolved in water, is due to be completed next year in Japan for grid storage. But vanadium is expensive. The vanadium alone in a flow battery with the storage capacity to provide a kilowatt-hour of electricity now costs $81. Adding the other components raises the price to between $350 and $700 per kilowatt-hour. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the cost target for a viable grid storage technology is about $100 per kilowatt-hour.
Hoping to get closer to that mark, a team led by Michael Aziz, a physicist at Harvard University, decided to explore organic molecules called quinones. The compounds have long been known for being adept at grabbing and releasing electrons, a key requirement for a battery material. And they are plentiful in plants and even crude oil, making them potentially cheap. So Aziz says he and his students started testing a few different types of quinones in a flow battery and got fair results. That prompted them to team up with theoretical chemists led by Alán Aspuru-Guzik of Harvard to calculate the properties of more than 10,000 quinone molecules. That’s where they hit upon the rhubarblike compound.
Aziz and his team incorporated it into their flow battery setup. In one tank they place the quinone, abbreviated AQDSH2, dissolved in water. In a separate tank they place Br2, or bromine liquid. To get electricity out, they pump the two liquids past adjoining electrodes separated by a thin proton-conducting membrane. At one electrode, each quinone molecule gives up two electrons and two protons. The electrons zip through an outside circuit to the opposite electrode, where they meet up with the protons that passed through the membrane. The partners then combine with a bromine atom to make molecules of HBr. To store energy, the researchers simply run the pumps in reverse and provide energetic electrons. That coaxes the hydrogens to break away from bromine atoms and reattach themselves to the quinone at the opposite electrode. In a paper published online today in Nature, Aziz and his colleagues show that the quinone flow battery not only works, but also appears stable in early testing and provides considerable power. And perhaps best of all, Aziz notes that the cost of the quinones and bromine is about one-third the cost of vanadium, making it potentially a far cheaper option.
“It’s a great new materials set,” says Mike Perry, a flow battery expert at United Technologies Research Center in East Hartford, Connecticut, whose company is developing advanced vanadium flow batteries. But bromine is highly caustic, Perry notes, which may add to the cost of a final flow battery that relies on it. Aziz says his group is exploring other organics to replace the bromine as well. If it works, the novel batteries could energize efforts to add renewable power to the grid and curb society’s reliance on fossil fuel-generated power.
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What Would You Do With the World's Most Powerful Laser?
Q: What was NIF designed to do?
Johan Frenje (Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge): NIF is a laser that’s the size of three football stadiums, with 192 beams. We use those lasers to implode capsules to very, very high densities and, hopefully, high temperatures during what we call “shots.” When we reach those conditions, we may be able to ignite, where you produce more energy than you put in. We’ve made a significant amount of progress, but we have a long way to go before we achieve ignition.
Ani Aprahamian (University of Notre Dame in Indiana): With ignition, we would have a power source like the sun, producing endless energy. But there have been some technical difficulties on the way to get there.
Q: In addition to fusion research, what other kids of science can you do at NIF?
A.A.: The work at NIF is really is at the gut of understanding matter. We think we understand a lot about plasmas and nuclear matter, but in reality, we don’t. What you can do with NIF is at the frontiers of knowledge.
J.F.: To me, the biggest issue is understanding plasma at very high temperatures and pressures. Some of that physics is not understood yet, so we have quite a bit of work to do.
Narek Gharibyan (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California): NIF is a wonderful source of neutrons that we can use to do basic science measurements. In particular, we’re trying to look at isomeric states, which is when an atomic nucleus gains energy and jumps from its ground state to an excited state. Those states aren’t stable, so it’s very difficult to do any measurements on an excited nucleus. But because NIF produces so many neutrons, you can actually create that state and measure it during the same shot. There are models that predict what these measurements would be, but experimental results are always needed to prove that what we think we know is actually right.
René Reifarth (Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany): When you look at normal temperatures on Earth, we get up to around 300 kelvin, or 30°C. Inside a NIF shot, we reach temperatures of 150 million kelvin, which is more like the inside of a star. You cannot do that anywhere else, and even at NIF, you can only do it for very, very short times. This is the only chance we have to touch something that hot. There are more questions that can be addressed if you put matter under very extreme conditions.
Q: How similar is a NIF shot to the inside of a star?
R.R.: It depends on the star, and it depends on the shot. But in NIF, you can reach temperatures that are quite similar to typical stellar temperatures. Of course, the cores in the stars are much bigger and also stay at those extreme temperatures and pressures for much longer. NIF can only create those conditions during an implosion. Still, if we can explain what happens inside a NIF capsule, we hope that we can explain what happens inside a star. NIF tests our basic understanding of fusion, of explosions, all kinds of things.
Q: If you had NIF all to yourself for a week, what kind of experiment would you do?
R.R.: I would dope the capsules with heavy elements and see what happens.
N.G.: We always talk about collecting literally everything that comes out of the capsule as it implodes to be able to study what happens when the plasma forms and well as how it cools For example, we don't know if the debris is atomized or in chunks. There’s a lot of interesting things we could do with our own time at NIF.
J.F.: I would look at charged particle transport, or how energy and particles are transported in plasmas. It’s a big problem, and we don’t understand it very well. There are lots of theories out there but there’s no experimental data on how the process works. People have been trying to do this for 30 years but it’s extraordinarily hard. I think there’s a lot of potential to do very high quality measurements with NIF.
A.A.: I don't think we'd be running short of ideas.
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Forget Smart Watches, 'Smart Skin' May Be the Next Big Thing in Wearable Computers
Parkinson’s patients could one
day ditch their pills for a stretchy skin patch with a mind of its own.
Using specialized sensors, the patch would monitor the wearer's vital
signs, beam the information to a doctor, and administer medication as
needed. While such devices still face substantial obstacles before
wide-scale implementation, two teams of researchers have announced
innovations combining standard electronics with flexible materials that
may bring the futuristic concept closer to reality.
Conventional electronics, such as those found in computers and smartphones, are built on stiff slabs of silicon. While durable, the design makes for bulky and uncomfortable wearable devices. Flexible electronics instead print circuits onto limber strips of silicone or plastic. The bendable base layers make devices twist and stretch when attached to the skin, but they are limited by a lack of key components such as batteries and processors that currently do not exist in flexible form.
Researchers from Seoul National University led by bioengineer Dae-Hyeong Kim have now developed a patch that automatically delivers medication to Parkinson’s patients. Parkinson's disease is a neurological disorder that causes movement impairments such as hand tremors that require regular medication to suppress. Typically, patients take pills every few hours, leading to a spike in medication levels followed by a gradual decline that causes the tremors to return. The team’s skin patch instead supplies a series of smaller measured doses as needed by using a tremor-detecting sensor. Because the device needs to track the tremors over time, they utilized a newly invented memory format called resistive random-access memory to create the first flexible data storage for wearable devices. The new format can be used in a thin, low-power form, making it ideal for inclusion in wearable electronics.
Kim’s team combined the thin data storage with a novel drug delivery system. The patch’s bottom layer is coated with porous silica nanoparticles loaded with drugs. Unlike a nicotine patch, the team’s device releases medication only when needed. A small heater in the patch automatically warms the nanoparticles, causing them to release their drug payloads into the skin, the team reported on Sunday in Nature Nanotechnology. A temperature sensor prevents the device from overheating and causing burns. Because flexible batteries and processors don’t yet exist for skin-based electronics, the device utilizes an external power source and processor. The patch covers an area comparable to a medium-sized adhesive bandage, and the researchers say the entire patch is thinner than a dime. “This could be a big deal for Parkinson’s disease patients,” Kim says. “The patient can attach the patch and forget about it without worrying about side effects or remembering to take pills.”
Despite their benefits for wearable devices, flexible electronics including Kim’s remain cumbersome to manufacture and are currently built by hand one by one in university labs. A team of researchers led by John Rogers, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has developed a way to incorporate widely available rigid electronic components into a structure that would still be flexible like Kim’s device. Rogers likens the prototype patch to a jelly doughnut: A transparent outer shell of flexible silicone rubber holds a small amount of silicone fluid similar in consistency to pancake syrup. Rigid components, purchased from suppliers and shaved down to a smaller size, float in the fluid, anchored at points to the outer shell. When the patch stretches with the skin, snakelike wires connecting the components unfurl like origami, allowing the rigid components to glide freely. As the patch contracts, the connectors return to their original positions, the team reports online today in Science. While the team’s research simplifies the manufacturing and lowers the cost of wearable electronics, the design is bulkier and less durable than those that use entirely flexible components such as Kim’s Parkinson’s patch.
“This is certainly a bridge to a time when we can get all flexible parts,” Rogers says. “We can use components that are already commercially available to implement these ideas today. This lowers the cost of getting these devices into the world.”
Although these recent innovations solve some of the problems facing wearable electronics, both Kim and Rogers admit that many major challenges remain before wide-scale adoption. Zhenan Bao, a chemical engineer developing similar wearable health sensors at Stanford University in California, says that some key components such as batteries and processors do not yet have a flexible form suitable for skin patches. “These two research projects show the field is steadily moving forward with new components made into stretchable form,” she says. “But more components are needed for these devices to be fully wearable and run on their own.”
Kim proposes that smartphones and smart watches could provide remote power and processing to the wearable patches. He is now working on a method of using the wireless antennas in smartphones to transmit power over short distances with the potential to recharge or even replace batteries in wearable electronics. Outsourcing data crunching and transmission to an external device could also reduce the patches' power consumption and reduce production costs.
Conventional electronics, such as those found in computers and smartphones, are built on stiff slabs of silicon. While durable, the design makes for bulky and uncomfortable wearable devices. Flexible electronics instead print circuits onto limber strips of silicone or plastic. The bendable base layers make devices twist and stretch when attached to the skin, but they are limited by a lack of key components such as batteries and processors that currently do not exist in flexible form.
Researchers from Seoul National University led by bioengineer Dae-Hyeong Kim have now developed a patch that automatically delivers medication to Parkinson’s patients. Parkinson's disease is a neurological disorder that causes movement impairments such as hand tremors that require regular medication to suppress. Typically, patients take pills every few hours, leading to a spike in medication levels followed by a gradual decline that causes the tremors to return. The team’s skin patch instead supplies a series of smaller measured doses as needed by using a tremor-detecting sensor. Because the device needs to track the tremors over time, they utilized a newly invented memory format called resistive random-access memory to create the first flexible data storage for wearable devices. The new format can be used in a thin, low-power form, making it ideal for inclusion in wearable electronics.
Kim’s team combined the thin data storage with a novel drug delivery system. The patch’s bottom layer is coated with porous silica nanoparticles loaded with drugs. Unlike a nicotine patch, the team’s device releases medication only when needed. A small heater in the patch automatically warms the nanoparticles, causing them to release their drug payloads into the skin, the team reported on Sunday in Nature Nanotechnology. A temperature sensor prevents the device from overheating and causing burns. Because flexible batteries and processors don’t yet exist for skin-based electronics, the device utilizes an external power source and processor. The patch covers an area comparable to a medium-sized adhesive bandage, and the researchers say the entire patch is thinner than a dime. “This could be a big deal for Parkinson’s disease patients,” Kim says. “The patient can attach the patch and forget about it without worrying about side effects or remembering to take pills.”
Despite their benefits for wearable devices, flexible electronics including Kim’s remain cumbersome to manufacture and are currently built by hand one by one in university labs. A team of researchers led by John Rogers, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has developed a way to incorporate widely available rigid electronic components into a structure that would still be flexible like Kim’s device. Rogers likens the prototype patch to a jelly doughnut: A transparent outer shell of flexible silicone rubber holds a small amount of silicone fluid similar in consistency to pancake syrup. Rigid components, purchased from suppliers and shaved down to a smaller size, float in the fluid, anchored at points to the outer shell. When the patch stretches with the skin, snakelike wires connecting the components unfurl like origami, allowing the rigid components to glide freely. As the patch contracts, the connectors return to their original positions, the team reports online today in Science. While the team’s research simplifies the manufacturing and lowers the cost of wearable electronics, the design is bulkier and less durable than those that use entirely flexible components such as Kim’s Parkinson’s patch.
“This is certainly a bridge to a time when we can get all flexible parts,” Rogers says. “We can use components that are already commercially available to implement these ideas today. This lowers the cost of getting these devices into the world.”
Although these recent innovations solve some of the problems facing wearable electronics, both Kim and Rogers admit that many major challenges remain before wide-scale adoption. Zhenan Bao, a chemical engineer developing similar wearable health sensors at Stanford University in California, says that some key components such as batteries and processors do not yet have a flexible form suitable for skin patches. “These two research projects show the field is steadily moving forward with new components made into stretchable form,” she says. “But more components are needed for these devices to be fully wearable and run on their own.”
Kim proposes that smartphones and smart watches could provide remote power and processing to the wearable patches. He is now working on a method of using the wireless antennas in smartphones to transmit power over short distances with the potential to recharge or even replace batteries in wearable electronics. Outsourcing data crunching and transmission to an external device could also reduce the patches' power consumption and reduce production costs.
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Simple test for cancer and heart disease
Like a pregnancy test, a new diagnostic technique uses a paper strip to show results
Heart disease and cancer are the two leading causes of death in the United States and many other developed countries. Unfortunately, both diseases can be difficult to diagnose. Because these conditions reflect changes deep inside the body, they just aren’t that easy to detect from the outside. But that could change, thanks to a new type of test.
With only two steps, it promises to be fast, cheap and easy. First, a doctor gives a patient an injection. Later, the patient urinates on a special strip of paper. The paper will change color if a disease is present.
“It works exactly the same as a pregnancy test,” Andrew Warren told Science News. A biomedical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, his group helped design the new test along with researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. So far, the test has been used only with laboratory mice.
But other researchers praise the test for its simple and smart approach.
A paradigm (PAIR uh dime) is an idea or theory about how something should be done, made or even thought about. Andres Martinez describes the new test as “brilliant work — a totally different paradigm for detecting disease.” A chemist at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Martinez was not involved in creating the new test.
One common type of diagnostic test looks for any telltale molecules that a sick person’s body naturally releases into the blood. Not this new test. It instead relies on synthetic molecules. It also takes advantage of existing knowledge about the behavior of cancer and a disorder called thrombosis. Thrombosis causes blood clots and often gets worse with heart disease.
The researchers knew that both diseases rely on proteases (PRO tee AY sis). These chemicals act like tiny scissors. In the case of cancer, they snip through proteins to clear the way for growing tumors. In thrombosis, proteases help turn on a chain reaction that can end up forming blood clots. The new test relies on the snipping behavior of proteases. It puts them to work on synthetic molecules injected into the body.
In the first part of the test, doctors inject nanoparticles shaped like little fuzzy worms into a patient’s blood. (A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. These nanoparticles were mostly between 50 and 80 nanometers long.) The main “body” of each particle consists of tiny balls of rust. Then the researchers coated each particle’s body with a “fur” made from proteins.
The idea is to see whether the injected nanoparticles, as they circulated through the bloodstream, encountered the specific types of proteases associated with some particular disease. Those proteases would set to work snipping away at the protein fur. Once cut free, those protein fragments float freely through the body. Eventually, the body would excrete them in urine.
The second part of the test relies on a type of paper that can detect those released “fur” bits in urine. The paper contains special molecules that grab the protein bits. Adding a special solution to the paper highlights their presence by causing a red line to appear.
In laboratory experiments, the new test detected those bits in mouse urine. By doing so, it correctly identified animals with either blood clots or cancer. Warren’s group described its success February 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The test shows good potential as a screening tool in humans, says James Brooks. A biomedical researcher, he works at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. He thinks, however, that the technique might work better for thrombosis than for cancer. There are more than 100 different types of cancer. And many may not produce as much protease as the cancerous tumors that were screened for in the mouse trials.
Still, the study left him impressed. “It's a very clever technique for detection.”
Power Words
cancer The rapid, uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. It can lead to tumors, pain and death.diagnose (adj. diagnostic) To analyze clues or symptoms in the search for their cause. The conclusion usually results in a diagnosis — identification of the causal problem or disease.
enzyme A substance produced by a living organism that brings about a specific reaction.
nanoparticle A small particle measured in the billionths of a meter.
paradigm A totally new idea about or approach to doing, making or thinking about something. For instance, astronomy is described as having undergone a paradigm shift when scientists accepted that the sun — not the Earth — was the center of the solar system.
peptide A short chain of amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) that are linked by a special type of bond (known as a peptide bond).
protease an enzyme that breaks down proteins or peptides.
proteins Compounds made from one or more long chains of amino acids. Proteins are an essential part of all living organisms. They form the basis of living cells, muscle and tissues; they also do the work inside of cells.
synthetic (as in materials) Materials created by people. Many have been developed to stand in for natural materials, such as synthetic rubber, synthetic diamond or a synthetic hormone. Some may even have the same chemical structure as the original.
thrombosis The presence or formation of blood clots within any blood vessel of the body, large or small. The presence of clots can slow or stop the flow of blood throughout some part of the body.
tumor A mass of cells characterized by atypical and often uncontrolled growth. Benign tumors will not spread; they just grow and cause problems if they press against or tighten around healthy tissue. Malignant tumors will ultimately shed cells that can seed the body with new tumors. Malignant tumors are also known as cancers.
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Surprising rings circle comet-asteroid hybrid
Two thin bands of orbiting ice particles make this planet wannabe unusual
Astronomers have discovered a pair of thin rings encircling 10199 Chariklo. It’s a rock-and-ice asteroid-comet hybrid, also known as a centaur. Chariklo’s diameter is only about 250 kilometers. That’s a span about equal to the distance separating Chicago, Ill., and Davenport, Iowa. Chariklo orbits the sun between Saturn and Uranus. Its rings probably result from something colliding with it, astronomers now suspect.
The rings revealed themselves during an occultation. That’s a chance passage of some object (here Chariklo) in front of a distant star. Because the planetoid is so much closer to Earth than the star, it appears far bigger (at least when viewed from Earth). So Chariklo can briefly eclipse the star’s light as it passes in front. By knowing how far the planetoid is from Earth and how long the star behind it disappears, astronomers can calculate the planetoid’s size and shape.
Felipe Braga-Ribas coordinated observations of this occultation by more than a dozen telescopes scattered across South America on June 3, 2013. An astronomer, Braga-Ribas works at Observatório Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Scientists at each telescope timed how long the star appeared to vanish.
By combining all the observations, his team concludes a double ring, composed mostly of water ice, must encircle the planetoid. The astronomers reported their data March 26 in Nature.
“There’s no doubt that there’s a ring,” says David Jewitt, who was not involved in the study. Indeed, “nobody knows what it means,” says this astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles. The source of even planetary rings remains a puzzle, he notes. But scientists have their suspicions. Another celestial body could have smashed into Chariklo, excavating ice from the centaur’s interior, authors of the new study note. Alternatively, Chariklo’s gravity may have ripped apart an icy moon orbiting the centaur. It’s even possible that two of the centaur’s moons might have collided.
Indeed, Braga-Ribas and Jewitt say, Chariklo likely still has unseen moons. They would seem necessary to keep the rings in shape. Chariklo’s gravity, collisions and radiation pressure from the sun should all have ripped those rings apart — unless gravity from such “shepherd moons” held them in place.
Jewitt says that the rings mesh well with what astronomers already know about the outer solar system. Before settling into its current orbit, Chariklo most likely lived in the Kuiper belt. That’s an icy debris field beyond Neptune. And many Kuiper belt objects are known to have at least one moon.
Chariklo has recently shown some odd behavior. The rings may now help explain that.
From 1997 to 2008, the centaur grew fainter and the amount of ice it hosted seemed to drop. After 2008, however, the centaur’s ice levels gradually appeared to return to normal. Researchers now know that the planetoid’s ice is mostly in the rings — not on Chariklo’s surface. The new observations suggest that in 2008, the centaur’s rings would have appeared edge-on (as seen from Earth). Because those rings blocked some of its light, Chariklo appeared fainter. And its ice appeared to vanish only when those icy rings were being viewed edge-on.
Astronomers have not yet observed many centaur occultations. That they have already found a ring, Jewitt says, suggests that such icy rings rings may be relatively common. Braga-Ribas agrees. “We don’t think it’s the only one,” he says. “We may have others.”
This animation show how light from a distant star (top right) was briefly eclipsed as Chariklo passed in front. The graph superimposed over the video shows the big drop in starlight during that occultation — and smaller dips before and after. Those tinier dips point to Chariklo’s two rings. Credit: Lucie Maquet, F. Braga-Ribas et al/Nature 2014, adapted by Ashley Yeager
Power Words
asteroid A rocky object in orbit around the sun. Most orbit in a region that falls between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers refer to this region as the asteroid belt.astronomy The area of science that deals with celestial objects, space and the physical universe as a whole. People who work in this field are called astronomers.
celestial object Any naturally formed objects of substantial size in space. Examples include comets, asteroids, planets, moons, stars and galaxies.
centaur (in astronomy) A celestial object that is a hybrid between an asteroid and comet.
comet A celestial object consisting of a nucleus of ice and dust. When a comet passes near the sun, gas and dust vaporize off the comet’s surface, creating its trailing “tail.”
gravity The force that attracts anything with mass, or bulk, toward any other thing with mass. The more mass that something has, the greater its gravity.
Kuiper belt An area of the solar system beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is a vast area containing leftovers from the formation of the solar system that continue to orbit the sun. Many objects in the Kuiper belt are made of ice, rock, frozen methane and ammonia.
moon The natural satellite of any planet.
Neptune The furthest planet from the sun in our solar system. It is the fourth largest planet in the solar system.
occultation Any event where an object is briefly hidden from view when another object passes in front of it. In astronomy, this usually refers to objects such as asteroids passing in front of a star.
planetoid Also known as asteroids, these celestrial objects are sometimes referred to as minor planets. They orbit the sun. Some are spherical, others have an irregular shape.
solar system The eight major planets and their moons in orbit around the sun, together with smaller bodies in the form of dwarf planets, asteroids, meteoroids and comets.
telescope A light-collecting instrument that makes distant objects appear nearer through the use of lenses or a combination of curved mirrors and lenses. Some, however, collect radio emissions (energy from a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum) through a network of antennas.
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How urine will get us to Mars
But if humans are ever going to get to Mars, we’re going to get there drinking our own pee. Now scientists have built a recycling system that can turn astronauts’ urine into both clean drinking water and energy. That combination could be an important step in making long-distance space travel viable.
The International Space Station would be a likely first candidate to get such a system.The station’s current water system, installed in 2008, uses a complex process to filter, distill and oxidize urine. “It makes yesterday’s coffee into today’s coffee,” astronaut Don Pettit said when it was installed. (Watch astronaut Chris Hadfield demonstrate the water recycling system on the International Space Station.)
Before the space station, space travelers really didn’t take advantage of pee. The Russian Mir craft had a recycling system that accepted urine, but it was notoriously glitchy and didn’t produce much drinkable water. The space shuttles jettisoned urine, creating lovely “shooting stars” of liquid waste visible from Earth (but they stored solid waste, which would have made for a really frightening form of space junk).
Astronauts report that the water made from recycled urine on the space station tastes great. But the system keeps breaking down, and it takes a lot of power to run it. The system “requires several consumables, and filtered components are discarded,” says analytical chemist Eduardo Nicolau of the University of Puerto Rico, a coauthor of the new study. The concept of the system he and his colleagues have come up with is to not only remove urea from wastewater, but also “to generate valuable components from human wastes instead of discarding them.”
The new system also generates electricity, scientists from NASA and the University of Puerto Rico report March 12 in Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. It’s a clever setup, chemically speaking. To pull pure water out of urine, the system uses forward osmosis, which, as the name implies, works in the opposite direction of the reverse osmosis systems found at many kitchen sinks. Forward osmosis uses a concentrated salt or sugar solution to draw the water out of urine. Next, enzymes in a bioreactor convert the leftover urea into ammonia, which feeds into an electrochemical cell that uses the ammonia to generate electricity.
There’s no shortage of raw materials. You urinate about 50 percent more than you drink each day, says Sherwin Gormly, an engineer who helped design the urine recycling system for the International Space Station. That’s crazy, you’re thinking: How could you pee out more than you take in? Well, for one thing, your body turns some of your food into water. When you burn carbohydrates, your body makes energy with a side order of carbon dioxide and water.
All that pee ends up being one of the biggest obstacles to sending humans to Mars, or any other long-term space travel. Without urine recycling, water could make up 80 to 90 percent of the mass on a spaceship to get humans to Mars, Gormly says. And at a cost of up to $10,000 per pound launched into orbit, shooting tons and tons of water into space would quickly become ridiculously expensive.
Any recycling system that people will rely on for months or years of space travel has to be extremely efficient. The one aboard the ISS now can reclaim 93 percent of the water on board, a level that Gormly says is crucial. The new system is still just a prototype, but it also recovers more than 90 percent of the total water that goes into it.
But it’s only generating a tiny trickle of electricity so far. In the laboratory, filtering one liter of urine in eight hours produced a few microcoulombs of electric charge. That’s about as much as the static electricity from rubbing a balloon on your hair. “Still,” says Nicolau, “our system is a proof of concept, and we are still working to increase the overall efficiency.” Eventually the system should at least generate enough power to run itself, he says.
A tradeoff remains, though: The system requires small amounts of oxygen to make electricity. And oxygen, of course, is something else you’re going to want in space. “We are using some breathable oxygen from the cabin,” Nicolau says, so the system would require backup oxygen generation. That could mean making oxygen from water via electrolysis, or using other chemical processes to make it. And that means another life-support system that can break. Ultimately, “we have to find a way not to use oxygen at all,” Nicolau says.
The new method does produce drinkable water, Nicolau says, though he hasn’t sampled any because it hasn’t yet been tested for bacteria and other pathogens. He promises a photo, though, once he and his team are able to gather around the bioreactor and toast with glasses of recycled urine.
We could even get energy-producing urine recyclers right here on Earth. “You could deploy this in developing countries where water is scarce,” Nicolau says, or the military could use it in remote desert locations.
If a future in which you drink water made from urine doesn’t sound like a future to look forward to, think of it this way: The water you drink now comes partly from the entire planet’s pee, just recycled a lot more slowly.
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Opinion: Science Is Running Out of Things to Discover
The advancing age when Nobelists receive their prizes could suggest fewer breakthroughs are waiting to happen.
The Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear
Research (CERN) in Switzerland was used in the hunt for the Higgs boson.
Call it confirmation bias, but I keep seeing signs that science—and
especially fundamental physics, which seeks to discern the basic rules
of reality—is running out of gas, just as I predicted in my 1996 book The End of Science.
The latest evidence is a "Correspondence" published today in the journal Nature. A group of six researchers, led by Santo Fortunato,
professor of complex systems at Aalto University in Finland, points out
that it is taking longer and longer for scientists to receive Nobel
Prizes for their work.
The trend is weakest in prizes for physiology or medicine
and strongest in physics. Prior to 1940, only 11 percent of physics
prizes, 15 percent of chemistry prizes, and 24 percent of physiology or
medicine prizes were awarded for work more than 20 years old. Since
1985, those percentages have risen to 60 percent, 52 percent, and 45
percent, respectively. If these trends continue, the Nature authors
note, by the end of this century no one will live long enough to win a
Nobel Prize, which cannot be awarded posthumously.
NG STAFF. SOURCE: F. BECATTINI ET AL., UNPUBLISHED PAPER
In their brief Nature letter, Fortunato and
co-authors do not speculate on the larger significance of their data,
except to say that they are concerned about the future of the Nobel
Prizes. But in an unpublished paper called "The Nobel delay: A sign of
the decline of Physics?" they suggest that the Nobel time lag "seems to
confirm the common feeling of an increasing time needed to achieve new
discoveries in basic natural sciences—a somewhat worrisome trend."
This comment reminds me of an essay published in Nature a year ago, "After Einstein: Scientific genius is extinct."
The author, psychologist Dean Keith Simonton, suggested that scientists
have become victims of their own success. "Our theories and instruments
now probe the earliest seconds and farthest reaches of the universe,"
he writes. Hence, scientists may produce no more "momentous leaps" but
only "extensions of already-established, domain-specific expertise." Or,
as I wrote in The End of Science, "further research may yield no more great revelations or revolutions, but only incremental, diminishing returns."
Needless to say, not all physicists accept this view—or the
claim of Fortunato and co-authors that the Nobel time lag reported in Nature is a symptom of physics' decline. The British astrophysicist Martin Rees spins the Nobel trend in the opposite direction, suggesting that it reflects "a growing backlog of potential winners."
Rees conjectures that "there are more people than ever
before whose achievements are up to the standard of most earlier
winners." But he concedes that "there is indeed perhaps a lull in
particle physics."
The recent discovery of the Higgs boson
by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) represents, paradoxically, both a
triumph for particle physics and a sign of the field's troubles. Peter
Higgs and Francois Englert, who received the 2013 Nobel Prize in
physics, predicted the existence of the Higgs boson—the fabled "God particle"—a half century ago.
The experimental evidence from the LHC that bears out their prediction stands as the capstone of the Standard Model
of particle physics, which provides quantum accounts of the electroweak
and strong nuclear forces governing the interactions of the known
subatomic particles. But the Standard Model—often called the "theory of
almost everything"—falls short of a full explanation of reality. For
decades, physicists have sought to vault beyond it by proposing a host
of unified theories, which assume deep connections between the
electroweak and strong forces and even gravity. The most popular of
these unified theories postulates that reality stems from infinitesimal
strings wriggling in a hyperspace of nine or more dimensions.
But evidence—and hence Nobel recognition—for string theory
and other unified theories remains elusive. Most recent Nobel Prizes in
physics have instead recognized work that contributed to the
conventional Standard Model and other preexisting theories rather than
providing profound new insights into reality. For example, the 2003 and 1996 physics prizes honored research on superfluidity, a phenomenon first discovered in 1938.
I hope I'm wrong that the era of fundamental revelations is
over, and there are grounds to argue I may be. In the late 1990s, for
instance, two groups of astrophysicists discovered that the universe is
expanding at an accelerating rate. The researchers won the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for this totally unexpected finding, which hints that our understanding of the cosmos may indeed be radically incomplete.
Just last month, moreover, researchers announced that new
observations of microwaves pervading the universe provide evidence of
inflation, a dramatic theory of cosmic creation. Inflation theory holds
that an instant after the big bang, our cosmos underwent a fantastically
rapid, faster-than-light growth spurt. Inflation implies that our
entire cosmos is just a tiny bubble in an oceanic "multiverse."
But I remain skeptical of inflation. There are so many
different versions of the theory that it can "predict" practically any
observation, meaning that it doesn't really predict anything at all.
String theory suffers from the same problem. As for multiverse theories,
all those hypothetical universes out there are unobservable by
definition. It's hard to imagine a better reason to think we may be
running out of new things to discover than the fascination of physicists
with these highly speculative ideas.
I would nonetheless be delighted if further observations
provide enough evidence of inflation to impress the Nobel judges, who
historically have had very high standards of evidence. Physicist Max Tegmark, a proponent of multiverse theories, thinks that inflation has a "good shot" at winning a Nobel.
If the Nobel Committee on physics does decides to award
prizes for the invention of inflation, it shouldn't dally. The theory
was originally proposed more than 30 years ago, and its inventors,
including Alan Guth and Andrei Linde—at ages 67 and 66, respectively—aren't getting any younger.
______________________________________________________________
Science community dismayed at decision to axe lab work from A-levels
Plan to end coursework in science A-levels described as 'death knell for UK science education' by Physiological Society
Lab experiments will now count towards a separate qualification to be
taken alongside science A-levels. Photograph: Martin Shields /
Alamy/Alamy
The British scientific community has reacted with dismay to the decision to axe practical lab work from science A-levels in England.
Ofqual, the exam regulator in England, announced that it would go ahead with its plans to end assessed coursework counting towards A-levels in biology, physics and chemistry – a move the Physiological Society, representing biologists, described as "the death knell for UK science education".
Instead, lab experiments will count towards a separate qualification – tentatively entitled "practical endorsed certificate for science" – that will be taken alongside science A-levels, consisting of a pass or fail grade assessed by teachers. The new course will be taught from 2015, with the first of the revised exams to be taken in 2017.
Glynnis Stacey, Ofqual's chief regulator, said that to ensure the new certificate was rigorous, examination boards would be required to send staff into schools to provide a "live check" that a list of 12 tests and experiments – such as dissecting plants or animals – were being carried out properly, and to inspect coursework.
Paul Dodd from the OCR exam board said sending monitors into science classes across the country could mean extra costs. But he cautioned that details of the science inspections remained to be finalised, and that the additional costs would depend on the number and length of visits required.
The Association of School and College Leaders said it objected to the plans, and argued that more effort should be put into assessing practical work within exams.
"The job of the awarding bodies is to assess how the student has performed, not to judge teachers or how they are teaching," said Sue Kirkham, ASCL's curriculum and assessment specialist. "We think this is dangerous territory for the awarding bodies to be getting into."
The new certificate will not be included in school league tables, and Ofqual said it was possible for a student to be awarded the highest A* grade in a science exam while still receiving a failing grade in the practical certificate.
"Separating practical work assessment from the grade could de-prioritise it and the awarding organisations and Ofqual will need to closely monitor this," said Jill Stokoe, policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
Dr Sarah Main of the Campaign for Science and Engineering said that Ofqual had persisted with the reform despite objections from across the science community, industry, universities and the government's chief scientific advisor.
"The changes will not help students who we know are inspired and motivated by doing science, not just learning about science. And they will not help universities, colleges and companies who already struggle to recruit people with the practical experience they need," Main said.
Ofqual's earlier research had found that assessments for practical work in science A-levels often showed few differences between pupils. It argued that 15% of marks in the new exam would require pupils to explain practical work they had done.
In other changes, Ofqual announced that A-level English would still have 20% of its marks awarded through assessment, while the computer science grade would also include 20% of assessed coursework.
The Department for Education also released details of revised content for GCSEs in science, history, geography and languages, to be taught in schools from 2016, and revised A-levels in English, sciences, psychology, history, economics, business, computer science, art and design, and sociology, for 2015.
In GCSE history, British history will now take up 40% of the course, compared with the current 25%.
"These changes will increase the rigour of qualifications, strengthening the respect in which they are held by employers and universities alike," the education secretary, Michael Gove, said.
Ofqual, the exam regulator in England, announced that it would go ahead with its plans to end assessed coursework counting towards A-levels in biology, physics and chemistry – a move the Physiological Society, representing biologists, described as "the death knell for UK science education".
Instead, lab experiments will count towards a separate qualification – tentatively entitled "practical endorsed certificate for science" – that will be taken alongside science A-levels, consisting of a pass or fail grade assessed by teachers. The new course will be taught from 2015, with the first of the revised exams to be taken in 2017.
Glynnis Stacey, Ofqual's chief regulator, said that to ensure the new certificate was rigorous, examination boards would be required to send staff into schools to provide a "live check" that a list of 12 tests and experiments – such as dissecting plants or animals – were being carried out properly, and to inspect coursework.
Paul Dodd from the OCR exam board said sending monitors into science classes across the country could mean extra costs. But he cautioned that details of the science inspections remained to be finalised, and that the additional costs would depend on the number and length of visits required.
The Association of School and College Leaders said it objected to the plans, and argued that more effort should be put into assessing practical work within exams.
"The job of the awarding bodies is to assess how the student has performed, not to judge teachers or how they are teaching," said Sue Kirkham, ASCL's curriculum and assessment specialist. "We think this is dangerous territory for the awarding bodies to be getting into."
The new certificate will not be included in school league tables, and Ofqual said it was possible for a student to be awarded the highest A* grade in a science exam while still receiving a failing grade in the practical certificate.
"Separating practical work assessment from the grade could de-prioritise it and the awarding organisations and Ofqual will need to closely monitor this," said Jill Stokoe, policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
Dr Sarah Main of the Campaign for Science and Engineering said that Ofqual had persisted with the reform despite objections from across the science community, industry, universities and the government's chief scientific advisor.
"The changes will not help students who we know are inspired and motivated by doing science, not just learning about science. And they will not help universities, colleges and companies who already struggle to recruit people with the practical experience they need," Main said.
Ofqual's earlier research had found that assessments for practical work in science A-levels often showed few differences between pupils. It argued that 15% of marks in the new exam would require pupils to explain practical work they had done.
In other changes, Ofqual announced that A-level English would still have 20% of its marks awarded through assessment, while the computer science grade would also include 20% of assessed coursework.
The Department for Education also released details of revised content for GCSEs in science, history, geography and languages, to be taught in schools from 2016, and revised A-levels in English, sciences, psychology, history, economics, business, computer science, art and design, and sociology, for 2015.
In GCSE history, British history will now take up 40% of the course, compared with the current 25%.
"These changes will increase the rigour of qualifications, strengthening the respect in which they are held by employers and universities alike," the education secretary, Michael Gove, said.
The British scientific community has reacted with dismay to the decision to axe practical lab work from science A-levels in England.
Ofqual, the exam regulator in England, announced that it would go ahead with its plans to end assessed coursework counting towards A-levels in biology, physics and chemistry – a move the Physiological Society, representing biologists, described as "the death knell for UK science education".
Instead, lab experiments will count towards a separate qualification – tentatively entitled "practical endorsed certificate for science" – that will be taken alongside science A-levels, consisting of a pass or fail grade assessed by teachers. The new course will be taught from 2015, with the first of the revised exams to be taken in 2017.
Glynnis Stacey, Ofqual's chief regulator, said that to ensure the new certificate was rigorous, examination boards would be required to send staff into schools to provide a "live check" that a list of 12 tests and experiments – such as dissecting plants or animals – were being carried out properly, and to inspect coursework.
Paul Dodd from the OCR exam board said sending monitors into science classes across the country could mean extra costs. But he cautioned that details of the science inspections remained to be finalised, and that the additional costs would depend on the number and length of visits required.
The Association of School and College Leaders said it objected to the plans, and argued that more effort should be put into assessing practical work within exams.
"The job of the awarding bodies is to assess how the student has performed, not to judge teachers or how they are teaching," said Sue Kirkham, ASCL's curriculum and assessment specialist. "We think this is dangerous territory for the awarding bodies to be getting into."
The new certificate will not be included in school league tables, and Ofqual said it was possible for a student to be awarded the highest A* grade in a science exam while still receiving a failing grade in the practical certificate.
"Separating practical work assessment from the grade could de-prioritise it and the awarding organisations and Ofqual will need to closely monitor this," said Jill Stokoe, policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
Dr Sarah Main of the Campaign for Science and Engineering said that Ofqual had persisted with the reform despite objections from across the science community, industry, universities and the government's chief scientific advisor.
"The changes will not help students who we know are inspired and motivated by doing science, not just learning about science. And they will not help universities, colleges and companies who already struggle to recruit people with the practical experience they need," Main said.
Ofqual's earlier research had found that assessments for practical work in science A-levels often showed few differences between pupils. It argued that 15% of marks in the new exam would require pupils to explain practical work they had done.
In other changes, Ofqual announced that A-level English would still have 20% of its marks awarded through assessment, while the computer science grade would also include 20% of assessed coursework.
The Department for Education also released details of revised content for GCSEs in science, history, geography and languages, to be taught in schools from 2016, and revised A-levels in English, sciences, psychology, history, economics, business, computer science, art and design, and sociology, for 2015.
In GCSE history, British history will now take up 40% of the course, compared with the current 25%.
"These changes will increase the rigour of qualifications, strengthening the respect in which they are held by employers and universities alike," the education secretary, Michael Gove, said.
Ofqual, the exam regulator in England, announced that it would go ahead with its plans to end assessed coursework counting towards A-levels in biology, physics and chemistry – a move the Physiological Society, representing biologists, described as "the death knell for UK science education".
Instead, lab experiments will count towards a separate qualification – tentatively entitled "practical endorsed certificate for science" – that will be taken alongside science A-levels, consisting of a pass or fail grade assessed by teachers. The new course will be taught from 2015, with the first of the revised exams to be taken in 2017.
Glynnis Stacey, Ofqual's chief regulator, said that to ensure the new certificate was rigorous, examination boards would be required to send staff into schools to provide a "live check" that a list of 12 tests and experiments – such as dissecting plants or animals – were being carried out properly, and to inspect coursework.
Paul Dodd from the OCR exam board said sending monitors into science classes across the country could mean extra costs. But he cautioned that details of the science inspections remained to be finalised, and that the additional costs would depend on the number and length of visits required.
The Association of School and College Leaders said it objected to the plans, and argued that more effort should be put into assessing practical work within exams.
"The job of the awarding bodies is to assess how the student has performed, not to judge teachers or how they are teaching," said Sue Kirkham, ASCL's curriculum and assessment specialist. "We think this is dangerous territory for the awarding bodies to be getting into."
The new certificate will not be included in school league tables, and Ofqual said it was possible for a student to be awarded the highest A* grade in a science exam while still receiving a failing grade in the practical certificate.
"Separating practical work assessment from the grade could de-prioritise it and the awarding organisations and Ofqual will need to closely monitor this," said Jill Stokoe, policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
Dr Sarah Main of the Campaign for Science and Engineering said that Ofqual had persisted with the reform despite objections from across the science community, industry, universities and the government's chief scientific advisor.
"The changes will not help students who we know are inspired and motivated by doing science, not just learning about science. And they will not help universities, colleges and companies who already struggle to recruit people with the practical experience they need," Main said.
Ofqual's earlier research had found that assessments for practical work in science A-levels often showed few differences between pupils. It argued that 15% of marks in the new exam would require pupils to explain practical work they had done.
In other changes, Ofqual announced that A-level English would still have 20% of its marks awarded through assessment, while the computer science grade would also include 20% of assessed coursework.
The Department for Education also released details of revised content for GCSEs in science, history, geography and languages, to be taught in schools from 2016, and revised A-levels in English, sciences, psychology, history, economics, business, computer science, art and design, and sociology, for 2015.
In GCSE history, British history will now take up 40% of the course, compared with the current 25%.
"These changes will increase the rigour of qualifications, strengthening the respect in which they are held by employers and universities alike," the education secretary, Michael Gove, said.
_________________________________________________
Craft
Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics established - See
more at:
http://www.moreheadstate.edu/News/2014/April/Craft_Academy_for_Excellence_in_Science_and_Mathematics_established/#sthash.FemPVSJP.dpuf
Kentucky
Senate President Robert Stivers, House Majority Floor Leader Rocky
Adkins, Alliance Resource Partners CEO Joe Craft and MSU President Wayne
D. Andrews announced Thursday, April 10, the establishment of the Craft
Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics, a dual-credit
residential high school for academically exceptional Kentucky students.
(View photo gallery)
“I have seen firsthand, through my daughter Caroline’s participation in The Gatton Academy at Western Kentucky University, the impact a dual-credit program can have on the lives of gifted and talented students in Kentucky,” said Sen. Stivers. “The program didn’t just give her a head start on a college career. It showed her opportunities that were available to her and made her excited about college and a future career. And because of that, she is thriving at the University of Kentucky. Knowing that more students can have this same experience at Morehead State University is exciting. I’m thankful to President Andrews and Mr. Craft for making this a reality. I hope we will be able to establish more programs like this one in the future.”
The Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics is scheduled to open August 2015. Students will live on campus in a newly renovated residence hall designed for high school aged students. The facility will have meeting and social space and be staffed 24/7.
“I am excited to be a partner with Morehead State University in making this program available to exceptional young men and women to develop their God given talents. My passion is to provide opportunity for people that want to help themselves and develop professionally,” said Craft.
State lawmakers budgeted $2.3 million to establish the academy. Craft has pledged $4 million during the next several years in support of the Academy. This is the single largest cash gift in the history of the University.
The Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics will meet the unique educational needs of academically gifted and talented high school juniors and seniors in the Commonwealth. A college-level curriculum will allow students to finish high school while also completing up to two years of university coursework. It will offer a residential college experience and environment that promotes excellence, innovation and creativity while developing the full potential of the state’s brightest minds and most promising future leaders.
At the end of the two years, students will have earned as much as 60 credit hours, finished high school and have the opportunity to further their education at MSU or transfer to any other college/university in Kentucky or elsewhere.
The Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics graduates will be able to participate in their home high school graduation.
“The Craft Academy is one of the most important announcements and initiatives that I have been part of in my 27 years as a legislator. Educating Kentucky’s brightest and best high school students with a heavy emphasis on science and mathematics will ensure their professional success, inspire entrepreneurship and provide our region with a workforce uniquely prepared to compete in the 21st century. This public/private partnership is a game changer for Eastern Kentucky and the commonwealth,” said Rep. Adkins.
According to Dr. Andrews additional information will be available soon. MSU personnel have already started the process of visiting other similar academies throughout the U.S.
“This Academy could have never come to fruition without the inspiration and leadership provided by Sen. Stivers, Rep. Adkins, the Kentucky General Assembly and through the generosity of Mr. Craft,” said Dr. Andrews. “This is a big day for students and families in the Commonwealth and Morehead State University.”
“A lot of hard work is ahead of us before we open the Academy, but it provides an opportunity for MSU to develop and deliver a program that will be transformational for the young men and women in our region and across Kentucky for generations to come.”
Additional information on the Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics is available by calling Dr. Roger McNeil, College of Science and Technology dean, at 606-783-2158. - See more at: http://www.moreheadstate.edu/News/2014/April/Craft_Academy_for_Excellence_in_Science_and_Mathematics_established/#sthash.FemPVSJP.dpuf
“I have seen firsthand, through my daughter Caroline’s participation in The Gatton Academy at Western Kentucky University, the impact a dual-credit program can have on the lives of gifted and talented students in Kentucky,” said Sen. Stivers. “The program didn’t just give her a head start on a college career. It showed her opportunities that were available to her and made her excited about college and a future career. And because of that, she is thriving at the University of Kentucky. Knowing that more students can have this same experience at Morehead State University is exciting. I’m thankful to President Andrews and Mr. Craft for making this a reality. I hope we will be able to establish more programs like this one in the future.”
The Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics is scheduled to open August 2015. Students will live on campus in a newly renovated residence hall designed for high school aged students. The facility will have meeting and social space and be staffed 24/7.
“I am excited to be a partner with Morehead State University in making this program available to exceptional young men and women to develop their God given talents. My passion is to provide opportunity for people that want to help themselves and develop professionally,” said Craft.
State lawmakers budgeted $2.3 million to establish the academy. Craft has pledged $4 million during the next several years in support of the Academy. This is the single largest cash gift in the history of the University.
The Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics will meet the unique educational needs of academically gifted and talented high school juniors and seniors in the Commonwealth. A college-level curriculum will allow students to finish high school while also completing up to two years of university coursework. It will offer a residential college experience and environment that promotes excellence, innovation and creativity while developing the full potential of the state’s brightest minds and most promising future leaders.
At the end of the two years, students will have earned as much as 60 credit hours, finished high school and have the opportunity to further their education at MSU or transfer to any other college/university in Kentucky or elsewhere.
The Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics graduates will be able to participate in their home high school graduation.
“The Craft Academy is one of the most important announcements and initiatives that I have been part of in my 27 years as a legislator. Educating Kentucky’s brightest and best high school students with a heavy emphasis on science and mathematics will ensure their professional success, inspire entrepreneurship and provide our region with a workforce uniquely prepared to compete in the 21st century. This public/private partnership is a game changer for Eastern Kentucky and the commonwealth,” said Rep. Adkins.
According to Dr. Andrews additional information will be available soon. MSU personnel have already started the process of visiting other similar academies throughout the U.S.
“This Academy could have never come to fruition without the inspiration and leadership provided by Sen. Stivers, Rep. Adkins, the Kentucky General Assembly and through the generosity of Mr. Craft,” said Dr. Andrews. “This is a big day for students and families in the Commonwealth and Morehead State University.”
“A lot of hard work is ahead of us before we open the Academy, but it provides an opportunity for MSU to develop and deliver a program that will be transformational for the young men and women in our region and across Kentucky for generations to come.”
Additional information on the Craft Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics is available by calling Dr. Roger McNeil, College of Science and Technology dean, at 606-783-2158. - See more at: http://www.moreheadstate.edu/News/2014/April/Craft_Academy_for_Excellence_in_Science_and_Mathematics_established/#sthash.FemPVSJP.dpuf
Craft
Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics established - See
more at:
http://www.moreheadstate.edu/News/2014/April/Craft_Academy_for_Excellence_in_Science_and_Mathematics_established/#sthash.FemPVSJP.dpuf
Craft
Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics established - See
more at:
http://www.moreheadstate.edu/News/2014/April/Craft_Academy_for_Excellence_in_Science_and_Mathematics_established/#sthash.FemPVSJP.dpuf
Craft
Academy for Excellence in Science and Mathematics established - See
more at:
http://www.moreheadstate.edu/News/2014/April/Craft_Academy_for_Excellence_in_Science_and_Mathematics_established/#sthash.FemPVSJP.dpuf
