Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) describes a system in which plug-in electric vehicles, such as electric cars (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), communicate with the power grid to sell demand response services by either delivering electricity into the grid or by throttling their charging rate.[1][2]

Vehicle-to-grid can be used with such gridable vehicles, that is, plug-in electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs), with grid capacity. Since most vehicles are parked an average of 95 percent of the time, their batteries could be used to let electricity flow from the car to the power lines and back, with a value to the utilities of up to $4,000 per year per car.
BMW, Continental, Daimler, Fraunhofer, RWE, Siemens, TU Dortmund and VW – the partners in the new research project “eNterop” belong to the German industrial and research scene’s elite. They are now working with domestic proponents of international standardization of “vehicle-to-grid communication” (V2G) for electric vehicle networks on the next stage: an open test platform for the interface between electric vehicles and charging infrastructures. Their goal is the rapid establishment of standards for supply and communications systems between vehicles and electric power grids.

Electric vehicles will have to be able to communicate with grids reliably and charge or supply electricity at charging stations regardless of their make.

Sources:
http://www.iff.fraunhofer.de/en/press/press-releases/2013/electric-vehicles-network-standard.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid

Can we detect cancer earlier?

Silicon Valley research lab found a way to identify cancer cells in a drop of blood.

Source: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/05/19/what-the-future-looks-like-inside-the-lab-that-brought-us-siri-the-mouse-and-the-internet-itself/

Related links: http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-detect-microvesicles-in-the-bloodstream-to-diagnose-and-monitor-brain-cancer

Cancer cell enzymes shown to act as 'good cops'

Enzymes released by cancerous cells have a protective function and are not one of the "bad guys", say researchers from the University of East Anglia.

Their study found the MMP-8 enzyme sent a signal to the immune system to attack the tumour.

Scientists from UEA worked with clinicians at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital to look in detail at the patterns of MMPs in breast tumours from patients.

Their study, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, reveals that the matrix metalloproteinase-8 enzyme (MMP-8) could be acting as the 'good guy' by alerting the immune system to the location of the tumour.

"They were once thought to act like 'molecular scissors' to snip away at the scaffolding structures outside cells and clear a path for the cancer cells to invade and spread to other organs.

"However, breast tumour cells that over-produce MMP-8 don't survive long-term - the enzyme stops them growing," he said.

"We now think that in tumours, MMP-8 acts as a sort of 'find me' signal to the immune system, which then becomes activated to attack the tumour, which may help to explain its protective function."

Dr Emma Smith, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "This study provides very early clues as to how the MMP-8 protein might actually play the role of a 'good cop' and recruit immune cells to fight breast cancer.

"But these are early findings from cells grown in a lab, and more research is needed to see if the molecules found by the scientists alert immune cells to cancers in women."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22645780#

Quantum-dot solar cells have great potential for solar cells

There has been great interest in recent years in using tiny particles called quantum dots to produce low-cost, easily manufactured, stable photovoltaic cells.

Now, for the most widely used type of quantum dots, made of compounds called metal chalcogenides, researchers from MIT may have found the key: The limiting factor seems to be off-kilter ratios of the two basic components that make up the dots.

The new findings — by Jeffrey Grossman, the Carl Richard Soderberg Associate Professor of Power Engineering, materials science and engineering graduate student Donghun Kim, and two other researchers — were reported this month in the journal Physical Review Letters.

There has been “a lot of excitement” about the potential for quantum dots in applications including electronic devices, lighting and solar cells, Grossman says. Among other potential advantages, quantum-dot solar cells could be made in a low-temperature process, by depositing material from a solution at room temperature, rather than the high-temperature, energy-intensive processes used for conventional photovoltaics. In addition, such devices could be precisely “tuned,” to obtain maximum conversion of specific wavelengths (colors) of light to energy, by adjusting the size and shape of the particles.

To go beyond the efficiencies achieved so far with quantum-dot solar cells, Grossman says, researchers needed to understand why the charges got trapped in the material. “We found something quite different than what people thought was causing the problem,” he says.

Giulia Galli, a professor of physics and chemistry at the University of California at Davis who was not connected with this research, says it is “quite a creative and important piece of work,” and adds that, “I'm pretty sure this will stimulate new experiments” to engineer the stoichiometry of quantum dots in order to control their properties.

In addition to Kim and Grossman, the work was carried out by former MIT postdoc Joo-Hyoung Lee, now at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, and Dong-Ho Kim of the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Cambridge, Mass. The work was supported by SAIT, and is part of a larger quantum-dot solar cell program within the SAIT-MIT alliance that includes professors Vladimir Bulovic and Moungi Bawendi.

Source: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/balance-key-to-making-quantum-dot-solar-cells-work-0524.html

Cancer risk gene testing announced

A pioneering programme to test cancer patients for nearly 100 risk genes is to start in London and could represent the future of treatment in the NHS.

It will look for genes such as those which led Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie to have a double mastectomy.

The results will be used to pick targeted drugs or decide how much of the tissue around a tumour to remove.

It will also highlight patients at high risk of additional cancers, who need to be monitored closely.
Some people with BRCA gene mutations have an 80% risk of breast cancer.

The testing will be run by the Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden hospital in London.

Prof Nazneen Rahman, lead investigator of the programme said: "It is very important to know if a mutation in a person's genetic blueprint has caused their cancer.

Prof Martin Gore, the medical director of the Royal Marsden, said this would be "an exciting change of practice", which patients were ready for. "Patient's want to know. I'm asked several times a day, 'Is this hereditary?' There's no point pretending that patients don't want to know."

The test, developed by biotechnology firm Illumina, looks for 97 genes which increase the risk of cancer. More risk genes can be added to the test once they are discovered.

It is available for use in other hospitals, but the researchers say this is the first attempt at introducing mass cancer-risk gene testing as a cornerstone of treatment.

Prof Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, said: "Researchers now have a wealth of information about the inherited gene faults that increase a person's cancer risk, and this knowledge can help tailor treatments for patients whose cancers are linked to these mutations.

Dr Caitlin Palframan, from Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: "This programme has a lot of potential as this type of testing may help lay the ground for more personalised treatment for people with breast cancer.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22599402#

Next generation of military drones

The next generation of military drones are here, and they're controlled by algorithms and designed for sea combat. On May 14, the U.S. Navy successfully launched the experimental X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System from the USS George H.W. Bush and landed the drone at a naval air base in Maryland. When complete, the X-47B will be able to both take off and land on the same aircraft carrier.

But unlike conventional UAVs, there's something different about the X-47B. The X-47B isn't only unmanned... it's autonomous, too. The drone is descended from DARPA's Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) program, which created UAV control systems that depend entirely on algorithms, sensors, and computer code. Although the X-47B still requires occasional human input, it operates mostly autonomously along pre-programmed flight routes. Humans only override the X-47B's programming if anomalies happen.

Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/3009724/inside-the-navys-historic-embrace-of-at-sea-combat-drones

Lithium-air battery four times as much energy per pound as today’s best lithium-ion batteries

Imaging reveals what happens during charging; could lead to improved batteries for electric cars.

One of the most promising new kinds of battery to power electric cars is called a lithium-air battery, which could store up to four times as much energy per pound as today’s best lithium-ion batteries.

Researchers at MIT and Sandia National Laboratories have used transmission electron microscope (TEM) imaging to observe, at a molecular level, what goes on during a reaction called oxygen evolution as lithium-air batteries charge; this reaction is thought to be a bottleneck limiting further improvements to these batteries. The TEM technique could help in finding ways to make such batteries practical in the near future.

The work is described in a Nano Letters paper by Robert Mitchell, who recently received a PhD in materials science and engineering from MIT; mechanical engineering PhD student Betar Gallant; Carl Thompson, the Stavros Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering; Yang Shao-Horn, the Gail E. Kendall Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering; and four other authors.

Faster charging

In fact, the rate of lithium peroxide oxidation in these experiments was approximately 100 times faster than the charging time for laboratory-scale lithium-air batteries, and approaches what is needed for applications. This demonstrates that if these batteries’ electron-transfer characteristics can be improved, it could allow for much faster charging while minimizing energy losses.

Source: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/real-time-charging-of-lithium-air-battery-0513.html

Study IDs key protein for cell death

Findings may offer a new way to kill cancer cells by forcing them into an alternative programmed-death pathway.

When cells suffer too much DNA damage, they are usually forced to undergo programmed cell death, or apoptosis. However, cancer cells often ignore these signals, flourishing even after chemotherapy drugs have ravaged their DNA.

A new finding from MIT researchers may offer a way to overcome that resistance: The team has identified a key protein involved in an alternative death pathway known as programmed necrosis. Drugs that mimic the effects of this protein could push cancer cells that are resistant to apoptosis into necrosis instead.

“People really used to think of necrosis as cells just falling apart, that it wasn’t programmed and didn’t require gene products to make it happen,” says Leona Samson, a member of MIT’s Center for Environmental Health Sciences and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. “In the last few years it has become more clear that this is an active process that requires proteins to take place.”

In the May 10 online edition of the journal Genes and Development, Samson and colleagues report that a protein known as ALKBH7 plays a key role in controlling the programmed necrosis pathway. Dragony Fu, a former postdoc in Samson’s lab, is the paper’s lead author, and postdoc Jennifer Jordan is also an author.

In the new paper, Samson, a professor of biology and biological engineering, and her colleagues found that ALKBH7 has an unexpected effect. When the researchers lowered ALKBH7 levels in human cells grown in the lab, those cells were much more likely to survive DNA damage than cells with normal ALKBH7 levels. This suggests that ALKBH7 actually promotes cell death.

“That was a surprising finding, because previously all of these ALKBH proteins were shown to be helping the cell survive when exposed to damage,” says Fu, who is now a visiting research fellow at the University of Zurich.

Upon further investigation, the researchers found that when healthy cells suffer massive DNA damage from alkylating agents, they enter the programmed necrosis pathway. Necrosis, which can also be initiated by bacterial or viral infection, is believed to help the body’s immune system detect threats.

“When dying cells release their contents during necrosis, it serves as a warning signal for your body that there is a virus there and recruits macrophages and other immune cells to the area,” Fu says.

“The observations reported in this paper open up the possibility that novel treatments could be developed to treat tumors that are relatively resistant to killing via the apoptotic pathway,” says Ashok Bhagwat, a professor of chemistry at Wayne State University who was not part of the research team.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society.

Source: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/study-ids-key-protein-for-cell-death-0514.html

Pilotless passenger planes prepare for take-off

“We believe that unmanned aircraft are the next big transformation in the aviation industry,” says Doug Davis, director of the unmanned aircraft programme at New Mexico State University.

Of course, the military already know this.  Automatic landing systems have been used for years to help pilots drop F-18 aircraft on to the narrow landing strips on top of aircraft carriers. Then there is the rise of drone warfare.  These planes are still flown remotely by pilots on the ground, but most have the capability to follow a predefined flight path and even land themselves if they get into serious trouble or the link between the ground is broken.

In some modern aircraft the pilot is only needed to taxi the aircraft to the runway. Everything else from take-off to landing can be automated. “The technology is here,” says Missy Cummings, an ex military pilot who is now associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

She points to the rise of so-called fly-by-wire technology, which has replaced the mechanical link between the pilot and the plane’s engines and control surfaces. “Any fly-by-wire plane can be an [Unmanned Aerial Vehicle],” she explains. “The controls are digital, not analogue, everything is done electronically so you don’t need a person in there to push a hydraulic actuator.”

To prove the point, technology company BAE Systems recently flew a converted Jetstream aircraft – known as “The Flying Test Bed” – with no pilot in UK air space.

A plane will need to be aware of its surroundings and be able to plot a new path that is not disruptive to other users of the skies - intelligence known as “sense and avoid”. Look at the rise of the autonomous car to see that computers are getting better and better at viewing an interpreting their surroundings.

Dr John Tracey, chief technology officer at Boeing, agrees. He sees no need for decisions to always be made on the ground by Air traffic Control. He believes the current system based on ground based radar, and a controller who uses voice commands to “say to the pilot ‘turn left, turn right, go up, go down,’” is very inefficient. “The new planes that we deliver already have the capabilities built into them to use GPS satellites, to allow them to fly on the most optimum flight path,” Dr Tracy says. The next step would be to allow aircraft to make more decisions for themselves and respond to other planes and weather patterns by themselves.

Professor Cummings says the data is increasingly in favour of unmanned systems. “About three years ago UAVs became safer than general aviation, meaning that more general aviation planes are crashing than UAVs, per 100,000 flight hours,” she says.  “So UAVs are actually safer than a weekend pilot, flying a small plane.”

Update from article newscientist:

Jim Scanlan, one of the designers of the world's first 3D-printed unmanned aerial vehicle is impressed. "I think it's great. It's good to see such progress in the UK – especially with the US hoping to open up its airspace to UAVs in 2015."

The main thing ASTRAEA needs to get right is that sensing and avoiding capability, says Scanlan. "That's the showstopper at the moment. Without a pilot they need a sensing system to replace the Mark 1 eyeball – one that can tell a hot-air balloon from a cloud."

Source:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130502-pilotless-planes-plan-to-take-off/1
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23521-passenger-jet-flies-800-kilometres-without-a-pilot.html

Unleashing oxygen

‘Superlattice’ structure could give a huge boost to oxygen reaction in fuel cells, increasing their power potential.

New research at MIT could dramatically improve the efficiency of fuel cells, which are considered a promising alternative to batteries for powering everything from electronic devices to cars and homes.

Now that the MIT team has analysed LSC113/214, it may be possible to discover even better materials by conducting systematic searches, Yildiz says; the team is now working on that. “If we can crack this problem, then we can make great strides in improving the performance,” adds Tuller, a professor of ceramics and electronic materials in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Source: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/superlattice-could-boost-fuel-cell-performance-0430.html#.UYEEy6aZqe4.blogger