Episodes
Monday Dec 31, 2018
Episode 307 - Ancient druidic treatments, wasp venom and peptide cages
Monday Dec 31, 2018
Monday Dec 31, 2018
The arms race against antibiotic resistant bacteria continues. As the world faces down this challenge, we turn to stranger and stranger places for treatment. So how can you turn ancient druidic treatments into modern new antibiotics? How do you make wasp venom actually a useful treatment? Can you trap bacteria inside a cage and just starve them to this? This week we find out about the fight back against bacteria.
References:
- Luciana Terra, Paul J. Dyson, Matthew D. Hitchings, Liam Thomas, Alyaa Abdelhameed, Ibrahim M. Banat, Salvatore A. Gazze, Dušica Vujaklija, Paul D. Facey, Lewis W. Francis, Gerry A. Quinn. A Novel Alkaliphilic Streptomyces Inhibits ESKAPE Pathogens. Frontiers in Microbiology, 2018; 9 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.02458
- Sina Krokowski, Damián Lobato-Márquez, Arnaud Chastanet, Pedro Matos Pereira, Dimitrios Angelis, Dieter Galea, Gerald Larrouy-Maumus, Ricardo Henriques, Elias T. Spiliotis, Rut Carballido-López, Serge Mostowy. Septins Recognize and Entrap Dividing Bacterial Cells for Delivery to Lysosomes. Cell Host & Microbe, 2018; 24 (6): 866 DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2018.11.005
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2018, December 7). Engineers repurpose wasp venom as an antibiotic drug. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 29, 2018 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181207112651.htm
Antibiotics from druidic recipes in the Irish countryside.
Monday Dec 24, 2018
Episode 306 - Drones as a force for good and evil
Monday Dec 24, 2018
Monday Dec 24, 2018
Drones being used for good, and drones being used for evil. We look at ways that drones can help biologists protect, treat, regrow marine damaged ecosystems. Including IVF transplants for the Great Barrier Reef, sea-grass disease hunting drones and even drones to detect camouflaged birds in forests. We also look into the science behind drone defense and how we can protect our critical infrastructure from rogue drones.
References:
- Hartley, A. (2018, November 27). This attempt to save the reef is the largest, most complicated coral regeneration project ever. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-27/reef-ivf-unprecedented-new-approach-could-save-dying-coral-reefs/10557718
- Hegranes, J. (2018, January 26). The Past, Present And Future Of Anti-Drone Tech. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/01/26/the-past-present-and-future-of-anti-drone-tech/#845428852d62
- Minogue, K. (2018, September 17). Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Retrieved from https://serc.si.edu/media/press-release/eelgrass-wasting-disease-has-new-enemies-drones-and-artificial-intelligence
- Vincent, J. (2015, December 11). Tokyo police unveil net-wielding interceptor drone. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/11/9891128/tokyo-interceptor-net-drone
- Shewring, M. (2018, December 13). Drones can detect protected night jar nests (S. Weiss, Ed.). Retrieved from https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/drones-nightjar-nests/
Monday Dec 17, 2018
Episode 305 - Reaching space, the darkside of the moon and wet asteroids
Monday Dec 17, 2018
Monday Dec 17, 2018
It's been a busy week in space news from Virgin Galactic finally reaching space, to wet asteroids and even a mystery in space. We find out about the latest missions to investigate surprisingly damp asteroids by JAXA and NASA. We recap the swirling controversy around a mysterious hole in the Soyuz spacecraft, plus the latest on Chang'e-4's journey to the dark side of the moon.
- Antczak, J. (n.d.). Virgin Galactic tourism rocket ship reaches space in test. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2018-12-virgin-galactic-rocket-ship-space.html
- Jones, A. (2018, December 12). Chang'e-4 spacecraft enters lunar orbit ahead of first-ever far side landing. Retrieved from https://spacenews.com/change-4-spacecraft-enters-lunar-orbit-ahead-of-first-ever-far-side-landing/
- Yamaguchi, M. (n.d.). Photos from Japan space rovers show rocky asteroid surface. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2018-12-photos-japan-space-rovers-rocky.html
- Materials provided by University of Arizona. Original written by Erin Morton/OSIRIS-REx and Daniel Stolte. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Monday Dec 10, 2018
Episode 304 - Flexible electronics, graphene transfer and paper sensors
Monday Dec 10, 2018
Monday Dec 10, 2018
Flexible electronics and phones sound like science fiction,but materials engineers are turning them into science fact. We find out about projects from across the world to make it a reality. From Australian flexible screens, to MIT's incredibly thin and exotic semiconductors to Purdue's paper based circuits for medical applications.
References:
- Linglong Zhang, Ankur Sharma, Yi Zhu, Yuhan Zhang, Bowen Wang, Miheng Dong, Hieu T. Nguyen, Zhu Wang, Bo Wen, Yujie Cao, Boqing Liu, Xueqian Sun, Jiong Yang, Ziyuan Li, Arara Kar, Yi Shi, Daniel Macdonald, Zongfu Yu, Xinran Wang, Yuerui Lu. Efficient and Layer-Dependent Exciton Pumping across Atomically Thin Organic-Inorganic Type-I Heterostructures. Advanced Materials, 2018; 30 (40): 1803986 DOI: 10.1002/adma.201803986
- Wei Kong, Huashan Li, Kuan Qiao, Yunjo Kim, Kyusang Lee, Yifan Nie, Doyoon Lee, Tom Osadchy, Richard J Molnar, D. Kurt Gaskill, Rachael L. Myers-Ward, Kevin M. Daniels, Yuewei Zhang, Suresh Sundram, Yang Yu, Sang-hoon Bae, Siddharth Rajan, Yang Shao-Horn, Kyeongjae Cho, Abdallah Ougazzaden, Jeffrey C. Grossman, Jeehwan Kim. Polarity governs atomic interaction through two-dimensional materials. Nature Materials, 2018; DOI: 10.1038/s41563-018-0176-4
- Behnam Sadri, Debkalpa Goswami, Marina Sala de Medeiros, Aniket Pal, Beatriz Castro, Shihuan Kuang, Ramses V. Martinez. Wearable and Implantable Epidermal Paper-Based Electronics. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2018; 10 (37): 31061 DOI: 10.1021/acsami.8b11020
Monday Dec 03, 2018
Monday Dec 03, 2018
Life in the big city can be fully of late nights, lots of lights and risky behaviour. This week we look at what living in the big city may mean for your health. Whether it be the impact of light pollution and getting a good night's rest, to the trade-offs of being a night owl, our circadian rhythms can be impacted by living a 24/7 life. We find out about studies on big data about a cities health, from a long term study of insomniacs in South Korea to using social media to determine when a city is 'feeling lucky' and willing to take a risk.
References:
- Jin-young Min, Kyoung-bok Min. Outdoor Artificial Nighttime Light and Use of Hypnotic Medications in Older Adults: A Population-Based Cohort Study. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018; 14 (11): 1903 DOI: 10.5664/jcsm.7490
- Suzana Almoosawi Snieguole Vingeliene Frederic Gachon Trudy Voortman Luigi Palla Jonathan D Johnston Rob Martinus Van Dam Christian Darimont Leonidas G Karagounis. Chronotype: Implications for Epidemiologic Studies on Chrono-Nutrition and Cardiometabolic Health. Advances in Nutrition, 2018 DOI: 10.1093/advances/nmy070
- A. Ross Otto, Johannes C. Eichstaedt. Real-world unexpected outcomes predict city-level mood states and risk-taking behavior. PLOS ONE, 2018; 13 (11): e0206923 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206923