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เนื้อหาจัดทำโดย Adam Buckingham เนื้อหาพอดแคสต์ทั้งหมด รวมถึงตอน กราฟิก และคำอธิบายพอดแคสต์ได้รับการอัปโหลดและจัดเตรียมโดย Adam Buckingham หรือพันธมิตรแพลตฟอร์มพอดแคสต์โดยตรง หากคุณเชื่อว่ามีบุคคลอื่นใช้งานที่มีลิขสิทธิ์ของคุณโดยไม่ได้รับอนุญาต คุณสามารถปฏิบัติตามขั้นตอนที่อธิบายไว้ที่นี่ https://th.player.fm/legal
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111. More Research to Solve Alzheimer’s, EV Energy Sharing, Tesla Virtual Power Plants

33:14
 
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Manage episode 332683088 series 2832936
เนื้อหาจัดทำโดย Adam Buckingham เนื้อหาพอดแคสต์ทั้งหมด รวมถึงตอน กราฟิก และคำอธิบายพอดแคสต์ได้รับการอัปโหลดและจัดเตรียมโดย Adam Buckingham หรือพันธมิตรแพลตฟอร์มพอดแคสต์โดยตรง หากคุณเชื่อว่ามีบุคคลอื่นใช้งานที่มีลิขสิทธิ์ของคุณโดยไม่ได้รับอนุญาต คุณสามารถปฏิบัติตามขั้นตอนที่อธิบายไว้ที่นี่ https://th.player.fm/legal
NEWS:

Sugar-studded protein is key to an Alzheimer's cure | The Brighter Side (01:38)

  • In a bit of “reverse engineering” research using brain tissues from five people who died with Alzheimer’s disease, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they discovered that a special sugar molecule could play a key role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
    • This could indicate the molecule, known as a glycan, to be used as an early diagnostic test.
    • And opens a way to perhaps prevention of the disease
  • Cleaning up the disease-causing forms of amyloid and tau is the job of the brain’s immune cells, called microglia.
    • Earlier studies found that when cleanup is impaired, Alzheimer’s disease is more likely to occur.
    • Thought to be caused by an overabundance of a receptor on the microglia cells, called CD33.
  • Past studies by the researchers showed that for CD33, these “connector” molecules are special sugars.
    • These molecules are ferried around the cell by specialized proteins that help them find their appropriate receptors.
    • The protein-glycan combination is called a glycoprotein.
  • The researchers, to find out more about the glycoproteins, obtained brain tissue from five people who died of Alzheimer’s disease and from five people.
    • Among the many thousands of glycoproteins they gathered from the brain tissues, only one connected to CD33.
  • What was this mysterious glycoprotein?
    • The researchers determined the protein component’s identity by taking its “fingerprint” using mass spectroscopy, which identifies protein building blocks.
    • Then they compared the molecular makeup of the protein with a database of known protein structures.
    • The research team was able to conclude the protein portion of the glycoprotein was receptor tyrosine phosphatase (RPTP) zeta.
  • Further experiments showed that the brain tissue of the five people who died with Alzheimer’s disease had more than twice as much RPTP zeta S3L as the donors who did not have the disease.
    • Implying that this glycoprotein may be connecting with more CD33 receptors than a healthy brain, limiting the brain’s ability to clean up harmful proteins.
  • Gonzalez-Gil Alvarenga, Ph.D., first author on the study stated:
    • “Identifying this unique glycoprotein provides a step toward finding new drug targets and potentially early diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease.”

A Surprising Link Between Immune System and Hair Growth | Neuroscience News (07:36)

  • Salk scientists have uncovered an unexpected molecular target of a common treatment for alopecia, a condition in which a person’s immune system attacks their own hair follicles, causing hair loss.
  • Corresponding author of the study, Ye Zheng, associate professor in Salk’s NOMIS Center for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis, stated:
    • “For the longest time, regulatory T cells have been studied for how they decrease excessive immune reactions in autoimmune diseases … Now we’ve identified the upstream hormonal signal and downstream growth factor that actually promote hair growth and regeneration completely separate from suppressing immune response.”
  • Initially the researchers were interested in researching the roles of regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid hormones in autoimmune diseases.
    • They did not function together to play a significant role in any of these conditions.
    • Thought they’d have more luck looking at environments where regulatory T cells expressed particularly high levels of glucocorticoid receptors
  • The glucocorticoid receptor (GR, or GCR) also known as NR3C1 (nuclear receptor subfamily 3, group C, member 1) is the receptor to which cortisol and other glucocorticoids bind.
  • The scientists induced hair loss in normal mice and mice lacking glucocorticoid receptors in their regulatory T cells.
    • After two weeks, the researchers saw the normal mice grew their hair back, while the ones lacking the receptors struggled to grow it back
  • The findings suggested that some sort of communication must be occurring between regulatory T cells and hair follicle stem cells to allow for hair regeneration.
    • They continued to investigate how the regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid receptors behaved in skin tissue samples.
  • They found that glucocorticoids instruct the regulatory T cells to activate hair follicle stem cells, which leads to hair growth.
    • Depends on a mechanism whereby glucocorticoid receptors induce production of the protein TGF-beta3, all within the regulatory T cells.
    • TGF-beta3 then activates the hair follicle stem cells to differentiate into new hair follicles, promoting hair growth.
  • This study revealed that regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid hormones are not just immunosuppressants but also have a regenerative function.
    • Next, the scientists will look at other injury models and isolate regulatory T cells from injured tissues to monitor increased levels of TGF-beta3 and other growth factors.

Engineers devise clever system for EVs to share charge—while driving | Anthropocene (13:34)

  • The charging station expansion isn’t keeping up with the growing number of EVs on the road.
    • The number of EVs on the road per public charging point globally rose to 9.2 at the end of last year, from 7.4 at the end of 2020, according to a study by BloombergNEF analyst Ryan Fisher on the state of public charging infrastructure.
  • In a new study, engineers propose a way around this conundrum: EVs that share charge with each other while driving.
    • In their vision, cars with low batteries could buy some charge from others with extra to spare, all without stopping.
    • Could be orchestrated via a cloud-based control system
  • Electrical and computer engineer Prabuddha Chakraborty the University of Florida and his colleagues propose a two-battery system for EVs.
    • A large, slow-charging lithium-ion battery would drive the car,
    • A smaller, fast-charging battery would be used for on-the-go charging.
    • Once powered up, the small battery would transfer its charge to the car’s main battery.
  • “Just like in your computer you have fast cache memory—but it’s expensive—so you have other type of high-capacity memories that are slower,” said Tamzidul Hoque, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Kansas
  • The cloud-based system idea:
    • Monitor charge levels of electric cars.
    • If a car’s power is starting to run low, the network would alert it to other cars nearby with enough charge to sell.
    • Once two cars are matched with owner consent, cables would connect them for charging and they would be locked at the same speed until the power transfer is complete.
  • Yet even in a well-planned, dynamic peer charging network, the researchers found in simulations that the total charge of the network will slowly deplete.
    • To try to get around this idea, they propose the concept of mobile charging stations: large battery-loaded trucks that would recharge multiple vehicles at once.
    • Like military jets being refueled in-flight by tanker aircraft.
  • Using popular traffic modeling software they were able to simulate their idea somewhat.
    • They found that it would eliminate range anxiety and re-charging wait time, and reduce EV cost by eliminating the need to have big batteries.

Scientists Use Vegetable Oil Byproduct to Remove Heavy Metals From Contaminated Water | EcoWatch (20:27)

  • Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, collaborating with ETH Zurich, Switzerland (ETHZ), have discovered a way to turn byproduct from vegetable oil production into a membrane that filters out heavy metals from water.
  • Ali Miserez, study author and professor at Nanyang Technological University, stated:
    • “Water pollution remains a major global issue in many parts of the world…Heavy metals represent a large group of water pollutants that can accumulate in the human body, causing cancer and mutagenic diseases. Current technologies to remove them are energy-intensive, requiring power to operate, or are highly selective in what they filter.”
  • The researchers noticed that proteins in peanut and sunflower oil waste byproducts, called oilseed meals, were useful in attracting heavy metal ions.
    • Turned the oilseed meals’ proteins into nano-sized protein amyloid fibrils, which strongly attract heavy metal ions.
    • Combined these amyloid fibrils with activated carbon and tested the filters on three types of metal: platinum, chromium and lead.
    • The membranes were 99.89% effective at filtering out all of the heavy metals from water, with the best results for platinum and lead.
  • The membrane made from waste byproduct proteins is a low-cost option that requires little energy for decontamination, and the researchers say this innovation could work all over the world for water purification.
  • “Recovering precious platinum, which costs US$33,000/kg, only requires 32 kg of protein, while recovering gold, which is worth almost US$60,000/kg, only requires 16 kg of protein. Considering that these proteins are obtained from industrial waste that is worth less than US$1/kg, there are large cost benefits,” Miserez explained.
  • Because of the simple technology, this filtration membrane is readily scalable, according to the researchers.

Tesla launches new virtual power plant that pays Powerwall owners to help end brownouts | Electrek (25:30)

  • Tesla has launched a new virtual power plant in partnership with PG&E in California that will pay Powerwalls owners to help stabilize the electric grid and end brownouts in California.
  • What is a virtual power plant?
    • Consists of distributed energy storage systems, like Tesla Powerwalls, used in concert to provide grid services and avoid the use of polluting and expensive peaker power plants.
  • Tesla has partnered with PG&E to launch a new version of its virtual power plant that will actually compensate people participating:
    • The company’s statement:
    • “Become a part of the largest distributed battery in the world and help keep California’s energy clean and reliable. Opt-in to the Tesla Virtual Power Plant (VPP) with PG&E and your Powerwall will be dispatched when the grid needs emergency support. Through the Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP) pilot, you will receive $2 for every additional kWh your Powerwall delivers during an event. Adjust your Backup Reserve to set your contribution, while maintaining backup energy for outages.”
  • Depending on the events and the number of Powerwalls homeowners have, they could earn anywhere from $10 to $60 per event or even more for bigger systems.
  • The extra capacity your Powerwall provides could help avoid or reduce blackouts in a severe emergency. This way, Powerwall can keep the lights on for both you and your community.
  • Tesla said that it has about 50,000 Powerwalls that could be eligible for this VPP, which add up to a significant 500 MWh of energy capacity than can be distributed in any event.

  continue reading

100 ตอน

Artwork
iconแบ่งปัน
 

Fetch error

Hmmm there seems to be a problem fetching this series right now. Last successful fetch was on November 20, 2023 22:05 (4M ago)

What now? This series will be checked again in the next hour. If you believe it should be working, please verify the publisher's feed link below is valid and includes actual episode links. You can contact support to request the feed be immediately fetched.

Manage episode 332683088 series 2832936
เนื้อหาจัดทำโดย Adam Buckingham เนื้อหาพอดแคสต์ทั้งหมด รวมถึงตอน กราฟิก และคำอธิบายพอดแคสต์ได้รับการอัปโหลดและจัดเตรียมโดย Adam Buckingham หรือพันธมิตรแพลตฟอร์มพอดแคสต์โดยตรง หากคุณเชื่อว่ามีบุคคลอื่นใช้งานที่มีลิขสิทธิ์ของคุณโดยไม่ได้รับอนุญาต คุณสามารถปฏิบัติตามขั้นตอนที่อธิบายไว้ที่นี่ https://th.player.fm/legal
NEWS:

Sugar-studded protein is key to an Alzheimer's cure | The Brighter Side (01:38)

  • In a bit of “reverse engineering” research using brain tissues from five people who died with Alzheimer’s disease, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they discovered that a special sugar molecule could play a key role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
    • This could indicate the molecule, known as a glycan, to be used as an early diagnostic test.
    • And opens a way to perhaps prevention of the disease
  • Cleaning up the disease-causing forms of amyloid and tau is the job of the brain’s immune cells, called microglia.
    • Earlier studies found that when cleanup is impaired, Alzheimer’s disease is more likely to occur.
    • Thought to be caused by an overabundance of a receptor on the microglia cells, called CD33.
  • Past studies by the researchers showed that for CD33, these “connector” molecules are special sugars.
    • These molecules are ferried around the cell by specialized proteins that help them find their appropriate receptors.
    • The protein-glycan combination is called a glycoprotein.
  • The researchers, to find out more about the glycoproteins, obtained brain tissue from five people who died of Alzheimer’s disease and from five people.
    • Among the many thousands of glycoproteins they gathered from the brain tissues, only one connected to CD33.
  • What was this mysterious glycoprotein?
    • The researchers determined the protein component’s identity by taking its “fingerprint” using mass spectroscopy, which identifies protein building blocks.
    • Then they compared the molecular makeup of the protein with a database of known protein structures.
    • The research team was able to conclude the protein portion of the glycoprotein was receptor tyrosine phosphatase (RPTP) zeta.
  • Further experiments showed that the brain tissue of the five people who died with Alzheimer’s disease had more than twice as much RPTP zeta S3L as the donors who did not have the disease.
    • Implying that this glycoprotein may be connecting with more CD33 receptors than a healthy brain, limiting the brain’s ability to clean up harmful proteins.
  • Gonzalez-Gil Alvarenga, Ph.D., first author on the study stated:
    • “Identifying this unique glycoprotein provides a step toward finding new drug targets and potentially early diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease.”

A Surprising Link Between Immune System and Hair Growth | Neuroscience News (07:36)

  • Salk scientists have uncovered an unexpected molecular target of a common treatment for alopecia, a condition in which a person’s immune system attacks their own hair follicles, causing hair loss.
  • Corresponding author of the study, Ye Zheng, associate professor in Salk’s NOMIS Center for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis, stated:
    • “For the longest time, regulatory T cells have been studied for how they decrease excessive immune reactions in autoimmune diseases … Now we’ve identified the upstream hormonal signal and downstream growth factor that actually promote hair growth and regeneration completely separate from suppressing immune response.”
  • Initially the researchers were interested in researching the roles of regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid hormones in autoimmune diseases.
    • They did not function together to play a significant role in any of these conditions.
    • Thought they’d have more luck looking at environments where regulatory T cells expressed particularly high levels of glucocorticoid receptors
  • The glucocorticoid receptor (GR, or GCR) also known as NR3C1 (nuclear receptor subfamily 3, group C, member 1) is the receptor to which cortisol and other glucocorticoids bind.
  • The scientists induced hair loss in normal mice and mice lacking glucocorticoid receptors in their regulatory T cells.
    • After two weeks, the researchers saw the normal mice grew their hair back, while the ones lacking the receptors struggled to grow it back
  • The findings suggested that some sort of communication must be occurring between regulatory T cells and hair follicle stem cells to allow for hair regeneration.
    • They continued to investigate how the regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid receptors behaved in skin tissue samples.
  • They found that glucocorticoids instruct the regulatory T cells to activate hair follicle stem cells, which leads to hair growth.
    • Depends on a mechanism whereby glucocorticoid receptors induce production of the protein TGF-beta3, all within the regulatory T cells.
    • TGF-beta3 then activates the hair follicle stem cells to differentiate into new hair follicles, promoting hair growth.
  • This study revealed that regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid hormones are not just immunosuppressants but also have a regenerative function.
    • Next, the scientists will look at other injury models and isolate regulatory T cells from injured tissues to monitor increased levels of TGF-beta3 and other growth factors.

Engineers devise clever system for EVs to share charge—while driving | Anthropocene (13:34)

  • The charging station expansion isn’t keeping up with the growing number of EVs on the road.
    • The number of EVs on the road per public charging point globally rose to 9.2 at the end of last year, from 7.4 at the end of 2020, according to a study by BloombergNEF analyst Ryan Fisher on the state of public charging infrastructure.
  • In a new study, engineers propose a way around this conundrum: EVs that share charge with each other while driving.
    • In their vision, cars with low batteries could buy some charge from others with extra to spare, all without stopping.
    • Could be orchestrated via a cloud-based control system
  • Electrical and computer engineer Prabuddha Chakraborty the University of Florida and his colleagues propose a two-battery system for EVs.
    • A large, slow-charging lithium-ion battery would drive the car,
    • A smaller, fast-charging battery would be used for on-the-go charging.
    • Once powered up, the small battery would transfer its charge to the car’s main battery.
  • “Just like in your computer you have fast cache memory—but it’s expensive—so you have other type of high-capacity memories that are slower,” said Tamzidul Hoque, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Kansas
  • The cloud-based system idea:
    • Monitor charge levels of electric cars.
    • If a car’s power is starting to run low, the network would alert it to other cars nearby with enough charge to sell.
    • Once two cars are matched with owner consent, cables would connect them for charging and they would be locked at the same speed until the power transfer is complete.
  • Yet even in a well-planned, dynamic peer charging network, the researchers found in simulations that the total charge of the network will slowly deplete.
    • To try to get around this idea, they propose the concept of mobile charging stations: large battery-loaded trucks that would recharge multiple vehicles at once.
    • Like military jets being refueled in-flight by tanker aircraft.
  • Using popular traffic modeling software they were able to simulate their idea somewhat.
    • They found that it would eliminate range anxiety and re-charging wait time, and reduce EV cost by eliminating the need to have big batteries.

Scientists Use Vegetable Oil Byproduct to Remove Heavy Metals From Contaminated Water | EcoWatch (20:27)

  • Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, collaborating with ETH Zurich, Switzerland (ETHZ), have discovered a way to turn byproduct from vegetable oil production into a membrane that filters out heavy metals from water.
  • Ali Miserez, study author and professor at Nanyang Technological University, stated:
    • “Water pollution remains a major global issue in many parts of the world…Heavy metals represent a large group of water pollutants that can accumulate in the human body, causing cancer and mutagenic diseases. Current technologies to remove them are energy-intensive, requiring power to operate, or are highly selective in what they filter.”
  • The researchers noticed that proteins in peanut and sunflower oil waste byproducts, called oilseed meals, were useful in attracting heavy metal ions.
    • Turned the oilseed meals’ proteins into nano-sized protein amyloid fibrils, which strongly attract heavy metal ions.
    • Combined these amyloid fibrils with activated carbon and tested the filters on three types of metal: platinum, chromium and lead.
    • The membranes were 99.89% effective at filtering out all of the heavy metals from water, with the best results for platinum and lead.
  • The membrane made from waste byproduct proteins is a low-cost option that requires little energy for decontamination, and the researchers say this innovation could work all over the world for water purification.
  • “Recovering precious platinum, which costs US$33,000/kg, only requires 32 kg of protein, while recovering gold, which is worth almost US$60,000/kg, only requires 16 kg of protein. Considering that these proteins are obtained from industrial waste that is worth less than US$1/kg, there are large cost benefits,” Miserez explained.
  • Because of the simple technology, this filtration membrane is readily scalable, according to the researchers.

Tesla launches new virtual power plant that pays Powerwall owners to help end brownouts | Electrek (25:30)

  • Tesla has launched a new virtual power plant in partnership with PG&E in California that will pay Powerwalls owners to help stabilize the electric grid and end brownouts in California.
  • What is a virtual power plant?
    • Consists of distributed energy storage systems, like Tesla Powerwalls, used in concert to provide grid services and avoid the use of polluting and expensive peaker power plants.
  • Tesla has partnered with PG&E to launch a new version of its virtual power plant that will actually compensate people participating:
    • The company’s statement:
    • “Become a part of the largest distributed battery in the world and help keep California’s energy clean and reliable. Opt-in to the Tesla Virtual Power Plant (VPP) with PG&E and your Powerwall will be dispatched when the grid needs emergency support. Through the Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP) pilot, you will receive $2 for every additional kWh your Powerwall delivers during an event. Adjust your Backup Reserve to set your contribution, while maintaining backup energy for outages.”
  • Depending on the events and the number of Powerwalls homeowners have, they could earn anywhere from $10 to $60 per event or even more for bigger systems.
  • The extra capacity your Powerwall provides could help avoid or reduce blackouts in a severe emergency. This way, Powerwall can keep the lights on for both you and your community.
  • Tesla said that it has about 50,000 Powerwalls that could be eligible for this VPP, which add up to a significant 500 MWh of energy capacity than can be distributed in any event.

  continue reading

100 ตอน

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