UC Science Today

An innovative biological detection technology developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been getting quite a work out. Lab biologist Crystal Jaing says the Microbial Detection Array has been used in more than two dozen collaborations for a variety of applications, including testing vaccine safety, food safety, linking viruses to bladder cancer and there’s more to come.

"So, we are starting to use this technology to look at emerging pathogens because very often if there’s a new outbreak for a virus or a bacteria, some of the public health laboratories may not have a test already available for that pathogen. So, this is where this technology can really come in because we can analyze any of the known or any of the sequence pathogens and also to look at those emerging pathogens currently now circulating in the United States to really help predict an outbreak early."

Many parts of our nation’s infrastructure are aging and dams are no exception. And as troubling as that sounds, especially if there is an extreme event like a large earthquake, the good news is that the decades-old engineering was sound and is holding up to the test of time. Civil engineer Lee Glascoe of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was part of a team evaluating the design standards of soil filters used in embankment dams.

"The soil filters are coarser grained soils that are designed to withstand both large movements and to prevent the rapid erosion or the flushing of the finer earthen material that is constructed around the dam. So essentially, it’s there to provide the dam reinforcement."

The team was able to validate the effectiveness of soil filters using 3-D computer modeling and simulations.

"The earlier engineers had fairly straightforward but sound principles upon which they based their designs. The challenge for engineers today is how do we refresh that infrastructure?"

Many parts of our nation’s infrastructure are aging and dams are no exception. And as troubling as that sounds, especially if there is an extreme event like a large earthquake, the good news is that the decades-old engineering was sound and is holding up to the test of time. Civil engineer Lee Glascoe of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was part of a team evaluating the design standards of soil filters used in embankment dams.

"The soil filters are coarser grained soils that are designed to withstand both large movements and to prevent the rapid erosion or the flushing of the finer earthen material that is constructed around the dam. So essentially, it’s there to provide the dam reinforcement."

The team was able to validate the effectiveness of soil filters using 3-D computer modeling and simulations.

"The earlier engineers had fairly straightforward but sound principles upon which they based their designs. The challenge for engineers today is how do we refresh that infrastructure?"

An innovative biological detection technology developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been getting quite a work out. Lab biologist Crystal Jaing says the Microbial Detection Array has been used in more than two dozen collaborations for a variety of applications, including testing vaccine safety, food safety, linking viruses to bladder cancer and there’s more to come.

"So, we are starting to use this technology to look at emerging pathogens because very often if there’s a new outbreak for a virus or a bacteria, some of the public health laboratories may not have a test already available for that pathogen. So, this is where this technology can really come in because we can analyze any of the known or any of the sequence pathogens and also to look at those emerging pathogens currently now circulating in the United States to really help predict an outbreak early."

An innovative biological detection technology developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been getting quite a work out. Lab biologist Crystal Jaing says the Microbial Detection Array has been used in more than two dozen collaborations for a variety of applications, including testing vaccine safety, food safety, linking viruses to bladder cancer and there’s more to come.

"So, we are starting to use this technology to look at emerging pathogens because very often if there’s a new outbreak for a virus or a bacteria, some of the public health laboratories may not have a test already available for that pathogen. So, this is where this technology can really come in because we can analyze any of the known or any of the sequence pathogens and also to look at those emerging pathogens currently now circulating in the United States to really help predict an outbreak early."

Many parts of our nation’s infrastructure are aging and dams are no exception. And as troubling as that sounds, especially if there is an extreme event like a large earthquake, the good news is that the decades-old engineering was sound and is holding up to the test of time. Civil engineer Lee Glascoe of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was part of a team evaluating the design standards of soil filters used in embankment dams.

"The soil filters are coarser grained soils that are designed to withstand both large movements and to prevent the rapid erosion or the flushing of the finer earthen material that is constructed around the dam. So essentially, it’s there to provide the dam reinforcement."

The team was able to validate the effectiveness of soil filters using 3-D computer modeling and simulations.

"The earlier engineers had fairly straightforward but sound principles upon which they based their designs. The challenge for engineers today is how do we refresh that infrastructure?"

Many parts of our nation’s infrastructure are aging and dams are no exception. And as troubling as that sounds, especially if there is an extreme event like a large earthquake, the good news is that the decades-old engineering was sound and is holding up to the test of time. Civil engineer Lee Glascoe of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was part of a team evaluating the design standards of soil filters used in embankment dams.

"The soil filters are coarser grained soils that are designed to withstand both large movements and to prevent the rapid erosion or the flushing of the finer earthen material that is constructed around the dam. So essentially, it’s there to provide the dam reinforcement."

The team was able to validate the effectiveness of soil filters using 3-D computer modeling and simulations.

"The earlier engineers had fairly straightforward but sound principles upon which they based their designs. The challenge for engineers today is how do we refresh that infrastructure?"

An innovative biological detection technology developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been getting quite a work out. Lab biologist Crystal Jaing says the Microbial Detection Array has been used in more than two dozen collaborations for a variety of applications, including testing vaccine safety, food safety, linking viruses to bladder cancer and there’s more to come.

"So, we are starting to use this technology to look at emerging pathogens because very often if there’s a new outbreak for a virus or a bacteria, some of the public health laboratories may not have a test already available for that pathogen. So, this is where this technology can really come in because we can analyze any of the known or any of the sequence pathogens and also to look at those emerging pathogens currently now circulating in the United States to really help predict an outbreak early."

For the first time, scientists have identified a link between specific deep sleep rhythms and beta amyloid, a toxic protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Postdoctoral fellow Bryce Mander of the University of California, Berkeley co-led the study. He says they also found that the buildup of beta amyloid disrupts the part of sleep that’s critical for promoting the retention of long-term memories.

"So the more of these Alzheimer’s disease toxins that were building up in certain parts of your brain, the more specific sleep rhythms were disrupted, and the more those sleep rhythms were disrupted, the worse people’s memory was."

Mander says these findings are promising because it can lead to new treatment opportunities.

"It’s promising because it suggests there may be specific places we can target, to develop new treatments, to intervene and help promote better more robust sleep, in people who are at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease, and perhaps even rescue some of the cognitive impairments associated with Alzheimer’s disease."

Want to brew beer or bake bread in your backyard using sunlight? It may soon be possible with a breakthrough artificial system of nanomaterials and living organisms that mimics photosynthesis. Professor Christopher Chang of the University of California, Berkeley co-led a team that developed the system, which is the size of a semiconductor chip.

"The interesting thing about the biological organisms that we're using for these studies is that they're essentially the same types of organisms that you would use to brew beer, bake bread, and so because you can do fermentation, it provides a very sustainable type of process instead of having to use an input that would be not sustainable or not renewable."

Chang says his team wants to target value added household products for now, but it can also be used to make biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

"So there are many, many different types of possibilities, but what we're thinking, is that it's much more practical to have in this case, high value types of materials or compounds."