November 30, 2011

Good Morning,

A California medical center focused on advancing stem cell research opened its doors just yesterday. Check out the details on what developers are calling a "collaborative environment" for biology, medicine and stem cell research in the first article.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Stem cell research center opens in Calif.

LA JOLLA, Calif. - The Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in Southern California will provide a collaborative environment to advance stem cell research, developers say. The $127 million complex -- dubbed a "collaboratory" by the center's developers -- is located in La Jolla near the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. It officially opens its doors Tuesday. "Top researchers from multiple institutions and disciplines will team up here in unprecedented ways," Dr. Edward Holmes, Sanford's president and chief executive officer, said in a release. "By harnessing their intellectual capital under a single roof, the collaborating organizations aim to revolutionize the field of stem cell science and deliver new discoveries that translate into new treatments." The building is designed to cause "creative collisions" intended to spark opportunities for dynamic collaboration, the consortium said. "The collaboratory was designed to be functional, flexible, innovative, and wholly supportive of stem cell science," Louis Coffman, Sanford's vice president and chief operating officer, said. "We hope that the collaboratory will create conditions sufficient to enable an entirely new culture of scientific research to emerge."


Radio waves to target bedbugs

RICHLAND, Wash. - Technology developed to scan air travelers is being used to create a device that can search for bedbugs in houses and hotel rooms, U.S. researchers said. VisiRay of Corvallis, Ore., has signed an option agreement with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to create the devices, which would use millimeter wave technology to allow inspectors to see through drywall particle boards and view clear images of pests on the other side of a wall. The company was started by graduate students from the University of Oregon Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship. "PNNL is focused on driving emerging technologies toward outcomes that solve issues of national importance," Cheryl Cejka, PNNL director of technology commercialization, said in a release. The agreement is part of the Startup America initiative announced by the White House this year to make licensing new technologies affordable for start-up companies. The technology was initially developed with Federal Aviation Administration grants to use radio waves to scan passengers, the (Kennewick, Wash.) Tri-City Herald reported Monday. It is used at 78 U.S. airports. The technology has been licensed for development of a device that could be used in stores to help shoppers select clothing sizes by providing a 3-D holographic image of their bodies, the newspaper said.


Walnuts trees face climate obstacles

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Walnut trees are not designed to withstand warmer, drier climates, a U.S. researcher said. Walnut trees -- which are economically significant in Indiana for lumber and furniture making, and in other areas for their nuts -- are especially sensitive to particular climates, research by Douglass Jacobs, a professor of forestry and natural resources at Purdue University, and former doctoral student Martin-Michel Gauthier, now a research scientist in the Ministry of Natural Resources in Quebec, Canada, suggest. "Walnut is really restricted to sites not too wet or dry. It has an extremely narrow range," Jacobs said Monday in a release. Jacobs, whose findings were published in the December issue of Annals of Forest Science, said there could be a decline in the species due to climate change, particularly drought. "Changes in moisture could restrict its ability to survive without irrigation," Jacobs said. "Almost all climate change models predict that climates will become drier." Purdue's Hardwood Tree Improvement and Regeneration Center has a walnut breeding program that is attempting to identify trees that can be used in different climates. Walnuts were a $1 billion a year industry in California in 2010, while black walnut timber accounts for about 15 percent of the logs sold in Indiana at a value of $11 million, Purdue said.


CO2 pumped underground in Illinois

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Carbon dioxide from an Illinois ethanol plant is being injected underground in the largest U.S. demonstration of carbon sequestration, scientists said. The Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium said 1.1 million tons of carbon dioxide being captured from the fermentation process used to produce ethanol at Archer Daniels Midland Co.'s corn-processing complex in Decatur, Ill., will be stored permanently in sandstone more than a mile beneath the Illinois surface. The carbon dioxide is compressed into a dense-liquid to facilitate the injection process and permanent storage at a depth of 7,000 feet. "Establishing long-term, environmentally safe and secure underground CO2 storage is a critical component in achieving successful commercial deployment of carbon capture, utilization and storage technology," Chuck McConnell, head of the U.S. Energy Department 's Office of Fossil Energy, said Monday in a release. The $96 million Illinois Basin-Decatur Project was funded in 2007. Robert Finley, leader of the Illinois State Geological Survey's sequestration team, said the Mount Simon Sandstone is the thickest and most widespread saline reservoir in the Illinois Basin, which covers two-thirds of Illinois and reaches into western Indiana and western Kentucky. Finley said several layers of shale serve as an impermeable cap rock to hold the carbon dioxide in place.

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