Month: August 2011
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USPTO, Taiwan to Pilot Test Reciprocal Patent Reviews
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced a new pilot test of sharing patent reviews with the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO). The trial of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program will permit each office to benefit from work previously done by the other office. USPTO says the expedited examination in each office allows…
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New Treatment Fixes Tooth Decay Without Drilling
Researchers at University of Leeds in the U.K. have developed a way of treating dental decay that reverses the damage caused by acid and re-builds teeth, without drilling. The technology developed at Leeds has been licensed to a company in Switzerland for commercialization. Dental cavities are caused by a process that begins with bacteria, which…
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Improved Diagnostic for Potato Pest Developed
Xiaohong Wang, a molecular biologist with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), a division of the Department of Agriculture, in Ithaca, New York developed a new process for determining the type of potato cyst nematode infecting potato crops. Wang’s process is described in a paper that appeared earlier this year in the European Journal of Plant…
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Human Energy Harvesting Technology Developed, Commercialized
Engineers at University of Wisconsin in Madison have created a technology that harvests and converts energy from normal human activities like walking into electrical power for portable electronic devices. The work of Tom Krupenkin and J. Ashley Taylor appears in a paper in the journal Nature Communications, and is the basis of a company formed…
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Computer Model Helps Pinpoint Cancer Cell Targets
Medical and computer scientists in Israel and the U.K. have developed a computer model of cancer cell metabolism, which can help predict which drugs are lethal to cancer cells. Their work was part of a research study reported online last week in the journal Nature (paid subscription required). Many cancer drugs are now designed to…
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Solid-State Supercapacitor Created with Carbon Nanotubes
Researchers at Rice University in Houston have developed a supercapacitor that can store large quantities of energy and charge quickly, and in a solid-state design made possible by the use of carbon nanotubes. Their findings appear online in the journal Carbon (paid subscription required). Capacitors are devices that regulate flow or supply quick bursts of…
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Radio Antennas Embedded in Clothing Developed, Licensed
Ohio State University engineers in Columbus have developed a process to sew radio antennas directly into clothing, using plastic film and metallic thread. Their work was published recently in the journal IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (paid subscription required), and licensed to a Virginia company for commercialization. Research engineering professor Chi-Chih Chen says the…
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Scheme Protects Against Wireless Network Security Breach
Computer scientists at MIT have devised a method for plugging a security gap in wireless networks that allows attackers to hijack log-on signals from network devices. MIT faculty Nickolai Zeldovich and Dina Katabi, with postdoc Nabeel Ahmed and grad student Shyam Gollakota presented their findings and demonstrated the system earlier this month at the Usenix…
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Consortium Awarded Grant for Bioweapon Defense
A collaboration of universities, private company, and national lab have received a $2.4 million grant from National Institutes of Health to develop tools that detect and protect against biological weapon attacks. The grant, from NIH’s Partnerships for Biodefense Program, will fund work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, University of Texas Medical Branch, University…
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FDA Gives Accelerated Approval to Lymphoma Drug
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin) developed by Seattle Genetics of Bothell, Washington, to treat two types of lymphoma. FDA approved Adcetris under an accelerated review procedure for promising drugs to treat serious diseases. Lymphoma is a type of cancer that affects the cells that play a role in…