Science X Newsletter Week 20

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Here is your customized Phys.org Newsletter for week 20:

	Fixstars announces six-terabyte Solid State Drive The world's first 6TB Solid State Drive (Fixstars SSD-6000M) is accepting orders and it will be shipped to customers in the United States in late July. That's the news from Fixstars, which has announced a 2.5" SSD with a capacity of 6TB. The announcement on Thursday said it was the world's largest 2.5-inch SATA SSD. The Fixstars SSD-6000M will use 15nm flash memory packed into a 2.5″ form factor. Read speeds are expected to be up to 540MB/s and write speeds of up to 520MB/s for sequential access.
	SolaRoad cycle path electricity yield exceeds expectations What a concept for a pilot project. Can't we change our roads into gigantic solar panels? Harvest energy from them? Get solar electricity from them, fed into the electricity grid and used for street lighting, traffic systems, households and electric cars?
	Microsoft Hyperlapse turns long video into distilled entertainment Many can remember invitations from neighbors to view hours—and one hour could seem like hours—of footage of a family vacation, which would not be at all entertaining. It's still in many cases tedious to view unedited videos. The great thing about professional videos is that they deliver a smooth encapsulation of time that begins with a story intro leading into a "and then what happened" which flows into an ending. Microsoft Research has been working up technology that can do the same for everyone, pro or amateur. It can turn an otherwise tedious video – from a bumpy bicycle ride to a walk along a river—into a short, distilled version. On Thursday, Microsoft announced Microsoft Hyperlapse, which makes first-person videos not only fast but smooth.
	China's smartphone market contracts in Q1: IDC China's smartphone market contracted in the first quarter for the first time in six years with Apple becoming the top vendor, researchers said on Monday.
	First-in-class antibody mixture shows clinical activity against Tx-resistant, advanced colorectal cancer Patients with advanced colorectal tumors without mutations in the RAS genes derive substantial benefit from anti-EGFR therapies; however, the disease eventually progresses, leaving these patients with few alternative therapeutic options. Over the last decade, some of the mechanisms driving resistance have been identified, but despite intensive research, treatment options available for patients have not improved, Tabernero said.
	Rift Valley fever virus' proteins imitate human DNA repair factors A potential mechanism to combat diseases caused by haemorrhagic fever viruses has been discovered by researchers at the University of Montreal's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine. These diseases present a dramatic risk to human health as they often spread quickly and kill a high percentage of infected individuals, as demonstrated by the recent Ebola outbreaks. Effective treatments such as vaccines and drug therapies are not available for many of these infections since the outbreaks mostly occur in developing countries with limited financial resources. Moreover, the genomes of many haemorrhagic fever viruses mutate rapidly, enabling them to quickly adapt to potential drug treatments and evade the immune system.
Certain treatments for childhood cancer may increase obesity risk later in life Childhood cancer survivors - especially those whose treatment included brain irradiation or chemotherapy with glucocorticoids - are 14 percent more likely to be obese than their healthy peers. The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital study appears today in the journal Cancer.
	India's endangered lion numbers increase Wildlife experts welcomed Monday census figures showing India's population of endangered Asiatic lions has increased in the last five years in the western state of Gujarat.
	Self-driving cars getting hit in California Four of the nearly 50 self-driving cars now rolling around California have gotten into accidents since September, when the state began issuing permits for companies to test them on public roads.
	Things to know about accidents involving self-driving cars A small fleet of self-driving cars is maneuvering through traffic in California using an array of sensors and computing power. Drivers are required to be along for the ride, but much of the time, they keep their hands off the steering wheel and brake and gas pedals.
	San Francisco commuters snub public transit for $6 bus ride The compact city that inspired ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft is offering a new way to get to work: fancy $6 big-bus rides with spacious seating, free Wi-Fi and attendants who deliver snacks.
	Sodium selective DNAzyme sensor (Phys.org)—Sodium ions are key regulators in cellular processes. The fluids in cells, whether it is water, blood plasma, or nutrients, are regulated by the sodium concentration in cells. If scientists could study sodium ions within a live cell, they would gain important insights into cellular processes including ways to reprogram these processes for biotechnological applications.
	Scientists use shape-fixing nanoreactor to make a better fuel cell catalyst (Phys.org)—Proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are lightweight fuel cells being developed for applications in vehicles and portable electronics. One of the biggest challenges facing their development is the need for expensive platinum-based catalysts. In an effort to lower the cost, scientists are looking for ways to either reduce the amount of platinum required or completely replace the platinum with a less expensive material. But so far, alternative materials have not performed nearly as well as platinum, mainly because they have fewer and less accessible "active sites"—locations where the catalyzed reactions can occur.
	Bioprinting in 3D: Looks like candy, could regenerate nerve cells The printer looks like a toaster oven with the front and sides removed. Its metal frame is built up around a stainless steel circle lit by an ultraviolet light. Stainless steel hydraulics and thin black tubes line the back edge, which lead to an inner, topside box made of red plastic. In front, the metal is etched with the red Bio Bot logo. All together, the gray metal frame is small enough to fit on top of an old-fashioned school desk, but nothing about this 3D printer is old school. In fact, the tissue-printing machine is more like a sci-fi future in the flesh—and it has very real medical applications.
	Are increasing cases or increasing diagnoses responsible for the 'autism epidemic?' An interesting new study was recently published in the British Medical Journal about the 'autism epidemic' we have been experiencing in recent years. The Swedish authors of the study used data from children born between 1993 and 2002 to compare time trends in the rates of the autism symptom phenotype (i.e. the symptoms upon which a diagnosis of autism is based) and registered clinical diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder.
When a company drops a controversial ingredient, they're not doing it for your health Last month, Pepsi announced they were dropping aspartame from their flagship diet drink in the US.
	Teens probably won't like self-driving cars, but their parents will If consumers have their way, self-driving cars will enable parents to keep tighter reins on teen motorists. A survey conducted by the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University reveals that people are soundly in favor of putting parental controls in high-tech cars of the future. One thousand people, aged 18 to 70, were polled to learn which freedom-foiling attribute they deemed most important.
Memory task-specific encoding by neuronal networks in the human hippocampus Winner of the Philip L. Gildenberg S&F Resident Award, Mark R. Witcher, MD, presented his research, "Memory Task-specific Encoding by Neuronal Networks in the Human Hippocampus," during the 2015 American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting. Witcher is the neurosurgery chief resident at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
5-aminolevulinic acid trial to correlate intraoperative fluorescence intensity with histologic cellularity Winner of the Stryker Neuro-oncology Award, Darryl Lau, MD, presented results from A prospective phase II clinical trial of 5-aminolevulinic acid to correlate intraoperative fluorescence intensity with histologic cellularity during the 83rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS).
Targeting cancer therapy with phosphoproteomics Winner of the Louise Eisenhardt Traveling Scholarship Award, Teresa Purzner, MD, presented her research, Quantitative Phosphoproteomics for Targeted Cancer Therapy.

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