1. Don’t give up on your problem projects

Work on reviving the Superman franchise had been ongoing since the commercial failure of 1987′s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Creative talent ranging from comic book aficionado Kevin Smith (Clerks, Silent Bob) to JJ Abrahams (Lost, Star Trek Into Darkness) had developed treatments for a new film. However, it was Bryan Singer (X-Men) who in 2006 finally managed to push Superman Returns from development through to theatre release. The movie performed below Warner Bros’ expectations. It also confirmed the studio’s fears about the difficulties of developing a version of Superman that both resonates with modern audiences and lives up to its blockbuster potential. Following Superman Returns, plans for further movies returned to “development hell”.

2. Turn obstacles into opportunities

In 2009, a court ruling forced Warner Bros’ hand. The ruling stated that if Warner Bros did not begin production on a Superman film by 2011, the estates of Superman creators Shuster and Siegel would be able to sue for lost revenue on an unproduced film. The ruling had come about as part of the estates reclaiming copyright on Superman. With a deadline in place, and a new sense of urgency across the Warner Bros creative community, minds were suddenly focused on getting a new movie out of development and into production.

3. Don’t be afraid to start from scratch

Superman Returns had been a continuation of the previous Superman films. The storyline moved Lois Lane to motherhood. The style maintained its comic book heritage. The music incorporated the famous Superman march soundtrack by John Williams. Yet, all this was lost on an audience that had not seen a Superman movie in almost two decades. The baggage of the previous films weighed heavily on the film and constrained what could be done with the pop-icon. In a move similar to Apple scrapping its ROKR phone, developed jointly with Motorola, and throwing out existing smart phone technologies to use PC computing to build a more capable phone from scratch, Warner Bros opted to “reboot” the Superman franchise and start over.

4. Leverage your strengths

By 2009, it had become clear that Christoper Nolan’s team had developed expertise in producing blockbuster movies based on the Batman character. While the Dark Knight Rises wrapped up this iteration of the Batman franchise, screenwriter David Goyer had an idea for a fresh take on Superman that followed the principles that worked well in the Batman franchise, such as creating a sense of realism and grit. When Nolan called Warner Bros president Jeff Robinov to pitch the idea, it was met with open ears. Existing development for the next Superman movie was scuttled in favor of the Goyer/Nolan project.

5. Build new hit-making teams

Simply replanting the hit-making team behind the Dark Knight trilogy into the Superman franchise would not have been sustainable way of growing Warner Bros’ line-up of hit movies. Instead Goyer/Nolan laid the foundation and mentored a new team, led by Zach Snyder, to implement the best practices from the Dark Knight trilogy. The new team also included members who had previously been “unsuccessful” – Henry Cavill (playing Superman) and Amy Adams (playing Lois Lane). Cavill had previously been set to play the lead role in a Superman movie to be helmed by McG (The OC, Terminator Salvation), but which was later cancelled. Similarly, Amy Adams had previously auditioned for the aborted JJ Abrahams Superman project and Superman Returns, but was unsuccessful on both counts.

6. Make sure your big bets are big bets

Production on Man of Steel finished early enough for the film makers to step back and assess the product well before the scheduled release date. Thomas Tull, the CEO for the movie’s financier, Legendary Pictures, said, “It’s the Superman movie I’ve always wanted to see.” Dan Fellman, Warner Bros’ president of domestic distribution, commented, “We know the movie delivers.” With widespread internal approval for the film, Warner Bros’ marketing machine went into overdrive, releasing 13 TV spots and 5 theater trailers. Warner Bros also partnered with Walmart to provide early screenings to limited numbers of Walmart customers; this was one part of a viral marketing and social media campaign to build word of mouth buzz. While the movie cost $225 million to produce, another $150 million has since been spent to market and release the movie globally, to ensure the movie provides maximal returns on the investment the studio has made.

7. Lay the groundwork for the next hit

Ten days ahead of the its release date, Man of Steel had become the top selling movie on Fandango, the theatre ticket site. In the meanwhile, Warner Bros announced that Henry Cavill would be replacing Tom Cruise in a movie adaption of The Man From UNCLE, after Cruise dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. In the movie business, actors are brand assets whose value can appreciate with casting to the right movies. Warner Bros is positioning Henry Cavill to become an actor who can fill theater seats. Christian Bale rose to fame in a similar fashion through the Dark Knight sequence of movies. By the time a Man of Steel sequel is released, Cavill could be household name, and thus any sequel may be a bigger hit.

Why start with the Go-To-Market strategy?

Among the plethora or electronics consumer product categories that Apple could have thought to enter, why has Apple chosen the categories that it has chosen? Why MP3 players, smart phones and tablets?

At the D8 conference in 2010, Steve Jobs explains that while the television market has been of great interest to Apple, they have thus far chosen to develop and release products in other categories. Why? Because there is no effective Go-To-Market strategy for a television product.

The insight from Steve Jobs is that the marketing and distribution of an innovative product has to be thought out upfront, before an innovator can even begin to develop the innovate product he or she has in mind. While Steve Jobs conveys this through the the television example in above video, this line of thinking is visible in Apple’s strategic moves throughout Steve Job’s second tenure as CEO of Apple.

Laying a strong foundation: Apple Stores

Even prior to Jobs’ first hit product, the iPod, in May 2001 Apple started opening retail stores across the US. These retail stores acted as the foundation for Apple to get its future products into the hands of consumers, who could then use them, fall in love with them and then buy them. Apple Stores have since become more than just a Go-To-Market strategy. Apple Stores have become a core part of encouraging Apple’s cult following. Each store’s architecture and service to customers has strengthened the company’s brand.

A complete solution: iPod and iTunes

However, simply getting the hardware into customers’ hands is insufficient. A Go-To-Market strategy has to address key friction points that reduce the potential value the customer may obtains from the product. While the iPod was an innovative MP3 player, to actually put your music on it either meant burning your music collection from CDs to a MP3 format, or obtaining MP3s through obscure and illegal means. A key part of the iPod’s success was the introduction of the iTunes Music Store. Unlike other fee-based services at the time, the iTunes Music Store charged a flat fee of US$0.99 per song. When the iTunes Music Store was launched, 2 million songs were downloads in just the first 16 days – all via Macintosh computers, since a Windows version of the iTunes software was not yet available. All these songs easily sync’d to iPods, the portion of the value chain on which Apple really made its money.

Creating a new market: the iPad

How do you introduce a new product that may be received as completely foreign by prospective customers? Often the answer is by providing a point of reference that makes it easy to understand the new product. In the case of the iPad, many people exclaimed, “it’s just a big iPhone!” Apple had been working on the iPad long before the introduction of the iPhone. However, releasing much of the iPad technology in a smartphone format allowed Apple to educate prospective customers, so that when the iPad was released, the technology would seem familiar to them. The Go-To-Market strategy for creating a new market necessarily has to educate prospective customers on the new offering. Apple achieved this by first delivering iPad-like technology in the form of something customers already understood – smartphones.

Rebalancing industry power: the iPhone

Yet, it is perhaps the iPhone Go-To-Market strategy that was the cleverest. For decades, wireless carriers had treated phone manufacturers as second class citizens, using access to their networks as leverage to dictate which phones would get made, what features would be available and pricing. Carriers also restricted the content available. If Apple wanted to have the freedom to build the phone it wanted to build, Apple needed to switch the balance of power in the industry. It did so by first establishing an exclusive agreement with just one of the carriers – AT&T – before developing the iPhone. AT&T believed in Jobs’ vision for the iPhone, and its potential to increase the data usage of its users, and thus increase profits. AT&T also believed that exclusivity would allow it to steal customers from other carriers. AT&T probably did not foresee that ceding control on every aspect of the device would ultimately shift the power structure of the industry and turn the carriers into dumb pipes.

Start with the Go-To-Market strategy

As Steve Jobs explained at the D8 conference in 2010, and as Apple has demonstrated through its product launches, to be successful in launching a breakthrough product, it is not enough to simply develop an innovative product. The innovator must first and foremost develop a compelling Go-To-Market strategy that will allow the innovation to reach customers and thrive.

Mr. Rosenzweig’s latest project is 86 Pillars, an executive education firm that provides customized workshops and advisory services from leading professors in science, technology, business and law. We interviewed Mr. Rosenzweig to learn more about his story.

What led you to start your first company, Round Table Group?

Out of college, I worked in consulting. Consulting firms were charging clients $200 to $500 per hour for me. They were paying me $33k/year [in 1993]. It was thrilling, but my first reaction was laughter, “Who would pay that much for me?!” They do have great training programs, but I was only one year out of college, “How could they be charging so much for me?”

There were 50,000 people like me – 1 year out of graduation – at this firm. There were also a lot of consulting firms. It was shocking that clients would pay that much for novice talent.

I was also very close to my professors at Northwestern and later at University of Chicago, where I did my MBA. I had transformative experiences with these professors. In my judgement, these were the experts worth $200 to $500 per hour. I thought, “Why can’t we create the first consulting firm where the experts are the world’s most specialized talent? i.e. People who have spent a lifetime studying particular topics.”

How did you build your expert network?

In 1993, email was not mainstream. But at this time, professors and the military used email. I put together an email database of professors’ email addresses. It contained thousands of professors. With a few friends, I drafted a simple email message. It simply said to the professors, ‘We’ll try our best to introduce you to interesting consulting projects as complement to your teaching and research. Would you be OK with me calling you from time to time about these? I got an overwhelming positive response. There was no downside for them. Many of them, also said, “I’ve CC’d my friends and attached my CV”.’ 20 years ago this was novel. No one was doing this. Within 18 months we had 10,000 professors.

How did you identify your target customers?

We started getting a big head. If all the professors love it, we’ll become mega zillionaires. All three of us quit our jobs. We had a dinner to celebrate. During that dinner, one of us asked, “Who would be interested in hiring specialized PhDs?” We had the supply side, but we did not have anyone who needed any experts.

We thought about how we could reach one million business leaders in one go. We decided to put an ad in the Wall Street Journal. The day the ad ran, we sat waiting for the calls to come in. At lunchtime, the magical call came from a client who needed an anti-trust telecoms specialist with a lot of particulars. He was a litigator at a top law firm. He needed someone who could resonate with the jurors, which meant he needs an expert who has a thick southern draw. Based on this client’s need, then the three of us called every expert who matched the criteria, listening to the expert’s accent. We realized there was a niche for lawyers.

We asked the lawyers we knew how important expert witnesses were for their cases. They said having the right expert would make or break a trial. We built a database of every lawyer in the country. It was still a time when it was cool to get email. We started to spread virally. Fast forward 13 years, we became the largest expert witness and referral firm for lawyers.

What led to the acquisition by ThomsonReuters?

By 2006, we also had ongoing discussions with firms like LexisNexis and ThomsonReuters about partnership or acqusition possibilities. Ultimately these firms saw themselves as data companies and were not interested.

I then started receiving calls from venture capital firms asking me if we wanted to acquire some of the smaller companies in his space. As we started looking at this, two and half years later, ThomsonReuters called back up and made an offer. We took the deal.

Tell us about your latest venture, 86 Pillars.

When starting Round Table Group, we learned that what professors loved doing, more than anything else, is teaching. The prospect of teaching commercial decision makers, helping these decision makers make important decisions, is exciting and meaningful for them.

In this vain, business schools offer executive education. It is extremely lucrative for universities, and has been popular among corporate clients. These programs are extremely expensive, and they are not even customized.

86 Pillars represents the Parthenon, the glories of Ancient Greece, and the ideals of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and justice. During that era, the Greek’s focused on the concept of “arete” which has to do with living up to one’s fullest potential. In our context we deal with world class education and corporate learning; the concept of life long learning for true leaders.

Our pricing is 90% less than customized education from Harvard Business School, and we would also argue better. We have the finest professors in the world and can put together a private educational program, where the case study is the current problem, and the homework assignments are the tasks to solve the problem. We have 9,000 scientists and technologists, including numerous faculty members from Harvard, CalTech, and other top institutions. It’s about just making the Executive Education experience more relevant.

What advice do you have for corporate innovators?

Stacking the deck in your favor. Optimize the odds in your favor, by tapping into what experts provide. For example, if you are going to embark on a turnaround, tap into the expertise of turnaround execs. They know what it’s like to have failed so many times. 86 Pillar’s favorite topic is, from an education point of view, how to successfully do internal corporate startups and acquisitions more successfully.

Google Trends provides a very quick way to compare global and regional interest in particular topics, as measured by the number of people searching Google for them. For example, if you were looking to make an investment in Alternative Energy, you might consider building products in the markets for solar panels, wind turbines or hydroelectric dams.

A quick Google Trends search comparing solar panels, wind turbines or hydroelectric dams helps us lead to these conclusions, with respect to our innovation planning efforts:

(a) Interest in hydroelectric dams has never been as high as interest in solar panels or wind turbines.
(b) There has generally been an upward interest in solar panels, from 2004 to the present day.
(c) Interest in wind turbines is lower than interest in solar panels, and has generally stayed at the same levels.

There are some caveats that you need to consider when using Google Trends for innovation planning:

• The search numbers are for the general population, many of whom will not be your customers.
• The search numbers are affected by influencers over time, such as the media and general public interest in the topics related to your search
• The search is sensitive to the search terms that you have chosen. There may be other terms, that you have not thought of, which are the specific terms people are more readily using to search around that topic. Thus, you need to experiment with different search terms. UberSuggest.org can help with this.
• A downward trend is not necessarily a downward trend. The search is sensitive to the way in which the general population’s use of Google has changed over time. Google Trends shows the proportion of searches for your keywords, comparative to all searches through Google. The number of searches made through Google increased from 60M/day in 2000 to 4.7Bn/day in 2011. In 2000, most web searches were for informational content, typified by Wikipedia. By 2011, there was an explosion of fast updated news content, typified by Twitter and 24 hour news websites, so most searches now relate to trending news and pop culture. Interest in your keywords may simply be lower comparative to increased search numbers for other, unrelated searches.
• On a practical note, be weary that there are search quota limits for the number of searches you can conduct using Google Trends. You can do 500 searches a day, and there are also more granular limits, such as 10 per minute. Don’t search too fast, or Google Trends will think you are abusing the system.

We believe Google Trends can provide you with an additional data point when conducting innovation planning. We recommend that it is used in combination with other tools. For example, when used with market research efforts, we may be able to answer the question, “Why has interest in wind turbines remained steady, comparative to solar panels?”

How is Google Trends working for you? Let us know in the comments.

The chasm between the emerging market to the mainstream.

Disruptive Innovations

In his seminal book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton Christensen argues that established firms, through their focus on their established markets and existing customers, leave themselves exposed to disruption. Disruptive innovations, which often underperform established products in mainstream markets, offer benefits some emerging customers value. These emerging customers eventually become the mainstream. The established company’s existing market then becomes a small, high end market.

The evolution of the printer market is an example of disruptive innovation at work.

• Laser printers, made by companies such as Xerox, were expensive and used largely by businesses. However, the laser printer market was disrupted by bubble-jet printers, made by the likes of Hewlett-Packard.
• Bubble-jets initially produced prints that were of too poor quality for businesses, but which were “good enough” for the emerging consumer market. Today, bubble-jets are used by businesses and consumers alike.
• In recent years, mobile displays – made by companies such as Apple and Samsung – have become a “good enough” alternative to prints for an emerging younger consumer market. This emerging market is happy to use their mobile device in lieu of printing event tickets and boarding passes.

Crossing The Chasm

In contrast to the dilemma established firms face, Geoffrey Moore’s seminal work, Crossing the Chasm, argues that startup companies often are successful launching to an emerging market of early-adopters, but are unable to “cross the chasm” to the mainstream market. Moore argues that marketing strategies used to attract visionary early adopters do not speak to the very different needs of the mainstream market. The mainstream market typically consists of pragmatists. Pragmatists seek a complete end-to-end solution to their problem, whereas early adopters are often willing to piece together the startup firm’s solution with what else they have to create a solution.

Examples of innovations that crossed the chasm include the iPod and Documentum:

• Apple’s introduction of the iPod was not the first MP3 player to be launched to consumers. However, the iPod was coupled with the launch of an iTunes store and computer software that made it easy for the mainstream customer to purchase music cheaply and transfer it to their iPod. This “complete solution” was a contrast to the arduous process of ripping MP3s from CDs or from file sharing software, which mainstream customers would not tolerate existing MP3 players.
• Documentum, a document management software business, spent the early part of the 1990s in the “chasm”. In 1994, the company focused on building a complete solution for the pharmaceutical industry, providing a computer aided solution for managing documents through the new drug approval process. Documentum acquired 30 of their top 40 customers, and became a company the pharmaceutical was unwilling to go out of business.

What does this mean for you?

In their 2005 paper, Successful Development and Commercialization of Technological Innovation, Stanley F. Slater and Jakki J. Mohr argue that startup firms that are adept at satisfying needs in the emerging market of early adopters are most likely to possess the resources and capabilities to develop disruptive innovations. Conversely, established firms, that are successful at satisfying needs in mainstream markets, are more likely to develop innovations that appeal to the mainstream market – complete solutions that appeal to pragmatists.

A critical implication is that businesses must develop what are often contradictory resources and capabilities to be successful in appealing to both emerging and existing markets. For startups to appeal successfully to both early adopters and the pragmatists, they must develop some of the resources and capabilities of established companies that allow them to listen to the needs of mainstream customers. Similarly, for established companies to develop disruptive innovations they must develop some resources and capabilities used by startups. This entails not listening to their existing customer, but developing products that appeal to customers in an emerging market – technology enthusiasts and early adopters.

Do you agree with the work by Stanley F. Slater and Jakki J. Mohr? Let us known in the comments how you think these ideas might apply to you.

(1) Clear up ambiguity with the customer, at the very start

Whether you are a technology scout as just part of your job, or all of your job, you have a customer. Based on your circumstances, the customer could be

• The end customer, who uses your company’s products
• A marketing team, that comes to you with end customer needs they want solutions for
• A strategy team, that has determined it would be in the best interests for your company to acquire certain technologies or competencies
• A product development or R&D team, that would prefer for a solution to be found externally – perhaps because the solution is not core to your company’s competency

Whoever your customer is, clearing up any and all ambiguity at the start will ensure the technologies your find are best targeted to their needs. Here are some tips for doing this:

• Map out your customer’s understanding of the technology area. If the customer does not know what they want, use your expertise in the area to ask them as many questions as possible to determine what they do know.
• Look for small references that may be at the edge of the overall problem description. Read any briefing material they have given you very thoroughly. Pick apart anything that might seem slightly out of place. We’ve worked on projects where a small mention of something by a client has become the majority of what we have ended up working on for him/her.
• Make the ‘impossible’ less ‘impossible’. Some technology needs are difficult. Break down the problem and focus on a particular area. Determine what other industries and disciplines may have had similar problems in the past, for which solutions may already exist.

(2) Hone down the technologies found

Your client is trusting you, the technology scout, to deliver the best dozen or two dozen solutions. They don’t have the time to wade through the hundreds of solutions you may have looked through. To this end, how you hone down the technologies you find is important. I do this quite simply through the following steps:

• Bucketing technologies into categories. Arrange the technologies, and the articles that support them, logically into categories based on similarity (i.e. technologies that have the same application or same material under different applications)
• Weeding out the best categories. Identify your strongest three to five categories. Yes, sometimes all solutions in a particular category may be too poor to present.
• Ordering the technologies in each category. Identify the best technologies by strength/feasibility.

As you go through papers and articles relating to each technology, here are some additional things I’ve learned from experience:

• Pay attention to the results. Papers that set out to achieve a quantifiable result in the introduction and don’t quantify that result in the conclusion are weak choices.
• Build a vocabulary list. Look up any industry/field-specific terms that keep reappearing. Build a vocabulary list, which may become useful for when talking to potential partners later, as well as for for working with your client.
• Build a knowledge base. Papers you choose to exclude from presenting to the client can still contribute to your knowledge of the subject area. Keep a separate list of these.

(3) Evaluate technologies using a well defined measurement scale

Ultimately, the technology scout needs to evaluate each technology you have found to determine its suitability for your client’s need. We recommend that you supplement your analysis with a measurement scale. Using a measurement scale will allow you to

• Have clear expectations with the client, on what is important to them
• Objectively compare technologies, against the criteria and conditions of that scale
• Rank order the technologies that you have found, so the client can give their most attention to the highest ranking technologies

In our experience, we have found that the top criteria for most clients is, “how quickly can we get this to the shop shelves?” Thus, PreScouter’s technology scouts uses Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) to rank order findings. This scale was developed by NASA, and they have used it for decades for the purpose of evaluating new technologies.

© Innovation Seeds

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Which of these tips do you find most useful? What tips do you have, that you’d like to share? Please let us know in the comments below! If you’d like to work with us on a technology scouting project, let us know in the comments below.

Currently, the newly developed structural nanofiber can replace almost anything that is made out of composites. This new material is a very useful addition to the few materials with demonstrated simultaneously high strength and toughness which are currently being utilized for different applications.

It has always been a known fact that strength comes at the expense of toughness which means the more a material deforms in some way, the less likely it is to break. A good example for that logic is a conventional ceramic plate. It is strong enough to carry dinner to the table but easily shatters to pieces when dropped since it lacks toughness. Another example would be a rubber ball. You can easily bend it out of shape but it won’t break since it is tough but not strong. Normally, it would be safe to say that strength and toughness are mutually exclusive.

Yuris Dzenis and his team of engineers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were able to create an exceptionally thin polyacrilonitrile nanofiber through electrospinning. The material used for it is a synthetic polymer related to acrylic while the process used is done by applying high voltage to a polymer solution until a small jet of liquid ejects. A continuous length of nanofiber is then created with the process. Also, they found out that as they made the nanofiber thinner, it became much stronger and even tougher than before. The new type of nanofiber is expected to be used for a very wide array of known products very soon.

Right now, the current biofuels that are being used are still made up of hydrocarbon chains of the wrong size and shape. It has to be this way in order to work effectively with most modern engines. The only problem is that this type of biofuel will corrode the engine over time.

Some other types of biofuels are also being considered as a more popular alternative to fossil fuel since it is carbon-neutral over its lifetime. However, modern engines would need to be redesigned in order for it to convert the fuel into a more usable form efficiently.

That is why John Love from the University of Exeter in the UK and his team created new DNA out of Escherichia coli bacteria. The modified E. coli produced enzymes that converted the sugar into fatty acids after it was fed with glucose. It also turned into chemically and structurally identical hydrocarbons which were also present in fuels that are commercially available.

All they have to do right now is to work on how to mass-produce the hydrocarbons. The study also shows potential of using a similar approach for bio-manufacturing other chemicals that we currently get from petroleum aside from biofuels. Shell’s research arm partly funded the work for the research.

Currently, malaria is the leading cause of death in many countries in tropical Africa. 30-40% of hospital admissions in Africa are due to malaria. Also, it makes up about 40% of the total public health expenditure. Once it hits the consumer market, the Faso Soap will surely have a great impact in many African countries suffering from malaria.

The wonder soap that repels malaria is made from karate citronella and other secret herbs which make it even more effective against the dreaded decease brought by infected mosquitoes. Gerard Niyondiko, Technical Manager of Faso soap said that it will be made available first in African countries and then given to NGO for distribution.

Moctar Dembélé and Gérard Niyondiko are from Burkina Faso and Burundi . For the record, they are the first non American contestants to actually win the Global Social Venture Competition. With the creation of this soap that work miracles, combating malaria won’t have to cost a lot of money. This is especially in favor of poor communities who cannot afford to pay for costly medicines and vaccines to fight the deadly decease.

The current type of lithium-ion batteries that we have can only do so much for us due to the increasing demand in technology usage. You can either have lots of power in watts or lots of energy in watt-hours. However, you cannot have both at the same time. Most modern applications such as portable computers, smartphones and even electric vehicles would need massive amounts of power and energy to work.

Right now, lithium-ion batteries are considered as the best solution for high-power-and-energy applications. Of course, even the best lithium-ion batteries have serious trade-offs in different devices. It is simply put as “you cannot have the best of both”.

Things are quite different with the recently developed lithium-ion battery in the University of Illinois. As compared to a supercapacitor, this new type of battery has a higher power density while having the same energy density as the current nickel-zinc and lithium-ion batteries available in the market.

Led by William P. King, the Bliss Professor of mechanical science and engineering, the researchers behind this super battery also claim that it could actually allow for wireless devices to transmit their signals 30 times farther while being at 30 times smaller than the usual type of batteries that we normally use. The best part about this new battery is that it is rechargeable. Not only that, it can be charged 1,000 times faster than the conventional lithium-ion batteries that we know. It is practically the only battery you will ever need.

The study that was conducted involved mice that were given a lethal dose of a bacterial toxin called Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) which is resistant to Methicillin. During the test, it was proven that the nanosponges were effective in combating MRSA which increased the rodents’ chance of survival. They also conducted several tests on the mice. One was before injecting them with the toxins and the other was after they have been infected with the toxin.

The results showed that 89% of the mice survived when they were treated with nanosponges before injected with the toxins. On the other hand, 44% of the mice survived when they were treated with the nanosponge after they have been infected with the toxin. When the mice were treated exactly at the same time with both the toxin and nanosponges (70-to-one ratio), none of the mice were affected by the toxins. It has also been shown in tests done in 2011 that the nanosponges could stay inside the body for almost 3 days and still function effectively.

Professor Liangfang Zhang and his team of researchers developed the nanosponge. Although the test results are truly groundbreaking, it is still yet to be proven effective or human use. At the same time, the nanosponges are only effective against certain types of infections. That means it won’t affect toxins that attack the nervous systems. Although the nanosponge has its limitations as of the moment, we can expect to hear more exciting developments about it in the next few days to come as the scientists behind it continue to find ways to broaden its use in terms of medical coverage.

The process did not seem to affect the health of the mice that were involved in the study. Researchers also show that mice with an inactive SEC24A gene could normally develop. At the same time, their plasma cholesterol level also decreased by 45% since vesicles coming from liver cells were not able to produce and transport an important blood cholesterol level regulator which is called proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9). PCSK9 is a secretory protein which is responsible for destroying the liver cells’ receptors of LDL (low-density lipoprotein) or “bad cholesterol”, and keeps the cells from destroying the LDL.

Professor David Ginsburg leads a team of scientists at the University of Michigan’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Currently, there are initial studies being made about anti-PCSK9 therapies for humans which suggest that eliminating PCSK9 can lower cholesterol effectively. At the same time, it will also work with statins such as Lipitor to effectively lover cholesterol.

Without LDL receptors, it won’t be possible for liver cells to restrain LDLs from the bloodstream. Thus, protecting the LDLR from PCSK9 would enable the receptors to keep on removing cholesterol from the blood. Dr. Xiao-Wei Chen, who is also one of the authors of the study, says that the PCSK9 won’t make its way out of the cells to destroy the LDLR without SEC24A. That means it won’t be able to clear the cholesterol from the blood.

This strategy may not be as helpful as anti-PCSK9 therapy for treating high cholesterol right now. However, it could be an alternative approach that is yet to be proven effective on humans until it is conducted on real people.

This time, the optics was used as a laser scanning microscope to analyze blood in order to perform cellular imaging with one-micrometre resolution. That way, they were able to develop a new and faster technique for on-the-spot HIV testing. The good thing about this technology is that it is a very simple tool to use and is very much affordable as compared to other complicated machines.

The research team was headed by Aman Russom, senior lecturer at the School of Biotechnology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Russom also claims that they have created a cheap analytical tool for DNA, RNA, proteins and even entire cells with the use of an ordinary DVD player. This new method makes it possible to perform a complete HIV test in just a matter of minutes.

Currently, hospitals are using flow cytometry to perform the same tasks that the newly developed “Lab-on-DVD” technology is capable of. The difference is all in the price tag wherein the flow cytometry units can cost over USD30,000 while the mass-produced Lab-on-DVD units are readily available for less than USD200. At the same time, the newly developed technology requires less training to operate and is much more portable as compared to the flow cytometry unit.

The inspiration behind the development of this adaptive material is the self-restoring systems in nature.This dynamic system is similar to the liquid film that coats the human eyes. This liquid film is formed by accumulated tears which keeps the eye moist.

At the same time, it helps keep away wastes to protect the eyes from bacteria and dust which makes it an important optical function to keep the vision clear. All of these important functions happen in the blink of an eye – literally.

The study was led by lead author Xi Yao, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He said that the system they have developed is adaptive and multifunctional. The bioinspired material is a versatile and elastic porous substrate.

The liquid surface changes its shape depending on the deformation of the substrate. It may be caused by swelling, stretching or poking. The researchers are also looking into using the new material for a wider range of industries such as construction, textiles, oil and gas pipelines, microfluidic and optical systems
in the near future.

Assistant Professor Hele Savin of Aalto University and researchers from Fraunhofer ISE improved the efficiency of black silicon solar cell to 18.7%. This new efficiency record broke the existing 18.2% record held by the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) that utilized thermal oxidation as a passivating layer.

Black silicon is acquired by irradiating conventional silicon under sulfur atmosphere with a femtosecond laser. Then the surface is roughened and individual sulfur atoms in the silicon lattice are installed. The material is apparently black. The team developed a new “Passivation” method that set a new record for efficiency.

The researchers applied a boron diffusion in order to create a pn-junction, maintaining the excellent optical properties of the black silicone structure. Then, by applying atomic layer deposited AI203, an effective passivation of the nanostructured surface was achieved. Their study reveals that the nano structured front surface has a high electrical quality comparable to a pyramidal textured surface. Currently, the team is looking for ways that will still improve the process to achieve efficiencies more than 20%.

Y.H. Percival Zhang and team from Virginia Tech have been working on a non-traditional way in producing a low cost high-yield hydrogen for 7 years already. The team tapped on xylose which is the most abundant simple plant sugar that is found in most edible plants. They used xylose to produce a large amount of hydrogen. Their method can be utilized with the use of any source of biomass.

The team extricated high-purity hyrdrogen under mild reaction conditions. In this case, at 50 degree Celsius or 122 degree Fahrenheit and in normal atmospheric pressure. Then they used a group of enzymes that are artificially isolated from different microorganisms that thrive in high-temperature in order to release the hydrogen.

Nowadays, natural gas is the most common source in producing hydrogen. This process is very costly and produces a huge amount of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The only byproduct of this new hydrogen fuel process is water. We are currently dealing with a $100 billion market that will soon be affected by this affordable green technology.

Professor Gao Chao and his team from China’s Zhejiang University created this sponge-like solid material that is made from freeze-dried carbon and graphene oxide. Its density is twice the size of hydrogen. What’s remarkable with graphene aerogel is its oil-absorbing ability and flexibility.

The team has been developing macroscopic graphene materials like one-dimensional graphene fibers and two-dimensional graphene films. The team set another Guinness World Record by creating a three-dimensional porous material made from graphene aerogel. The new carbon sponge has a density that is lower than helium. It is exceptionally elastic that it can absorb up to 900 times its own weight in water and oil.

Graphene aerogel can absorb organics at a high speed. A gram of aerogel can absorb 68.8 grams of organics per second. This is great news especially in destructive events like an oil spill. The aerogels can be scattered on the sea and oil will be quickly absorbed. Also, the aerogel and the oil absorbed can be recycled.

Professor Bernard Kippelen of the Georgia Institute of Technology led the study. Their team also collaborated with Purdue University. Typical organic solar cells are usually fabricated on plastic, glass and others used petroleum substrates. The entire team focused on the importance of solar cells that must be recyclable. This is the only way that dependence on fossil fuels will be minimized, if not, eradicated.

It is very important to create a new technology that can produce energy from renewable sources and that are not disposable at the end of its lifecycle. The new organic solar cell can be made from trees or from a substrate that can be derived from other plants. The polymer solar cells are fabricated on cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) substrates to create a more sustainable solar cell. This solar cell is swiftly recycled in room-temperature water.

The cellulose nanocrystal substrates onto which the solar cells are made are optically transparent similar to leaves that allows light to pass through before it is imbibed by a very thin layer of an organic semiconductor. Currently, the team is working on reaching a power conversion efficiency of more than 10% to make the organic solar cells as competitive as those fabricated on petroleum-based substrates or glass.

Michael Adams and team from the University of Georgia’s Bioenergy Systems Research Institute discovered a way that can effectively capture and turn carbon dioxide into useful industrial products. The technology they used was inspired by the process of photosynthesis in plants. Sugars are created when plants process carbon dioxide. These sugars can be fermented into usable fuels.

The team eliminated the use of plants in processing biofuels. Their process relies on a microorganism known as Pyrococcus furiosus that lives and propagates on the carbon dioxide emitted in areas of our planet’s oceans that are heated to high temperatures by geothermal vents. So what the team did was to manipulate the Pyrococcus furiosus to feed and process carbon dioxide at a lower temperature. This made the microorganism more easy to control and functional.

The team added hydrogen to the process that created a chemical reaction turning carbon dioxide into 3-hydroxypropionic acid. The fuel created by the bacteria emits the same amount of carbon dioxide that was used to create it. So, technically, it is a carbon neutral fuel. Further enhancement and development of this process will certainly transform harmful carbon dioxide into useful and renewable source of energy.

Darren Sun and team from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore developed this new material by turning titanium dioxide crystals into nanofibers. These nanofibers can be formed into flexible filter membranes. Titanium dioxide is a special material that is cheap and bountiful. Also, it has the property of bonding easily with water and accelerating chemical reactions.

Its ability in bonding with water can desalinate water and can serve as a high-flux forward osmosis membrane. Now, when it is exposed to sunlight, it can produce hydrogen. Also, it can be formed into flexible and affordable solar cells that can surely generate electricity. So far, Titanium dioxide is capable of providing an ample supply of clean water and renewable energy that is affordable. A feat that is quite hard to achieve.