Archive | Life Sciences | Armed with Science

Teaching An Old Water Canteen New Tricks

Filed under Life Sciences, Technology by jtozer on March 17, 2013 at 7:28 am {no comments}

Shubham Chandra (left) and Ben Williams of the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Systems Equipment and Engineering Team, Department of Defense Combat Feeding Directorate, have developed a system to provide cold and hot water to soldiers in the field and keep it that way for days. (By David Kamm, NSRDEC Photographer)

A system developed by researchers at the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, Department of Defense Combat Feeding Directorate, would help bring water to soldiers in the field, either cool or heat it, and then keep it that way for days at a time.

The system revolves around a high-stress collapsible water bag, a beverage cooling unit, and an insulated bag that holds the standard five-gallon water can or the collapsible water bag.

“Everything works together,” said Ben Williams, with Combat Feeding’s Systems Equipment and Engineering Team, or SEET. “You don’t need to use everything together, but you can.”

The system resulted from an effort to improve the standard five-gallon water can by giving it more capability.

“We didn’t have a lot of money,” said Shubham Chandra, who works with Williams at SEET. “We started working with what was out there.”

As Williams pointed out, getting soldiers to hydrate sufficiently in extreme temperatures, such as those encountered in Afghanistan, has always been a challenge.

“People aren’t drinking enough because their water is 100 degrees,” Williams said. “It’s not pleasurable. But if it was 40-degree water, of course you’d drink more. Your stamina also increases.”

The water bag was developed after a request from the theater to replace the standard water can.

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ONR Program Uses Cell Phones to Fight Epidemics

Filed under Life Sciences, STEM, Technology by jtozer on February 3, 2013 at 7:34 am {no comments}

Take that, influenza virus! (Graphic from the CDC)

A program managed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to get ahead of epidemic outbreaks has led to the deployment of new healthcare monitoring and information collection technology in South America and Africa.

Building off of an original project funded by ONR, researchers are collecting data through a text message-based system set up to take advantage of widespread access to handheld devices in Colombia and Zambia.

Through the collection of pictures, videos, texts and geo-location information from cell phones in a given population, researchers can perform complex data analysis and begin to track and map a fluid situation such as an earthquake or the spread of disease.

In Sailing Directions meant to guide the Navy, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert has called on the service to employ resources in a variety of situations.

“The U.S. military continues to take on a bigger role in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance operations around the globe,” said Cmdr. Joseph Cohn, program officer in ONR’s Warfighter Performance Department.

“Real-time epidemiological data allows military decision-makers to be medically prepared and, more locally, provide quicker responses to potential disease outbreaks in close quarters common to military facilities like ships.”

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Army Biologist Developing NextGen Tools for Soldiers

Filed under Life Sciences, Technology by jtozer on December 7, 2012 at 7:09 am {no comments}

U.S. Army scientists are developing new technologies, including smartphones that detect and identify chemical and biological agents, to empower soldiers.

Dr. Calvin Chue, a research biologist with the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, is focused on the next generation of devices to protect Soldiers and civilians against unknown chemical or biological threats. (Photo by Tom Faulkner (RDECOM PAO)

Dr. Calvin Chue, a research biologist with the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, or RDECOM, is focused on the next generation of devices to protect soldiers and civilians against unknown chemical or biological threats.

“The biggest threat is always going to be the emerging pathogen, the things you hear about on the news where pools of disease pop up randomly,” Chue said.

“We have soldiers deployed around the world. Being able to develop tools and technologies to pick up those unknown hazards before [soldiers] are exposed to them is a large measure of what we do.”

“I’ve chosen to come to the government side because we’re able to make the most practical impact in developing tools that directly meet the needs of soldiers. The other nice thing about here at government labs is having direct interaction with warfighters. We can build tools that they tell us they need,” he said.

DETECTING HAZARDS WITH A SMARTPHONE

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The DOD And Biosurveillance

Filed under Life Sciences, STEM by jtozer on November 26, 2012 at 11:00 am {no comments}

Sandia National Laboratory researcher Mark Tucker examines two petri dishes in 1999. On the left is one with a simulant of anthrax growing in it and on the right is one treated with the decontaminating formulation developed at Sandia. (Photo by Randy Montoya, courtesy of Sandia National Laboratory)

The Defense Department is working with U.S. cities and countries around the world to enhance capabilities needed to detect and track a range of natural or intentional global disease outbreaks.

Biosurveillance involves using experts and a range of technologies to systematically gather, analyze and interpret data related to disease activity and threats to human and animal health for early warning and detection.

Though the strategy is new, a range of national policy documents has addressed biosurveillance, beginning in 2007 with Homeland Security Presidential Directive 21. The directive defined biosurveillance and discussed the need for a national capability.

In 2009, objectives stated in the National Strategy for Countering Biological Attacks sought to protect against the misuse of the life sciences to support biological weapons proliferation and terrorism. And the National Security Strategy of 2010 noted the ability of emerging infectious diseases to cross borders and threaten national security.

“DOD’s involvement in biosurveillance goes back probably before DOD to the Revolutionary War,” Andrew C. Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, told American Forces Press Service.

“We didn’t call it biosurveillance then, but monitoring and understanding infectious disease has always been our priority, because for much of our history, we’ve been a global force,” he added.

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Detainee Drinking Water & The Science That Goes With It

Filed under Life Sciences, STEM by jtozer on September 4, 2012 at 7:55 am {no comments}

A team of highly qualified sailors here are currently maintaining the vital process of nanofiltration that enables ground water from Parwan province to be utilized in the day-to-day operations of the Detention Facility in Parwan. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Faiza Evans)

A team of highly qualified sailors here are currently maintaining the vital process of nanofiltration that enables groundwater from Parwan province to be utilized in the day-to-day operations of the Detention Facility in Parwan.

Chief Petty Officer Andrew Anderson, supply lead, Task Group Trident, supervises a team of sailors responsible for running a water plant here, and maintaining a holding tank they call Big Blue that supplies disinfected, non-potable water to the DFIP.

“The job we do of monitoring and producing water is very important,” said Anderson. “Every person, our service members, counterparts and detainees, need water, and the constant production of water for the DFIP is crucial to the success of the mission.”

Task Group Trident is a subordinate unit of Task Force Protector. Protector is the unit responsible for the secure and humane care, custody and control of all the detainees in the DFIP.

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Defending Against Unseen Enemies

Filed under Life Sciences, STEM by jtozer on August 14, 2012 at 7:53 am {no comments}

Christopher Doona of the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, uses the tools of science to do battle against disease-causing microorganisms. (Photo by David Kamm, NSRDEC Photographer)

Christopher Doona fights unseen enemies each day in his job at the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center.

Doona, a civilian senior research chemist with NSRDEC’s Materials and Defense Sciences Division, uses the tools of science to do battle against disease-causing microorganisms.

His research has led to novel technologies to make the medical facilities, textiles, kitchens, galleys, showers and latrines that serve American war fighters even more hygienic and safer.

“For us, because we tend to work more on the basic research, publications, books and book chapters, it’s kind of fascinating to see our research being more applied, patented and licensed to industry,” Doona said. “Actually, industry is already marketing a commercial product based on our inventions.

“Ultimately, we would like to see it procured and used to benefit the soldier in the field — for disinfection, decontamination, sterilization or sanitation. That’s our ultimate goal.”

Doona’s arsenal of disinfection is an ensemble of novel mixed-chemical technologies and a pair of portable, energy-independent devices that sterilize and sanitize on-site. Their ammunition: chlorine dioxide.

Chlorine dioxide is a well-known disinfectant that can be used to kill Bacillus anthracis — the agent that causes Anthrax — and it is environmentally friendly, as well.

Doona is a former National Science Foundation scientist in Germany and a Middlebury College professor investigating Chemical Chaos and Environmental Chemistry.

“My previous experience helped to convert complex reaction chemistry into simple applications for the military,” he said.

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R.O.U.S. – Rodents Of Unusual Skills

Filed under Life Sciences, STEM by jtozer on August 7, 2012 at 7:48 am {no comments}

The Rugged Automated Training System research sponsored by scientists with the U. S. Army Research Laboratory, in collaboration with engineers at West Point and the Counter Explosives Hazards Center, explores whether small rodents could be used to detect improvised explosives and mines. (By U.S. Army Research Laboratory)

Problem? Send in the R.O.U.S.s! No, not the ones from the Fire Swamp.

A rat may never be man’s best friend, but the Rugged Automated Training System research sponsored by scientists with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, in collaboration with engineers at West Point and the Counter Explosives Hazards Center, will determine if and how these animals can be trained to save soldiers’ lives.

In July, Barron Associates Inc., Charlottesville, Va. was selected for an award under the Small Business Technology Transfer, or STTR, program to develop and test a rugged, automated and low-cost system for training rats to detect improvised explosive devices and mines, said Micheline Strand, chief of the Army Research Office‘s Life Sciences Division, which manages the program.

“The automated system we’re developing is designed to inexpensively train rats to detect buried explosives to solve an immediate Army need for safer and lower-cost mine removal,” said William Gressick, senior research engineer and the project’s principal investigator at Barron Associates. “Beyond this application, the system will facilitate the use of rats in other search tasks such as homeland security and search-and-rescue operations. In the long-term, the system is likely to benefit both official and humanitarian organizations.”

“If we can demonstrate that rats can be trained inexpensively to be reliable detectors, then this method would not only lower costs for the Army but would also create new opportunities for using animals to detect anything from mines to humans buried in earthquake rubble,” Strand said.

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Fighting Pandemics With The Power Of Plants

Filed under Life Sciences by jtozer on August 6, 2012 at 7:32 am {no comments}

Pandemic-fighting planet armies really know how to fall into formation.

Pandemic.

Even the word conjures up strong feelings and emotions (and, in some cases, dramatic film representations of what it would be like to have to survive such a thing). As overall human activity pushes ever further into previously undeveloped territory, the likelihood of exposure to new pandemic diseases increases.

U.S. military forces are the front line of U.S. national security, but as a globally deployed force they are also on the front line of any new pathogen-based health threat that may emerge. The 2009 Army Posture Statement, cites a World Health Organization estimate of between 20 and 50 percent of the world’s population being affected if a pandemic were to emerge.

WHO forecasts “it may be six to nine months before a vaccine for a pandemic virus strain becomes available.”

I’m sorry, have these people not seen a “virus wipes out the world” movie or video game? Six to nine months is the difference between a little plague and a zombie outbreak! There has to be a better way! Oh…That’s what they’re working on.

In a separate report on pandemic influenza, the WHO describes several challenges to producing sufficient volumes of vaccine using current, egg-based protein-production technology, including the likelihood that two doses per person could be required due to the absence of pre-existing immunity. In short, the potential for a pandemic exists and current technological limitations on defensive measures put the health and readiness of U.S. military forces at risk.

A technological solution to increase the speed and adaptability of vaccine production is urgently needed to match the broad biological threat. Okay, I think I can safely say that none of us really want to see/experience/die from a pandemic of any sort, thereby justifying the need for swift virus-killing resolution. Therefore, bring on the alternatives, please.

Researchers at DARPA (oh those clever folks) are working on this very thing, and one one of the ways that they’re doing that is by using the power of plants.

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