Imagine visiting the ASUCD Coffee House, loading up on delicious entrees such as a garden salad from Croutons, or a seam-bursting burrito from TexMex, pulling up to the checkout counter, and instead of desperately searching for plastic cards in your backpack, wallet or purse (ladies, can I get an amen), you simply swipe your finger to pull up your information and pay for your food. Thanks to engineers at the School of Mines and Technology (SMT) working in a new field called biocryptology, this reality might not be too farfetched.

Biocryptology, currently used in products such as fingerprint door locks and retinal-scan identifications, is a real-life manifestation of science-fiction technologies of a bygone era. Biocryptology is a blossoming field of technology comprised of the functional combination of biometrics (the use of anatomical identification) and cryptology (the study of encoding private information). South Dakota’s student engineers are on the way to improving how college students experience and interact with financial transactions by way of the current plastic technology.

This technology is a major step toward decreasing the inconveniences and increasing the security of students. Through the employment of smart fingerprint scanners, SMT is working to eliminate credit card-based shopping on its campus, and eventually, campuses nationwide.

While credit card-based shopping presents its various problems, identity theft being the most daunting and common, this new biocryptic implementation seeks to forestall common security concerns. The new rendering of fingerprint-based shopping takes into account the various hazards that, in the past, have been associated with anatomical identification. Student engineers have developed a sure-fire way to hinder thieves who may attempt to use another’s prints via removal of a finger or limb by developing smart sensors that verify not only an individuals’ prints, but their functioning blood flow as well.

While it may take a few years for systems such as these to become a reality at the University of California, at least you’ll get the chance to squawk at your grandchildren, “When I was your age, we had to use pieces of plastic to buy things!”

EMILY SEFEROVICH can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

We’ve all seen them: aphids, dandelions, cockroaches, rats, bread molds, racoons, pigeons and many others. We’ve seen these unique and resilient organisms deemed pests by so many. These creatures are often considered objects to be exterminated or controlled, and for good reason. They harbor disease, they eat what isn’t theirs (according to us, at least) and they can ruin a perfectly ordered garden. I’ll submit that before we go and try rounding up all of these living things and giving them the same treatment as the western black rhinoceros or the American bison, we take a step back and consider a few things.

Thinking like an ecologist (or a child), it becomes abundantly clear that all of these organisms eat and are eaten by others. The removal of any significant proportion of any of their populations would have a tremendous impact on the surrounding trophic levels, otherwise known as participants in food webs, otherwise known as things that eat other things.

For instance, many people are fearful of spiders, but if we were to dramatically thin out their numbers in a short enough time frame, the results would be unpleasant to say the least. The spider’s primary prey, winged arthropods (bugs), would have considerably fewer predators and their populations would soon run rampant in areas where spiders were the predominant form of population control. Without spiders, we could literally be knee-deep in insects within a few years. Moreover, some bird species whose diets may depend heavily on spiders would experience a food scarcity and have no other option but to find new sustenance or die. The resulting behavior of the birds could result in increased competition with other animals, causing a cascade of other struggles for food and further straining a damaged ecosystem. The overabundance of winged arthropods could result in overgrazing of plant matter — or whatever items these flying bugs primarily eat — and could ruin the ecosystem for everybody.

Needless to say, removing a member of an ecosystem could have dire consequences.

It is also important to consider that evolution is a very opportunistic tinkerer and natural selection is a relentless mechanism. Any unoccupied niche in an environment is asking for something to step in and take advantage of the situation. Cockroaches are successful because they’re resilient to so many would-be fatal living conditions. They don’t need to eat much or count calories and they reproduce very quickly in spaces that many overlook. They can also survive pretty much everything except a direct nuclear strike. They can even have their heads cut off and continue to reproduce. Even if we did successfully engineer a system to wipe them out, something else would assume the then-empty role in a more tenacious way than we could imagine.

These garden-variety pests as we like to call them don’t exist the way they do simply to be an inconvenience to us. They’re playing the game of life, and winning. Despite all of the things we do to make non-human/non-human-cultivated life a non-factor — urbanization, proper sanitation, removing the lion’s share of loose food scraps, carpet-bombing crops with insecticides, habitat destruction and the many other things that make humans an inopportune species to share a planet with — these organisms are not only skating by, they’re thriving.

I’m not saying we should rapidly embrace the aphids, cockroaches, spiders and rats of the world. It’s often advantageous for us to remove them from our immediate vicinity for hygiene reasons. But it is important to consider that these organisms are participants in a system so prevalent, so natural that it’s very easy to lose sight of.

The classical mantras of manifest destiny, exploration and conquering the unknown have been synonymous with progress and advancement. But in reality, we humans are participants in a system that extends far beyond our own needs. The tune of mastering the environment should be changed to one of finding a way of successfully coexisting.

ALAN LIN tries to be a conscientious planet-mate. He can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

Green Fuel:
Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Lab have recently developed a process that some might call the environmental savior. This new process removes CO2 from the atmosphere and at the same time creates high-alkalinity, carbon-negative hydrogen, which can be used for both fuel and to offset the acidification of the ocean. The hydrogen can be used as fuel in any hydrogen-fuel capable vehicle and would work to de-acidify the ocean in the same way alka-seltzer works to neutralize the acid in your stomach.

Adaptable Brain:
You may have heard the term “neuroplasticity” before. It refers to the brain’s ability to continuously adapt to new situations and environments. Doctors from the University of New South Wales Black Dog Institute have discovered that the brains of people with depression are far less “plastic,” and are far less able to adapt to new situations. This means that “depressed” brains are less able to learn and retain new information, and are less able to create new connections between different areas of the brain.

Electric Cement:
Researchers working with the Department of Energy and Argonne National Labs have just figured out how to turn liquid cement into liquid metal, essentially turning the cement into a semiconductor that can be used in electronics. This new material can potentially
replace silicon as a conductor in electronics, paving the way for cheaper, more durable products without the need for the rapidly dwindling silicon supply.

Space Rocks:
The Oort cloud is an enormous “cloud” of comets, asteroids and tiny planetesimals that surrounds our solar system. Astronomers from Yale University have recently identified an asteroid from the Oort cloud that is moving slowly enough that we will potentially be able to study it and learn a great deal about the origins of our solar system. The object is completely frozen, so it contains preserved samples from the early years of solar system formation.

Mutant Cockroaches:
Cockroaches love sweets, as many of you know. That is why the traps we set for them are so successful. The traps are filled with sugary sap that draws the roaches in, and traps them. But like something right out of a nightmare, some roaches have actually evolved to find the taste of sugar to be bitter and distasteful, allowing them to avoid the sugary deathtraps. The researchers from North Carolina State University have found that the roaches will actually cringe and attempt to distance themselves from any source of glucose. The best part? This evolution is most definitely our fault.

Super Band-Aids:
New Band-Aids infused with the building blocks of life could help heal wounds far faster than they normally would. These bandages are infused with RNA molecules that contain the genetic instructions for healing. The RNA can be delivered directly to the wound via the bandage. Surgeons can even use these bandages after internal surgery by implanting a dissolving RNA-infused strip on top of surgical cuts.

Bright Sound:
Believe it or not, there are still some things that science cannot answer. One of these things is why an air bubble can produce light when burst with sound waves. This phenomenon was first observed in the 1930s and is called sonoluminescence (light from sound). When an underwater air bubble is collapsed with intense sound waves, small bursts of light are emitted… and no one has any idea why. This may not be “this week in science” material, since we don’t know what it is, but it is very pretty.

HUDSON LOFCHIE can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

If you have ever taken leftover antibiotics for a common cold, you may have been contributing to a growing problem. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics seems to be a more frequent issue, and one that worries many professionals in the health field. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) outbreaks are extremely difficult to combat when they occur, but in the near future, they may become easier to control.

Engineers at University of California, San Diego have created a nanosponge that can safely remove a wide variety of toxins and pathogens from the bloodstream. A study using a lethal dose of a toxin from MRSA was administered to two groups of mice. One group was given an inoculation with nanosponges two minutes prior to the toxin and 89 percent of the mice survived. The other group was given the nanosponge inoculation after the toxin, and only 44 percent survived.

In order for the nanosponge to work, researchers took a commonly used medical nanoparticle and coated it with natural red blood cell material. These new particles essentially act as decoys in the body, with the membrane camouflaging the particles. The artificial “sponges” outnumber natural blood cells by about 3,000 to one, and harmlessly absorb the toxins floating in the bloodstream.

“With so many nanosponges, the chances of toxins interacting with [them] are much higher than the chances of [the toxins] interacting with natural red blood cells,” said Brian T. Luk, a contributing author of the study. “Upon coming into contact with a toxin, the nanosponge will absorb the toxin, thus neutralizing [it] and diverting it away from healthy cells. Eventually, the liver safely metabolizes both the nanosponges and the sequestered toxins without any discernible damage to the liver itself.”

These nanosponges have been designed to absorb and neutralize a multitude of toxins and pathogens — not just those originating from MRSA.

“Current treatments for toxins are tailored specifically to act against the molecular structure of a given toxin, and are therefore quite narrow in their use given the wide-ranging molecular structures of toxins,” Luk said. “We wanted to develop a system that could be used to treat a whole class of toxins, called pore-forming toxins. What all the toxins in this class have in common is that they lock into cellular membranes and punch holes in the membranes, causing the cells to burst.”

Most anti-toxin platforms, or antidotes, must be custom synthesized to the individual toxin type. This is the reason different venomous animals have different anti-venoms. The nanosponges, on the other hand, can remove a broad list of toxins, including snake venom and E. coli, which could revolutionize treatment for a wide range of ailments.

“Instead of creating specific treatments for individual toxins, we are developing a platform that can neutralize toxins caused by a wide range of pathogens, including MRSA and other antibiotic resistant bacteria,” said Liangfang Zhang, a nanoengineering professor at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering and the senior author on the study, in the original press release.

There is some concern, as with any new medical technology, that the risks may outweigh the benefits, especially since it has not yet been tested in humans.

Yet the research team at UCSD is confident that when the nanosponges are introduced, they will be effective with no apparent risks at all. Other people in the medical field agree that the risk is minimal.

“If the technology works as described, the risks are pretty minimal from a rejection standpoint. They are constructed of polymer cores that are unlikely to induce a strong immune response and they are also covered in host red cell membranes. The body will probably tolerate these things for a while,” said Stephen McSorley, an associate professor in comparative anatomy, cell biology and physiology at UC Davis. “The other issue is that even if they were rejected, they are designed to do their work so quickly that they don’t need to be in the body for a long period. Anti-venoms work in a similar way, they consist of foreign antibodies (usually from horse or goat) that will eventually be rejected, but they act quickly enough that they neutralize the venom before that becomes an issue.”

These tiny particles are making big waves in the medical field. Should these nanosponges prove successful in human trials, we should expect to see them entering the consumer market in a big way.

NICOLE NOGA can be reached at science@theaggie.org.