How flight feathers stick together to form a continuous morphing wing.

Variable feather overlap enables birds to morph their wings, unlike aircraft. They accomplish this feat by means of elastic compliance of connective tissue, which passively redistributes the overlapping flight feathers when the skeleton moves to morph the wing planform. Distinctive microstructures form "directional Velcro," such that when adjacent feathers slide apart during extension, thousands of lobate cilia on the underlapping feathers lock probabilistically with hooked rami of overlapping feathers to prevent gaps. These structures unlock automatically during flexion. Using a feathered biohybrid aerial robot, we demonstrate how both passive mechanisms make morphing wings robust to turbulence. We found that the hooked microstructures fasten feathers across bird species except silent fliers, whose feathers also lack the associated Velcro-like noise. These findings could inspire innovative directional fasteners and morphing aircraft.

A Multiplex Electrochemical Biosensor for Bloodstream Infection Diagnosis.

Accurate and timely detection of bacterial pathogens will improve the clinical management of infections. Herein, we demonstrate an electrochemical biosensor that directly detects bacteria in human blood samples, resulting in the rapid diagnosis of a bloodstream infection. The multiplex biosensor detects the species-specific sequences of the 16S ribosomal RNA of bacteria for pathogen identification in physiological samples without preamplification. The analytical performance characteristics of the biosensor, including the limit of detection and probe cross-reactivity, are evaluated systematically. The feasibility of the biosensor for a diagnosis of a bloodstream infection is demonstrated by identifying bacterial clinical isolates spiked in whole blood and blood culture samples that were tested positive for bacteria. The electrochemical biosensor correctly identifies all the species in the samples with 100% concordance to microbiological analysis.

Volumetric MRI of the lungs during forced expiration.

PURPOSE: Lung function is typically characterized by spirometer measurements, which do not offer spatially specific information. Imaging during exhalation provides spatial information but is challenging due to large movement over a short time. The purpose of this work is to provide a solution to lung imaging during forced expiration using accelerated magnetic resonance imaging. The method uses radial golden angle stack-of-stars gradient echo acquisition and compressed sensing reconstruction. METHODS: A technique for dynamic three-dimensional imaging of the lungs from highly undersampled data is developed and tested on six subjects. This method takes advantage of image sparsity, both spatially and temporally, including the use of reference frames called bookends. Sparsity, with respect to total variation, and residual from the bookends, enables reconstruction from an extremely limited amount of data. RESULTS: Dynamic three-dimensional images can be captured at sub-150 ms temporal resolution, using only three (or less) acquired radial lines per slice per timepoint. The images have a spatial resolution of 4.6×4.6×10 mm. Lung volume calculations based on image segmentation are compared to those from simultaneously acquired spirometer measurements. CONCLUSION: Dynamic lung imaging during forced expiration is made possible by compressed sensing accelerated dynamic three-dimensional radial magnetic resonance imaging. Magn Reson Med 75:2295-2302, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.