Tech Roundup - October 1, 2021

Fri, 10/01/2021

Welcome to ‘Tech Roundup,’ where we highlight some of the most significant tech news items from Nebraska and the surrounding area. If you have a news item you would like to see in the Roundup, please email neil.rutledge@unl.edu.


 

Local/Regional

Collaborative Biosecurity Laboratory opens to pursue ag defense research

Nebraska Today

  • The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has opened the “Collaborative Biosecurity Laboratory” at the Morrison Life Sciences Research Center.
  • Focuses of its research will include:

○      Agricultural and natural resources security, defense and countermeasures;

○      Biological defense in support of the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and other government stakeholders;

○      Development and deployment of biosurveillance, biodetection and diagnostic tools; and

○      Pandemic preparedness related to human, livestock and crop plant diseases that could result in disruptions to the U.S. and global food systems.


 

Biochemists detail protein vital to tuberculosis, antibiotic resistance

Nebraska Today

  • A rise in antibiotic resistance is spurring researchers like University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Limei Zhang to examine understudied aspects of the tuberculosis bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
  • The bacterium kills about 1.5 million people annually — more than any other infectious disease. Nearly one-quarter of the global population is infected with the airborne bacterium.
  • “Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a good example of how urgently we need to be looking for new approaches or identifying new targets,” Zhang said. “At the beginning, we had limited sources to fight against tuberculosis. Now, with it gaining antibiotic resistance, it’s even harder for us. We have to plan ahead and prepare.”

 

Husker-industry partnership leads to new roadside safety barrier

Nebraska Today

  • University of Nebraska–Lincoln researchers have designed the next generation of these steel barriers, known as the Delta crash cushion, in collaboration with TrafFix Devices, Inc., a company that is now manufacturing and selling the product.
  • One of the Delta crash cushion’s distinguishing features is its side panels, which absorb kinetic energy during a crash and eliminate complex devices commonly used in other barriers, such as hydraulic cylinders, cables and cartridges.

 

UNeTech Institute receives $150,000 prize from the Small Business Administration

Silicon Prairie News

  • The UNeTech Institute — a startup incubator affiliated with the University of Nebraska Omaha and the University of Nebraska Medical Center — will receive $150,000 from the Small Business Administration (SBA) to fund the creation of a collaborative partnership of entrepreneurial support organizations aimed at supporting innovation-focused entrepreneurs from underserved communities, according to a press release issued today.

 

Retired, international housing highlight 2100 Vine redevelopment proposal

Nebraska Today

  • The University of Nebraska–Lincoln community would gain housing for older Huskers under a redevelopment proposal selected for a 16.49-acre university-owned tract at 2100 Vine St.
  • As proposed by a team led by Woodbury Corporation of Salt Lake City and WRK Real Estate LLC of Lincoln, the “Unity Commons” mixed-use development would be anchored in part by apartment buildings geared for retired Nebraska alumni, emeritus faculty, retired staff and other seniors. The public-private partnership also would create housing and other resources for Lincoln’s international community, commercial space and retail stores, among other amenities.

 


 

Pinch the salt: Dissolved salt can reassemble at nanoscale, simulations say

Nebraska Today

  • Nebraska’s Xiao Cheng Zeng and his colleagues recently ran computer simulations to determine how sodium chloride and its salty cousin, lithium chloride, might respond when submerged in a nanoscopic stream of water bordered by two smooth, water-repellent walls.
  • Those simulations predicted something wildly counterintuitive. After initially dissolving in the water, the charged, randomly dispersed atoms of both sodium and lithium chloride would spontaneously reassemble into 2D layers, according to the simulations.
  • Those predictions might eventually inform the design of nanofluidic devices that transport charged atoms to recreate neuronal activity, Zeng said.

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