February 3, 2010, 2:30 PM CT

In the battle against global warming

Researchers in Texas are reporting that a technique used in the search for new drugs could also be used in the quest to discover new, environmentally friendly materials for fighting global warming. Such materials could be used to capture the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from industrial smokestacks and other fixed sources before it enters the biosphere. The newly released study appears in ACS' bi-monthly journal Energy & Fuels

Michael Drummond and his colleagues Angela Wilson and Tom Cundari note that greener carbon-capture technologies are a crucial component in mitigating climate change. Existing technology is expensive and can generate hazardous waste. They point out that proteins, however, can catalyze reactions with carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, in an environmentally friendly way. That fact got the researchers interested in evaluating the possibility of using proteins in carbon capture technology.

In the study, they used the pharmacophore concept to probe how the 3-dimensional structure of proteins affects their ability to bind and capture carbon dioxide. The German chemist and Nobel Laureate Paul Ehrlich, who originated the concept a century ago, defined a pharmacophore as the molecular framework that carries the key features responsible for a drug's activity. The researchers concluded that the approach could point the way to the development of next-generation carbon capture technologies......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

February 3, 2010, 2:29 PM CT

Toward safer plastics

Researchers have published the first report on a new way of preventing potentially harmful plasticizers the source of long-standing human health concerns from migrating from one of the most widely used groups of plastics. The advance could lead to a new generation of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics that are safer than those now used in packaging, medical tubing, toys, and other products, they say. Their study is in ACS' Macromolecules, a bi-weekly journal.

Helmut Reinecke and his colleagues note that manufacturers add large amounts of plasticizers to PVC to make it flexible and durable. Plasticizers may account for more than one-third of the weight of some PVC products. Phthalates are the mainstay plasticizers. Unfortunately, they migrate to the surface of the plastic over time and escape into the environment. As a result, PVC plastics become less flexible and durable. In addition, people who come into contact with the plastics face possible health risks. The U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2009 banned use of several phthalate plasticizers for use in manufacture of toys and child care articles.

The researchers describe development of a way to make phthalate permanently bond, or chemically attach to, the internal structure of PVC so that it will not migrate. Laboratory tests showed that the method completely suppressed the migration of plasticizer to the surface of the plastic. "This approach may open new ways to the preparation of flexible PVC with permanent plasticizer effect and zero migration," the article notes......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

February 3, 2010, 2:28 PM CT

Reverses paralysis with a beam of light

In an advance with overtones of Star Trek phasers and other sci-fi ray guns, researchers in Canada are reporting development of an internal on-off "switch" that paralyzes animals when exposed to a beam of ultraviolet light. The animals stay paralyzed even when the light is turned off. When exposed to ordinary light, the animals become unparalyzed and wake up. Their study appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). It reports the first demonstration of such a light-activated switch in animals.

Neil Branda and his colleagues point out that such "photoswitches" light-sensitive materials that undergo photoreactions have been available for years. Researchers use them in research. Doctors use light-sensitive materials and photoreactions in medicine in photodynamic treatment to treat certain forms of cancer. Those light-sensitive materials, however, do not have the reversibility that exists in photoswitching.

The JACS report describes development and successful testing of a photoswitch composed of the light-sensitive material, dithienylethene. The researchers grew transparent, pinhead-sized worms (C. elegans) and fed them a dithienylethene. When exposed to ultraviolet light, the worms turned blue and became paralyzed. When exposed to visible light, the dithienylethene became colorless again and the worms' paralysis ended. A number of of the worms lived through the paralyze-unparalyze cycle. Researchers were not sure how the switch causes paralysis. The study demonstrates that photoswitches may have great potential in turning photodynamic treatment on and off, and for other applications in medicine and research, they indicate......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

February 3, 2010, 7:56 AM CT

Pyrethroid insecticides are winding up in California rivers

Pyrethroids, among the most widely-used home pesticides, are winding up in California rivers at levels toxic to some stream-dwellers, possibly endangering the food supply of fish and other aquatic animals, as per a newly released study by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Southern Illinois University (SIU).

Pyrethroid insecticides, usually used in California to kill ants and other insect pests around the home, have been found in street runoff and in the outflow from sewage therapy plants in the Sacramento area. The insecticide ended up in two urban creeks, the San Joaquin River and a 20-mile stretch of the American River, traditionally considered to be one of the cleanest rivers in the region.

Eventhough the pyrethroid levels were low - around 10-20 parts per trillion - they were high enough to kill a test organism similar to a small shrimp that is used to assess water safety.

"These indicator organisms are 'lab rat' species that are very sensitive, but if you find something that is toxic to them, it should be a red flag that there could be potential toxicity to resident organisms in the stream," said study leader Donald P. Weston, UC Berkeley adjunct professor of integrative biology.

Fish would not be affected by such low levels, Weston said, but aquatic larvae that the fish eat, such as the larvae of mayflies, stoneflies and caddisflies, could be, and should be studied......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

February 3, 2010, 7:53 AM CT

Synthesis of hydrogen fuel storage material may become less complicated

An international team of scientists has identified a new theoretical approach that may one day make the synthesis of hydrogen fuel storage materials less complicated and improve the thermodynamics and reversibility of the system.

A number of scientists have their sights set on hydrogen as an alternative energy source to fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal that contain carbon, pollute the environment and contribute to global warming. Known to be the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen is considered an ideal energy carrier - not to mention that it's clean, environmentally friendly and non-toxic. However, it has been difficult to find materials that can efficiently and safely store and release it with fast kinetics under ambient temperature and pressure.

The team of scientists from Virginia Commonwealth University ; Peking University in Beijing; and the Chinese Academy of Science in Shanghai; have developed a process using an electric field that can significantly improve how hydrogen fuel is stored and released.

"Eventhough tremendous efforts have been devoted to experimental and theoretical research in the past years, the biggest challenge is that all the existing methods do not meet the Department of Energy targets for hydrogen storage materials. The breakthrough can only be achieved by exploring new mechanisms and new principles for materials design," said Qiang Sun, Ph.D., research associate professor with the VCU team, who led the study......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

February 1, 2010, 7:56 AM CT

New light on our earliest fossil ancestry

Decaying corpses are usually the domain of forensic scientists, but palaeontologists have discovered that studying rotting fish sheds new light on our earliest ancestry.

The researchers, from the Department of Geology at the University of Leicester, devised a new method for extracting information from 500 million year old fossils -they studied the way fish decompose to gain a clearer picture of how our ancient fish-like ancestors would have looked. Their results indicate that some of the earliest fossils from our part of the tree of life may have been more complex than has previously been thought.

Their findings have been published recently, Sunday Jan 31, ahead of print in Advance Online Publication (AOP) of the science journal Nature on www.nature.com The work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Dr Rob Sansom, lead author of the paper explains: "Interpreting fossils is in some ways similar to forensic analysis we gather all the available clues to put together a scientific reconstruction of something that happened in the past. Unlike forensics, however, we are dealing with life from millions of years ago, and we are less interested in understanding the cause or the time of death. What we want to get at is what an animal was like before it died and, as with forensic analysis, knowing how the decomposition that took place after death altered the body provides important clues to its original anatomy"......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

January 29, 2010, 8:21 AM CT

Less pollution improves ear infections

A newly released study by scientists at UCLA and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston suggests that improvements in air quality over the past decade have resulted in fewer cases of ear infections in children.

Ear infections are one of the most common illnesses among children, with annual direct and indirect costs of $3 billion to $5 billion in the United States.

"We believe these findings, which demonstrate a direct connection between air quality and ear infections, have both medical and political significance," said co-author of study Dr. Nina Shapiro, director of pediatric otolaryngology at Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA and an associate professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "The results validate the benefits of the revised Clean Air Act of 1990, which gave the Environmental Protection Agency more authority to implement and enforce regulations reducing air-pollutant emissions. It also shows that the improvements may have direct benefit on health-quality measures".

The research appears in the recent issue of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, the official peer-evaluated publication of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation.

The scientists evaluated National Health Interview Survey data for 120,060 children between the years of 1997 and 2006 and measured the number of instances of three disease conditions for each year - frequent ear infections (three or more within a year), respiratory allergy and seizure activity, which is not influenced by air quality but was included as a control condition......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

January 28, 2010, 8:10 AM CT

Feul from biomass

A collaboration led by scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has developed a microbe that can produce an advanced biofuel directly from biomass. Deploying the tools of synthetic biology, the JBEI scientists engineered a strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria to produce biodiesel fuel and other important chemicals derived from fatty acids.

"The fact that our microbes can produce a diesel fuel directly from biomass with no additional chemical modifications is exciting and important," says Jay Keasling, the Chief Executive Officer for JBEI, and a leading scientific authority on synthetic biology. "Given that the costs of recovering biodiesel are nowhere near the costs mandatory to distill ethanol, we believe our results can significantly contribute to the ultimate goal of producing scalable and cost effective advanced biofuels and renewable chemicals".

Keasling led the collaboration, which was was made up of a team from JBEI's Fuels Synthesis Division that included Eric Steen, Yisheng Kang and Gregory Bokinsky, and a team from LS9, a privately-held industrial biotechnology firm based in South San Francisco. The LS9 team was headed by Stephen del Cardayre and included Zhihao Hu, Andreas Schirmer and Amy McClure. The collaboration has published the results of their research in the January 28, 2010 edition of the journal Nature. The paper is titled, "Microbial Production of Fatty Acid-Derived Fuels and Chemicals from Plant Biomass"......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

January 27, 2010, 8:24 AM CT

Diamond is one tough cookie

Most people know that diamond is one of the hardest solids on Earth, so strong that it can easily cut through glass and steel.

Surprisingly, very little is known about the strength of diamond at extreme conditions. But new research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers shows that diamond becomes even stronger during rapid compression.

Using the Janus laser at LLNL and the Omega laser at the University of Rochester, Livermore researchers and Rochester and UC Berkeley colleagues showed that when shock waves are applied to diamond with powerful lasers, it can support almost a million times atmospheric pressure before being crushed.

The research has implications for the technological uses of diamond.

"It could also provide insights into the ancient history of natural diamonds found on Earth and in meteorites, where shock waves caused by impact are common," said Stewart McWilliams, main author of a paper appearing in the upcoming edition of the journal, Physical Review B.

McWilliams conducted the experiments as a graduate student at UC Berkeley while on a Student Employee Graduate Research Fellowship (SEGRF) at LLNL.

Most natural diamonds are formed at high-pressure, high-temperature conditions existing at depths of 87 to 120 miles in the Earth's mantle. Carbon-containing minerals provide the carbon source, and the growth occurs over periods from 1 billion to 3.3 billion years (25 percent to 75 percent of the age of the Earth)......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

January 25, 2010, 8:19 AM CT

Congo receives help from space

On 2 January, Mount Nyamulagira in the Democratic Republic of Congo erupted, spewing lava from its southern flank and raising concerns that the 100 000 people in the town of Sake could be under threat.

Fears were also triggered in Goma as rumours circulated that an eruption was imminent at the nearby Nyiragongo volcano, which devastated the city in 2002.

Following the eruption, researchers and local authorities have been using a long series of space images from ESA's Envisat, together with seismic and helicopter data, to monitor the situation and calm fears of the local population.

Dr Nicolas d'Oreye of GORISK, which is in Congo assisting the Goma Volcano Observatory to collect and process satellite observations and field data, said the satellite images are very useful for managing the crisis.

"As well as helping to validate information from different datasets, the satellite images are providing invaluable information about the situation, such as the details about the lava flow and the fact that the Nyiragongo volcano is not showing any signs of abnormal activity.

"This has been of great importance for the local authorities and the Goma Volcano Observatory, who are holding daily crisis meetings, to reassure the local population and humanitarian agencies that Nyiragongo will be unaffected by the eruption of Nyamulagira."........ Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source