Science Relief : News and Articles on Science, Health, Space and Technology

Stem cell creation mapped

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:18:07 PDT

Despite seven years of reprogramming adult cells,this is the first time scientists have mapped the process from mature cell to induced pluripotent stem cell in detail.

Image: koya979/Shutterstock

Monash University researchers are shedding light on the complex processes that underpin the creation and differentiation of stem cells, bringing closer the promise of ‘miracle’ therapies.

Dr Jose Polo of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) and the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology and his team, with collaborators at Harvard, have comprehensively mapped, for the first time, the process by which mature cells are re-programmed to become an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell.

iPS cells behave almost exactly like embryonic stem cells - they can become any cell in the body - but come without the ethical and scientific pitfalls.

The re-programming process was developed in 2006; however, until now, it was unknown exactly how it worked.

Dr Polo has unravelled the precise molecular events occurring in an adult skin cells at almost every level throughout the re-programming process. The results were published in the prestigious journal Cell.

Every cell in the body contains a full genome or complete set of DNA. The differences between a brain neuron and a liver cell are down to the fact that although they contain the exact same genes, not all of these are active in each cell - a process known as transcription.

Proteins called transcription factors control which genes are active or inactive by changing the availability of the genes to be transcribed. This in turn mediates the differentiation of stem cells to all the different types of cells in the body. It is the reversal of this complex process - returning an adult cell to its pluripotent state - that the researchers mapped.

"Once you understand a process, you can manipulate it," Dr Polo said.

"Now that we have created a roadmap for re-programming, we can do a lot of things. We can look at improving the efficiency of re-programming and investigating if some of the potential dangers can be avoided by re-routing the process."

Now, Dr Polo's team is investigating whether re-programming follows an identical path for all types of cells. They are also looking at the potentially cancer-causing mutations in iPS cells and ways to circumvent this tumorific potential.

Another project is examining "memory" in iPS cells and its implications.

"For example, if I create an iPS cell from a blood cell and an iPS cell from a muscle cell, the two are a little different - they carry memories of where they were generated. Now I'm examining ways to exploit these memories," Dr Polo said.

Dr Polo said these and many more complexities must be understood before stem cell therapy can move effectively into the clinical arena.

"Modern medicine has achieved wonderful things, but doctors are like mechanics trying to fix a car without access to spare parts," Dr Polo said.

"The promise of stem cells is amazing - it will almost bring us into a new age of medicine - but there's a lot more work to do before this promise can be realised."

Bed sharing leads to fivefold increase in risk of cot death for babies whose parents do not smoke

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:13:22 PDT

Rates of sudden infant death would plummet if parents avoided bed sharing, advise authors.
(Credit: © lagom / Fotolia)

Parents who share a bed with their breastfed baby could face a fivefold increase in the risk of crib death, even if the parents do not smoke, according to a new study. The research was led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and is published in BMJ Open. Crib death -- also known as cot death or sudden infant death syndrome (SIDs) -- remains a major cause of death among babies under 1 year of age in high income countries. There is already a general consensus that sleeping with a baby increases the risk of cot death if the parents smoke or if the mother has been drinking alcohol or taking drugs. However, there are conflicting opinions as to whether bed sharing in general represents a risk when these factors are not present.

Some countries, including the US and the Netherlands, advise all parents against sharing a bed with their baby for the first 3 months. The UK currently only advises certain groups, including parents who are smokers, not to bed share.

The new study is the largest ever analysis of its kind. Researchers examined the individual records of 1,472 cot death cases and 4,679 control cases across five major studies. They found that the risk of cot death among breastfed babies under 3 months increased with bed sharing, even when the parents did not smoke and the mother had not consumed alcohol or drugs. This fivefold increase was in comparison to room sharing, where a baby slept in a cot in the parents' room.

The researchers estimate that 81% of cot deaths among babies under 3 months with no other risk factors could be prevented if they did not sleep in the same bed as their parents. The study also showed that the risk associated with bed sharing decreases as a baby gets older, and that the peak period for instances of cot death was between 7 and 10 weeks.

Professor Bob Carpenter from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine who was lead author on the study said: "Currently in the UK more than half of cot deaths occur while a baby is sleeping in the same bed as its parents. Although it is clear that smoking and drinking greatly increase the risk of cot death while bed sharing, our study shows that there is in fact an increased risk for all babies under 3 months who bed share, even if their parents do not smoke or drink.

"If parents were made aware of the risks of sleeping with their baby, and room sharing was instead promoted in the same way that the 'Back to Sleep' campaign was promoted 20 years ago to advise parents to place their newborn infants to sleep on their backs, we could achieve a substantial reduction in cot death rates in the UK. Annually there are around 300 cot death cases in babies under a year old in the UK, and this advice could save the lives of up to 40% of those. Health professionals need to make a definite stand against all bed sharing, especially for babies under 3 months."

The authors state that babies can still be brought into the parents' bed for comfort and feeding during the night, but that they should be placed in a cot next to the parents' bed to sleep.

Source: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Gym class reduces probability of obesity, study finds for first time

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:08:35 PDT

Little is known about the effect of physical education (PE) on child weight, but a new study from Cornell University finds that increasing the amount of time that elementary schoolchildren spent in gym class reduces the probability of obesity. The study represents some of the first evidence of a causal effect of PE on youth obesity, and is forthcoming in the Journal of Health Economics.

The research offers support for the recommendations of organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control, Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, all of which have advocated increasing the amount of time that elementary school children spend in gym class, says lead researcher and Cornell professor of policy analysis and management, John Cawley, who conducted the study with Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University (Cornell Ph.D. 2002) and David Frisvold of Emory University.

Treating variation in the amount of time that states mandate schoolchildren spend in PE as natural experiments, the researchers found that an additional 60 minutes per week of PE time (enough to bring states without an explicit requirement up to the amount of PE recommended by the CDC) reduces the probability that a fifth-grader is obese by 4.8 percentage points.

The researchers also detected a gender difference: additional PE time reduces weight for boys but has a negligible effect for girls. One explanation for this difference, says Cawley, is that PE and other types of physical activity are complements for boys (increased PE leads boys to be more active in structured physical activities like organized sports), but substitutes for girls (increased PE leads girls to spend more time watching television).

Source: Cornell University

UC Davis engineers create on-wetting fabric drains sweat

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:06:22 PDT

Water droplets are vigorously repelled by the fabric -- unless they are taken up by hydrophilic threads. Credit: Holly Ober, UC Davis

Waterproof fabrics that whisk away sweat could be the latest application of microfluidic technology developed by bioengineers at the University of California, Davis. The new fabric works like human skin, forming excess sweat into droplets that drain away by themselves, said inventor Tingrui Pan, professor of biomedical engineering. One area of research in Pan's Micro-Nano Innovations Laboratory at UC Davis is a field known as microfluidics, which focuses on making "lab on a chip" devices that use tiny channels to manipulate fluids. Pan and his colleagues are developing such systems for applications like medical diagnostic tests.

Graduate students Siyuan Xing and Jia Jiang developed a new textile microfluidic platform using hydrophilic (water-attracting) threads stitched into a highly water-repellent fabric. They were able to create patterns of threads that suck droplets of water from one side of the fabric, propel them along the threads and expel them from the other side.

"We intentionally did not use any fancy microfabrication techniques so it is compatible with the textile manufacturing process and very easy to scale up," said Xing, lead graduate student on the project.

It's not just that the threads conduct water through capillary action. The water-repellent properties of the surrounding fabric also help drive water down the channels. Unlike conventional fabrics, the water-pumping effect keeps working even when the water-conducting fibers are completely saturated, because of the sustaining pressure gradient generated by the surface tension of droplets.

The rest of the fabric stays completely dry and breathable. By adjusting the pattern of water-conducting fibers and how they are stitched on each side of the fabric, the researchers can control where sweat is collected and where it drains away on the outside.

Workout enthusiasts, athletes and clothing manufacturers are all interested in fabrics that remove sweat and let the skin breathe. Cotton fibers, for example, wick away sweat — but during heavy exercise, cotton can get soaked, making it clingy and uncomfortable.

A paper describing the research was published recently in the journal Lab on a Chip. The work was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Source: University of California Davis (UCD)

Principles of locomotion in confined spaces could help robot teams work underground

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Mon, 20 May 2013 20:58:30 PDT

Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology

Future teams of subterranean search and rescue robots may owe their success to the lowly fire ant, a much-despised insect whose painful bites and extensive networks of underground tunnels are all-too-familiar to people living in the southern United States. By studying fire ants in the laboratory using video tracking equipment and X-ray computed tomography, researchers have uncovered fundamental principles of locomotion that robot teams could one day use to travel quickly and easily through underground tunnels. Among the principles is building tunnel environments that assist in moving around by limiting slips and falls, and by reducing the need for complex neural processing.

Among the study's surprises was the first observation that ants in confined spaces use their antennae for locomotion as well as for sensing the environment.

"Our hypothesis is that the ants are creating their environment in just the right way to allow them to move up and down rapidly with a minimal amount of neural control," said Dan Goldman, an associate professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and one of the paper's co-authors. "The environment allows the ants to make missteps and not suffer for them. These ants can teach us some remarkably effective tricks for maneuvering in subterranean environments."

Georgia Tech researchers (l-r) Daniel Goldman and Michael Goodisman pose with a tube containing simulated soil used to study tunnels being made by fire ants. They are holding examples of nests made by the ants in the wild. The information could be useful in developing future generations of robots able to work in confined spaces. Credit: Gary Meek

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-05-principles-locomotion-confined-spaces-ant-inspired.html#jCp

"Our hypothesis is that the ants are creating their environment in just the right way to allow them to move up and down rapidly with a minimal amount of neural control," said Dan Goldman, an associate professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and one of the paper's co-authors. "The environment allows the ants to make missteps and not suffer for them. These ants can teach us some remarkably effective tricks for maneuvering in subterranean environments."

The research was scheduled to be reported May 20 in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work was sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Physics of Living Systems program.

In a series of studies carried out by graduate research assistant Nick Gravish, groups of fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) were placed into tubes of soil and allowed to dig tunnels for 20 hours. To simulate a range of environmental conditions, Gravish and postdoctoral fellow Daria Monaenkova varied the size of the soil particles from 50 microns on up to 600 microns, and also altered the moisture content from 1 to 20 percent.
While the particle size and moisture content did produce changes in the volume of tunnels produced and the depth that the ants dug, the diameters of the tunnels remained constant -- and comparable to the length of the creatures' own bodies: about 3.5 millimeters.

"Independent of whether the soil particles were as large as the animals' heads or whether they were fine powder, or whether the soil was damp or contained very little moisture, the tunnel size was always the same within a tight range," said Goldman. "The size of the tunnels appears to be a design principle used by the ants, something that they were controlling for."

Gravish believes such a scaling effect allows the ants to make best use of their antennae, limbs and body to rapidly ascend and descend in the tunnels by interacting with the walls and limiting the range of possible missteps.

"In these subterranean environments where their leg motions are certainly hindered, we see that the speeds at which these ants can run are the same," he said. "The tunnel size seems to have little, if any, effect on locomotion as defined by speed."

Fire ants move in a test chamber composed of glass tubes of varying sizes. The chamber is used to study how the creatures recover from falls caused by perturbing the chamber. The information could be useful in developing future generations of robots able to work in confined spaces. Credit: Gary Meek

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-05-principles-locomotion-confined-spaces-ant-inspired.html#jCp

The researchers used X-ray computed tomography to study tunnels the ants built in the test chambers, gathering 168 observations. They also used video tracking equipment to collect data on ants moving through tunnels made between two clear plates -- much like "ant farms" sold for children -- and through a maze of glass tubes of differing diameters.

The maze was mounted on an air piston which could periodically be fired, dropping the maze with a force of as much as 27 times that of gravity. The sudden movement caused about half of the ants in the tubes to lose their footing and begin to fall. That led to one of the study's most surprising findings: the creatures used their antennae to help grab onto the tube walls as they fell.

"A lot of us who have studied social insects for a long time have never seen antennae used in that way," said Michael Goodisman, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Biology and one of the paper's other co-authors. "It's incredible that they catch themselves with their antennae. This is an adaptive behavior that we never would have expected."

By analyzing ants falling in the glass tubes, the researchers determined that the tube diameter played a key role in whether the animals could arrest their fall.

In future studies, the researchers plan to explore how the ants excavate their tunnel networks, which involves moving massive amounts of soil. That soil is the source of the large mounds for which fire ants are known.
While the research focused on understanding the principles behind how ants move in confined spaces, the results could have implications for future teams of small robots.

"The problems that the ants face are the same kinds of problems that a digging robot working in a confined space would potentially face -- the need for rapid movement, stability and safety -- all with limited sensing and brain power," said Goodisman. "If we want to build machines that dig, we can build in controls like these ants have."

Why use fire ants for studying underground locomotion?
"These animals dig virtually non-stop, and they are good, repeatable study subjects," Goodisman explained. "And they are very convenient for us to study. We can go outside the laboratory door and collect them virtually anywhere."

The research described here has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant POLS 095765, and by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.

Source: Georgia Institute of Technology, Research Communications

For the endangered tiger, genetics may finish what the Raj started

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:17:37 PDT

The threat posed by poachers and the decline quality of the tigers genes could spell their demise.

Image: Leksele/Shutterstock

The skin and bones of long-dead tigers from the days of the British Raj have helped reveal how the latest threat to the endangered species is their own DNA.

Taking DNA samples from game hunters' trophies in the Natural History Museum and National Museum of Scotland’s collections, researchers compared these with samples from modern tigers. They found that genetic diversity among the remaining Indian tigers may be low enough to make the population unviable.

The tiger population has dropped precipitously from around 40,000 in 1850 to fewer than 2,000 today, and as their numbers and habitat have shrunk, so has their choice of mating partners. The findings will come as a blow to the Indian government, whose conservationists believe that several years of rising numbers suggest the species has been saved from extinction.

The study, conducted by Samrat Mondol and Uma Ramakrishnan from the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore and Professor Michael W. Bruford from Cardiff University, was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Bruford said, “The results were staggering. We found 93% of the DNA genetic variants we measured in the historical tigers are not found in modern tigers. This is a much bigger fall than we expected.”

For most mammal species, a population of more than 1,000 is a viable one. But Bruford explained it was more appropriate to think of them as pockets of much fewer numbers, as the tigers were spread thinly across the sub-continent.

The researchers divided the tigers they studied into two broad genotypes – those that live in the uplands of Nepal, Tibet and northern India, and those that live in the lush lowands of the south.

“If you look at modern tigers now, you’d assume they fell into two main genotypes. But when we overlaid them with historical populations, we realised that wasn’t the case at all – it’s just that all the intermediate populations have been exterminated,” Bruford explained.

“Not only have tigers lost a huge amount of genetic variation since the days of the Raj, they have also been partitioned. And because they cannot disperse around their habitat as they would normally, they are losing their genetic viability as a population even faster.”

Hunting by the British and by Indian and Mughal princes alongside rapid loss of habitat from agriculture and urbanisation is to blame for the tiger’s decline. Adding to their woes was that the biggest animals were taken by game hunters as trophies – removing the DNA of evolutionary winners from the genepool.

In the short term, Bruford said, the threat posed by poachers is still more concerning, but the declining quality of tiger genes was a long-term problem. “This won’t go away until wild spaces are managed coherently, with corridors to link up the habitats,“ he said. "When the Indian government measures its conversation success it needs to rely on more than just numbers.”

Editor's Note: This article was originally published by The Conversation, here, and is licenced as Public Domain under Creative Commons. See Creative Commons - Attribution Licence.

Tissue Damage from Metal-On-Metal Hip Implants Appears Before Pain Symptoms Appear

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:11:59 PDT

Metal-on-metal hip implants can cause inflammation of the joint lining (synovitis) long before symptoms appear, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used to identify this inflammation, according to a new study by researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery. The study, which appears in an upcoming issue of theJournal of Bone & Joint Surgery, demonstrates that MRI can be used to identify implants that are going to fail before people become symptomatic.

"The study shows that synovitis exists in asymptomatic people in a fairly high prevalence," said Hollis Potter, M.D., chief of the Division of Magnetic Resonance Imaging at Hospital for Special Surgery, in New York City. "If that is the case, symptoms alone are insufficient to determine the health of an implant. You can't wait for people to be sore before we evaluate them for this potential problem." The researchers say that MRIs can help identify patients who need revision surgery before tissue sustains further damage that makes a revision more difficult.

Hip resurfacing, a surgical alternative to total hip replacement (THR), involves placing a metal cap over the head of the femur while a matching metal cup, similar to that used in a THR, is placed in the pelvic socket. The procedure preserves more of a patient's thigh bone than a conventional hip replacement, but the implants can cause synovitis. Until now, no objective data has existed regarding just how much inflammation these implants can cause. To fill this knowledge gap, investigators set out to evaluate the ability of MRI to detect and quantify adverse synovial responses in symptomatic and asymptomatic subjects following metal-on-metal hip resurfacing.

The investigators included the first 69 consecutive subjects (74 hips) referred from three surgical practices to the Hospital for Special Surgery for an MRI after a metal-on-metal hip resurfacing arthroplasty. Patients were classified as asymptomatic, having unexplained pain, or symptomatic with a mechanical cause. This latter category included patients with pain caused by implant loosening, dislocation, periprosthetic fracture, or original faulty positioning of the implant.

All individuals underwent an MRI and then these scans were evaluated by two musculoskeletal radiologists, both of whom were blinded as to which group the patient belonged to. X-rays were also obtained for most patients. Wear of metal-on-metal implant surfaces produces metal wear debris in the form of very small microscopic particles, resulting in metal ion release, which may impact local tissue and other body systems. Therefore, serum cobalt and chromium ion levels measured closest to the date of the MRI were recorded when available. Investigators also collected demographic data, including age, sex, body-mass index, and length of time since arthroplasty.

Analysis of the MRIs identified synovitis in 68% of asymptomatic hips, 75% of symptomatic hips with a mechanical cause, and 78% of hips with unexplained pain. "What was really interesting about this study was that we found that synovitis was detected in the same amount in symptomatic and asymptomatic patients," said Dr. Potter.

The average volume of synovitis was 5.0 cm³ in the asymptomatic group, 10.2 cm³ in the mechanical causes group, and 31.0 cm³ in the unexplained pain group. "The data show that there is a high prevalence of abnormal synovial response in both symptomatic and highly functioning, asymptomatic patients who have undergone metal-on-metal arthroplasty, indicating that symptoms alone are insufficient means by which to monitor patients," Dr. Potter said.

There were no significant differences in the X-rays or serum ion levels, demonstrating that these could not be used to predict damage. "Many people focus on serum ion levels," said Dr. Potter. "I think the direction of the pendulum is really changing now, away from serum ion levels and toward imaging, or at least not to focus so much on serum ion levels to predict potential damage. Cross sectional imaging is the way to go, and specifically, MRI over CT based on its superior soft tissue contrast."

Other Hospital for Special Surgery investigators involved in the study include the lead author, Danyal Nawabi, M.D.; Catherine Hayter, MBBS; Edwin Su, M.D.; Mathew Koff, Ph.D.; Giorgio Perino, M.D.; and Stephanie Gold, B.A. Kevin Koch, Ph.D., from General Electric (GE) Healthcare also participated in the study, and GE Healthcare provided funding for the scanning of asymptomatic subjects.

There Is Scientific Consensus On Anthropogenic Climate Change Among Climate Scientists

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:06:43 PDT

An analysis of 4,000 abstracts of peer-reviewed articles on the topic of global warming and climate change has revealed an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that recent warming is human-caused.

Was there any doubt?

The 4,000 abstacts were from papers published in the past 21 years that stated a position on the cause of recent global warming – 97 percent of these endorsed the consensus that we are seeing man-made, or anthropogenic, global warming (AGW). You won't find more than 3% of evolutionary biologists denying evolution either, but the paper in Environmental Research Letters also asked the authors of the papers to rate their entire paper using the same criteria. Over 2,000 papers were self-rated and among those that discussed the cause of recent global warming, 97 percent endorsed the consensus that it is caused by humans.

Nuclear physicists are also for nuclear power yet an alarming number of environmentalists are skeptical or even in outright denial - and the general public also has beliefs in stark contrast to physicists about nuclear power, just like the public does not agree about genetic modification to the same degree biologists do.

John Cook at the University of Queensland, who led the analysis, said in their statement, "Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary. There is a gaping chasm between the actual consensus and the public perception. It's staggering given the evidence for consensus that less than half of the general public think scientists agree that humans are causing global warming.

"This is significant because when people understand that scientists agree on global warming, they're more likely to support policies that take action on it."

This is only a surprise to climate scientists. Biologists in America, with 45% of the public not accepting evolution, would love to have climate science levels of acceptance among the general populace. And nuclear physicists have it even worse. Cook is concerned about a chasm between the science consensus and public perception, but there is also an even wider political chasm between academics and the public and no scientists mind; academics are far out of the mainstream. It can't be factored out the impact that has on the acceptance of data when it comes to political hot-button topics.

In March of 2012, the scholars used the ISI Web of Science database to search for peer-reviewed academic articles published between 1991 and 2011 using two topic searches: "global warming" and "global climate change".

After limiting the selection to peer-reviewed climate science, the study considered 11,994 papers written by 29,083 authors in 1,980 different scientific journals. The abstracts from these papers were randomly distributed between a team of 24 volunteers recruited through the website skepticalscience.com - an advocacy group devoted to debunking climate change skepticism. The volunteers determined the level to which the abstracts endorsed that humans are the primary cause of global warming. Each abstract was analyzed by two independent, anonymous raters.

Of the 11,994 papers, 32.6 percent endorsed AGW, 66.4 percent stated no position on AGW, 0.7 percent rejected AGW and in 0.3 percent of papers, the authors said the cause of global warming was uncertain.

Co-author of the study Mark Richardson, from the University of Reading, said, "We want our scientists to answer questions for us, and there are lots of exciting questions in climate science. One of them is: are we causing global warming? We found over 4,000 studies written by 10,000 scientists that stated a position on this, and 97 percent said that recent warming is mostly man made."

Visitors to the skepticalscience.com website were also solicited for money to publish the results as open access.

Environmental Research Letters charged them $1,600 but their editor-in-chief, Daniel Kammen, still tried to pretend they were taking some moral high ground for science in their statement: "This paper demonstrates the power of the Environmental Research Letters open access model of operation in that authors working to advance our knowledge of climate science and to engage in a public discourse can guarantee all interested parties have the opportunity to review the same data and findings."

They did it for science. And $1,600. In advance.

Nasa's Kepler telescope hobbled by faulty wheel

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:03:08 PDT

The Kepler telescope, which detects planets outside our solar system, has already completed its primary mission

Two of four reaction wheels are now faulty. At least three are needed to orient the telescope correctly.

"I wouldn't call Kepler down and out just yet," said Nasa administrator John Grunsfeld, saying scientists were working on the problem.

Kepler was launched in 2009 and last month identified two distant planets that Nasa said could be habitable.

So far, the $600m (£395m) mission has identified 132 "exoplanets" outside our solar system, and another 2,700 possible candidates.

But last July one of the spacecraft's four reaction wheels broke down, leaving scientists aware that a further failure was likely and would prevent the telescope operating as it should.

In a statement, Nasa said the problem had been detected on Tuesday, when the telescope went into a pre-programmed "safe mode" which kicks in "if the observatory has trouble knowing where it should point", Mr Grunsfeld told AFP news agency.

The team's priority now is to put the craft into "Point Rest State" - reducing fuel consumption so the craft has enough left to last months or years, giving scientists the time to decide how to proceed.

Kepler completed its primary three-and-a-half year mission last November, Nasa says, and is now in an extended mission phase.

The US space agency says the telescope has generated a wealth of data which could generate new discoveries for years to come.

Last month, scientists announced that Kepler had discovered two of the most intriguing candidates yet in the search for Earth-like exoplanets.

They orbit the Kepler-62 star in the Constellation Lyra - 1,200 light-years from Earth.

World's most extraordinary species mapped for the first time

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:55:42 PDT

Scientists pinpointed areas of the world where Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) mammals and amphibians occur. Regions containing the highest concentrations of these species are highlighted as global conservation priorities. The research paper is published today (15th May) in PLOS ONE.

The map reveals that high priority conservation areas for mammals and amphibians are different, reflecting the varied evolutionary histories and threats facing the two groups. For mammals, management efforts are best focused in Southeast Asia, southern Africa and Madagascar. For amphibians, Central and southern America are highlighted as priorities.

Professor Jonathan Baillie, ZSL's Director of Conservation says: "The results of the mapping exercise are alarming. Currently only five percent of the areas we've identified as priorities for EDGE mammals and 15 percent of the EDGE amphibian areas are protected.

"These areas highlighted should all be global conservation priorities because they contain species that are not only highly threatened but also unique in the way they look, live and behave. These new maps will inform the development of larger-scale work to help secure the future of some of the most remarkable species on Earth," Professor Baillie added.

Madagascar's black-and-white ruffed lemur is the largest lemur in the world and is threatened by hunting and the loss of its forest habitat to logging, mining and cutting and burning for agriculture. The Sunda pangolin, also known as the scaly anteater, occurs in Southeast Asia and is threatened by illegal poaching for its meat which is a culinary delicacy, as well as its scales which are thought to have high medicinal value. Other mammal species occurring in priority areas include the black rhino and western lowland gorilla.

Amphibians are facing a terrifying rate of extinction making them the most threatened vertebrates in the world. The Mexican salamander, or axolotl, is critically endangered due to urbanization, polluted waters, and the introduction of non-native fish which eat the axolotl's young. With the aid of the global map of EDGE amphibians, it will now be possible to concentrate efforts in countries such as, Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala where the most distinct and threatened species are found.

Dr. Kamran Safi, lead author of the paper from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology says: "This is the first global map to take into account species' uniqueness as well as threat. Now that we've identified EDGE priority areas for mammals and amphibians we can more effectively continue to ensure their protection.¬"

It is critical that conservationists prioritise the allocation of limited resources for the best conservation outcomes. ZSL's EDGE of Existence programme has already launched targeted conservation projects for more than 40 EDGE species around the world.

Source: Zoological Society of London

Tiny water creepy crawlies from South Korea and the Russian Far East

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:52:06 PDT

This image shows one of the newly discovered water mite species Torrenticola kimichungi. Credit: Vladimir Pešić

Water mites of the family Torrenticolidae are tiny, heavily sclerotized and crawling water creatures presently known from all continents except Antarctica. More than 400 species are described so far but this is expected to be only a minor pars of their diversity, especially in the tropical areas where the family is most species abundant. Until recently only one species was known from South Korea, and five from the Russian Far East. A recent study, published in the open access journal Zookeys, adds up to the diversity in this regions with 2 new to science species and 5 described from South Korea for the first time. The two new species

This image show one of the gorgeous habitats of the water mites, the Inje River, South Korea. Credit: Vladimir Pešić

Torrenticola kimichungi and Monatractides abei, have been described from South Korea and the Russian Far East as a part of the project aimed at uncovering Korean invertebrate diversity, and led by the National Institute of Biological Resources (NIBR). The species have been named to commemorate the contributions of two scientist Drs Il-Hoi Kim and Kyung-Sook Chung and Dr Hiroshi Abe for their extensive studies in the area of water mites.

This image shows the one of the variety of habitat of the water mite species, the JiriSan National Park, in South Korea. Credit: Vladimir Pešić

"Water mites are a diverse and widespread but still neglected group of freshwater fauna. In natural streams, species diversity of water mites is generally rather high and may reach, or occasionally even exceed, 50 species at single collecting site, often most of these are torrenticolid mites. Torrenticolid mites avoid habitats with silty substrata and intermittent flow, and their study can give valuable information on the ecological characteristics of the areas with an unstable surface water regime," says the lead author Vladimir Pešić, Department of Biology, University of Montenegro.

Source: Pensoft Publishers

Sacred lotus genome sequence enlightens scientists

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Sun, 12 May 2013 00:54:38 PDT

University of Illinois plant biology professor Ray Ming (left), graduate student Robert VanBuren and their colleagues sequenced the sacred lotus genome. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer

The sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is a symbol of spiritual purity and longevity. Its seeds can survive up to 1,300 years, its petals and leaves repel grime and water, and its flowers generate heat to attract pollinators. Now researchers report in the journal Genome Biology that they have sequenced the lotus genome, and the results offer insight into the heart of some of its mysteries. The sequence reveals that of all the plants sequenced so far -- and there are dozens -- sacred lotus bears the closest resemblance to the ancestor of all eudicots, a broad category of flowering plants that includes apple, cabbage, cactus, coffee, cotton, grape, melon, peanut, poplar, soybean, sunflower, tobacco and tomato.

The plant lineage that includes the sacred lotus forms a separate branch of the eudicot family tree, and so lacks a signature triplication of the genome seen in most other members of this family, said University of Illinois plant biology and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Ray Ming, who led the analysis with Jane Shen-Miller, a plant and biology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles (who germinated a 1,300-year-old sacred lotus seed); and Shaohua Li, the director of the Wuhan Botanical Garden at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Whole-genome duplications -- the doubling, tripling (or more) of an organism's entire genetic endowment -- are important events in plant evolution," Ming said. Some of the duplicated genes retain their original structure and function, and so produce more of a given gene product -- a protein, for example, he said. Some gradually adapt new forms to take on new functions. If those changes are beneficial, the genes persist; if they're harmful, they disappear from the genome.

Many agricultural crops benefit from genome duplications, including banana, papaya, strawberry, sugarcane, watermelon and wheat, said Robert VanBuren, a graduate student in Ming's lab and collaborator on the study.

Although it lacks the 100 million-year-old triplication of its genome seen in most other eudicots, sacred lotus experienced a separate, whole-genome duplication about 65 million years ago, the researchers found. A large proportion of the duplicated genes (about 40 percent) have been retained, they report.

"A neat thing about the duplication is that we can look at the genes that were retained and see if they are in specific pathways," VanBuren said. The researchers found evidence that duplicated genes related to wax formation (which allows the plant to repel water and remain clean) and survival in a mineral-starved watery habitat were retained, for example.

By looking at changes in the duplicated genes, the researchers found that lotus has a slow mutation rate relative to other plants, Ming said.

These traits make lotus an ideal reference plant for the study of other eudicots, the researchers said.

Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

An electronic nose can tell pears and apples apart

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:45:42 PDT

The electronic nose has 32 sensors. (Credit: HIG/UPV)

Swedish and Spanish engineers have created a system of sensors that detects fruit odours more effectively than the human sense of smell. For now, the device can distinguish between the odorous compounds emitted by pears and apples. Researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV, Spain) and the University of Gävle (Sweden) have created an electronic nose with 32 sensors that can identify the odours given off by chopped pears and apples.

"The fruit samples are placed in a pre-chamber into which an air flow is injected which reaches the tower with the sensors which are metal oxide semiconductors that detect odorous compounds such as methane or butane," explained José Pelegrí Sebastiá, UPV researcher at the Gandia campus and co-author of the paper.

Next, software is used to gather real time data and the information is processed through classification algorithms. The results can be viewed on a 3D graph which distinguishes between the pear and apple scores.

This study, which is published in the 'Sensors and Actuators A' journal, is the starting point for new research the team is already involved in to develop multisensor systems that increase the capacity to differentiate complex mixtures of volatile substances.

"One example would be the wine making sector," Pelegrí commented, "where an electronic nose capable of distinguishing the quality or type of grape or recognising the vintage a wine belongs to would be very useful."

Other lines of research focus on the field of biomedicine. Some studies have shown that trained dogs can detect cancerous tumours, such as lung cancer, by smelling a person's breath.

If this is true, and an electronic nose can detect which substances the animals recognise, then we could diagnose the disease earlier and increase patients' survival rates.

Source: Plataforma SINC

Researchers discover world's most extreme hearing animal

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:31:56 PDT

The greater wax moth. Credit: Ian Kimber

Researchers at the University of Strathclyde have discovered that the greater wax moth is capable of sensing sound frequencies of up to 300kHz – the highest recorded frequency sensitivity of any animal in the natural world. Humans are only capable of hearing sounds of 20kHz maximum, dropping to around 12-15kHz as we age, and even dolphins, known exponents of ultrasound, can’t compete as their limitations are around 160kHz.

The research, conducted at the University’s Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering, has identified the extraordinary sensory characteristics of the moth, paving the way for developments in air-couple ultrasound.

Dr James Windmill, who has led the research at Strathclyde, said: “We are extremely surprised to find that the moth is capable of hearing sound frequencies at this level and we hope to use the findings to better understand air-coupled ultrasound.”

“The use of ultrasound in air is extremely difficult as such high frequency signals are quickly weakened in air. Other animals such as bats are known to use ultrasound to communicate and now it is clear that moths are capable of even more advanced use of sound.

“It’s not entirely clear how the moths have developed to be able to hear at such a high frequency, but it is possible that they have had to improve the communication between each other to avoid capture from their natural predator – the bat – which use similar sounds.”

The research findings will allow the Dr Windmill and his colleagues to further develop their understanding of ultrasound and how to transmit and receive ultrasonic pulses travelling in air.

With frequency sensitivity that is unparalleled in the animal kingdom, this moth is ready for any echolocation call adaptations made by the bat in the on-going bat–moth evolutionary war.

Dr Windmill’s multi-disciplinary research team is now working to apply the biological study of this, and other insect ears to the design of micro-scale acoustic systems. It is hoped that by studying the unprecedented capabilities of the moth’s ear, the team can produce new technological innovations, such as miniature microphones.

Source: University of Strathclyde

'Super-resolution' microscope possible for nanostructures

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:08:36 PDT

A new type of super-resolution optical microscopy takes a high-resolution image (at right) of graphite "nanoplatelets" about 100 nanometers wide. The imaging system, called saturated transient absorption microscopy, or STAM, uses a trio of laser beams and represents a practical tool for biomedical and nanotechnology research. Credit: Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University

Researchers have found a way to see synthetic nanostructures and molecules using a new type of super-resolution optical microscopy that does not require fluorescent dyes, representing a practical tool for biomedical and nanotechnology research. "Super-resolution optical microscopy has opened a new window into the nanoscopic world," said Ji-Xin Cheng, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and chemistry at Purdue University.

Conventional optical microscopes can resolve objects no smaller than about 300 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, a restriction known as the "diffraction limit," which is defined as half the width of the wavelength of light being used to view the specimen. However, researchers want to view molecules such as proteins and lipids, as well as synthetic nanostructures like nanotubes, which are a few nanometers in diameter.

Such a capability could bring advances in a diverse range of disciplines, from medicine to nanoelectronics, Cheng said.

"The diffraction limit represents the fundamental limit of optical imaging resolution," Cheng said. "Stefan Hell at the Max Planck Institute and others have developed super-resolution imaging methods that require fluorescent labels. Here, we demonstrate a new scheme for breaking the diffraction limit in optical imaging of non-fluorescent species. Because it is label-free, the signal is directly from the object so that we can learn more about the nanostructure."

Findings are detailed in a research paper that appeared online Sunday (April 28) in the journal Nature Photonics.

The imaging system, called saturated transient absorption microscopy,or STAM,uses a trio of laser beams, including a doughnut-shaped laser beam that selectively illuminates some molecules but not others. Electrons in the atoms of illuminated molecules are kicked temporarily into a higher energy level and are said to be excited, while the others remain in their "ground state." Images are generated using a laser called a probe to compare the contrast between the excited and ground-state molecules.

The researchers demonstrated the technique, taking images of graphite "nanoplatelets" about 100 nanometers wide.

"It's a proof of concept and has great potential for the study of nanomaterials, both natural and synthetic," Cheng said.

The doughnut-shaped laser excitation technique, invented by researcher Stefan Hell, makes it possible to focus on yet smaller objects. Researchers hope to improve the imaging system to see objects about 10 nanometers in diameter, or about 30 times smaller than possible using conventional optical microscopes.

"We are not there yet, but a few schemes can be applied to further increase the resolution of our system," Cheng said.

The paper was co-authored by biomedical engineering doctoral student Pu Wang; research scientist Mikhail N. Slipchenko; mechanical engineering doctoral student James Mitchell; Chen Yang, an assistant professor of physical chemistry at Purdue; Eric O. Potma, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine; Xianfan Xu, Purdue's James J. and Carol L. Shuttleworth Professor of Mechanical Engineering; and Cheng.

Future research may include work to use lasers with shorter wavelengths of light. Because the wavelengths are shorter, the doughnut hole is smaller, possibly allowing researchers to focus on smaller objects.

The work will be discussed during the third annual Spectroscopic Imaging: A New Window into the Unseen World workshop on May 23 and 24 at Purdue. The workshop is hosted by the university's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering.

The research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Source: Purdue University

The future isn't what it used to be

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:57:28 PDT

A "flying fan" vehicle, as depicted in Popular Mechanics magazine in 1957, that was being developed by Hiller Helicopters. The magazine predicted a four-door consumer model would be available in 10 years. We're still waiting! (Popular Mechanics)

"Yesterday's tomorrow" was a wondrous place, full of amazing gadgets and technologies many experts told us were just around the corner. So why aren't we there yet? Our Cover Story is reported by Mo Rocca:

The world of tomorrow: Trains zooming from coast to coast via vacuum tubes . . . gleaming cities in the sky . . . and, of course, flying cars. That was what the future was supposed to hold for us.

"I grew up expecting to live on the Moon, to be able to travel in rockets," said writer and illustrator Ron Miller. "When '2001' came out, there was a future that looked really possible. So in 30 odd years we could probably have space stations, and passenger liners going to and from space stations, run by Pan Am!"

But Pan Am doesn't even exist anymore.

"I feel, in a way, I was promised this future, and it's never paid off," Miller laughed. "I'm not on the Moon. I've never ridden in a rocket. I haven't been to a space station. I don't have a flying car."

For all of his life, Miller has dreamed of exploring space. He's had to settle for imagining it, such as the vistas of the Red Planet.

"That's a desert on Mars," he showed Rocca in one painting. "Mars has these wonderful tornadoes all over the place, and usually you can see the track of them."

Architectural historian John Kriskiewicz got his first glimpse of that big, bright, beautiful World of Tomorrow when he visited the 1964 World's Fair in New York.

At five years old, Kriskiewicz wanted to live in this future -- a future that was already in progress.

"We were literally on our way," Kriskiewicz said."By the second season of the Fair in 1965, men had walked in space. We were seeing progress each year" - proof positive that the future was possible.

Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" predicted commercial flights to orbiting space stations. In 2013 space tourists are still waiting for takeoff.
/ MGM

Fifty years later, a lot of the Fair's predictions weren't exactly spot-on, though it must be said, all those logos were a sign of things to come. One of the things the World's Fair got right was the domination of corporate sponsorship.

But wait a minute, we still don't have flying cars!

"We get this all the time: Where is my flying car? We were promised flying cars!" said James Meigs, editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics.

Meigs says we could have flying cars right now, but the better question is, do we want them?

"It's such a great fantasy, such a cool idea," said Meigs. "Various ones have been built over the years. There's a company trying to sell some today that work. The problem is that cars and planes are so different. So what you end up with is a terrible plane that, once you land and try to drive around, is a terrible car."

Popular Mechanics has been predicting the future for 111 years now. A lot of times they nailed it.

In 1954 the magazine predicted a television you can hang on your wall -- the flat-screen TV. "It took a long time, but we finally got it," said Meigs.

A lot of times they fell short of the mark: how about mail delivery by parachute?

"Isn't that cool?" said Meigs. "The very early days of air mail people thought, 'Why shouldn't this go right to your house?' More or less feasible, if crazy."

Or vacuum tube-powered trains, that could get you from New York to San Francisco in an hour!

"It would be insanely expensive to build the infrastructure to do it,' explained Meigs.

And then there's the future we're lucky never happened. How about the House of the Future, where everything was more or less plastic? "Everything could be hosed down for convenience," said Meigs. "You wouldn't really do any cooking. Everything would come in frozen blocks that you would just heat up."

A lot of things we have today were conceived by science fiction writers, such as Jules Verne.

"In the 1880s he wrote a novel about a giant helicopter called the Albatross," said Miller. "When it came out in the 1880s, 1890s in Russia, a little kid named Igor Sikorsky read it, and he said, 'Wow, I'm going to grow up and build a machine like this!' And he did!"

Another Verne classic, "From the Earth to the Moon," inspired the seminal founders of modern astronautics: Hermann Oberth, Robert Goddard, and Wernher von Braun. "They all said they got interested in rocketry and the possibility of flying into space," said Miller.

And then there's the remarkable case of Murray Leinster, who published a short story in 1946 called "A Logic Named Joe" imagined a machine called a Logic -- a kind of two-way television with a keyboard.

"You would use it to get news, communicate with your neighbors, but you could also use it for research because all logics were tied to a central computer," said Miller.

"And in the story, people are downloading things like plans for bombs."

It seems as if visions of the future tend to be more dystopian than utopian -- decidedly downbeat, like George Orwell's "1984," Ray Bradbury's "Farenheit 451," and a raft of apocalyptic blockbusters.

"Most utopias are boring," said Miller. "Dystopia's got to be more interesting, because everything goes wrong, and there's problems that are horrible, and you have to solve them, which doesn't take place in utopia [where] everything's already solved."

"Looking back, does it seem that people were more optimistic about the future than they are now?" Rocca asked.

"I think sometimes people were a little too optimistic in the past, and they're too pessimistic today," replied Kriskiewicz. "You know, we all walk around with the entire Internet in our pocket, in our phones. I mean it's incredible. Life expectancies have gone up. Disease has fallen around the world dramatically. The cars we drive, the homes we live in, are so much more efficient and safer and capable. We tend to really romanticize the past and catastrophize the present."

Such as Louis C.K.'s routine about people who complain and whine about the hardships of air travel:

" 'I had to sit on the runway for 40 minutes.' Oh my God, really? What happened then? Did you fly through the air like a bird, incredibly? Did you soar into the clouds, impossibly? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight, and then land softly on giant tires that you couldn't even conceive how they f****** put air in them? . . . You're sitting in a chair in the sky! You're like a Greek myth right now!"

"He's exactly right: people take amazing things for granted," said Kriskiewicz. "Like, 'My phone is so slow.' Wait, your phone is connecting you to the entire world!"

Iron could guide bird navigation

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:44:55 PDT

Cells from the inner ear of pigeons stained with a chemical that
turns iron bright blue in colour. (Credit: IMP)

Every year millions of birds make heroic journeys guided by Earth's magnetic field. How they detect magnetic fields has puzzled scientists for decades. Today, the Keays lab at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna has added some important pieces to this puzzle.

Their work, published in Current Biology, reports the discovery of iron balls in sensory neurons. These cells, called hair cells, are found in the ear and are responsible for detecting sound and gravity. Remarkably, each cell has just one iron ball, and it is in the same place in every cell. "It's very exciting. We find these iron balls in every bird, whether it's a pigeon or an ostrich" adds Mattias Lauwers who discovered them "but not in humans." It is an astonishing finding, despite decades of research these conspicuous balls of iron had not been discovered.

This finding builds on previous work by the lab of David Keays who last year showed that iron-rich cells in the beak of pigeons that were believed to be the magnetic sensors, were really just blood cells. "These cells are much better candidates, because they're definitely neurons. But we're a long way off to understanding how magnetic sensing works -- we still don't know what these mysterious iron balls are doing." said Dr Keays. "Who knows, perhaps they are the elusive magnetoreceptors" muses Dr Keays "only time will tell."

Tracking gunfire with a smartphone

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:13:29 PDT

Vanderbilt computer scientists have developed a smartphone-based system
for identifying the location where gunshots are fired. (Credit: Courtesy of ISIS)

You are walking down the street with a friend. A shot is fired. The two of you duck behind the nearest cover and you pull out your smartphone. A map of the neighborhood pops up on its screen with a large red arrow pointing in the direction the shot came from. A team of computer engineers from Vanderbilt University's Institute of Software Integrated Systems has made such a scenario possible by developing an inexpensive hardware module and related software that can transform an Android smartphone into a simple shooter location system. They described the new system's capabilities this month at the 12th Association for Computing Machinery/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks in Philadelphia.

For the last decade, the Department of Defense has spent millions of dollars to develop sophisticated sniper location systems that are installed in military vehicles and require dedicated sensor arrays. Most of these take advantage of the fact that all but the lowest powered firearms produce unique sonic signatures when they are fired. First, there is the muzzle blast -- an expanding balloon of sound that spreads out from the muzzle each time the rifle is fired. Second, bullets travel at supersonic velocities so they produce distinctive shockwaves as they travel. As a result, a system that combines an array of sensitive microphones, a precise clock and an off-the-shelf microprocessor can detect these signatures and use them to pinpoint the location from which a shot is fired with remarkable accuracy.

Six years ago, the Vanderbilt researchers, headed by Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Science Akos Ledeczi developed a system that turns the soldiers' combat helmets into mobile "smart nodes" in a wireless network that can rapidly identify the location of enemy snipers with a surprising degree of accuracy.

In the past few years, the ISIS team has adapted their system so it will work with the increasingly popular smartphone.

Like the military version, the smartphone system needs several nodes in order to pinpoint a shooter's location. As a result, it is best suited for security teams or similar groups. "It would be very valuable for dignitary protection," said Kenneth Pence, a retired SWAT officer and associate professor of the practice of engineering management who participated in the project. "I'd also love to see a version developed for police squad cars." In addition to the smartphone, the system consists of an external sensor module about the size of a deck of cards that contains the microphones and the processing capability required to detect the acoustic signature of gunshots, log their time and send that information to the smartphone by a Bluetooth connection. The smartphones then transmit that information to the other modules, allowing them to obtain the origin of the gunshot by triangulation.

The researchers have developed two versions. One uses a single microphone per module. It uses both the muzzle blast and shockwave to determine the shooter location. It requires six modules to obtain accurate locations. The second version uses a slightly larger module with four microphones and relies solely on the shockwave. It requires only two modules to accurately detect the direction a shot comes from, however, it only provides a rough estimate of the range.

The research was supported by Defense Advance Research Project Agency grant D11PC20026.

Source: Vanderbilt University

New drug stimulates immune system to kill infected cells in animal model of hepatitis B infection

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:04:16 PDT

A novel drug developed by Gilead Sciences and tested in an animal model at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio suppresses hepatitis B virus infection by stimulating the immune system and inducing loss of infected cells. In a study conducted at Texas Biomed's Southwest National Primate Research Center, researchers found that the immune modulator GS-9620, which targets a receptor on immune cells, reduced both the virus levels and the number of infected liver cells in chimpanzees chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Chimpanzees are the only species other than humans that can be infected by HBV. Therefore, the results from this study were critical in moving the drug forward to human clinical trials which are now in progress.

The new report, co-authored by scientists from Texas Biomed and Gilead Sciences, appears in the May issue of Gastroenterology. Gilead researchers had previously demonstrated that the same therapy could induce a cure of hepatitis infection in woodchucks that were chronically infected with a virus similar to human HBV.

"This is an important proof-of-concept study demonstrating that the therapy stimulates the immune system to suppress the virus and eliminate infected liver cells," said co-author Robert E. Lanford, Ph.D., of Texas Biomed. "One of the key observations was that the therapy continued to suppress virus levels for months after therapy was stopped.

The current therapy for HBV infection targets the virus and works very well at suppressing viral replication and delaying progression of liver disease, but it is a lifelong therapy that does not provide a cure.

"This GS-9620 therapy represents the first conceptually new treatment for HBV in more than a decade, and combining it with the existing antiviral therapy could be transformative in dealing with this disease," stated Lanford.

The Gilead drug binds a receptor called Toll-Like Receptor 7 that is present in immune cells. The receptor normally recognizes invading viruses and triggers the immune system to suppress viral replication by the innate immune response and kill infected cells by the adaptive immune response, thus orchestrating both arms of the immune system.

HBV damages the liver, leading to cirrhosis and liver cancer. Liver cancer is the fifth most common cancer worldwide and the third most common cause of cancer death. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), up to 1.4 million Americans are chronically infected with HBV.

The World Health Organization estimates that two billion people have been infected with the hepatitis B virus, resulting in more than 240 million people with chronic infections and 620,000 deaths every year.

Source: Texas Biomedical Research Institute

The Earth's center is 1,000 degrees hotter than previously thought

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 08:58:06 PDT

This artist's view depicts the different layers of the Earth and their representative temperatures: crust, upper and lower mantle (brown to red), liquid outer core (orange) and solid inner core (yellow). The pressure at the border between the liquid and the solid core (highlighted) is 3.3 million atmospheres, with a temperature now confirmed as 6000 degrees Celsius. Credit: ESRF

Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth's centre to be 6000 degrees Celsius, 1000 degrees hotter than in a previous experiment run 20 years ago. These measurements confirm geophysical models that the temperature difference between the solid core and the mantle above, must be at least 1500 degrees to explain why the Earth has a magnetic field. The scientists were even able to establish why the earlier experiment had produced a lower temperature figure. The results are published on 26 April 2013 inScience.

The research team was led by Agnès Dewaele from the French national technological research organization CEA, alongside members of the French National Center for Scientific Research CNRS and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility ESRF in Grenoble (France).

The Earth's core consists mainly of a sphere of liquid iron at temperatures above 4000 degrees and pressures of more than 1.3 million atmospheres. Under these conditions, iron is as liquid as the water in the oceans. It is only at the very centre of the Earth, where pressure and temperature rise even higher, that the liquid iron solidifies. Analysis of earthquake-triggered seismic waves passing through the Earth, tells us the thickness of the solid and liquid cores, and even how the pressure in the Earth increases with depth. However these waves do not provide information on temperature, which has an important influence on the movement of material within the liquid core and the solid mantle above. Indeed the temperature difference between the mantle and the core is the main driver of large-scale thermal movements, which together with the Earth's rotation, act like a dynamo generating the Earth's magnetic field. The temperature profile through the Earth's interior also underpins geophysical models that explain the creation and intense activity of hot-spot volcanoes like the Hawaiian Islands or La Réunion.

Recreating the Earth's liquid iron core in the laboratory: a speck-sized piece of iron is thermally isolated and placed between the tips of two small conical diamonds. Pressing the two diamonds together produces pressures of 2 million atmospheres and more. As a laser beam heats the sample to temperatures of 3000 to 5000 degrees, a thin beam of synchrotron X-rays is used to detect whether it has started to melt. This will change its crystalline structure, in turn modifying the "diffraction pattern" of deflected X-rays behind the sample. Credit: ESRF/Denis Andrault.

To generate an accurate picture of the temperature profile within the Earth's centre, scientists can look at the melting point of iron at different pressures in the laboratory, using a diamond anvil cell to compress speck-sized samples to pressures of several million atmospheres, and powerful laser beams to heat them to 4000 or even 5000 degrees Celsius."In practice, many experimental challenges have to be met," explains Agnès Dewaele from CEA, "as the iron sample has to be insulated thermally and also must not be allowed to chemically react with its environment. Even if a sample reaches the extreme temperatures and pressures at the centre of the Earth, it will only do so for a matter of seconds. In this short timeframe it is extremely difficult to determine whether it has started to melt or is still solid."

This is where X-rays come into play. "We have developed a new technique where an intense beam of X-rays from the synchrotron can probe a sample and deduce whether it is solid, liquid or partially molten within as little as a second, using a process known diffraction," says Mohamed Mezouar from the ESRF, "and this is short enough to keep temperature and pressure constant, and at the same time avoid any chemical reactions."

The scientists determined experimentally the melting point of iron up to 4800 degrees Celsius and 2.2 million atmospheres pressure, and then used an extrapolation method to determine that at 3.3 million atmospheres, the pressure at the border between liquid and solid core, the temperature would be 6000 +/- 500 degrees. This extrapolated value could slightly change if iron undergoes an unknown phase transition between the measured and the extrapolated values.

This image shows the experimental set-up of the experiment at ESRF beamline ID27 where the diffraction maps were recorded. The diamond anvil cell is inside the brass cylinder in the center. The image pictures Guillaume Morard, one of the co-authors of the publication, wearing laser safety goggles. Credit: ESRF/Blascha Faust

When the scientists scanned across the area of pressures and temperatures, they observed why Reinhard Boehler, then at the MPI for Chemistry in Mainz (Germany), had in 1993 published values about 1000 degrees lower. Starting at 2400 degrees, recrystallization effects appear on the surface of the iron samples, leading to dynamic changes of the solid iron's crystalline structure. The experiment twenty years ago used an optical technique to determine whether the samples were solid or molten, and it is highly probable that the observation of recrystallization at the surface was interpreted as melting.

"We are of course very satisfied that our experiment validated today's best theories on heat transfer from the Earth's core and the generation of the Earth's magnetic field. I am hopeful that in the not-so-distant future, we can reproduce in our laboratories, and investigate with synchrotron X-rays, every state of matter inside the Earth," concludes Agnès Dewaele.

Source: European Synchrotron Radiation Facility

Samsung profit at record high on smartphone boost

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 01:13:52 PDT

Visitors operate Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S4 smartphones at a showroom of its headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 26, 2013. Samsung Electronics Co. said Friday its first-quarter net income jumped to a record high because sales growth in smartphones continued even before the launch of the Galaxy S4 during a typically slow season for the electronics market. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Samsung Electronics Co. said Friday its first quarter profit jumped to a record high as smartphone sales remained strong despite the April launch of an updated version of its flagship Galaxy phone.

Sales of consumer electronics usually slow in the first three months of the year after the holiday shopping season, an effect that analysts thought would be compounded by this month's release of the Galaxy S4 smartphone since many delay buying until the newest model is available. Apple Inc. has cited the upcoming release of a new iPhone as a reason for a slowdown in sales of older models.

Samsung began sales of the S4 in its home South Korean market Friday and starts U.S. sales on Saturday. Analysts expect Samsung's profits to reach new highs in the second and third quarters if S4 sales are strong. Lee Don-Joo, head of sales and marketing at Samsung's mobile division, said sales of the S4 will outdo its predecessor, the Galaxy S III.

Samsung said January-March net profit surged 42 percent to 7.2 trillion won ($6.5 billion) from 5 trillion won a year earlier. That increase was despite booking a one-time charge against earnings related to settlement of its intellectual property battle with Apple. Analysts estimated the charge at $600 million.

Sales rose 17 percent to 52.9 trillion won. Operating profit was up 54 percent to 8.8 trillion won, in line with its preliminary results released earlier this month.

Profit was up 2 percent from the previous quarter's result, beating market expectations for a fall. Sales of the S III smartphone and the oversized handset called the Galaxy Note remained strong and shored up profit, Samsung said. It also spent less on marketing its mobile devices than it did in the previous quarter when competition heated up.

Samsung's IT and Mobile Communications division that makes smartphones, tablets, PCs and cameras reported 6.51 trillion won in operating income for the first quarter, up 56 percent from a year earlier and its highest since Samsung reorganized the division to merge PC and handset departments.

Samsung capitalized on global demand for smartphones with a range of mobile devices that come in a variety of screen sizes and prices, outpacing rivals including Apple Inc. and Nokia Corp.

As the S4 goes on sales several months before rival Apple introduces a new version of iPhone, analysts said Samsung's streak of record-setting profit will not stop any time soon.

"You can say it is like a snowball is rolling," said James Song, head of technology at Daewoo Securities. Song forecast Samsung's second quarter operating income to surpass 10 trillion won ($9 billion).

Market research firm IDC estimated that Samsung shipped 70.7 million smartphones during the first quarter, up 61 percent over a year earlier and capturing 33 percent market share. Apple, the second-largest smartphone maker, sold 37.4 million iPhones. Its market share fell to 17 percent from 23 percent a year earlier, IDC said.

Samsung, based in Suwon, South Korea, is also the world's largest maker of memory chips, televisions, mobile handsets and liquid crystal display panels.

The company's strong performance in the mobile market helped offset sluggish demand for TVs and a still weak recovery in display panel sales.

For the first time in recent years, Samsung refrained from increasing its annual capital expenditure on semiconductor and display panel production lines, a sign that it sees slower growth in demand for memory chips and display panels. Its annual capital expenditure for 2013 will be capped at 22.9 trillion won ($20.5 billion).

But Samsung said it will boost its spending on research and development even though it is already one of the largest R&D spenders. Its R&D expense was $2.97 billion during the first three months of this year, nearly three times more than Apple's $1.12 billion, according to financial information provider FactSet.

"Although market uncertainties from the European crisis and the slow global economic recovery are still lingering, we expect to increase R&D spending for strengthening our competitiveness ahead of planned new product launches," said Robert Yi, head of investor relations at Samsung.

Seo Won-seok, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities, said Samsung's businesses require heavy spending on research and development for future products, especially divisions that make electronic components.

At a Las Vegas trade show in January, Samsung showcased mobile handsets that use curved glasses, a first stage in what would eventually become flexible displays. Adopting more advanced technology is also crucial to lowering memory chip manufacturing costs.

Toyota, Microsoft beef up Gazoo.com Net service

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 01:04:08 PDT

Toyota is teaming up with Microsoft for an Internet service that links cars, home computers and smartphones so users can find nearby tourist spots, connect on social networks and learn about new models.

The beefed up version of Toyota's Internet site Gazoo.com starts May 30 in Japan, and will be based on "cloud" computing from Microsoft Corp. called Windows Azure. Overseas plans are still undecided.

According to the U.S. software giant, it is the first time the technology, which also uses Sharepoint software, is being used for a company site.

Gazoo.com users tripled over the last five years to 1.65 million. Toyota Motor Corp. said Friday it wants to raise that to 2 million over the next year.

All the world's major automakers are working on similar technology to bring autos up-to-date with the Internet age, from finding restaurants to helping ensure safe driving.

But a major motive for Toyota is appealing to younger Japanese, who are rapidly losing interest in buying cars and are spending their money on smartphones and video games. The trend is so widespread there is a coined phrase, "kuruma banare," or "departure from cars."

Among the Net content in the works are video games, shopping-site links, virtual events and a special social network to chat about cars, according to Toyota. A smartphone application will guide drivers with an electronic voice to 30,000 destinations from 250 routes.

The site will also offer information on more than 3,000 new and used models, including interviews with engineers.

Switching to Microsoft's cloud computing will cut costs for operating the services, although Toyota plans to invest more money in new content for Gazoo.com.

Toyota reached an agreement with Microsoft in April 2011, to work together on telematics, or network technology for cars.

Toyota looked at other cloud computing services before picking Microsoft for the latest project, said Hiroyuki Yamada, an executive at e-Toyota, which looks over such technology.

It is unclear whether the site will really lead to car sales, but Toyota will be able to tap into data on consumer behavior, as well as try to revive Japanese people's fading interest in cars, he said.

Gazoo.com is the brainchild of Akio Toyoda, the president and grandson of Toyota's founder. Well versed in Internet technology, Toyoda was ahead of his time in foreseeing the importance of social networks and stressing how Toyota needs a presence in the blogosphere.

Toyota has a partnership with another U.S. cloud computing company, Salesforce.com, which runs a social network for Toyota plug-in hybrid owners so they can see how efficiently they have been driving and be alerted when their vehicle has recharged. Toyoda also pioneered that partnership.

Dozens killed in fire at Russian psychiatric hospital

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 01:00:58 PDT

An early morning fire swept through a psychiatric hospital in the Moscow area and killed at least 38 people, including two medical workers, Russian news service RIA Novosti reported.

A nurse was able to lead two patients out of the burning building, sparing their lives, Russia Health Ministry spokesman Oleg Salagay told the news service.

Police said the fire, which began around 3 a.m. local time, was apparently caused by a short-circuit.

Most of the patients died in their sleep from inhaling fumes, police said.

According to Russia Today, a broadcasting outlet, one source told news agencies that the hospital had bars on its windows, preventing people from escaping.

Effects of Midwest flooding will be felt for months

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:58:50 PDT

Steve Peters uses a make shift bridge to access dry land in Peoria Heights, Ill. The Illinois River crested at 29.35 feet, eclipsing a 70-year record in Peoria.

A 54-year-old Missouri woman died Wednesday after apparently being struck by lightning, as states along the Mississippi River continue to fight back flooding and farmers struggle in what has been an unrelentingly wet spring in the region.

Authorities say Connie Lou Wake was discovered by her son in the front yard of her home in the south-central part of the state. It was the first lightning fatality this year in the state, which had 28 last year.

Meanwhile, residents of towns along the Mississippi River in eastern Missouri have been spent the past several days filling and stacking sandbags to keep the river from flooding their homes and businesses.

The mighty river crested early Thursday in St. Louis, reaching 5.5 feet above flood stage before retreating. But the river is still a day or two away from reaching its peak in areas further south in the state.

To the north, a damaged lock may keep a stretch of the Illinois River closed to commercial shipping traffic for weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said. Flooding has halted the transport of corn and soybean barges at certain terminals on the river, Reuters reports. The disruptions could cause significant disruptions in the flow of grain and corn in the second-highest soybean producing state.

Reuters reports almost 60 percent of U.S. grain exports are transported on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Grain prices at export terminals at the Gulf of Mexico climbed this week to the highest level in at least a month due to the disruptions.

Production has also suffered, as farmers who would normally be planting corn right now are halted because of the wet, muddy ground. Darren Walter, who farms in Grand Ridge, Ill., told the Associated Press he needs warmer weather to dry the ground in a part of the country where temperatures have continued to drop to 30 degrees at night.

And while the effects of the heavy downpours will continue to be felt for months, some areas are at least beginning to feel some relief. In North Dakota, officials announced the Red River would crest next week at lower than anticipated levels.

The river is still expected to peak at possibly its second-highest level on record, and flood preparations are being made throughout the north-central United States.

Breath study brings roadside drug testing closer

noreply@blogger.com (Omkarr singh) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:54:15 PDT

A group of researchers from Sweden have provided further evidence that illegal drugs can be detected in the breath, opening up the possibility of a roadside breathalyzer test to detect substances such as cocaine, amphetamines and cannabis. Using a simple, commercially available breath sampler, the researchers have successfully identified a range of 12 substances in the breath of 40 patients recruited from a drug emergency clinic in Stockholm.

Their findings have been published today, 26 April, in IOP Publishing'sJournal of Breath Research.

Blood, urine and saliva are the most popular methods for detecting illegal drugs and are already used by law enforcement in a number of countries; however, exhaled breath is seen as a promising alternative as it's easier to collect, non-invasive, less prone to adulteration and advantageous when location becomes an obstacle, such as at the roadside.

Exhaled breath contains very small particles that carry non-volatile substances from the airway lining fluid. Any compound that has been inhaled, or is present in the blood, may contaminate this fluid and pass into the breath when the airways open. The compounds will then be exhaled and can subsequently be detected.

In this study, researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm collected breath, blood plasma and urine samples from 47 patients (38 males, 9 females) who had taken drugs in the previous 24 hours and were recovering at a drug addiction emergency clinic.

Interviews were also undertaken with each patient to assess their history of drug use.

The breath samples were taken using a commercially available sampling device -- SensAbues -- and then analysed using liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry.

The portable sampling device consists of a mouth piece and a micro-particle filter. When a patient breathes into the mouth piece, saliva and larger particles are separated from the micro-particles that need to be measured.

The micro-particles are able to pass through and deposit onto a filter, which can then be sealed and stored ready for analysis. Breath samples were analysed for twelve substances.

Alprazolam and benzoylecgonine were detected in exhaled breath for the first time, whereas for methadone, amphetamine, methamphetamine, cocaine, morphine, 6-acetylmorphine, tetrahydrocannabinol, buprenorphine, diazepam and oxazepam, the results confirmed previous observations.

"Considering the samples were taken 24 hours after the intake of drugs, we were surprised to find that there was still high detectability for most drugs," said lead author of the study Professor Olof Beck.

"In cases of suspected driving under the influence of drugs, blood samples could be taken in parallel with breath when back at a police station. Future studies should therefore test the correlation between blood concentration of drugs of abuse and the concentrations in exhaled breath."