*MU scientists make strides in green nanotechnology*
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Gold nanoparticles, tiny pieces of gold so small that they can’t be seen by the naked eye, are used in electronics, healthcare products and as pharmaceuticals to fight cancer. Despite their positive uses, the process to make the nanoparticles requires dangerous and extremely toxic chemicals. While the nanotechnology industry is expected to produce large quantities of nanoparticles in the near future, researchers have been worried about the environmental impact of the global nanotechnological revolution. (more…)
*Vivendi is Top Display Advertiser with More Than 2 Billion Impressions Served*
Paris, France, November 29, 2010 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of the French online display advertising market for Q3 2010, using comScore’s Ad Metrixservices. The data revealed that French internet users received more than 191 billion display ads during the quarter.
“Following the ad recession that occurred from late 2008 through most of 2009, we are now seeing a strong resurgence in the online display ad market in France,” said Delphine Gatignol, Senior Director for comScore in France. “A key driver of this growth is the social media sector, which is becoming an increasingly powerful marketing channel for brands and an attractive platform for display advertising.”(more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Young people who are overexposed to antibacterial soaps containing triclosan may suffer more allergies, and exposure to higher levels of Bisphenol A among adults may negatively influence the immune system, a new University of Michigan School of Public Health study suggests.
Triclosan is a chemical compound widely used in products such as antibacterial soaps, toothpaste, pens, diaper bags and medical devices. Bisphenol A (BPA) is found in many plastics and, for example, as a protective lining in food cans. Both of these chemicals are in a class of environmental toxicants called endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), which are believed to negatively impact human health by mimicking or affecting hormones. (more…)
*Thanksgiving Day Surges 28 Percent to $407 Million as Consumers Increasingly Use Day for Online Shopping*
RESTON, VA, November 28, 2010 – comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, today reported U.S. retail e-commerce spending for the first 26 days of the November – December 2010 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $11.64 billion has been spent online, marking a 13-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Black Friday (November 26) saw $648 million in online sales, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2010 and representing a 9-percent increase versus Black Friday 2009. Thanksgiving Day (November 26), traditionally a lighter day for online holiday spending, achieved a strong 28-percent increase to $407 million. (more…)
E. coli bacteria. Image credit: University of Montreal
Hamburger disease, a debilitating form of food poisoning, may be a thing of the past. New findings from an international research collaboration conducted by the French National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA), involving the Université de Montréal are the first to show how the contaminating E.coli bacterium is able to survive in the competitive environment of a cow’s intestine by scavenging specific food sources. Published in this month’s Environmental Microbiology, and featured in Nature Reviews Microbiology, this study may lead to non-medicinal methods for eradicating this invasive bug.
“We studied E.coli O157:H7, which is the most prevalent species of bacteria associated with larger outbreaks,” says Josée Harel, co-author of the study and director of the Groupe de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses du Porc at the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. “These outbreaks have been associated with direct contact with the farm environment and with the consumption of meat, raw milk and dairy products. Reduction or eradication of O157:H7 in cows will lead to a substantial decrease in food contamination and consequential human infections.”(more…)
*NSF enabled the assembly of an international, interdisciplinary team that was the first to quantitatively document body size patterns over the past 100 million years*
Researchers have demonstrated that the extinction of dinosaurs some 65 million years ago paved the way for mammals to get bigger, about a thousand times larger than they had been when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The study, released in the journal Science, is the first to quantitatively document the patterns of body size of mammals after the existence of dinosaurs.
About the Image: The largest land mammals that ever lived, Indricotherium and Deinotherium, would have towered over the living African Elephant. Indricotherium lived during the Eocene to the Oligocene Epoch (37 to 23 million years ago) and reached a mass of 15,000 kg, while Deinotherium was around from the late-Miocene until the early Pleistocene (8.5 to 2.7 million years ago) and weighed as much as 17,000 kg. Image credit: NSF RCN IMPPS (more…)
Palo Alto, CA — Infestation by bacteria and other pathogens result in global crop losses of over $500 billion annually. A research team led by the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Plant Biology developed a novel trick for identifying how pathogens hijack plant nutrients to take over the organism. They discovered a novel family of pores that transport sugar out of the plant. Bacteria and fungi hijack the pores to access the plant sugar for food. The first goal of any pathogen is to access the host’s food supply to allow them to reproduce in large numbers. This is the first time scientists have a direct handle on controlling the food supply to pathogens and thus a new means to prevent a wide range of crop diseases and losses.(more…)
Lake Tahoe, seen here from Emerald Bay, was one of the primary validation sites for the global lake study. The lake, which straddles the borders of California and Nevada, is the largest alpine lake in North America. Image credit: NASA-JPL
WASHINGTON – In the first comprehensive global survey of temperature trends in major lakes, researchers have determined that Earth’s largest lakes have warmed during the past 25 years in response to climate change.
Philipp Schneider and Simon Hook of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used satellite data to measure the surface temperatures of 167 large lakes worldwide.
They reported an average warming rate of 0.45 degrees Celsius (0.81 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, with some lakes warming as much as 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade. The warming trend was global, and the greatest increases were in the mid- to high-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.(more…)
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Gold nanoparticles, tiny pieces of gold so small that they can’t be seen by the naked eye, are used in electronics, healthcare products and as pharmaceuticals to fight cancer. Despite their positive uses, the process to make the nanoparticles requires dangerous and extremely toxic chemicals. While the nanotechnology industry is expected to produce large quantities of nanoparticles in the near future, researchers have been worried about the environmental impact of the global nanotechnological revolution. (more…)
