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Super-Strong, High-Tech Material Found to be Toxic to Aquatic Animals by Researchers at MU and USGS

By Guest PostAugust 27, 2012Scienceaquatic animal, baolin deng, carbon nanotube, chironomus dilutes, chromium, cnts, crustaceans, earth, Environment, epa, flies larvae, hao li, hyalella azteca, joseph mwangi, lumbriculus variegatus, mass production, metal, mussels, nickel, pure carbon, strongest material, tennis racket, toxic, united states, university of missouri, villosa iris, waste management, worms

Carbon nanotubes hold promise for industry but need monitoring, say researchers

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are some of the strongest materials on Earth and are used to strengthen composite materials, such as those used in high-performance tennis rackets. CNTs have potential uses in everything from medicine to electronics to construction. However, CNTs are not without risks. A joint study by the University of Missouri and United States Geological Survey found that they can be toxic to aquatic animals. The researchers urge that care be taken to prevent the release of CNTs into the environment as the materials enter mass production.

“The great promise of carbon nanotubes must be balanced with caution and preparation,” said Baolin Deng, professor and chair of chemical engineering at the University of Missouri. “We don’t know enough about their effects on the environment and human health. The EPA and other regulatory groups need more studies like ours to provide information on the safety of CNTs.” (more…)

Form, Function and Folding: In Collaboration with Berkeley Lab, a Team of Scientists Move Toward Rational Design of Artificial Proteins

By Guest PostAugust 26, 2012Scienceartificial proteins, rational design, synthetic proteins

In the world of proteins, form defines function. Based on interactions between their constituent amino acids, proteins form specific conformations, folding and twisting into distinct, chemically directed shapes. The resulting structure dictates the proteins’ actions; thus accurate modeling of structure is vital to understanding functionality. (more…)

Speeding the Search for Better Carbon Capture

By Guest PostAugust 25, 2012Sciencecarbon capture, global climate change, metal organic frameworks, nemo methodology, parasitic energy, price of electricity, reserves of coal

Berkeley Lab Researchers Help Develop a Computer Model That Identifies the Best Molecular Candidates

A computer model that can identify the best molecular candidates for removing carbon dioxide, molecular nitrogen and other greenhouse gases from power plant flues has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the University of California (UC) Berkeley and the University of Minnesota. (more…)

Scientists from UCLA, Israel’s Technion Uncover Brain’s Code for Pronouncing Vowels

By Guest PostAugust 23, 2012Health, Scienceariel tankus, brain, brain cell, device, disease, electrode, frontal lobe, injury, institute of technology, Israel, itzhak fried, nature communication, neuro prosthetic, neurons, paralyze, single cell, speech, technion, temporal gyrus, ucla, unspoken word, vowel, vowel articulation

Discovery may hold key to restoring speech after paralysis

Diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease at 21, British physicist Stephen Hawking, now 70, relies on a computerized device to speak. Engineers are investigating the use of brainwaves to create a new form of communication for Hawking and other people suffering from paralysis.

—Daily Mail (U.K.)

Scientists at UCLA and the Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology, have unraveled how our brain cells encode the pronunciation of individual vowels in speech.

Published in the Aug. 21 edition of the journal Nature Communications, the discovery could lead to new technology that verbalizes the unspoken words of people paralyzed by injury or disease. (more…)

Doing Science to Teach Science

By Guest PostAugust 22, 2012Education, Scienceallen boltz, ashok gadgil, autumn chapman, berkeley darfur stove, berkeley lab, brito guedes, california, cookstove, dna repair, high school, iisme, jill fuss, monique, nigel quinn, particulate, pe teacher, polymerase chain reactions, san joaquin basin, Science, skin deformities, sophomore chemistry, teacher, thermodynamic

A summer of research at Berkeley Lab gives high school teachers a jump start on science.

High school science teachers face a perennial problem: how to make science real and exciting to their students. But for Berkeley High School teacher Allen Boltz, who spent eight weeks at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory working in a research lab, he will be returning to his classroom this fall a near rock star.

“This experience gives a lot of credibility to the teaching profession,” he said. “To my students, me doing research here would be the equivalent to their PE teacher being a professional athlete.” (more…)

New NASA Mission to Take First Look Deep Inside Mars

By Guest PostAugust 21, 2012Sciencecharles bolden, cnes, discovery, earth, french space agency, german aerospace center, inside mars, insight, john grunsfeld, jpl, liquid, martian surface, mission, NASA, phoenix lander, red planet, rocky planet, solar system, spacecraft technology, tectonic plate, w bruce banerdt

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA has selected a new mission, set to launch in 2016, that will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars to see why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth as one of our solar system’s rocky planets.

The new mission, named InSight, will place instruments on the Martian surface to investigate whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid like Earth’s, and why Mars’ crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift like Earth’s. Detailed knowledge of the interior of Mars in comparison to Earth will help scientists understand better how terrestrial planets form and evolve. (more…)

Experiment Would Test Cloud Geoengineering as Way to Slow Warming

By Guest PostAugust 20, 2012Environment, Scienceairplane, burning fuel, climate science, climatological impact, cloud geoengineering, Environment, global warming, john latham, long lived clouds, marine cloud brightening, particle, phenomenon, pollutant, rob wood, salt water, satellite, science fiction, sea salt, sensor, ship trails, sky, sunlight, warming

Even though it sounds like science fiction, researchers are taking a second look at a controversial idea that uses futuristic ships to shoot salt water high into the sky over the oceans, creating clouds that reflect sunlight and thus counter global warming.

University of Washington atmospheric physicist Rob Wood describes a possible way to run an experiment to test the concept on a small scale in a comprehensive paper published this month in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

The point of the paper — which includes updates on the latest study into what kind of ship would be best to spray the salt water into the sky, how large the water droplets should be and the potential climatological impacts — is to encourage more scientists to consider the idea of marine cloud brightening and even poke holes in it. In the paper, he and a colleague detail an experiment to test the concept. (more…)

Yale Team Discovers How Stress and Depression Can Shrink the Brain

By Guest PostAugust 20, 2012Health, Scienceanimal model, antidepressant therapy, ashley lepack, bhavya voleti, brain, brain cell, brain mass, brain volume, chronic stress, cognitive impairment, depression, emotional, gata1, gene, gene activation, genetic switch, h j kang, mounira banasr, pattern, pawel licznerski, prefrontal cortex, ronald duman, shrink, stress, symptoms of depression, synaptic connection, transcription factor, yale

Major depression or chronic stress can cause the loss of brain volume, a condition that contributes to both emotional and cognitive impairment. Now a team of researchers led by Yale scientists has discovered one reason why this occurs — a single genetic switch that triggers loss of brain connections in humans and depression in animal models.

The findings, reported in the Aug. 12 issue of the journal Nature Medicine, show that the genetic switch known as a transcription factor represses the expression of several genes that are necessary for the formation of synaptic connections between brain cells, which in turn could contribute to loss of brain mass in the prefrontal cortex. (more…)

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