EurekAlert! - Chemistry, Physics and Materials Sciences

CU-Boulder team to build $34 million instrument package for environmental satellite

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Colorado at Boulder) A $34 million solar instrument package to be built by the University of Colorado at Boulder, considered a crucial tool to help monitor global climate change, has been restored to a US government satellite mission slated for launch in 2013.

Chemical compound prevents cancer in lab

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Oklahoma) A chemical compound derived from vitamin A prevents cancer from forming and is being developed by the National Cancer Institute as a daily preventive pill.

NJIT Provost Priscilla P. Nelson honored at National Academy of Engineering

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(New Jersey Institute of Technology) NJIT Provost Priscilla P. Nelson, of West Orange, received the Kenneth R. Row Award from the American Association of Engineering Sciences on May 5 for promoting unity among engineering societies.

NASA's GLAST gets shades, blankets for the beach

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, is receiving finishing touches at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, near the beaches of eastern central Florida for its launch. The spacecraft is set for launch aboard a Delta II rocket no earlier than June 3. The launch window runs from 11:45 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. EDT.

Argonne scientists use lasers to align molecules

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(DOE/Argonne National Laboratory) Protein crystallographers have only scratched the surface of the human proteins important for drug interactions because of difficulties crystallizing the molecules for synchrotron x-ray diffraction.Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have devised a way to eliminate the need for crystallization by using lasers to align large groups of molecules.

Small is beautiful: A European view of nanotech cosmetics and safety

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies) How does a company like Paris-based cosmetics leader L'Oreal -- which ranks No. 6 among nanotechnology patent holders in the US -- apply "The Precautionary Principle" to nanotechnology cosmetic products? What specific safety tests and post-market surveillance measures are used? How do US and European regulations differ when applied to nanotechnology products? How does L'Oreal communicate with customers about this cutting-edge technology?

Archaeologist uses satellite imagery to explore ancient Mexico

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Rochester Institute of Technology) Satellite imagery obtained from NASA will help RIT archaeologist Bill Middleton peer into the ancient Mexican past. In a novel archaeological application, multi- and hyperspectral data will help build the most accurate and most detailed landscape map that exists of the southern state of Oaxaca, where the Zapotec people formed the first state-level and urban society in Mexico. National Geographic funding will help look at how climate and vegetation patterns changed over time.

Euro Science Open Forum 2008 online media registration deadline ends June 30

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(EuroScience Open Forum 2008) Information follows regarding media registration for ESOF 2008 in Barcelona, Spain.

Astronaut health on moon may depend on good dusting

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(National Space Biomedical Research Institute) To prepare for a return to the moon, researchers with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute are evaluating how dust deposits in the lungs in reduced gravity in order to assess the health risk of long-term exposure to lunar particles. The findings will influence the design of lunar bases and could also provide benefits for health care on Earth, such as improved delivery of aerosol medications to the lungs.

Too hot to handle! Scientists identify heat sensing regulator

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) Neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins are a step closer to understanding pain sensitivity -- specifically why it's variable instead of constant -- having identified a gene that regulates a heat-activated molecular sensor.

Soldered lenses

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft) Lenses in optical devices are kept in place by adhesives. This can cause problems when the microscopes and cameras are employed inside a vacuum, as the adhesives may release gases that contaminate the lenses. One alternative is to solder them instead.

Put the trees in the ground

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Wiley-Blackwell) In an essay in the journal ChemSusChem, Fritz Scholz and Ulrich Hasse from the University of Greifswald introduce a possible approach to CO2 reduction: deliberately planted forests bind the CO2 through photosynthesis and are then removed from the global cycle byburial.

Novel mechanisms controlling insulin release and fat deposition discovered

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Karolinska Institutet) Scientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have in two recent studies shown that a receptor called ALK7 plays important roles in the regulation of body fat deposition as well as the release of insulin from beta-cells in the pancreas. These findings have implications for the development of treatments against diabetes and obesity.

First electrophysical recording of sleep in a wild animal

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) In the first experiment to record the electrophysiology of sleep in a wild animal, three-toed sloths carrying miniature electroencephalogram recorders slept 9.63 hours per day -- 6 hours less than captive sloths did, reports an international team of researchers working on the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Barro Colorado Island in Panama.

Sticky gecko feet: The role of temperature and humidity

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Public Library of Science) A team of five University of Akron researchers has published the paper, "Sticky gecko feet: the role of temperature and humidity" in PLoS ONE, an open-access, online journal for peer-reviewed scientific and medical research.

Shrimps see beyond the rainbow

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Public Library of Science) Dr Sonja Kleinlogel and professor Andrew White have shown that mantis shrimp not only have the ability to see colors from the ultraviolet through to the infrared, but have optimal polarization vision -- a first for any animal and a capability that humanity has only achieved in the last decade using fast computer technology. The findings are published this week in the journal PLoS ONE.

Air pollution, smoking affect latent tuberculosis

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Alabama at Birmingham) Study shows for the first time how carbon monoxide triggers Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, to shift from active infection to a drug-resistant dormant state. TB latency is a global problem that results in tuberculosis escaping detection and treatment. The CO biological trigger happens with both airborne and internal sources of the gas.

ASU researchers synthesize molecule with self-control

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Arizona State University) Plants have an ambivalent relationship with light. They need it to live, but too much light leads to the increased production of high-energy chemical intermediates that can injure or kill the plant. The intermediates do this because the efficient conversion of sunlight into chemical energy cannot keep up with sunlight streaming into the plant. "The intermediates don’t have anywhere to go because the system is jammed up down the line," says ASU chemist Devens Gust.

New clues to how proteins dissolve and crystallize

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) The Hofmeister series governs the strengths of ions in inducing protein unfolding and many other phenomena and remains vital to protein chemistry to this day. Although it dates from the late 19th century, its mechanism has never been properly understood. A team led by Richard Saykally of DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found strong experimental support for a new explanation of Hofmeister effects, known as the Law of Matching Water Affinities.

Beyond nutrition -- plants deliver

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Wiley-Blackwell) The need for a renewable and affordable source of carbon that can sustain future economic development without negatively impacting the environment is now widely recognized. It is also apparent that the increasingly high demand for fossil carbon will eventually deplete existing stocks.

Federal government taps NC State experts to explain nanotech risks

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(North Carolina State University) The arm of the federal government responsible for coordinating nanotechnology research and regulations across the country has called on experts from North Carolina State University to craft a white paper that will lay out how government and industry officials should communicate potential risks associated with nanotechnology to the media and the public. NC State communication expert Dr. David Berube has been negotiating this project for nearly 18 months.

Are anxiety disorders all in the mind?

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Society of Nuclear Medicine) Using single-photon emission computed tomography, researchers in the Netherlands were able to detect biochemical differences in the brains of individuals with generalized social anxiety disorder, providing evidence of a long-suspected biological cause for the dysfunction.

Oxidation of contaminants as if they got burnt in the water itself

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Elhuyar Fundazioa) Reducing the level of contamination of water is the aim of the line of research being undertaken by Dr. José Ignacio Lombraña at the University of the Basque Country's Faculty of Science and Technology. He is investigating chemical treatment capable of eliminating contaminants dumped by industry, in order to reuse the waste water.

What's the difference between a human and a fruit fly?

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Imperial College London) Fruit flies are dramatically different from humans not in their number of genes, but in the number of protein interactions in their bodies, according to scientists who have developed a new way of estimating the total number of interactions between proteins in any organism.

Model shows how mutation tips biochemistry to cause Alzheimer's

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of North Carolina at Charlotte) Forms of early-onset Alzheimer's disease are known to be hereditary, caused by single point mutations. Now, using sophisticated computer simulations, a team of physical chemists have shown precisely how the substitution of one amino acid for one that is very similar causes a subtle change in the shape of a peptide and tips a very delicate chemical balance, creating build-up of the toxic by-products and finally resulting in catastrophic disease.