Wires one-millionth of a millimetre wide change composition along their length.
Wires one-millionth of a millimetre wide that change chemical composition along their length, just as fruit pastilles change flavour along a packet, have been grown in the United States. These multi-flavoured nanowires can act as miniature bar-codes, diodes and light sources.
Conventional microelectronics components are etched into flat layers of semiconducting material. Charles Lieber and collea
Drug leads in protein that sends gut bacteria packing
A protein enables harmful Salmonella bacteria to switch from clinging to our gut lining to swimming off. This get-up-and-go is so crucial to Salmonella’s survival that the protein could prove to be a good target for drugs.
The Salmonella variant Typhimurium causes around 1.4 million cases of food poisoning in the United States each year, and about 1,000 deaths – mainly among infants and the elderly. The bug grips the gut
The information in DNA can be copied into new molecules without proteins’ help.
Chemists have reproduced the basic process of information transfer central to all life without the catalysts that facilitate it in living cells 1 .
They show that DNA alone can pass its message on to subsequent generations. Many researchers believe that DNA-like molecules acted thus to get life started about four billion years ago – before catalytic proteins existed to help DNA t
Climate prediction just got trickier, according to two new studies appearing in the current issue of the journal Science. Analysis of more than two decades of satellite data shows that more sunlight entered the tropics and more heat escaped to space in the 1990s than a decade earlier. Moreover, current climate models fail to account for the new findings, suggesting that they may contain more uncertainty than previously thought.
For the earth’s climate to remain unchanged, the planet’s ener
The coral reefs of New Caledonia, a major focus of marine biodiversity, are exceptional as subjects for investigation by zoologists and ecologists. They harbour an extraordinary profusion of species, representing one of the most complex ecosystems in the world’s oceans. Exploration of a single bay, during the Lifou 2000 research campaign, found a treasure trove of discoveries highly stimulating for scientific imagination and debate.
The scientific survey LIFOU 2000, organized and led jointly
Smart process cleans up contaminated water.
A smart material identifies and destroys toxic pollutants in water. When exposed to the offending molecules, tiny light-emitting zinc oxide particles glow dimly, burn them up, and glow brightly to show they’ve finished 1 .
The advantage of such an approach, say Prashant Kamat and co-workers at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, is that the energy-consuming burn-up stage switches on only when pollutants are pre
GENOPIA Biomedical LLC (GENOPIA), a biotechnology firm headquartered in Saarbücken, Germany and Ciphergen Biosystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CIPH) in Fremont, CA, will collaborate on the discovery and the development of new drug targets and candidates for CNS diseases. GENOPIA Biomedical focuses on the development of novel drug candidates and uses advanced proteomics as its main drug discovery and high-throughput screening tool, while Ciphergen Biosystems is a world leader in the development of proteomics te
Many Europeans are now learning to deal with a new currency. But also cash dispensers and cigarette machines must distinguish clearly between euros, the old currencies and counterfeit money. A miniature computer now checks the coins by means of digital image processing.
For users of the new European currency, having adequate safeguards against forgery is a matter of great importance. The paper money incorporates features such as holograms, watermarks, a security thread, and embossed text to
Oxygen and light can alter the taste of foodstuffs. Manufacturers of packaging materials therefore try to protect contents from their influence. The latest approach is to use natural dyes in transparent plastic wrappers that selectively filter light.
Light and oxygen adversely affect the quality of most foodstuffs. In combination they cause various ingredients to undergo photo-oxidation. Fatty food substances become rancid and milk products develop an unpleasant “light-induced” taste. Certai
The use of halogenated flame retardants in plastics is steadily declining because they are volatile, pose an environmental risk and are difficult to recycle. Microcapsules, fibers and melamine resin foams represent some of the chief alternatives.
As successfully as the endless variety of plastics have established themselves on the market, these multifaceted materials show another face when it comes to fire. They melt and feed the flames like the petroleum from which they were ultimately pro
Today`s machines produce paper so rapidly that visual quality control is stretched to its limits. New automated systems with cameras and image analysis algorithms manage this flood of paper with no problem – they can even tackle the job with patterned wood and textiles.
The fastest papermaking machine in the world produces a roll of paper approximately 10 meters wide at the rate of 100 kilometers per hour. In less than 20 seconds the paper would cover an area the size of a soccer field. Impo
Dividing, unfertilised eggs could offer new therapeutic option
US researchers have cloned stem cells from the unfertilized eggs of primates – our closest animal relatives. The achievement suggests it may be possible to grow cells that can give rise to any tissue in the human body without cloning and destroying human embryos.
Some researchers in the field doubt whether the technique will work in humans. And opponents of therapeutic cloning do not believe the new cells solve a
Disinfecting male birds might not help curb Lyme disease.
Treating male pheasants against the ticks that carry Lyme disease might do more harm than good. Tick-free males are more sexually attractive, so untreated males are forced to roam farther in search of mates, possibly spreading ticks as they go.
A blood-dwelling bacterium called Borrelia causes Lyme disease, famed for its arthritic symptoms. Ticks spread the bug when they bite rodents, birds, deer and humans.
Researchers at the University of Warwick`s Emergency Medicine Research Group have shown that the introduction of a separate stream for minor injuries in a hospital casualty department can reduce the overall number of trauma patients having to wait over an hour for treatment by around 30%.
Dr Matthew Cooke from the University of Warwick`s Centre for Primary Health Care Studies Emergency Medicine Research Group led a research team which looked at a scheme where the University Hospitals Coventr
Over a third of women attending general practices have experienced physical violence, but doctors and nurses rarely ask about it. Researchers in this week’s BMJ ask:
Should women be screened for domestic violence when they visit their general practitioner?
Is there a high risk group of women for whom screening might be more appropriate?
Is screening acceptable to women?
A sample of women visiting 13 general practices in Hackney, east London were surveyed about different aspects o
Genes are of little importance in the development of rheumatoid arthritis, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.
Researchers in Denmark surveyed over 37,000 twins about rheumatic diseases. Twin studies are one of the simplest ways to unravel the relative importance of genetic and environmental effects of a disease. Twins who reported that they had rheumatoid arthritis were invited to have a clinical examination.
Rheumatoid arthritis was verified in 13 identical and 36 non-identic
Feedback
