Tuesday 20 May 2014

Cutting cancer to pieces: New research on bleomycin

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A variety of cancers are treated with the anti-tumor agent bleomycin, though its disease-fighting properties remain poorly understood. In a new study, lead author Basab Roy—a researcher at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute—describes bleomycin’s ability to cut through double-stranded DNA in cancerous cells, like a pair of scissors. Such DNA cleavage often leads to cell death in particular types of cancer cells. The paper is co-authored by professor Sidney Hecht, director of Biodesign’s Center for BioEnergetics. The study presents, for the first time, alternative biochemical mechanisms for DNA cleavage by bleomycin. The new research will help inform efforts to fine-tune the drug, improving its cancer-killing properties, while limiting toxicity to healthy cells. Results of the study recently appeared in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Bleomycin is part of a family of structurally related antibiotics produced by the bacterium, Streptomyces verticillus. Three potent versions of the drug, labeled A2 , A5 and B2 are the primary forms in clinical use against cancer. Bleomycin’s cancer-fighting capacity was first observed in 1966 by Japanese researcher Hamao Umezawa. The drug gained FDA approval in 1973 and has been in use since then, particularly for the treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, squamous cell carcinomas, and

The post Cutting cancer to pieces: New research on bleomycin has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Doctors close in on vaccinations against heroin, cocaine, and meth

Science Focus

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In the near future, your doctor may be able to offer you a shot to guard against heroin as easily as she can give you one for tetanus or diphtheria. Anti-drug vaccines could soon be a viable option for users who want to kick their habits — and they're shifting how we think about addiction.

Currently, there are injectable treatments in development for all of the so-called "Big Four" addictive substances: methamphetamine, nicotine, heroin, and cocaine addictions. While individual vaccines vary, they all tend to work by training the immune system to produce antibodies as soon as the user...

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 » see original post http://theweek.com/article/index/261812/doctors-close-in-on-vaccinations-against-heroin-cocaine-and-meth
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How accurate are weather forecasts?

Science Focus

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Weather forecasting is the classic inexact science, relying on the complex mutual interactions of wind, currents, precipitation, tides, humidity, and temperature variations, and a million other variables across a planet that's rotating on its axis, revolving around its heat source, and tilted with regard to its plane of revolution. To say forecasting the weather is tricky is putting it mildly indeed.

In fact, it was while working on weather prediction that mathematician Edward Lorenz began to conceive Chaos Theory, the mathematical theory which says some systems, highly sensitive to initial...

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 » see original post http://theweek.com/article/index/261817/how-accurate-are-weather-forecasts
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VIDEO: What can a $200 smart vest do?

Science Focus

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Richard Taylor finds out from Stephane Marceau, founder of Canadian startup OMSignal, what their \$200 smart vest can do. 
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 » see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27336279#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Red Supergiant Star V838 Monocerotis Square Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: envelope sealers, amazing astronomy images, hubble images, monocerotis, supermassive red giant, stars, interstellar dust, swirling dust clouds, monoceros constellation, red supergiant star

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous astronomy picture featuring a distant star, named V838 Monocerotis, in the direction of the constellation of Monoceros on the outer edge of our Milky Way. The image shows the swirls of dust spiralling across trillions of miles of interstellar space, lit mainly from within by a pulse of light from the red supergiant, two years into its journey.

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Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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In the Center of Spiral Galaxy M61

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Flexible pressure-sensor film shows how much force a surface ‘feels’—in color

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Imagine an automobile crash test that uses test dummies painted all over with a substance that can change color according to the levels of stress that various parts of the dummies’ bodies will endure. Such a “color map” could provide vital information to engineers designing safer automobiles.   Or imagine baseball gloves that when worn show the batters if they are using the appropriate amount of pressure to grip their bats, resulting in better performance. New technology developed at the University of California, Riverside may now make the above and similar ideas a reality. Indeed, the technology could be applied to improve everyday devices, such as smartphones, that for operation rely on the right amount of pressure applied to them. “We have developed a high-resolution pressure sensor that indicates pressure by varying its color—a sensor that all of us can use with just our eyes,” said Yadong Yin, an associate professor of chemistry, whose lab led the research. The lab used a self-assembly method to string together gold nanoparticles which they then embedded into a polymer film. The film deformed when pressed, stretching the gold nanoparticle strings by increasing the separation between neighboring gold nanoparticles. Read more at: Phys.org  

The post Flexible pressure-sensor film shows how much force a surface ‘feels’—in color has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Improved supercapacitors for super batteries, electric vehicles

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Researchers have developed a novel nanometer scale ruthenium oxide anchored nanocarbon graphene foam architecture that improves the performance of supercapacitors, a development that could mean faster acceleration in electric vehicles and longer battery life in portable electronics.

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Earth organisms survive under Martian conditions: Methanogens stay alive in extreme heat and cold

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New research suggests that methanogens -- among the simplest and oldest organisms on Earth -- could survive on Mars. Methanogens, microorganisms in the domain Archaea, use hydrogen as their energy source and carbon dioxide as their carbon source, to metabolize and produce methane, also known as natural gas. Methanogens live in swamps and marshes, but can also be found in the gut of cattle, termites and other herbivores as well as in dead and decaying matter.

via Science Daily

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Carina Nebula, Star Forming Gas-cloud Sculpture Rectangle Sticker

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Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A beautiful space photograph featuring the 7500 light year distant Carina Nebula. This Hubble image shows rich, interstellar gas clouds feeding the formation of new stars. As a proto star forms, the gas clouds get dragged to its surface and some gets emitted as tight jets of material travelling at hundreds of miles per second. These in turn help sculpt the gas clouds into weird and grotesque shapes, some looking like strange worms, swimming through space.

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image code: cnbigc

Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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