Saturday 26 July 2014

Food allergies: a new, simple method to track down allergens

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Scientists at EPFL have developed a fast and accurate method for determining exactly which proteins cause allergies to milk. The novel approach can extend to other foods as well. Although food allergies are common, sufferers often don’t know exactly what in foods cause their allergic reactions. This knowledge could help develop customized therapies, like training the body’s immune system to respond to certain proteins found in foods. However, determining which protein in a food causes an allergic response to a patient requires time-consuming tests that often ignore rare or unexpected allergens. Publishing in Analytical Chemistry, EPFL scientists have developed a highly-sensitive method that can quickly and accurately identify the culprit proteins even at very low concentrations. The method has been successfully tested in the context of cow milk allergy. Food allergies are becoming widespread in the Western world today, affecting around 6-8% of children and about 3% of adults. These types of allergies occur when the body’s immune system mistakes a harmless food protein for a threat and attacks it as it would normally do with a bacterium or a virus. This causes symptoms like swelling, rashes, pain, and even life-threatening anaphylactic shocks. Cow milk allergy is common among children, preventing

The post Food allergies: a new, simple method to track down allergens has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Space Walk 1 Poster

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Space Walk 1

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The world’s first photonic router

Science Focus

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Weizmann Institute scientists take another step down the long road toward quantum computers Illustration of the photonic router the Weizmann Institute scientists created. At the center is the single atom (orange) that routes photons (yellow) in different directions Weizmann Institute scientists have demonstrated for the first time a photonic router – a quantum device based on a single atom that enables routing of single photons by single photons. This achievement, as reported in Science magazine, is another step toward overcoming the difficulties in building quantum computers. At the core of the device is an atom that can switch between two states. The state is set just by sending a single particle of light – or photon – from the right or the left via an optical fiber. The atom, in response, then reflects or transmits the next incoming photon, accordingly. For example, in one state, a photon coming from the right continues on its path to the left, whereas a photon coming from the left is reflected backwards, causing the atomic state to flip. In this reversed state, the atom lets photons coming from the left continue in the same direction, while any photon coming from the right is reflected backwards, flipping the

The post The world’s first photonic router has been published on Technology Org.

 
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NGC 253: Dusty Island Universe

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Shiny NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, and also one of the dustiest. Some call it the Silver Dollar Galaxy for its appearance in small telescopes, or just the Sculptor Galaxy for its location within the boundaries of the southern constellation Sculptor. First swept up in 1783 by mathematician and astronomer Caroline Herschel, the dusty island universe lies a mere 10 million light-years away. About 70 thousand light-years across, NGC 253 is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest to our own Local Group of Galaxies. In addition to its spiral dust lanes, tendrils of dust seem to be rising from a galactic disk laced with young star clusters and star forming regions in this sharp color image. The high dust content accompanies frantic star formation, earning NGC 253 the designation of a starburst galaxy. NGC 253 is also known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays, likely due to massives black hole near the galaxy's center.

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Physicists discuss quantum pigeonhole principle

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The pigeonhole principle: "If you put three pigeons in two pigeonholes at least two of the pigeons end up in the same hole." So where's the argument? Physicists say there is an important argument. While the principle captures the very essence of counting, the investigators said that they showed that in quantum mechanics it is not true.



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Extracting electrons from neutral water using mineral catalyst

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The research group of Professor Kazuhito Hashimoto and their colleagues at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Engineering, working with researchers at RIKEN (Team Leader Ryuhei Nakamura and Junior Research Associate Akira Yamaguchi), developed an artificial Manganese (Mn)-based catalyst which can split neutral water to extract electrons by utilizing the same mechanism as the natural photosynthetic system. Water molecules are one of the most abundant electron sources in nature and are an important chemical resource for creating hydrogen and organic fuels. In nature, photosynthetic organisms such as plants utilize Mn-containing enzymes to obtain electrons from water, using which they then produce carbohydrates from carbon dioxide. Inspired by and mimicking the structure of this enzyme, artificial Mn-based catalysts have been developed to extract electrons from water. Although artificially developed Mn-based catalysts can obtain electrons from water efficiently under acidic or alkaline conditions, their activity drastically decreases under neutral pH. The reason why these catalysts do not work under neutral pH and the origin of the activity difference between the natural and artificial Mn-based catalysts was unknown. The research group considered the activity difference in terms of the electron and proton transfer mechanism, and investigated the electron and proton transfer process

The post Extracting electrons from neutral water using mineral catalyst has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Rosette Nebula Photo Room Sticker

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