Thursday 21 August 2014

Making cashews safer for those with allergies

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For the millions of adults and children in the U.S. who have to shun nuts to avoid an allergic reaction, help could be on the way. Scientists are now developing a method to process cashews — and potentially other nuts — that could make them safer to eat for people who are allergic to them. The researchers are presenting their work at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society. The meeting, being held here through Thursday, features nearly 12,000 presentations on a wide range of science topics. “The only widely accepted practice for preventing an allergic reaction to nuts is strict avoidance — stay away from the food,” notes Chris Mattison, Ph.D. “Clinical trials to test immunotherapy are underway, but we’re approaching it from an agricultural perspective rather than medical. Can we change the food, instead of treating the person, so we can eliminate or reduce severe reactions?” For those with food allergies, responses to offending products can range from mild itching in the mouth or skin to life-threatening anaphylaxis, which makes it hard to breathe. Once every three minutes, someone in the U.S. ends up in the emergency room due

The post Making cashews safer for those with allergies has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Exotic grains from cosmos identified

Science Focus

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Scientists may have identified the first known dust particles from outside our Solar System, in samples returned to Earth by a Nasa space mission. 
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 » see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28788547#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Color hologram uses plasmonic nanoparticles to store large amounts of information

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(Phys.org) —In the 4th century, the Romans built a special glass cup, called the Lycurgus cup, that changes colors depending on which way the light is shining through it. The glass is made of finely ground silver and gold dust that produces a dichroic, or color-changing, effect. Although the makers of the Lycurgus cup likely did not know the mechanism responsible for the color-changing glass, today scientists recognize the mechanism as surface plasmon resonance, and it is a phenomenon that continues to hold great scientific interest.



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Venus and Jupiter at Dawn

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On Monday morning, Venus and Jupiter gathered close in dawn skies, for some separated by about half the width of a full moon. It was their closest conjunction since 2000, captured here above the eastern horizon before sunrise. The serene and colorful view is from Istia beach near the city of Capoliveri on the island of Elba. Distant lights and rolling hills are along Italy's Tuscan coast. Of course, the celestial pair soon wandered apart. Brighter Venus headed lower, toward the eastern horizon and the glare of the Sun, while Jupiter continues to rise a little higher now in the sky near dawn. The two brightest planets meet again next June 30th, in the evening twilight above the western horizon.

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Carina Nebula Hubble Space Room Graphic

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: carina nebula, nebula, astronomy, stars, nasa, mystic mountain, outer space, deep space, nature, cool astronomy, star formation, milky way, hh 901, hh 902, esa, universe, hubble telescope, hubble space telescope, hubble photo, cosmos, astronomical, cosmology, space, natural, science, space picture, space image, nebula picture, cool astronomy photo, cool space photo, nebula photo, nebula image

Hubble telescope photograph of the Carina Nebula

This photo of the Carina Nebula was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is reminiscent of a sci-fi/fantasy illustration, and shows an enormous mountainous pillar of dust and gas in rich orange tones, against a starlit deep blue background.

Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)

You can personalise the design further if you'd prefer, such as by adding your name or other text, or adjusting the image - just click 'Customize it' to see all the options. IMPORTANT: If you choose a different sized version of the product, it's important to click Customize and check the image in the Design view to ensure it fills the area to the edge of the product, otherwise white edges may be visible.

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Keeping filler ingredients out of your cup of coffee

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Coffee drinkers beware: Surprise ingredients that are neither sweet nor flavorful may be hiding in your coffee, and growing coffee shortages may increase the chance of having these fillers in your cup of joe in the future. The good news is that a highly accurate test is in the works to quickly find coffee containing unwanted fillers before the beverage reaches stores and restaurants. These extra ingredients, though not harmful, make ground coffee go farther and increase profits for producers, according to researchers. Their report will be part of the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society. The meeting features nearly 12,000 reports and is being held here through Thursday. A test to detect counterfeit coffees is becoming more important in light of growing shortages in regions, such as Brazil, where droughts and plant diseases have dramatically cut back coffee supplies. “With a lower supply of coffee in the market, prices rise, and that favors fraud because of the economic gain,” says research team leader Suzana Lucy Nixdorf, Ph.D. In 2012, a study from the U.K.’s Royal Botanic Gardens and the Environment stated that 70 percent of the world’s coffee supply might

The post Keeping filler ingredients out of your cup of coffee has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Nanodiamond tech lights new path in medical diagnostics

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Credit: Youris Earlier this month TechCrunch featured a look at a company that wants to make a difference in finding cancer before it spreads using nanodiamond-based technology. The idea is that nanodiamonds can detect molecular abnormalities at an early stage, and as such could help a patient’s chances for survival. The company is called Bikanta. Founded in 2013, the company is interested in what fluorescent diamonds inside the body can mean to the future of medical diagnostics. The company website said it has developed nanodiamond-based technology; nanodiamonds are superior optical probes with the key beneficial features such as biocompatibility, brightness and signal stability, and cost, the site added. Nanodiamonds are exquisitely sensitive to magnetic fields, said the company, and this sensitivity can be used to reduce background noise more than 100-fold over current methods and to improve visualization deeper into the body. Bikanta said it is also designing novel imaging scanners and microscopes to improve detection capabilities.   Read more at: Phys.org  

The post Nanodiamond tech lights new path in medical diagnostics has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Why NASA studies the ultraviolet sun

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You cannot look at the sun without special filters, and the naked eye cannot perceive certain wavelengths of sunlight. Solar physicists must consequently rely on spacecraft that can observe this invisible light before the atmosphere absorbs it.

via Science Daily

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Space station inspired robot to help heal sick children

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The same companies which developed the robotic arms that helped astronauts build the International Space Station have now created a new research platform. Called KidsArm, this robot allows surgeons to quickly navigate to surgical sites in the body. It has an advanced imaging and control system that makes it extremely precise, and it is designed to explore the potential for automating certain demanding tasks in minimally invasive pediatric surgery.

via Science Daily

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GPIM spacecraft to validate use of 'green' propellant

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Milestone progress is being made in readying NASA's Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) for launch in 2016, a smallsat designed to test the unique attributes of a high-performance, non-toxic, "green" fuel on orbit.

via Science Daily

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How the sun caused an aurora this week

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On the evening of Aug. 20, 2014, the International Space Station was flying past North America when it flew over the dazzling, green blue lights of an aurora. On board, astronaut Reid Wiseman captured this image of the aurora, seen from above.

via Science Daily

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Boomerang Nebula Hubble Astronomy Room Stickers

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: boomerang nebula, nebula, stars, nasa, astronomy, universe, outer space, hubble telescope, nature, cool space, nebulae, esa, hubble space telescope, hubble photo, cosmos, astronomical, astrophotography, cosmology, deep space, space, natural, science, space picture, space photo, space image, nebula picture, nebula photo, nebula image, blue, cool astronomy

Hubble photograph of the Boomerang Nebula

This photograph of the Boomerang Nebula was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1998. It shows the bow-tie-shaped nebula in beautiful bright blue and white colours, against a dark starry background.

Credit: NASA, ESA, R. Sahai and J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and the WFPC2 Science Team

You can personalise the design further if you'd prefer, such as by adding your name or other text, or adjusting the image - just click 'Customize it' to see all the options. IMPORTANT: If you choose a different sized version of the product, it's important to click Customize and check the image in the Design view to ensure it fills the area to the edge of the product, otherwise white edges may be visible.

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If you like this product, you can find more like it in my store:

Click here to view all the other items with this design.

Click here to see a wide range of other astronomy & space designs.

»visit the AstronomyGiftShop store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Hubble eXtreme Deep Field Cover For The iPad Mini

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: hubble extreme deep field, hubble deep field, extreme deep field, hubble, astronomy, cosmology, galaxies, deep space, xdf, outer space

The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) is an image of a small part of space in the center of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field within the constellation Fornax, showing the deepest optical view in space. Released on September 25, 2012, it took 10 years to compile the images and shows galaxies from 13.2 billion years ago. The exposure time was two million seconds, or approximately 23 days. The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see. The red galaxies are the remnants of galaxies after major collisions during their elderly years. Many of the smaller galaxies are very young galaxies that eventually became the major galaxies, like the Milky Way and other galaxies in our galactic neighborhood. The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, adds another 5,500 galaxies to Hubble's 2003 and 2004 view into a tiny patch of the farthest universe.

This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Credit: NASA; ESA; G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch, University of California, Santa Cruz; R. Bouwens, Leiden University; and the HUDF09 Team.

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