Alzeheimer’s Targeted
Researchers at Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry have found the trigger for the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. This is huge for targeted drugs, because right now there are very few drugs out there can barely treat the systems.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130520154217.htm
Here is the paper on the “Robobee Project”
#TUPROBS
Could not help but post this because as a Transy student/ about to be graduate (weirddd) I think it’s safe to say that we consume way too much coffee or whatever keeps you up on those late study nights. I found this and had to share.Â
Just Something Neat
Last Assignment- nanoscavengers
So as I was looking through my fed, Kaitlin’s post on nano-landscapes caught my interest. I have never heard much on nanotechnology ,so of course I went to Wikipedia to get a better understanding of it. Nanotechnology is defined by the manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular scale to create materials with varied and new properties. I did not realize how wide spread this technology is and how up and coming the field is. The uses are endless, from healthcare to construction and electronics.
I then found an intesresting article on nanoscavengers which are useful in contaminated water. They will float around and bump into/ kill bacteria present or attach themselves to the bacteria so when the magnet is turned on, all the particles just vanish. This Standord team’s magnet is not really a magnet but what they call a “synthetic antiferromagnetic cores”- which has magnetic moments. Thus being better than the technologies today that use iron oxide as there magnet and leave too many nanoscavengers in the water, making it unhealthy for human use. The new silver cappped nanoscavengers with its synthetic core killed up to 99.9% of the bacteria (E. coli) in the water in just 20 mintues and removed the nanoscavengers in under 5 mintues! This could be huge in developing nations for recycling water or anywhere with contaminated water. Their goal is a “one-pot solution” that can clear water of multiple contaminants through this purification method.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130515151543.htm
This is another interesting article I found on nanotechnology in medicine and some of the risks- probably more intersting than my first because there are some cool pictures 🙂
More Stem Cells- growth of bones cells from stem cells
From BWH- (Harvard- affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital) were the 1st to find that synthetic silicate nanoplatelets or how I like to call them, layered clay, can induce stem cells to become bone celss without adding bone-inducing factors. Scientist hope that this could be used as injectable therapy for bone loss due to age or degenerative disease.
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/05/using-clay-to-grow-bone/
cool bacteria artwork
found these and thought they were cool/ someone has a lot of free time on their hands
I’m not the mom- Penis Fencing Flatworm video
I thought this 2 minute video was pretty interesting because flatworms are hermaphroditic having both male and female functional penises, testes and ovaries. Depending which one loses the penis fencing match off, is the mother which is very costly and therefore has to change it’s daily behavior while dad can just swim off free of any responsibilitiesÂ
Not Within but Around- other structures in brain create new circuits
Researchers at UCLA “found that parts of the prefrontal cortex take over when the hippocampus, the brain’s key center of learning and memory formation, is disabled. Their breakthrough discovery, the first demonstration of such neural-circuit plasticity, could potentially help scientists develop new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and other conditions involving damage to the brain.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130515165027.htm
The Dailey Know 