Australian scientists have compared evidence obtained using infrared spectroscopy with high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with a chemometrics analysis and demonstrated that this latter approach can distinguish between ballpoint pen inks much more effectively than IR alone. Read about this as well as other news with a spectroscopic bent in the latest updates from spectroscopynow.com including the A to Z of solar-powered nanomotors, and a fishy business in Croatia
Author: David Bradley
Nanotech Pioneers
It is on the nanometre scale where chemists, physicists, materials scientists and engineers, and even biologists will meet to create a new technology – nanotechnology. This book’s cover claims nanotech was “scarcely imagined a few decades ago”, but what about Fantastic Voyage, and, of course, Feynman’s predictions? Well, like they say, don’t judge a book by its cover. Nanotech is likely to dominate the 21st century and affect our lives in ways we have not yet determined. By definition, nanotech is far too small to be visible to the human eye, and so its effects may well catch us by surprise.
Despite nanotech’s science fiction aura, consumer products already exist that rely on its earliest manifestations, although one has to say that most of these are not the nanotech of molecular machines, but generally just particles that are nanometres across or materials with nanoscale features that endow them with their particular properties.
The variety of new products and technologies that will spin out of nanoscience will, nevertheless be limited only by the imagination of the scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs drawn to this new field – The Nanotech Pioneers.
Steve Edwards presents nanotechnology and its leading makers in an easily understandable fashion, suited for all readers regardless of academic background, but with enough facts and details to separate the hype from the real nanotech that is just around the next corner. Edwards brings nanotechnology closer to the science-interested general public as well as scientists, students, organizations, journalists, politicians, and entrepreneurs.
Venture Capitalizing on Avian Flu Risk
According to the latest issue of FierceBiotech, just received in the Sciencebase office, venture capitalists are hoping to invest in bird flu. Apparently, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (they always have such long company names don’t they?) is starting a US$200 million life sciences fund to focus on new therapies against avian influenza ahead of a putative global pandemic. FierceBiotech reports that biopharma and university groups are to be steered towards this area of research with BioCryst Pharmaceuticals of Birmingham, first up for funding to help it develop its antiviral Peramivir.
Think Geek
I found a great site for all those gadgets that will make you the envy of the lab! Check out ThinkGeek gifts for geeks for hi-tech lights and lasers, Swiss Army USB knives, PIX Sports LED pedometer and message display, PowerSquid outlet multipliers, USB lava lamps (don’t ask!), wifi digital hotspot spotter, atomic dog tags (for supercool mutts with a penchant for retro chic), LED candles, and best of all – green laser pointers (beats those old-fashioned red ones on the lecture circuit any day).
And, as it’s my birthday today, feel free to send me any gadgety gift you like!
Loud Music Makes Ecstasy Worse
People taking ecstasy at noisy nightclubs could be doing themselves more harm than those who imbibe 3,4 -methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ecstasy) at quieter locations.
Research published on February 16, in the journal BMC Neuroscience, shows that brain activity in MDMA-taking rats due to the drug lasts up to five days if the animals are listening to loud music, says a press release from BMC, when they ingest the drug. The drug’s effects wear off within a day when no music is played.
Actually, Michelangelo Iannone from the Institute of Neurological Science, Italy, and colleagues from University Magna Graecia in Catanzaro, Italy, do not report this at all. That’s just what the press release claims. In fact, the rats were exposed to white noise, random acoustic stimulation at 95 db. The press release explains that white noise is sound at a stable frequency that is used in many types of electronic music. Well, it is, usually to simulate the rythmic, “hissy”, bursts of the hi-hat cymbals in a drumkit, but it’s not usually a continuous sound.
Anyway, Iannone’s results show that low-dose MDMA did not modify the brain activity of the rats compared with saline, as long as no music was played. However, the total spectrum of the rats given a low dose of MDMA significantly decreased once loud music was played. The spectrum of rats in the control group was not modified by loud music. High-dose MDMA induced a reduction in brain activity, compared with both saline and low-dose MDMA. This reduction was enhanced once the loud music was turned on and lasted for up to five days after administration of the drug. In rats that had been given a high dose of MDMA but had not been exposed to music, brain activity returned to normal one day after administration of the drug.
Sliding Under
In Issue 33 of PSIgate Spotlight, I discuss new insights into the differences between the subduction zones where the Earth’s tectonic plates slide across each other. The research in questsion could help in earthquake prediction and allow seismologists to discover in advance whether an imminent earthquake will be weaker or as powerful as those that shook Indonesia in 2004, Alaska in 1964, Chile in 1960 and the Pacific Northwest United States in 1700.
Muscle and Musculature
I wrote a report for the UK’s Royal Society some time ago that continues to get a lot of visitors. The original report covers the mechanism of muscle contraction. Oddly though, most readers don’t bother reading parts 2 and 3 of this three-part report. Now, that’s either because they simply didn’t like my writing style or were bored by the article, but I like to think it is neither of those things and that visitors to that page are looking for something else.
What could that something else be? Well, it’s either pictures of people with muscles, or methods for making your own, I’m pretty sure. With that in mind, I searched the web for a decent publication that my readers could download and found this little gem. The book is called “Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle” and as the name may suggest it provides a program of top methods to help you shape up. As a regular gym goer, former squash player, cyclist and swimmer, I thought I knew most of what anyone needs to know about how to stay in shape, but BtFFtM’s author (unlike so many others) practices what he preaches and can back up his book with an impeccable track record, and I reckon anyone can find remove for improvement whatever their fitness level.
I’m only going to leave this link in my blog for a week or so, so if you’re one of the dozens of people looking to shape up those muscles who hit my muscle science pages, then grab the ebook while it’s live.
Download – Burn the fat feed the muscle
Uber Pluto
New measurements published earlier this month support recent claims that the planetary membership of our Solar System should be extended to include a tenth that is bigger than Pluto. 2003 UB313 was first spotted in January 2005 by Mike Brown’s team at Caltech, but recent thermal emission measurements have recently allowed German scientists to estimate its diameter at approximately 3100 km, some 700 km larger than Pluto. This makes it the biggest object to be discovered in the solar system since the discovery of Neptune in 1846. For comparison, Earth’s Moon has a diameter of about 3500 km.
Get the new spin in my : Spotlight Science News column on PSIgate.
Face Off
Our brains have a specific mechanism for recognising human faces that is separate from the mechanism that allows us to recognise objects like houses, cars, horses or even
parts of the body, according to Brad Duchaine of University College London. In a forthcoming paper in the journal Cognitive Neuropsychology, he shows how we recognise faces by analysing
one man, who cannot tell one face from another.
I assume he’s not generalising from this one case to the whole human race, but it’s an intriguing piece of work nevertheless.
Duchaine said: ‘There have been many theories about whether there is a part of the brain that deals specifically with faces or whether faces and other objects are handled by the same brain areas. We’ve found that there is a different, very separate, bit of the brain that lets you recognise faces. If those cells aren’t working, someone may not be able to tell two faces apart but they
will recognise two horses apart. This indicates that we go about looking at, analysing and recognising faces in a different way from how we recognise objects.
‘There are many theories out there about how we recognise faces and whether there is a separate social bit of the brain. So that we could draw firm conclusions to prove our facial recognition theory, we addressed all the alternatives in a single case study — Edward, a 53 year-old married man with a PhD in theology and physics, who happens to be unable to
recognise faces.’
For more than 35 years, researchers have debated whether face recognition is carried out by face-specific mechanisms or whether it involves more generic mechanisms that are also used for objects. Prosopagnosic patients (people who have difficulty recognising faces) have been some of the most powerful sources of evidence for there being face-specific mechanisms.
Scientists have put forward a number of different theories about why some people can’t recognise faces. One theory states that people with face recognition just have problems with objects that have a lot of curved surfaces (Curvature explanation); another theory states that it’s caused by problems with perceiving distances between parts such as judging the distance between eyes (Configural-processing explanation); another puts it down to a problem in recognising any individual item in a class — objects and faces (individuation explanation); another points to an inability to develop expertise with regularly encountered objects
(Expertise explanation).
But, for each case of prosopagnosia that has been scientifically tested there have always been several untested alternative explanations that could account for the inability to recognise faces. Each of these individuals has not been sufficiently tested to provide conclusive evidence for face-specific processes.
This study addresses all the existing theories that make a case against there being a specific mechanism in the brain that deals just with faces. Duchaine said: ‘We reject each in turn and eliminate all alternative accounts. The results show that face recognition uses mechanisms in the
brain that are different from those used in recognising anything else.’
The tests at UCL were done using a variety of types of objects — horses, guns, cars, greebles (novel objects). Edward performed just as well on as the test group people at differentiating between different objects but he just couldn’t tell faces apart.
Save her heart this Valentines
The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) is asking lovers across the Continent to send an e-card to their sweetheart to show support for women’s heart health this Valentine’s Day.
55% of women across Europe die of cardiovascular disease (CVD), it affects more women than cancer or any other ailment, yet most women are unaware that CVD poses such a big threat to their health nor realise that risk increases with age.
Visit the ESC website today and send an ecard to the woman in your life that shows you really care.
Simple changes in lifestyle – such as quitting smoking, exercising and eating more fruits and vegetables – can reduce the risk of heart disease. The ecards are in the Woman at Heart section of the website.