The Pandora project, is an applet that emerged from the Music Genome Project, which analyses and categorises music and styles. It solves the eternal question facing every iPod user once they’ve worked through their old CD collection – “I’ve downloaded all my favourite bands, what do I download now?” Are you brave enough to lift the lid on Pandora’s Box and play some new mp3s?
Author: David Bradley
Hydroseeding
Some time ago I created a website for the UK’s leading and first (I believe) hydroseeding company CDTS Ltd. Hydroseeding basically amounts to spraying a specially selected mixture of seeds suspended in a nutrient-rich solution on to any tract of brownfield land that you wish to convert into green fields with flowers and grasses. CDTS have used it to great effect all over the UK, specifically beautifying motorway cuttings, brownfield sites and the entrance/exit to the Channel Tunnel. Take a look at their site to find out more about the whole process of hydroseeding (sometimes called hydraseeding).
Coughing and spluttering
Scientists at Northwestern University in the US have determined the molecular structure of a viral protein, the parainfluenza virus 5 fusion (F) protein. The parainfluenza virus 5 is part of a family of viruses (paramyxoviruses) that causes everything from pneumonia, croup and bronchiolitis to cold-like illness and is responsible for many hospitalizations and deaths each year. The results are published in the Jan. 5 issue of the journal Nature. Also, check out our how to avoid colds and flu page for advice on sidestepping viruses.
Detox – Don’t Bother
Feeling chock full of cr*p after the festivities, wondering about which detox program to choose? Don’t bother! According to The Sense About Science group, a charitable trust that aims to provide the public with the truth about purportedly scientific and medical claims, a glass of tap water and an early night are the best remedies.
As it turns out, evolution has endowed us with our own built-in “detox” mechanisms, thankfully. The gut, for instance, prevents bacteria and many toxins from entering the body in the first place. If you think about it you are a hollow tube from mouth to anus, the interior of that tract is essentially “outside”.
However, when harmful chemicals enter the body, the liver, that great chemical plant, rips apart toxin or makes them water soluble so that they can be filtered out and excreted by the kidneys. The body thus detoxifies itself. That phrase “water soluble” is key to understanding how to help things along. The body is re-hydrated with ordinary tap water. It is refreshed with a good night’s sleep.
These processes do not occur more effectively as a result of taking ‘detox’ tablets, wearing ‘detox’ socks, having a ‘detox’ body wrap, eating Nettle Root extract, drinking herbal infusions or ‘oxygenated’ water, following a special ‘detox’ diet, or using any of the other products and rituals that are promoted. They waste money and sow confusion about how our bodies, nutrition and chemistry actually work.
Accelerated Aging
Chemical analysis spots malfunctioning protein.
Jin-Shan Hu and colleagues at the University of Maryland, National Cancer Institute, the National Centre for Scientific Research, France, have used NMR to determine the structure of the protein thought to malfunction in premature aging conditions, such as Werner syndrome. The structure might one day lead to a better understanding of this rare genetic disorder as well as other aging-related diseases.
Wedding Anniversary
Well…it’s our fourteenth wedding anniversary this year, today, so a good time to remind sciencebase readers of our alternative chymical wedding anniversary list where you will discover that the fourteenth is “pyrolytic carbon“, which is used to make heart valves.
If you favour the traditional list, then it’s ivory, so we won’t expect gifts, for obvious reasons.
King Kong’s Monkey Love
Sex smells, according to Joshuah Bearman of the LAWeekly who wrote to sciencebase today to alert us to his article on King Kong’s Monkey Love (obviously, he’s well aware that Kong is an ape not a monkey, but allow him some artistic licence, he is after all telling us about the birds and the bees, well beast, actually).
Anyway, his essay meanders from Gigantopithecus blacki, the 12-foot prehistoric ape that died out 100,000 years ago to the recent re-classification of chimpanzees into the hominidae family and even discusses the biological potential for a consummated love between man and ape.
All that aside, his essay concludes with a quote from Peter Singer who, along with many other people, suggests that the great apes should be endowed with “human” rights. It raises the ancient morality conflicts of how we treat all animals, of course, and whether we should use them for biomedical experimentation or not…
Drug Boosts Brain Cannabinoids
Latest on Urealert – a new drug known cryptically as URB597 boosts levels of brain cannabinoids and so could find use as in treating pain, depression, and anxiety disorders, without patients having to use cannabis itself…
Did I hear someone say those pesky scientists spoil all the fun? Shame on you!
Toucan Play at That Game
Engineers are hoping to learn about strong construction work by studying the structure of the toucan beak.
Materials scientists could soon benefit from the first ever detailed engineering analysis of toucan beaks. Toucan beaks are incredibly tough and have a surprising impact-absorbing sandwich structure according to the study, which could provide engineers with a near-perfect model for novel aeronautics and construction materials.Materials scientists could soon benefit from the first ever detailed engineering analysis of toucan beaks. Toucan beaks are incredibly tough and have a surprising impact-absorbing sandwich structure according to the study, which could provide engineers with a near-perfect model for novel aeronautics and construction materials.
Radical Damage
Raman reveals the radical damage that other techniques cannot see.
Italian researchers have shown that Raman spectroscopy could be a useful tool in investigating radical-based damage to proteins.
Armida Torreggiani, Maurizio Tamba, Immacolata Manco, M.R. Faraone-Mennella, Carla Ferreri, and C. Chatgilialoglu of the ISOF Institute of the National Research Council in Bologna and Naples University have investigated the gamma-irradiation of bovine pancreatic ribonuclease A (RNase A) in aqueous solution using vibrational spectroscopy as well as enzymatic assay, electrophoresis, and HPLC analysis. They found that Raman spectroscopy in particular could reveal conformational changes in the protein and locate the amino acid residues most susceptible to radical attack.