Cheminformatics could help save forests from the damage caused by runaway widlfires. As long as there have been forests, there have been forest fires, from the bushfires of the Australian outback, across Africa, Asia, and Europe, to the Americas. Such fires often thought of has having a regenerative effect on old woodland, but predictions of an increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires because of climate change could lead to loss of forest and soil erosion rather than dendritic rebirth. Spanish researchers have now used near infrared spectroscopy, a simple calibration technique and cheminformatics analysis of their spectra to determine a key parameter of soil damage – the MTR, or maximum temperature reached. You can read the full story in the latest issue of SpectroscopyNOW.
Category: Spectroscopy
Spectroscopy, analytical chemistry, and related materials. Only occasionally updated.
Spiked innovations
Some time ago, the editors at Sp!ked-Online asked me to suggest what I thought was the greatest innovation of all time. I tried to be a bit esoteric and opted for the inorganic chemistry of ammonia and sulfuric acid, certainly not the most exciting sounding of entries in the sp!ked innovation survey, but I hope the chemists among their readership would appreciate it among all the more electrical technological suggestions and the tools of molecular biology.
It seems I was among some eminent participants, “key thinkers in science, technology and medicine” allegedly with some half a dozen Nobel laureates in their number. The survey aimed to identify the greatest innovations and a live discussion is scheduled to take place in London on June 6.
Surveying the responses, Mick Hume, sp!ked’s editor-at-large, says the survey “Provides some illuminating insight both into the important developments of the recent and more distant past, and into the way those involved at the cutting edge see the issue of innovation today.” My colleague Philip Ball, a fellow freelance science writer with a chemical bent, also stuck up for chemistry in his submission opting for innovations in analytical chemistry, including NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography.
Among the other innovations suggested were The Internet, the alphabet, the discovery of nuclear fusion, X-rays, the brick, rockets, the eraser. I surely must posit that without sulfuric acid and ammonia not one of those innovations would ever have reached its full potential. Maybe I should also add an upside down exclamation mark, just to emphasize my point!
Among the other contributors to the event are Anjana Ahuja, science columnist, The Times, Ken Arnold Head of Public Programmes, Wellcome Trust, Peter Cochrane co-founder of ConceptLabs, and former chief technologist at BT, Marcus Du Sautoy professor of mathematics, Wadham College, Oxford, Sir Tim Hunt (FRS) principal scientist, Cancer Research UK, and David Roblin VP, Clinical R&D, Pfizer Global Research & Development.
Combined effort makes for glowing report
One of the most powerful techniques available to analytical scientists is Raman spectroscopy. Unfortunately, it is not easy to distinguish the low-intensity signals it produces when studying fluorescent species in cells because they are swamped by the much brighter glow from various cell components. Now, Dutch researchers have overcome this incompatibility to hybridize Raman with fluorescence microscopy by exploiting the optical properties of semiconductor fluorescent quantum dots (QDs). They have demonstrated hybrid Raman fluorescence spectral imaging in studies of single cells.
Biophysical engineers Henk-Jan van Manen and Cees Otto of the University of Twente, The Netherlands, have used fluorescent nanoparticles to broaden the scope of single-cell microscopy by combining it with intracellular chemical analysis based on Raman. The researchers explain that quantum dots allows weak Raman signals from DNA to shine through the ubiquitous glow from proteins and lipids.
You can read the full story in my SpectroscopyNOW column this week.
Heavy metal plants in the spectral news
Over on SpectroscopNOW.com David Bradley reports on the usual eclectic mix of science news with a hint of the spectral. This week:
Heavy metal plants – Herbal medicine is a global phenomenon, a multibillion dollar industry, and its raw materials phytochemicals are widely used as the precursors for regulated pharmaceutical products. One problematic area on both sides is in product purity, with contamination by toxic heavy metals one of the most common complaints. Now, researchers in Argentina have developed a way to “digest” herbal medicines to improve the detection limits of heavy metal contaminants, such as lead and cadmium, for quality control of these products.
Tubeless and hyphenated – Slightly more esoteric, but equally important for analytical science is the development of a new software algorithm for getting the most out nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments. According the Gary Martin of Schering-Plough, the software developed with ACD/Labs collaboration, means that even if a sample of product has been lost, the spectroscopist can retrieve latent information from the initial NMR runs without having to find a new sample and spend a week record experimental spectra. Martin confesses that this new approach to sophisticated NMR is not without its critics. He gave an ENC invited lecture on the subject of this new technique, known as Unsymmetrical Indirect Covariance, and told me that his talk raised a few eyebrows, to say the least.
Super plat cats – A new form of platinum, 24-facet nanocrystals, have been produced by an international collaboration. The novel tetrahexahedral particles are four times as effective a catalyst as the industrially important commercial platinum available for oxidising formic acid and ethanol. The work could lead to a more efficient process of catalytic oxidation for the production of hydrogen for fuel cells. “If we are going to have a hydrogen economy, we will need better catalysts,” says Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology, “This new shape for platinum catalyst nanoparticles greatly improves their activity.” Discussion continues elsewhere on Sciencebase regarding the putative folly of a hydrogen economy. Hopefully, if such an approach to alternative energy does not come to pass, Wang will find numerous other industrial applications for these super plat cats.
Consolidated database – US researchers have exploited a new technique to identify almost all the chemical changes nature makes by adding phosphate groups to human proteins. They have now hooked up this data to the publicly accessible PhosphoMotif Finder system in an effort to stimulate further biomedical research into the vital process of phosphorylation.
Raman and the usual substrates
My latest round up of science news over on SpectroscopyNOW.com is now online. This week, I discuss how a lot of protein research looks only at molecules at rest, but could be enriched so much more by observing how these biological molecules change step by step as they interact with each other and their usual substrates. Researchers at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the Structural Biology Institute (IBS) have exploited the power of Raman spectroscopy to help them lock in on protein intermediates states that can then be snapped using X-rays from the synchrotron. The team can then piece together a stop-motion movie, in the style of Ray Harryhausen or Wallace and Gromit without the sword-wielding skeletons or sardonic dog.
Also in this week’s issue, dental researchers in London have demonstrated that the antibacterial solutions containing sodium hypochlorite (household bleach) and the calcium-sponge EDTA commonly used to clean up after root canal work, can actually destroy the organic content of the tooth’s dentine. I spoke to team leader, Kishor Gulabivala of the Eastman Dental Institute at University College London who pointed out that his team’s results have only so far been presented at a conference. Nevertheless, the research represents the first quantitative study of the effects of the antibacterial solutions on teeth, and suggest a need to reconsider their use in dental surgery.
Initially, I was concerned that it was their use in artificial teeth whitening that was the major issue, but Gulabivala assures me it is not. Despite this, I found several websites (amateur and otherwise) that suggest hypochlorite can be used as a bleaching agent for the teeth. Personally, I’d rather stick with yellow, stained teeth (if I happened to have them) rather than risking a mouthful of bleach.
A surgical robot that uses its own MRI scanner to pinpoint targets with microscopic precision also caught my eye for news on the SpectroscopyNOW MRI channel this week.
Cervical fluids and boron nitride
Two more reports of general interest from my SpectroscopyNOW column. The first is on a new informatics approach to understanding cervical vaginal fluids and the second on a new study of boron nitride the technological wonder material of the future
Screening for premature problems
The application of multiple protein identification algorithms to an analysis of cervical vaginal fluid (CVF) can provide a detailed map of biological markers to help researchers understand the course of human pregnancy and the problems that can arise. Preliminary tests suggest it could be used to determine the likelihood of a premature birth.
Inelastic boron nitride
The results of inelastic X-ray scattering and other techniques have been combined with ab initio calculations to characterise and explain the behaviour of the superficially simple binary material boron nitride. Insights from the research could lead to new ways to exploit the electronic and mechanical properties of hexagonal boron nitride.
Getting up close and graphic with graphene
Graphene recently hit the headlines as a potential replacement for silicon in a future world of molecular computing. However, until silicon technology has run its course and arrays of millions of transistors can be carved at will from this material, scientists will have to be content with investigating its properties and devising novel uses.
Nevertheless an international team led by scientists at MIT has turned the Raman spotlight on graphene and its chemical cousins to help them explain the materials’ unique physicochemical properties.
Mildred Dresselhaus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and colleagues there and at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, Tohoku University and CREST, Sendai, Japan, point out that Raman spectroscopy has played an important historical role in understanding graphitic materials. Most usefully, Raman can reveal information about defects and stacking of graphene sheets. The team has now used Raman to look at the modern counterparts of these materials, nanographites and individual graphene molecules.
You can read the whole story in this week’s SpectroscopyNOW news round-up from David Bradley.
Workout limits
Do you workout hard? Is “no pain, no gain” your exercise ethos? Do you feel like you are not getting the fitness results you expect? Your brain could be to blame.
Yagesh Bhambhani and Rohit Malik of the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada and Swapan Mookerjee of Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, USA, have monitored the oxygen levels of blood flowing in the brains of healthy volunteers while they worked out using near infrared spectroscopy.
NIRS can evaluate changes in blood volume and oxygen levels in the brain while people exercise by measuring the absorption of this form of electromagnetic radiation by the blood, which varies depending on how much oxygen is present.
The team has found that even if you are healthy, there could be an upper limit on just how hard you can push yourself, because brain activity begins to be affected detrimentally as you push harder and harder.
The study watched blood flow and volume as well as measuring carbon dioxide breathed out during an incremental exercise test. In the tests, exercise intensity is gradually stepped up until the volunteers reach exhaustion and must stop. The observed fall off in carbon dioxide levels coincided with decreased blood flow to the brain, which affects exercise capacity, the researchers say.
You can find out more about the science behind the exercise threshold here. Of course, if you are not pushing your exercise regime to the limits, then you probably have nothing to worry about. More to the point, the research is aimed at fine tuning finely tuned athletes and others, not providing the sedantary or mediocre with an excuse to give up half way through their treadmill cycle. (Ahem, mentioning no names…)
Magnetic control
Think of MRI and most people think of medical scanning, the kind of analytical tool that can slice through your brain or other organs, virtually speaking, and produce a three-dimensiona view of your innards. But researchers in Canada are putting the magnetic in magnetic resonance imaging to a different. They hope to use it to control tiny robot devices that can be guided through blood vessels in an application reminiscent of 1960s sci-fi movie Fantastic Voyage.
The demonstration by Sylvain Martel of the NanoRobotics Laboratory at Montreal Polytechnic School could herald the emergence of a new form of surgery that uses MRI to control “untethered” devices within the body. The team has spent the last several years developing microelectrochemical systems (MEMS) that could be used in diagnostics and treatment and have now successfully guided, an inactive prototype device for the first time through an artery (see picture) using computer-controlled MRI. More details here.
Anorexia and Kidney Disease
Anorexia nervosa is a serious and potentially fatal eating disorder usually characterized by a severely reduced appetite and often a total aversion to food. In the mainstream media, it is most commonly associated with teenage girls and the celebrity quest for a “size zero” figure. However, it is a serious and life-threatening disorder that goes far beyond the realm of body image and extreme dieting. Important clues as to the underlying causes of this disorder may be found in its association with chronic kidney disease.
According to Peter Stenvinkel of the Division of Renal Medicine, Karolinska University Hospital at Huddinge, Sweden, anorexia is observed frequently in kidney dialysis patients. The condition worsens as kidney disease progresses leading to severe muscle wasting and malnutrition, with all its associated health problems. Scientists had suggested a link to defective central nervous system control of appetite, so Stenvinkel and his colleagues have done an analysis of various biomolecules, including natural inflammatory compounds and sex hormones. Their results suggest that inflammation is closely linked to the development of anorexia in kidney patients and is more common in men than women.
Read the full story in today’s SpectroscopyNOW.