The latest round up of science news from David Bradley goes live at spectroscopyNOW.com today.
Among May 15’s postings:
Biomedical researchers have long thought that male sex hormones play a critical role in controlling cholesterol levels and lipids and in the development of atherosclerosis, a serious risk factor for heart disease, but new research from Wyeth Laboratories reveals that a protein receptor in the body called FXR, could have a key role, as well as the receptor for the male hormone androgen. “Our results suggest that the activity of FXR must now be considered in studies on the roles of male sex hormones in cardiovascular disease,” Wyeth’s Mark Evans told me.
Also, Chinese scientists have developed a new cheminformatics method for analysing the products of chemical reactions without researchers having to worry too much about any impurities that might be present.
Third up on the spectrometer this week – Coating an alloy with a biocompatible material is a key step in making implants, such as replacement hip joints, that sit comfortably with the patient’s skeleton and undergo osseointegration. A relatively new technique known as surface sol-gel processing (SSP), which is related to the well-known bulk sol-gel technique, can be used to prepare bioreactive nanostructured titanium oxides for adding a thin layer of material on a prosthetic joint. Understanding how calcium is subsequently deposited and phosphate released will help in the fine-tuning of the preparation for the most effective osseointegration.
Finally, watch out for bent copper under stress. Bend a metal bar, if you’re strong enough, and depending on certain microscopic conditions the bar will yield to curvature or snap. Understanding what occurs at the microscopic level when metals are placed under stress has been a key aspect of materials science research for decades. Now, researchers in Denmark and the USA have used a new technique for tracking the orientational changes that occur within the grains of metal as it stretched. The research shows how the accumulation of defects actually strengthens metals during deformation.
There’s plenty more news from the rest of the team on spectroscopyNOW too…