news 2011

Physicists at the Universities of Liverpool and Swansea have succeeded in trapping atoms of antimatter for more than 16 minutes, long enough to begin to study their properties in detail. Antimatter was trapped using an experiment called ALPHA, part of a broad programme at CERN's (link to: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/) antiproton decelerator investigating the mysteries of one of nature's most elusive substances.

A plaque commemorating the life and work of the eminent biochemist Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (1861 to 1947) will be unveiled at his former Cambridge home on Friday. The plaque will be displayed on the exterior of 71 Grange Road, Cambridge, where Hopkins lived with his family for many years. It has been designed and made by the present owner of the house, Mark Bury FRSA, a distinguished engraver, designer and lettercutter.

A biological sensor is a critical part of a human cell's control system that is able to trigger a number of cell activities. A type of sensor known as the "gating ring" can open a channel that allows a flow of potassium ions through the cell's wall or membrane — similar to the way a subway turnstile allows people into a station.

Findings could aid in the development of better technologies for hydraulic fracturing and other fluid extraction techniques from the earth PASADENA, Calif.—When geologists survey an area of land for the potential that gas or petroleum deposits could exist there, they must take into account the composition of rocks that lie below the surface.

University of Sydney scientists have discovered a startling new mechanism where sunlight can rearrange the atoms of molecules to form new chemical substances. The research, by Professor Scott Kable , Dr Meredith Jordan and collaborators at the School of Chemistry , is published in a recent . It has implications for the extent that pollutants are dispersed across the Earth's surface, and how quickly they are removed.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. Blood clotting is a complicated business, particularly for those trying to understand how the body responds to injury. In a new study, researchers report that they are the first to describe in atomic detail a chemical interaction that is vital to blood clotting. This interaction - between a clotting factor and a cell membrane - has baffled scientists for decades.

Groundbreaking research has shown a quantum atom has been tracked inside a living human cell and may lead to improvements in the testing and development of new drugs. Professor Lloyd Hollenberg from the University of Melbourne's School of Physics who led the research said it is the first time a single atom encased in nanodiamond has been used as a sensor to explore the nanoscale environment inside a living human cell.

Understanding the intricacies of how nanoparticles undergo chemical transformations could lead to better ways to tailor their composition, which can lead to advanced material properties. Using the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, scientists led by Richard Robinson, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, uncovered exactly what happens when cobalt nanoparticles transform into two phases of cobalt phosphides.

A new way of treating wild silkmoth cocoons could see new silk industries springing up wherever wild silk is found in Africa and South America, as well as silk's Asian heartland. A team led by Oxford University scientists found that the surfaces of wild cocoons are coated with a layer of the mineral calcium oxalate, which makes them difficult to unravel.When the researchers removed this layer using an acidic solution they discovered that it was possible to reel cocoons into long strands of silk comparable to those derived from the domesticated Mulberry silk moth ( Bombyx mori ).

A new approach to fingerprinting using sensor technology developed at the University of Sussex could soon be helping forensics teams date and identify prints left at a crime scene - by capturing their electrical imprint. Currently, traditional methods of fingerprinting don't allow forensics experts to differentiate between prints at a crime scene left before and after the crime has been committed, or to differentiate important or interesting prints from background "clutter" (ie very old fingerprints).

Scientists at Penn State have achieved a major milestone in the attempt to assemble, in a test tube, entire chromosomes from their component parts. The achievement reveals the process a cell uses to package the basic building blocks of an organism's entire genetic code - its genome. The evidence provided by early research with the new procedure overturns three previous theories of the genome-packaging process and opens the door to a new era of genome-wide biochemistry research.

[ Florian Aigner A research project at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) could turn futuristic 3D-printers into affordable everyday items. Printers which can produce three-dimensional objects have been available for years. However, at the Vienna University of Technology, a printing device has now been developed, which is much smaller, lighter and cheaper than ordinary 3D-printers.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—At the University of Michigan College of Engineering, recent breakthroughs may lead to more effective means for harnessing the power of the sun. Conventional means of collecting solar energy, solar cells for example, have been notoriously inefficient. Now a team of chemical engineers at U-M is exploring new means of exploiting the abundant energy produced by Earth's nearest star.

Scientists from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) collaboration, including an astronomer at Penn State, have created the largest-ever three-dimensional map of the distant universe by using the light of the brightest objects in the cosmos to illuminate ghostly clouds of intergalactic hydrogen. The map provides an unprecedented view of how the universe looked 10 billion years ago.

Salvatore Torquato , a professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials at Princeton University, in collaboration with a team of researchers has uncovered universal features in the structures of jammed materials, suggesting a unified method to analyze disparate systems.

Simply put, people develop diabetes because they don't have enough pancreatic beta cells to produce the insulin necessary to regulate their blood sugar levels. But what if other cells in the body could be coaxed into becoming pancreatic beta cells? Could we potentially cure diabetes? Researchers from UCLA's Larry L. Hillblom Islet Research Center have taken an important step in that direction.

Laboratory scientists have developed a way to avoid the use of expensive platinum in hydrogen fuel cells. Los Alamos scientists document utility of non-precious-metal catalysts LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, April 22, 2011—Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have developed a way to avoid the use of expensive platinum in hydrogen fuel cells, the environmentally friendly devices that might replace current power sources in everything from personal data devices to automobiles.

Imagine: Your 6-year-old found a nail in the garage and drew pictures across the side of your new car.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. A new study in fruit flies offers a broad view of the potent and sometimes devastating molecular events that occur throughout the body as a result of methamphetamine exposure. The study, described in the journal PLoS ONE, tracks changes in the expression of genes and proteins in fruit flies ( Drosophila melanogaster ) exposed to meth.

An international group of scientists has used a powerful new X-ray technique to observe for the first time at the molecular scale how muscle proteins change form and structure inside a contracting muscle cell. The study, led by scientists from King's College London, Università di Firenze (Italy), and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble (France), is published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).