Second skin could repel bio-weapons

Scientists are developing a new military uniform material that can automatically repel almost any chemical and biological agent using a novel carbon nanotube fabric

The material made by researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will be designed to undergo a rapid transition from a breathable state to a protective state.

     The highly breathable membranes would have pores made a few-nanmeter-wide vertically aligned carbon nanotubes that are surface modified with a chemical warfare agent-responsive functional layer.

     Response to the threat would be triggered by direct chemical or biological warfare agent attack to the membrane surface, at which time the fabric would switch to a protective state by closing CNT pore entrance or by shedding the contaminated surface layer.

      “The uniform will be like a smart second skin that responds to the environment,” said Francesco Fornasiero, the principal investigator.

     “Without the need of an external control system, the fabric will be able to switch reversibly from a highly breathable state to a protective one in response to the presence of the environmental threat. In the protective state, the uniform will block the chemical threat while maintaining a good breathability level.”

      High breathability is a critical requirement for protective clothing to prevent heat-stress and exhaustion when military personnel are engaged in missions in contaminated environments. Current protective military uniforms are based on heavyweight full-barrier protection or permeable adsorptive protective overgarments that cannot meet the critical demand of simultaneous high comfort and protection, and provide a passive rather than active response to an environmental threat.

     To provide high breathability, the new composite material will take advantage of the unique transport properties of carbon nanotubes pores, which have two orders of magnitude faster gas transport rates when compared with any other pore of similar size.

    “We have demonstrated that our small-size prototype carbon nanotube membrances can provide outstanding breathability in spite of the very small pore sizes and porosity,” said Sangil Kim, another researcher at the lab.

     Biological agents, such as bacteria or viruses, are close to 10 nanometers in size. Because the membrane pores on the uniform are only a few nanometers wide, these membranes will easily block biological agents.

     However, chemical agents are much smaller in size and require the membrane pores to be able to react to block the threat.

      To create a multifunctional membrane, the team will surface modify the original prototype carbon nanotube membranes with chemical threat responsive functional groups.

        The functional groups on the membrane will sense and block the threat like gatekeepers on entrance.

      A second response scheme also will be developed: Similar to how a living skin peels off when challenged with dangerous external factors, the fabric will exfoliate upon reaction with the chemical agent.

        In this way, the fabric will be able to block chemical agents such as sulphur mustard (blister agent), GD and VX nerve agents, toxins such as staphylococcal enterotoxin and biological spores such as anthrax.

The evolutionary origins of our pretty smile traced

It takes both teeth and jaws to make a pretty smile, but the evolutionary origins of these parts of our anatomy have only just been discovered, thanks to a particle accelerator and a long dead fish.

     All living jawed vertebrates (animals with backbones) have teeth, but it has long been thought that the first jawed vertebrates lacked pearly gnashers, instead capturing prey with gruesome scissor-like jaw-bones.

     However new research, led by the University of Bristol and published in Nature, shows that these earliest jawed vertebrates possessed teeth too indicating that teeth evolved along with, or soon after, the jaws.
     Palaeontologists from Bristol, the Natural History Museum and Curtin University, Australia collaborated with physicists from Switzerland to study jaws of a primitive jawed fish called Compagopiscis. The team studied fossils of Compagopiscis using high energy X-rays at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland, revealing the structure and development of teeth and bones.
     "We were able to visualise every tissue, cell and growth line within the bony jaws, allowing us to study the development of the jaws and teeth. We could then make comparisons with the embryology of living vertebrates thus demonstarting that placoderms possessed teeth," said lead author, Martin Ruecklin.
      "This is solid evidence for the presence of teeth in these first jawed vertebrates and solves the debate on the origin of teeth," added co-author, Philip Donoghue.
      "We performed non-invasive 3D microscopy on the sample using synchrotron radiation, a very powerful X-ray source. This technique allows us to obtain a perfect digital model and very detailed insight views of the old fossil without destroying it.Normally, our method delivers very high spatial resolution on tiny samples. For this experiment we modified our setup and reconstruction algorithms in order to expand the field of view significantly while keeping the spatial resolution high," said Marco Stampanoni of the Paul Scherrer Institut.

A giant collision formed the moon

Fresh examinations of lunar rocks gathered by Apollo mission astronauts have yielded proof of a huge impact that may have shaped and given birth to the moon

Researchers at the Washington University headed by Frederic Moynier say tehy have discovered evidence that the Moon was born in a flaming blaze of glory when a body the size of Mars collided with the early Earth.
    The evidence might not seem all that impressive to a nonscientist: a tiny excess of a heavier variant of the element zinc in Moon rocks. But the enrichment probably arose because heavier zinc atoms condensed out of the cloud of vaporised rock created by a catastrophic collision faster than lighter zinc atoms, and the remaining vapor escaped before it could condense.
     Scientists have been looking for this kind of sorting by mass, called isotopic fractionation, since the Apollo missions first brought Moon rocks to Earth in the 1970s, and Moynier together with Randal Paniello, and colleague James Day of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography are the first to find it.
    The Moon rocks, geochemists discovered, while otherwise chemically similar to Earth rocks, were woefully short on volatiles (easily evaporated elements). A giant impact explained this depletion, whereas alternative theories for the Moon's origin did not.
    But a creation event that allowed volatiles to slip away should also have produced isotopic fractionation. Scitentists looked for this but were unable to find it, leaving the impact theory of origin in limbo for more than 30years.
    The data, published in the journal Nature, provide the first physical evidence for the vaporisation event since the discovery of volatile depletion in Moon rocks, Moynier says.
    According to the Giant Impact Theory, Earth's moon was created in a apocalyptic collision between a body called Theia and the early Earth.
    This collision was so powerful it is hard for mere mortals to imagine, but the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs is thought to have been the size of Manhattan, whereas Theia is thought to have been the size of the planet Mars. 
    The smashup released so much energy it melted and vaporised Theia and much of the Earth's mantle. The Moon then condensed out of the cloud of rock vapor, some of which also re-accreted to the Earth. Compared to terrestrial or martian rocks, the lunar rocks the team analysed have much lower concentrations of zinc but are enriched in the heavy isotopes of zinc.
    Earth and Mars have isotopic compositions like those of chondritic meteorites, which are thought to represent the original composition of the cloud of gas and dust from which the solar system formed. The simplest explanation for these differences is that conditions during or after the formation of the Moon led to more extensive volatile loss and isotopic fraction than was experienced by Earth or Mars.
    The isotopic homogeneity of the lunar materials, in turn, suggests that isotopic fractionation resulted from a large-scale process rather than one that operated only locally. Given these lines of evidence, the most likely large-scale event is wholesale melting during the formation of the Moon. The zinc isotopic data therefore supports the theory that a gaint impact gave rise to the earth-Moon system.
    Without the stabilizing influence of the Moon, the Earth would probably be a very different sort of place. Planetary sciences think the Earth would spin more rapidly, days would be shorter, weather more violent, and climate more chaotic and extreme. In fact it might have been such a harsh world, it would have been unfit for the evolution of our favourite species:us. 

Milk can help protect women against HIV

Cow's milk can be potentially developed into affordable creams that can help HIV, a study has claimed.
    Lead scientist from University of Melbourne Marit Kramski found that when pregant cows were vaccinated with an HIV protein, the first milk produced by the cow after giving birth, called colostrum, produced high antibodies to protect its newborn against disease.

     Researchers were now planning to test the effectiveness and safety of the milk before turning it into cream, which will hopefully allow women to protect themselves against contracting the virus during sex, without relying on men, the Herald Sun reported.
     However, the final result could be a decade off. The researchers were able to inhibit the virus from infecting cells when combing the virus cells with milk.
     "We think the antibodies bind to the surface of the virus and block the protein which needs to be freed to get in contact with human cells- like a key and lock system. If the key's not accessible or you change the key, you can't open the door," Kramski said.
      She had partnered with Australian biotechnology company Immuron Ltd to develop the milk, and would continue working with them to produce a preventative cream." We have the antibodies at the moment- the next step will be formulation," Kramski said.
       Condoms were "cheap and easy" but not an option for everyone with millions of people getting infected with HIV every year, she added.
        "A lot women, especially in Africa or South America they don't have the power to say you need to use a condom before we have sex. This milk looks like it can be a cheap, easy new prevention tool, because if you use drugs it's really expensive," she said.

NEW USE OF STEM CELLS 

Researchers claim to have discovered stem cells that play a decisive role in new blood vessels growth, paving way for treatment of cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
     Researchers from the University of Helsinki, Finland, are learning to isolate and efficiently produce these stem cells found in blood vessel walls which could lead to treatment of diseases.
     The growth of new blood vessels, also known as angiogenesis, is needed in adults when repairing damaged tissue or organs. Unfortunately, malignant tumours are also capable of growing new blood vessels to receive oxygen and nutrients.
      In other words, the treatment of diseases would benefit from two types of methods:ones that help launch the process of angiogenesis and ones that make it possible to prevent the process.
      Medications that prevent the growth of new blood vessels have already been introduced, but their effectiveness and long-term efficacy leave much to be desired.

Predator X renamed and demystified

A giant marine reptile. which terrorised the seas roughly 150million years ago, has finally been named and demystified. Previously dubbed Predator X, the big-headed creature has been officially named Pliosurus funkei, according to the Norwegian Journal of Geology.

    The reptile spanned about 40feet and had a 6.5-foot-long skull with a bite four times as powerful as Tyrannosaurus Rex. Fossilized remains of two pliosaurs - short-necked, large-mawed, four-paddled reptiles -- were uncovered by a Norwegian team on the Artic island of Svalbard between 2004 and 2012. Initial speculation hinted at a predator with a head twice the size of a T.Rex.
     Preliminary estimates put the size of Predator X at 45 tonnes and 50 feet long. But a susequent investigation by paleontologists Espen Knutsen, Patrick Druckenmiller and Jorn Hurum revealed a reptile with more modest features, reports technology blog i09.
     Still, they were bigger than the largest living apex predator, the killer whale, which tops out at 30 feet long

Earth-sized planet found 'next door'

The closest exoplanet to Earth is too hot to support life, but astronomers say it's part of a bigger solar system with planets that may be habitable

European astronomers on Wednesday reported that they had detected an Earth-sized planet outside the solar system. An astronomical stone's throw away at 4.37light years (25million miles), it is the closest expolanet to Earth.

     The discovery breaks new ground in the hunt for mystery worlds that exist in other solar systems. The newly found planet swings close to the star Alpha Centauri B, one of a triple star system, which in cosmic terms is just next doors to us.
     The planet is too close to its sun to support life, with surface temperatures of about 1,200 to 1,500 degrees Celsius. But scientists believe it is part of a more extensive solar system containing other planets, one more of which be habitable.
      Despite its closeness, it would still take 40,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri using current rocket technology.
  
               NOT JUST ANOTHER EXOPLANET
>>>The planet swings close to star Alpha CentauriB, one of a triple star system, which in cosmic terms is next door to us.

>>>The unnamed world is unusually light, containing only a little more material than Earth. It is the lightest exoplanet ever found orbiting a sun-like star.

>>>Since the discovery of the first exoplanet in 1995, over 800 have been found. None, however, is Earth-sized.

      The find, announced in journal Nature, was made by European Southern Observatory (ESO) astronomers. "This result represents a major step towards the detection of a twin earth in the immediate in the immediate vicinity of the sun. We live in exciting times, "Xavier Dumusque, a member of the European team from Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, told press Association.
      Data published in the journal shows that the yet-to-be named world is unusually light, containing only a little more material than Earth. It is the lightest exoplanet ever found orbiting a sun-like star. "It's a landmark discovery because it's very low mass and it's our closest neighbour," said Stephane Udry from the observatory. 

        The ESO team measured tiny wobbles in the star's motion, tugged by the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet. The transiting planet makes the star move back and forth, in relation to Earth, by less than 2km per hour, about the speed of a baby crawling.
      The minute motion was detected using a high-precision spectrograph installed on the ESO's 3. 6m telescope at La Silla, in the depths of the Atacama desert in Chile. It took hundreds of observations, spanning more than four years, for the "wobble" to be teased out of the other light signals.
      Since the 1990s, more than 800 have been found.