Sphere in Biological News

All-in-1 nanoparticle: A Swiss Army knife for nanomedicine

...ly would be used for fluorescent imaging. The gold sphere could be used for scattering-based imaging, which ...d Jin avoided this problem by building a thin gold sphere that surrounds but never touches the quantum dot. ... to 10 times, as it has in other cases. The gold sphere offers one further benefit. Gold is biocompatible,...

2009 AIBS Media Award

...ntertaining and informative tour of the male anatomy. The judges also appreciated that the story's placement in a publication outside the conventional sphere of science journalism should help fulfill AIBS's ambitions of reaching a wider audience with its message about the importance and relevance of the bio...

Eye cells believed to be retinal stem cells are misidentified

... These spheres, in turn, could be cultured to give rise to more spheres, reminiscent of the self-renewing capability of stem cells. Also, the cultured sphere cells showed activation of genes characteristic of adult eye cells. "The first clue that these cells were not stem cells was that they were pigment...

Turning sunlight into liquid fuels

...anometers in diameter and 50 nanometers in length, which were interconnected by short bridges to form bundled clusters. The bundles were shaped like a sphere with a diameter of 35 nanometers. While the catalytic efficiency of the cobalt metal itself was important, Frei said the major factor behind the enhan...

Researchers 'unzip' molecules to measure interactions keeping DNA packed in cells

... motor proteins can invade the nucleosome," Wang said. Optical trapping involves a focused beam of light that can "trap" small objects. A refractive sphere is chemically attached to the DNA strand, and the optical trap moves the sphere, allowing the researchers to unzip the DNA strands apart by pulling, H...

Vitamin D a key player in overall health of several body organs, says UC Riverside biochemist

...man, a distinguished professor emeritus of biochemistry and of biomedical sciences who has worked on vitamin D for more than 45 years. "Its biological sphere of influence is much broader than we originally thought. The nutritional guidelines for vitamin D intake must be carefully reevaluated to determine th...

Successful series of measurements in Arctic sea ice

...pment anchored at the seafloor last year further to the North to follow the receding ice, and to ascertain that they stood at least temporarily in the sphere of influence of the ice edge," reports Ingo Schewe, biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute. The results of the last years already showed that the c...

Beaded viruses and geology-inspired paintings show the art in science

...it, called "Crystal Structures: Viruses in Glass." The virus family Microviridae, which Wichman studies in her lab, inspired the work "Purple Haze," a sphere three-and-a-half inches wide made of purple bead clusters connected by delicate straw-like bugle beads. Wichman's pieces in the AAAS exhibit will b...

Nanoparticles assemble by millions to encase oil drops

...lets suspended in water, the spheres give off a light yellow color because of the exposed gold ends," Ou said. "With water droplets, we observe a dark sphere due to the protruding black nanotubes." The team is next preparing to test whether chemical modifications to the "nanobatons" could result in spher...

Skewered pumpkins

...e nanopackaging is required to bring the drug to the target area and release it only there. One example of a good nanoscopic packaging agent is a tiny sphere of porous silica. Its pores can be filled with the drug and closed with tiny controllable valves. The scientists attached stem-shaped molecules ont...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- Dec. 5, 2007

...Lee solved it by dropping a highly water-repellent sphere onto the surface of water at different speeds, car...nge in order to bounce off the waters surface. The sphere may sink if it goes too fast and wont bounce back ...R IMMEDIATE RELEASE Impact of a Superhydrophobic sphere onto Water DOWNLOAD PDF http://pubs.acs.org/cg...

Simulations unravel outer membrane transport mechanism

...f part of the inner membrane protein TonB (shown in red) and the luminal domain (in green and dark blue) of the outer membrane transporter. The yellow sphere represents the point on the TonB protein at which the force was applied. To view the results of the simulation, please go to: http://www.life.uiuc.edu...

A first -- Hebrew University scientist observes brain cell development in 'real time'

...Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University, used mouse models to study how neurons, or nerve cells, develop from an undifferentiated cellular sphere into a rich and complex cell. This has great significance for the future of brain research, said Dr. Mizrahi, since "the structural and functional com...

Navigable nanotransport

...this class of compounds was named after the plant genus of pumpkins, the cucurbitaceae. When the mini-pumpkins are linked together, they form an empty sphere with many tiny cavities on its surface. These "pockets" can be filled with certain nitrogen-containing biomolecules, such as spermine, in a very stabl...

Sandia researchers discover way to see how a drug attaches to a cell

...he shape of the liposome. When the liposomes are broken up, the platinum spheres remain intact. The thickness of the platinum shell around the sphere can be controlled by reducing or increasing the amount of the platinum salt placed into the solution. Shelnutt sees many potential applications fo...

Microbe fixes nitrogen at a blistering 92 C

...rked five years doing some 600 enrichments, with FS406-22 being the only one she was could wean off fixed nitrogen completely. An unimpressive looking sphere of a microbe, FS406-22 is able to grow with gaseous nitrogen as its sole source of nitrogen at temperatures ranging from 58 to 92 C, with the fastest ...

Trials for new drug to overcome HIV

...om a major structural protein called the gag protein, and is then assembled into a cone. PA-457 stops it being clipped off, causing it to form a leaky sphere that leaves the core RNA exposed (see Diagram, left). This cripples the virus, preventing it from infecting any other cells once it buds out from the ...

Fatty spheres loaded with siRNA shrink ovarian cancer tumors in preclinical trial

... A molecular "off" switch packaged in a tiny sphere penetrates deeply into ovarian cancer tumor cells, stifling a troublesome protein and drastically reducing the size of tumors, researchers at The Univ...

'Acid rain' and forest mass: Another perspective

... A few years ago the study of the effects of atmospheric deposition on forest ecosystems reached beyond the scientific sphere and the term "acid rain" was coined. This problem, which ignores frontiers, happens because, due to the burning of fossil fuels, the amount of sulphur...

Researchers discover how malaria parasite disperses from red blood cells

...ease, which the researchers dubbed the "irregular schizont" stage, the red blood cell resembles a lop-sided fried egg, with the parasites visible as a sphere near the center of the cell. (A diagram of the entire sequence appears at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/new/releases/malaria_graphic.cfm .) The cell's l...

Researchers discover underwater volcano

...ed an unusually shallow depth. These interesting results prompted further investigation of the area using the manned submersible Pisces V-a seven-foot sphere that has the capability to dive to depths of more than 6,000 feet, operated by NOAA's Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory. The water surrounding th...