Food safety and bioterrorism defense may benefit from improved detection test developed at MU

Public release date: 18-Apr-2013
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Contact: Tim Wall
walltj@missouri.edu
573-882-3346
University of Missouri-Columbia

Nanotechnology used by system may bring jobs and investments to America

Sales of chicken products in China plummeted recently during an outbreak of a deadly new strain of bird flu. From bird flu to mad cow disease, numerous food scares have made global headlines in recent years. A technique developed by University of Missouri Professor of Engineering Shubhra Gangopadhyay's group may make food contamination testing more rapid and accurate. The detection test also could accelerate warnings after bioterrorism attacks.

"Quickly stopping the spread of toxins saves lives, whether those toxins are from natural processes or enemy attacks," said lead author Sangho Bok, postdoctoral fellow working under the supervision of Shubhra Gangopadhyay in MU's College of Engineering. "Our technique uses nanoparticles to make detection one hundred times more sensitive than the standard method now used, known as ELISA. We have also reduced the time needed to detect a threat to only one hour, compared to four to six hours for ELISA."

Currently, Bok's testing method detects a toxin that causes food poisoning, a chemical known as Clostriudium botulinum neurotoxin A. Engineers and biologists at MU now seek to adapt the test to detect many other dangerous chemicals.

Beyond helping protect people from deadly toxins, Bok's technique may bring jobs and foreign investment to America. Study co-author and MU research professor, Keshab Gangopadhyay, hopes to open a factory in Missouri that will manufacture the nanoparticles used in the detection technique. To achieve this goal, Gangopadhyay founded Nanos Technologies LLC.

"Science, employment and economic development are all tied together," said Gangopadhyay. "Food safety testing presents a large market that is growing quickly in developing nations like China and India. MU engineering research helps Missouri tap into that market while creating local jobs and attracting the attention of investors."

The study "Femtogram-level detection of Clostridium botulinum neurotoxin immunoassay using nanoporous substrate and ultra-bright fluorescent suprananoparticles," was published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

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Public release date: 18-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Tim Wall
walltj@missouri.edu
573-882-3346
University of Missouri-Columbia

Nanotechnology used by system may bring jobs and investments to America

Sales of chicken products in China plummeted recently during an outbreak of a deadly new strain of bird flu. From bird flu to mad cow disease, numerous food scares have made global headlines in recent years. A technique developed by University of Missouri Professor of Engineering Shubhra Gangopadhyay's group may make food contamination testing more rapid and accurate. The detection test also could accelerate warnings after bioterrorism attacks.

"Quickly stopping the spread of toxins saves lives, whether those toxins are from natural processes or enemy attacks," said lead author Sangho Bok, postdoctoral fellow working under the supervision of Shubhra Gangopadhyay in MU's College of Engineering. "Our technique uses nanoparticles to make detection one hundred times more sensitive than the standard method now used, known as ELISA. We have also reduced the time needed to detect a threat to only one hour, compared to four to six hours for ELISA."

Currently, Bok's testing method detects a toxin that causes food poisoning, a chemical known as Clostriudium botulinum neurotoxin A. Engineers and biologists at MU now seek to adapt the test to detect many other dangerous chemicals.

Beyond helping protect people from deadly toxins, Bok's technique may bring jobs and foreign investment to America. Study co-author and MU research professor, Keshab Gangopadhyay, hopes to open a factory in Missouri that will manufacture the nanoparticles used in the detection technique. To achieve this goal, Gangopadhyay founded Nanos Technologies LLC.

"Science, employment and economic development are all tied together," said Gangopadhyay. "Food safety testing presents a large market that is growing quickly in developing nations like China and India. MU engineering research helps Missouri tap into that market while creating local jobs and attracting the attention of investors."

The study "Femtogram-level detection of Clostridium botulinum neurotoxin immunoassay using nanoporous substrate and ultra-bright fluorescent suprananoparticles," was published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

###

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/uom-fsa041813.php

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'The Great Gatsby' Trailer, Now Featuring Fergie

The latest step of the "Great Gatsby" marketing campaign seems to be to release trailers that feature the various awesome songs on the movie's soundtrack, and we're totally okay with that. We already got one featuring Beyonce and Florence + the Machine, and now a new teaser has been released featuring Fergie. The trailer comes [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/04/16/great-gatsby-trailer-fergie/

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Syrian guns fall silent to allow Aleppo's dead to be collected

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Guns fell silent in one of the main battle zones of Syria's biggest city, Aleppo, on Tuesday to let aid workers collect 31 bodies that had been rotting amid the rubble of the front line - the first truce in months of warfare in the city.

Red Crescent workers and members of an opposition local council drove into the edge of the working class al-Sakhour district in north Aleppo to pick up the mostly civilian dead, many of them hit by army sniper fire, as fighters from the two sides looked on, activists and rebel military sources said.

The opposition Aleppo Media Centre said the majority of the bodies, which included children, had already decomposed.

Some had been lying in the streets and between buildings for months. Three bodies were found with their hands tied and four were burnt beyond recognition, the monitoring group said.

Video footage taken by the center showed blue, grey and white body bags containing the corpses being unloaded into a schoolyard by men wearing masks and gloves.

"They were lying in no man's land and rotting. With the weather changing, I think the other side was worried about disease spreading and allowed the truce," one rebel commander said.

"They were mostly inhabitants of the area. Some had fled and came back to check their houses on the front line, and were hit by the government's snipers."

Large parts of Aleppo, once a cosmopolitan commercial hub, have fallen to Sunni Islamist opposition forces in the two-year-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, who belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

But government forces still control key districts, and are dug in in fortress-like intelligence compounds.

ECONOMIC CRISIS

Al-Sakhour's population had swollen from migration in the years before the revolt as living conditions worsened in the countryside and a water crisis devastated the economy of provinces to the east.

The district, whose residents made a hard living in nearby stone quarries and cotton mills, was among the first working class areas in Aleppo to see demonstrations against Assad, months after the revolt erupted in the rural south.

An official in the local opposition council who accompanied the Red Crescent convoy into al-Sakhour said a previous attempt to collect the bodies had been thwarted by sniper fire.

"This time God was with us and we pulled them all out. Three children of different ages and one woman were among them," he said.

Opposition campaigner Abu Louay al-Halabi said the one-day truce appeared to have been agreed to by a government commander on the ground, and was not an indication that fighting in the area might abate.

"It seems that one man on the battlefield wanted to make a gesture of after nine months of fighting and no advance by either side," he said.

Elsewhere in the city, activists reported heavy fighting near Aleppo International airport and army sniper fire in the central Bab Jenin districts, where they said one man had been killed.

Several rebel fighters were also killed in clashes with Assad's forces in different parts of the city, located 310 km (195 miles) north of Damascus.

Assad's father, the late president Hafez al-Assad, forged an alliance with Aleppo's merchant class that was, until the revolt, a pillar of his family's rule over Syria.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-guns-fall-silent-allow-aleppos-dead-collected-201037694.html

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How Boston can recover from the marathon bombings

>>> it's impossible for me to express my sadness and my anger, frankly, over those terrible events. it's just hard to believe that a patriots day holiday, normally a time of festivities, has turned into a bloody mayhem. but i know how resilient bostonians are and i think a lot of you do, despite the fact it took us 86 years to win a pendant. i talked this week with friends and family up there, as recently as this morning, and the granddaughter of a very, very close-up porter and friend of mine through all of my political career is fighting to keep both of her legs. you know, boston is not going to be intimidated by this, but we're going to find out who did this.

>> joined now by " boston globe " columnist kevin cullen. you talk about how small a town this can be when it comes to stories like this. there's secretary of state who knows people who are involved in this, fighting these grievous injuries. your column points out that these firefighters when they got here the other day to get to the youngest victim whom we've all been talking about, martin richard, they knew exactly who this kid was.

>> yeah. and larry , i've always said that boston is the smallest big city in america.

>> yeah.

>> and i think that came through when i talked to -- guys from engine 7 and ladder -- tower ladder 17. and but what i think was so much -- so impressive about what they did is that they worked on their friends and neighbors but they worked on strangers the same intensity and the same care that they gave to people that they came through the door and recognized. but i -- i mean, one of these firefighters, i talked to him, he did three combat tours in iraq and afghanistan and he was treated for ptsd. and i asked him, do you think you need more treatment now? and he looked off and he said, probably. i worry about our -- i mean, we're in a stage right now -- i mean, there is so much attention larry today about whether there's an arrest, whether there's a suspect, whether somebody's in custody. and i have to be honest, as i walked around the back today, that just wasn't entering my equation. i was thinking about the victims. we need to bury our dead. we need to honor our dead. we need to take care of our wounded. and we need to take care of our first responders because when i sat in that firehouse last night, i saw it in these faces. and i saw it yesterday walking down the treastreet, a copy know, she had been up for two days and i saw it in her face, she saw things no one should have to see. and we need to take care of those people. and i'm -- i'm actually very happy that the president is coming tomorrow because i think we need this time. i think we need sort of a healing moment. we'll take care of the -- i have no doubt they will catch and do whoever did this. i have no doubt. and whether the obsession with it happening tonight to me misses the point. we will get this person. i think tomorrow's more important. i think -- i'm glad the president is coming here. i think the town needs it. and i've got to tell you, this is my town and i've never been prouder of my town. never prouder.

>> you know.

>> i'm having the same reaction you are. i'm following the investigation but it's not what i'm focusing on. i learned to play baseball in the same fields that martin learned to play baseball. all the same places. and i was walking through there yesterday, today, and that's what i'm trying to explain this to people outside of here that we're not obsessing on what's the latest thing that's come out because we do have, number one, a confidence, as you say, but number two, we are still in another process. this city is having a wake.

>> absolutely.

>> we're still at the wake. and we're not fighting. we're not looking at -- we're just dealing with this grief.

>> you know, larry , i think you know him, he passed away last year, a great guy name bruce bowen . i remember after he got made, the first thing he did was punish a political rival. he moved his office. the guy had a nice view, he put him in the basement. they had a big thing for him up at the apartment house , the mayor's residence. we went there back in 1988 . i go up to bruce and say, a brother finally gets the job and what do you do? you act like an irish paul. he said you know what, kevin, in this town, we're all irish by osmosis. and i think we are. and i think the irishness of this town is taking over in the sense that we'll take care of that stuff down the road.

>> right.

>> we have to take care of our dead.

>> right.

>> we have to take care of our wounded and we have to take care of our first responders. that's the stuff we've got to do now. leave that other stuff.

>> your father was a firefighter, my father was a boston cop for eight years or so and i think that's where our confidence comes from with what the process is going to be but we also know the first thing we have to deal with is these families and what they are going through.

>> absolutely.

>> we've got to go. two boston guys coming, we're out

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2ada8989/l/0Lvideo0Bmsnbc0Bmsn0N0Cid0C51578510A/story01.htm

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Kim Kardashian Ogles Sister's Rear End on Camera

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/kim-kardashian-ogles-sisters-rear-end-on-camera/

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Antarctic ice tells conflicting story about climate change's role in big melt

Two different areas of Antarctica tell two very different stories about how climate change might be affecting ice melt. The data appear to confirm that climate change impacts can be very local.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / April 16, 2013

An inflatable boat carries tourists past an iceberg along the Antarctic Peninsula. The peninsula appears to be significantly affected by climate change.

Andrew Halsall/Aurora Expeditions/AP/File

Enlarge

Since the early 1990s, glaciers draining Antarctica's vast ice sheets have dumped ice into the ocean at an an eye-popping rate.

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Now, two new studies of ice cores from different parts of the continent are yielding important clues as to why the loss rates have been so high.

On the Antarctic Peninsula, global warming appears to be taking a direct toll. Glaciers are melting mainly from the top down. The peninsula is losing land ice in the summer at a rate unmatched in the past 1,000 years.

For the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, one of two vast continental sheets, losses also have been relatively large. There, however, floating ice shelves that form the seaward end of glaciers are melting from the bottom up. Today's losses are comparable to those that have occurred a few other times over the past 2,000 years. The authors say that for now, the evidence points to the extended reach of naturally shifting climate patterns in the tropical Pacific as driving the losses.

At first blush, the two might appear to be at loggerheads. Instead, researchers suggest, the two highlight how, as on other continents, the intensity of global warming's impact at the bottom of the world depends on location, location, location. And both point to the challenge researchers still face in forecasting the future of the continent's ice chest in a warming climate.

Each in its own way "provides guidance on projecting the future of sea-level rise," notes Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Penn State University in University Park, Pa., who was not a participant in either study.

Researchers have a keen interest in trying to understand and project ice losses in Antarctica, as well as on Greenland, with global warming. Previous studies have shown that since 1992, the loss of ice from polar caps is raising sea levels by an average of about 0.59 millimeters a year.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet alone could boost sea levels an average of 10 feet if it melts ? an increase that would occur over hundreds to thousands of years, notes Eric Steig, a researcher at the University of Washington who led one of the two research efforts.

Between 1992 and 2011, the peninsula lost ice at rate of 20 billion tons a year, according to a study published last November in the journal Science. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet lost 65 billion tons a year, and the East Antarctic Ice Sheet ? the continent's largest ? lost 14 billion tons a year, although the uncertainties in that number are so large the loss could just as well have been nothing.

Antarctic Peninsula

The Antarctic Peninsula is an extended arm of land that last shook hands with the southern tip of South America roughly 235 million years ago when the two continents drifted apart. It's mountainous and extends into the Southern Ocean to some 250 miles above the Antarctic Circle.

"In some ways, it's a climate oddity," writes Robert Mulvaney, a researcher with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and a member of the team formally reporting its results on the region's ice Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, in an e-mail. Relatively warm westerly winds, laden with with ocean moisture, blow across the peninsula. So it tends to be warmer than the mainland and experiences higher snowfall rates.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/-zcBzmOrf3A/Antarctic-ice-tells-conflicting-story-about-climate-change-s-role-in-big-melt

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New gene variations associated with heart rate identified

Apr. 14, 2013 ? Through a collaborative genome-wide study on individuals, researchers have discovered 14 new genetic variations that are associated with heart rate. Since heart rate is a marker of cardiovascular health, these findings could provide a better understanding of genetic regulation of heart beat and is a first step towards identifying targets for new drugs to treat cardiovascular disease.

The study, titled, "Identification of Heart Rate-Associated Loci and Their Effects on Cardiac Conduction and Rhythm Disorders," was published online this week in the April issue of Nature Genetics. Led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge, UK, the collaboration involved 268 researchers from 211 institutions, as well as six large research consortia joined forces.

In order to gain new insights into the genetic regulation of heart rate, Dr. Ruth Loos, Director of the Genetics of Obesity and Related Metabolic Traits Program at the Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine at Mount Sinai and honorary investigator at the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit and her team, spent three years working on a genome-wide association study using data from 181,171 participants from 65 studies during 2009-2012. "Without any prior hypothesis, we studied the entire human genome hoping to identify new genetic variations that no one before had even imagined would play a role in the regulation of heart rate," said Dr. Loos, senior author of the study. "This discovery is just the beginning of something new and exciting and can hopefully be used to identify new drugs that can be used for the treatment of heart rhythm disorders."

In a follow-up study, experimental down-regulation of gene expression was then conducted on fruit flies and zebra fish, to better understand how genetic variations might affect heart rate. These experiments identified 20 genes with a role in heart rate regulation, signal transmission, embryonic development of the heart, as well as cardiac disorders, such as dilated cardiomyopathy, congenital heart failure and sudden heart failure. "Our findings in humans as well as in fruit flies and zebrafish provide new insights into mechanisms that regulate heart rate," said Dr. Marcel den Hoed, post-doctoral fellow at the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit and lead author of the study.

The follow-up study also showed that a genetic susceptibility for higher heart rate is associated with altered cardiac conduction and a reduced risk of sick sinus syndrome, a common indicator for pacemaker implantation. "Our study tripled the number of genetic variations that are known to be associated with heart rate, some of which are also associated with other cardiovascular risk factors and with heart rhythm disorder," said Dr. Loos.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Mount Sinai Medical Center, via Newswise.

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Journal Reference:

1. Marcel den Hoed et al. Identification of heart rate?associated loci and their effects on cardiac conduction and rhythm disorders. Nature Genetics, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/ng.2610

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/Iuc7nBFA-s0/130414193140.htm

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