Category Health/Medical

According to a new series of studies out of NYU Langone Medical Center, 2 chemicals increasingly used during manufacturing to strengthen plastic wrap, soap, cosmetics, and processed food containers have been linked to a rise in risk of high blood pressure and diabetes in children and adolescents.

Acetaldehyde accounts for most of the gaseous substances in cigarette smoke. “In cooperation with KT&G, KIST has developed a nano-catalyst filter coated with a manganese oxide-based nano-catalyst, which can be used in a smoking room to reduce and purify major harmful substances of cigarette smoke. The KIST-developed catalyst removes 100% of the particle substances of cigarette smoke, such as nicotine and tar, converting those into water vapor and carbon dioxide. According to the research team, the air cleaning equipment based on the newly-developed catalyst can purify over 80% of the cigarette smoke within 30 minutes and 100% of it within 1 hour in a 30 square meter smoking room, where 10 people are simultaneously smoking” said Dr...

Cytochrome oxidase C defects could be a biomarker for cancer screening. To see if the 2nd part of Warburg’s 1924 was correct (“defective mitochondrial function causing cells to be tumorigenic”), the Penn team took cell lines from the skeleton, kidney, breast and esophagus and used RNA molecules to silence the expression of select components of the mitochondrias’ cytochrome oxidase C, or CcO, a critical enzyme involved in oxidative phosphorylation. CcO uses oxygen to make water and set up a transmembrane potential that is used to synthesize ATP (energy source).

The biologists observed disrupting a single protein subunit of cytochrome oxidase C led to major changes in the mitochondria and cells themselves.”These cells showed all the characteristics of cancer cells,” Avadhani said...

Other teams have come up with similar devices before, although no one was able to create something that didn’t rely on exotic materials or a complex fabrication process. IBS team stayed away from carbon nanotubes and gold and looked at a more utilitarian option for their build material: thin slivers of silver nanowires ∼150 nm in diameter and ∼30 μm in length (a human hair ranges from 17 – 181 µm). The nanowires were mixed into a liquid elastic material which is both soft and stretchy when dry.

To ensure that the material remains tight on the target area while heating, the team devised a 2D interlocking coil pattern for the mesh structure. To make the mesh, the liquid mixture was poured into a shaped mold...