Micro Christmas

I thought this was cute and also useful, so we're going with it. Scientists have put together gold and silver nanoparticles and nicknamed them baubles, like Christmas tree decorations. And they are going to be helping us out, as they are a lot more useful than regular baubles.

See, we've been struggling with medicine for a while and this just may be perfect. They could be used as micro-catalysts that could be put in drugs to make them react with proper cells and areas instead of missing half the time and being really ineffective.

Also, because they are made with all kind of metal alloys instead of just one, they could be the future of electronics, with more memory and higher speeds in a way smaller amount of space. I mean, how cool would it be to have an iPod smaller than your fingernail that can do everything a normal one can? I think it is worth trying.

Have you noticed how we are obessed with making everything smaller, lighter, sleeker, whatever, nowadays? All technology has gotton way smaller over the years. Soon we may not be able to see any of it anymore. It's kind of hard to imagine all that technology shoved into one little molecule (well maybe not that small). Can't wait. Next it'll be the food. Sigh.

Get Slim Quick!

Blocking a certain stomach enzyme that makes you feel hunger can reduce weight gain in mice. This could lead to treatments for obesity in humans that would work by reducing hunger.

We spend over $1 billion a year on weight loss, with so many people who need it. A current focus is fake hormones that mimic gut hormones to control blood sugar levels. Some are already being used in diabetes.

But when you are messing around with hormones, you've got to be careful. They each do multiple things. The enzyme that affects hunger could also affect growth or memory. You don't want to forget who you are when you're just trying to get rid of a couple pounds.

Anyway, this is cool for two reasons. A)I really think this works and can help people better than a lot of other, nastier options, like becoming anorexic, and B) so many people are over weight. I'm going to go on a rant here, so stop reading if you don't care.

We are the fattest country in the world. I wonder why? Sure, there may be some people who have real diseases and problems that stop them from avoiding it, but really, we just eat too much. C'mon, who here has pigged out a lot lately? Raise your hands. I'm guilty too, but dang, you think we could be as bit better than the fattest in the world!

So this really caught my eye. We might now have to be obese with something like this. This could save and improve so many (300 million)lives in the US alone. That;s pretty stinking good right there. This is totally worth it.

Look Closer

Microfluidics can be used to trap just one DNA-enzyme molecule in its native state for analysis without having to immobilise the DNA or the enzyme.

Enzymes are used to chop up DNA so they make useful tools in biochemistry. To see how they recognise and cut up DNA, the enzyme or DNA needs to be immobilised, but this can mess up and change the DNA. To stop this, you put an enzyme to DNA, and feed it through a microfluidic system. This traps the complex, and then stretches it out. Adding Mg2+ then activates the enzyme, cutting the DNA, and letting you see it easily. This can give info about how restriction enzymes act to determine their job to do, which will help us in a DNA-protein experiments.

This is cool since we can now actually see how DNA works and in real tine for once, not after it's cut up and dead-ish. We can learn a lot more this way. Don't you want to look at your DNA? I do. And we can see all the important stuff that makes it work too.

I mean, what if, one day, we could replicate DNA and choose not to have diseases, and create life itself. Yes, it's a go complex, but you could cure every genetic disease and make cloning more exact, not tiny mutations in copies. It would be safer. Every little bit of knowledge can lead to all sorts of ideas, and it's worth trying them all. Or at least I think so. Hmm?

How to Blow Up the World

This is half a kind of follow up on the last post, and half something I've been curious about for a while. And no, not about blowing up the world, but about what we might do instead with nuclear stuff.

Nuclear is kind of a taboo word, snce everyone always jumps to bombs when they hear it. But all nuclear is not bad nuclear. In fact, most isn't. We've been up-ing the electricity we get from nuclear power plants all over the world, making it a fuel source, if not a big one so far. And the best part: nuclear power is guilt-free. No-one gets hurt, the environment isn't affected, and you don't have to do as much mining.

The downside- all the stuff leftover (waste). Luckily, we're getting better at not killing lots of people and stuff. So let's be a little more optimistic. All we're doing is creating and ripping apart molecules to make electricity. Nothing wrong with that. No, I'm not being sarcastic.

China is starting to pioneer using nuclear in a big way- it's going to replace all of it's coal energy sources in Hong Kong with nuclear power. The city will be the first to run solely on nuclear power. This seems to show that nuclear is looking up, and possiblities are everywhere.

Someday, we may all have mini-reacters in our cars, getting us where we need to go. Yeah that may seem unlikely, but hey, you never know.

Fueling the Future (yeah, I know that's so generic, but we're going for it)

There's a new enzyme that breaks down everything living more quickly. This might let us use enery sources other than the practice of using food plants for fuel production. Some Norwegian scientists reported it recently. It's simple in theory, but...

Ethanol and methane are alternative energy sources that are made by the decomposition of biomass. We could use shellfish or wood. Finding a quick, efficient means of converting biomass has been without results so far. This means that usually, biofuel is derived from food plants, which we really need to feed people.


We need to design new enzymes to break down possible energy sources into ethanol. The way we currently do it is too expensive and complicated. Oxidohydrolases could make it cheaper and easier to produce biofuel.

They could also help reduce the use of edible plants to produce that biofuel. Large-scale biofuel production will require materials that are readily available. Oxidohydrolases can break down these more sutible materials. What we really need to do is choose what to use and then make it CHEAP.

I like algae and tabacco personally.

I found all this really cool because my dad used to help the government solve this exact problem. Sadly, we still haven't made the production of the needed enzymes fast and cheap, or a way to efficiently implement them. Since I'm thinking of becoming an chemical engineer, this migh be something I will one day have to solve. I'm going to have to put some time into this one.

Congratulations

The 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to three professors, one from the University of Delaware, one from Purdue University, and one from Hokkaido University. They have made a tool to make carbon to carbon bonds in organic chemistry. They call it palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling.

It would let scientists be able to make compounds as complex as those made in nature, something we were previously unable to do. The tool could be used in a wide range of fields, from agriculture and pharmaceuticals to coatings for electronic components.

I thought this was interesting because we are finishing up an organic chemistry unit in biology right now, and because of all its uses. I mean, isn't it ironic that there would be big news in the same field I'm looking at right now? I think it's funny personally. We were just talking about carbon bonds, and here is just what I wanted to do- learn something I didn't know about chemistry.

I really liked this for its uses because of how much this is good for. You can now make your own materials with ease for any number of things, and as complicated as nessacary. You could make the best possible medicines, a perfect building material, even microscopic cutting tools that could disintigrate after being used and not just be stuck in there. All sorts of health problems could be cured, especially with blood. You can make things to break down cholesterol, prevent strokes, and get rid of blood clots that would otherwise require surgery. By being able to make anything, you can do anything. Anything is possible.

And Here We Go Again...

Well, I'm back to blogging! First post for AT and I think it's pretty good. I'll actually find an issue for next time to talk about. Promise. Just had to say hi first. Check out everything here. I have astronomy up and running.

Thanks. Ciao.