MIT researchers have created a new structured gel that can rapidly change color in response to a variety of stimuli, including temperature, pressure, salt concentration and humidity.

Among other applications, the structured gel could be used as a fast and inexpensive chemical sensor, says Edwin Thomas, MIT's Morris Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. One place where such an environmental sensor could be useful is a food processing plant, where the sensor could indicate whether food that must remain dry has been overly exposed to humidity.

A critical component of the structured gel is a material that expands or contracts when exposed to certain stimuli.

With an eye on curing diabetes, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have successfully transplanted embryonic pig pancreatic cells destined to produce insulin into diabetic macaque monkeys – all without the need for risky immune suppression drugs that prevent rejection.

The transplanted cells, known as primordia, are in the earliest stages of developing into pancreatic tissues. Within several weeks of the transplants, the cells became engrafted, or established, within the three rhesus macaque monkeys that received them. The cells also released pig insulin in response to rising blood glucose levels, as would be expected in healthy animals and humans.

Sifting through the massive backlog of microbial genome sequences from the public databases the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute identified genes that kill the bacteria employed in the sequencing process and throw a microbial wrench in the works. Their observations also offer a possible strategy for the discovery of new antibiotics.

Which goes to show; data that goes unnoticed, despite its widespread availability, can reveal extraordinary insights to the discerning eye.

In nature, promiscuous microbes share genetic information so readily that using genes to infer their species position on the evolutionary tree of life was thought to be futile.

A clinical trial evaluating a brain cancer vaccine in patients with newly diagnosed brain cancer has begun at NYU Medical Center. The study will evaluate the addition of the vaccine following standard therapy with surgery and chemotherapy in patients with glioblastoma multiforme, a deadly form of brain cancer.

The vaccine, called DCVax-Brain, incorporates proteins found in patients’ tumors and is designed to attack cancer cells containing these proteins. The study underway at NYU Medical Center is an expansion of an earlier phase I trial of the vaccine. The vaccine is made by the Northwest Biotherapeutics, Inc., based in Bothell, Washington.

“We are really excited about the promise of this vaccine,” said Patrick J.

An ever-changing U.S. consumer who enjoys the convenience of ready-to-eat produce and seasonable fruits during the dead of winter has brought new challenges to food import safety, experts said Oct. 18.

With U.S. food imports set to top more than $2 trillion this year and expected to triple by 2015, a panel on food safety commissioned by President Bush met at Texas A&M University to discuss ways to strengthen the national and global import infrastructure.

Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said the nation’s consumer is one who “expects to eat strawberries in February.”

That has led to more change and complexity among how food is processed and delivered into the U.S.

Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine, the world’s largest producer of X-rays, shook the ground for several hundred yards in every direction for the first time since July 2006, when the 22-year-old facility was gutted to undergo a complete refurbishment at a total project cost of $90 million.

Z has been overbooked in recent years with requests for experiment time from national labs, universities, and the international community. The facility is in demand because of Z’s capability to subject materials to immense pressures, compress spherical capsules to produce thermonuclear fusion reactions, fire objects much faster than a rifle bullet, and produce data for models of nuclear weapons effects — as well as, more arcanely, the conditions surrounding black holes in space.