As a step towards designing tomorrow's super-fast optical communications networks, a Duke University-led research team has demonstrated a way to transfer encoded information from a laser beam to sound waves and then back to light waves again.

Swapping data between media like this would allow information to be captured and retained for very brief intervals. Data could be stored within pockets of acoustic vibration created when laser beams interact along a short strand of optical fiber, the team reported in Science.

The Duke experiments address a barrier to efforts at developing computer networks that can run on light instead of electrons.

 

Bali is a word that in 10-15 years I hope will represent and define the time when humanity made an essential shift in direction.  There are currently some 10,000 people attending the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali.  More than 180 countries are represented along with numerous attendees from non-governmental, intergovernmental groups and of course the media.  The general reason for the meeting is to start work on the replacement of the Kyoto accord to address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions which expires in 2012.

At present, biodiesel can play vital role in the transport sector all over the world. Biodiesel refers to a diesel-equivalent processed fuel derived from biological sources; especially plant species such as oil seed rape, jatropha, sunflower, soybean etc. I will discuss some prospective uses of biodiesel use in different vehicles.


History of Biodiesel

No one will be farther from home than the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, circling Earth at 17,500 mph and orbiting 16 times each day. NASA is giving the public an opportunity to send personalized holiday greetings to the orbiting crew.

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko, a Russian cosmonaut, have been on the station since Oct. 12. Flight Engineer Dan Tani, a U.S. astronaut, joined them Oct. 25.

All cells are surrounded by protective, fatty membranes.In the cell membrane there are thousands of membrane proteins that transport nutritional substances, ions, and water through the membrane. Membrane proteins are also necessary for cells to recognize each other in the body and for a nervous system, for example, to be formed.

Researchers at Stockholm University report in Nature that they have now managed to reveal the "molecular code" that governs the insertion of proteins in the cell membrane.

About 25 percent of all proteins in a cell are found in the cell membrane. Since they regulate all communication between the inside of the cell and the surrounding environment, many membrane proteins are crucial to the life of the cell.

Does the consumption of green tea, widely touted to have beneficial effects on health, also protect brain cells? Authors of a new study being published in the December 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry share new data that indicates this may be the case.

The authors investigated the effects of green tea polyphenols, a group of naturally occurring chemical substances found in plants that have antioxidant properties, in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease.

Sugar-based markers on human sperm cells which may prevent them from being attacked by the female immune system could provide a vital clue to how some cancers spread in the human body, according to new research published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Researchers analyzed these markers, believed to tell the female immune system that the sperm are not dangerous pathogens, and therefore should not be attacked by the woman’s white blood cells during the reproductive process. The study, led by Imperial College London and the University of Missouri, suggests that these sugar markers, found on N-glycans which are part of human sperm glycoproteins, can be universally recognised by all human immune systems, regardless of the individual.

LONDON, December 14 /PRNewswire/ --

- Second Appraisal Consultation Document Fails to Provide Choice for Patients and Ophthalmologists

Pfizer Limited today expresses concern that the latest NICE appraisal consultation document (ACD) regarding the use of treatments for wet Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), fails to provide any treatment choice for patients or physicians, by recommending only one anti-VEGF therapy for AMD.

NICE's second ACD again fails to recommend Macugen(R) (pegaptanib) for patients affected by wet AMD in England and Wales, in stark contrast to Scotland where the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) approved its use.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, December 13 /PRNewswire/ --

- Results to be presented at San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium

Agendia BV, world leader in the rapidly evolving field of molecular diagnostics, announced today that an independent international consortium has demonstrated the prognostic power of its MammaPrint(R) breast cancer prognosis test in patients who have 1-3 positive lymph nodes. The data show that MammaPrint(R) can accurately identify a low risk group of lymph node-positive breast cancer patients with an excellent survival, implications that will help doctors to decide the optimal treatment management.

I recently submitted a Letter of Intent for the NSF Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation competition. Kevin Owens is a co-PI and will assist with the laboratory automation component. ChemSpider will contribute the database support. The pre-proposal is due in early January 2008 and we'll be writing it openly here. Comments are welcome. We would ultimately like to enable the chemistry community to directly control the actions of a robot to help us understand some chemistry problems.