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In the future, cars will have hydrogen-based propulsion. In the transport sector and energy, hydrogen is considered as a suitable alternative to fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. However, for metals such as steel, aluminum and magnesium are commonly used in automotive technology and the energy, hydrogen is not ideal.
The problem is that hydrogen can cause these metals to become very fragile. The ductility of these metals are just reducing dangerously. This can lead to sudden failure of parts and components. In addition to the fuel tank itself, or parts of the fuel cell also common components such as bearings are affected. This threatens not only cars, but almost all industrial machinery to work with hydrogen.
Hydrogen, the lightest chemical elements, pervades many of the materials in the structure of the vehicle, not only when filling the tank, but also through the various manufacturing processes. Hydrogen in metals can seep through the corrosion, or during the plating process of automotive parts. Infiltration can also occur during welding or other processes. The result is always the same: The piece can crack or break without warning symptoms of the growing deterioration and breakage of parts results in costly repairs.
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Imagine devices that capture the power of the air, mounted on the outside of buildings as are the solar panels that capture sunlight and generate energy from it.
Imagine using such exotic devices for lighting a house or recharge an electric car. And imagine using similar panels on the roofs of buildings to prevent the formation of lightning. Strange and typical of science fiction as it may seem that technology, a team of scientists already working in the early stages of a project to develop such devices.
The research, carried out by the team of Fernando Galembeck, University of Campinas, Brazil, could open the door that leads us to be able to use atmospheric electricity as a source of alternative energy in the future. Likewise in the domestic solar energy can help us get extra power without having to pay the electric company, this promising new energy source could have a similar effect.
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This image radar taken by the satellite Envisat the delta Volga, Russia, bordering the Caspian Sea . The river (dark) is its source in north-west of Moscow and flows to the south on some 3700 km through central Russia before joining the Caspian as a delta consisting of approximately 800 waterways.
The Volga delta is considered one of the most dynamic in the world because of its network Hydrographic remarkably complex. Swamps and wetlands provide a meandering environment favorable for a variety of species fauna and flora.
More than 70 000 species of fish live in its waters, making it a paradise for fishermen. As this area is home to many species of migratory birds, she was named “Wetland of International Importance.”
Among the flora of the delta, the most famous is the lotus, or pink Caspian. It usually flowers in July and lasts until September. In mid-July this year, tourists flocked into the Delta to witness the flowering of the largest field lotus known: 3 by 15 km.
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A search of the University Concordia Montreal the link between hormones, attention and learning.
Lack of energy and trouble concentrating? The fault could be hormone based on the results of new research from Concordia University published in the journal Brain and Cognition. This study shows that high levels of estrogen are associated with attention deficit disorder and learning. This is the first article to explain how these disorders can be attributed to the direct effect of hormones on brain structures mature.
“Even if we know that estrogen plays an important role in learning and memory, this is far from consensus,” said Wayne Brake, assistant professor in the Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology at Concordia University and lead author of the study. Thanks to a well-established model of learning called latent inhibition, our results show unequivocally that high levels of estrogen inhibit cognition in female rodents. ”
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The results of a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS) shows that raltegravir, a drug approved in 2007 for the treatment of HIV / AIDS and marketed under the brand name Isentress Merck is capable of inhibiting the function of a protein essential in the replication of viruses of the herpes family.
This work was conducted by researchers at the Institute of Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona is a town in Catalonia – Spain, located in the province of …) in Spain in collaboration with the team of Darren Hart at EMBL Grenoble.
The herpes virus family includes several types of pathogens such as herpes simplex viruses 1 and 2, varicella zoster virus, Epstein-Barr virus, roseola virus, cytomegalovirus, the virus associated with Kaposi’s sarcoma among stage AIDS patients, … The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) which is present in this study is nearly 90% of adults and causes disease when the immune system is compromised (cancer, AIDS, transplantation and newborns). He is responsible for neurological disorders in 1% of newborns in the country rich, it is associated with blindness in 25% of patients progress to AIDS, or is responsible for mononucleosis and serious diseases of the throat.
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The gene TCTP is present in all animals and plants. Work involving INRA, CNRS, The University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and ENS Lyon just revealed that this gene has exactly the same function in two organisms very distant , plant, Arabidopsis, and a fly , Drosophila : he participated in the regulation of cell multiplication . This gene is therefore involved both in the formation of organs in the embryo than in the proliferation of tumors , cancerous or not. These results, which could open new avenues of struggle against cancer, are published in the journal PNAS.
The role of gene TCTP in cell growth
Research on cancer in humans have identified the gene TCTP (it allows the production of “Translationally Controlled Tumor Protein” protein TCTP ) . They showed that this gene is highly overexpressed in many cancer cells. It is therefore a potential target in treatment against cancer because it is involved in the mechanisms of cell development and cell proliferation.
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A new image taken with the powerful camera HAWK -I, installed on the ESO VLT at the Paranal Observatory in Chile reveal the beautiful galaxy spiral barred NGC 1365 in the infrared. NGC 1365 belongs to the cluster of galaxies in the furnace and is located 60 million light years from the Earth.
NGC 1365 is a of galaxy barred spiral the best known and most studied . It is sometimes called the Great Galaxy Spiral Barred because of its form of perfection striking , with a straight bar and two spiral arms outside very marked. There is also a second spiral structure closest to the center and the entire galaxy is adorned with delicate bands of dust.
This galaxy is an excellent laboratory for astronomers who study the formation and evolution of galaxies barred spiral . The new infrared images taken with the camera HAWK -I are much less affected by dust that obscures parts of the galaxy than are the images taken visible light ( potw1037a ) . They thus reveal very clearly radiation a large number stars, both in the bar and spiral arms . These data were collected to help astronomers understand the RSS complex material in the galaxy and its impact on the reservoirs gas from which stars can form.
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The new technique overcomes a major obstacle : the change in shape epitope that allows the virus to escape the host immune system
One approach to designing a vaccine against HIV is to educate the immune system to recognize some protein structures on its surface and produce therefore antibodies that bind to these structures, by neutralizing the virus.
This strategy requires the identification of the structures of the surface viral and the presentation of these fragments to the immune system . When some parts of the surface of HIV are removed, however, they change shape , and will not be recognized by antibodies .
New research conducted at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ( NIAID ) and now published on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS ), Has developed a technique to overcome this problem. In particular, it was set up scaffolding to extract a portion recognized by the antibodies , called epitope or antigenic determinant , and inserting it into a protein structure drawn to the computer. The latter encompasses the epitope in a form which can subsequently be recognized by the immune system.
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According to the researchers there are grounds for a diagnosis of simple, accurate and fast for cancer and for the development of personalized therapies
A molecular test for objective diagnosis of cancer was developed by a team led by molecular biologist Graziano Pesole , Institute of biomembrane and bioenergetics of the National Research Council ( Ibbe – CNR ) and the University of Bari Results of the study – which more than IBB -CNR was attended by researchers of the Institute of Biomedical Technologies ( ITB) CNR of Bari, University of Milan and the House for the Relief of Suffering in San Giovanni Rotondo – were published in the journal Molecular Cancer.
During the first phase were analyzed by computer , using special databases , the expression profiles of all human genes in different normal tissues and tumors. ” By ‘ expression profile ‘ means a set of genes actively translated into protein, a sort of fingerprint of the cell that determines the membership cards and, as demonstrated by the study, to distinguish between healthy cells and those victims of pathological degeneration , such as cancer , “says Pesole.
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It ‘s the first time, that is designed specifically to harness the wave nature of electrons developing an idea and turn it into usable energy
Exploiting the laws of quantum mechanics , a group of researchers at the University of Arizona was able to design a device that can convert waste heat directly into electricity without the action intermediate of mobile elements. The research, conducted by Charles Stafford and Justin Bergfield , is described in an article published in the journal ACS Nano.
The project is now based only on computer simulations , but said Stafford , “Our colleagues applications tell us to be very confident that the device we have designed to the computer can actually be built with the features of our simulation .
“We are the first to harness the wave nature of electrons and to develop an idea and turn it into usable energy , “said Stafford.
” The thermoelectricity to convert in a clean way heat directly into electricity with a device in which there are no moving parts , “says Justin Bergfield , the first signatory of the article. “Unlike the current equipment heat conversion such as chillers or steam turbines , the new device no uses moving parts or chemicals that can damage the ozone layer , but a ribbon polymer placed between two metal surfaces. ”
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