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A consortium of sixteen European companies and institutions, coordinated from Spain by the IMDEA Nanoscience and managed by Atos Origin, has launched a European project under the Seventh Framework Programme, with a dual goal: to develop new forms of cancer diagnostics that allow earlier detection and thus reduce the risk, and investigate more personalized, more effective and with fewer side effects.
(Figure 1: a) Images obtained by light microscopy of cells epithelialfrom a human cervical carcinomal where magnetic nanoparticles are observed inside (brown spots). b) Image-like cells after cell division. More information: A.Villanueva et al. Nanotechnology20 , 115 103 (2009).)
The European Union has decided to boost the application of magnetic nanoparticles (materials at the molecular scale) for early detection and treatment of cancer, a line of research that could revolutionize medical science medium term.
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The biocides are less toxic to the environment if subjected to microencapsulation, because this serves as a shell of the substance. This has been proven chemistry Mariluz Alonso, ina thesis defended at the UPV / EHU.
In this research, has chosen various biocides and other substances complementary in search of a microencapsulated, in addition compatible with the environment, is more soluble in water, more manageable for the operator, with better conservation and effective against flying insects. His thesis is entitled Microencapsulation of biocides and has led to publications in such journals as International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry (the article is entitled Advantages of biocides- β -cyclodextrin inclusion complexes Against active components ).
The aim of the research was to obtain a product that overcomes the limitations of common biocides.These limitations serve a toxicological profile that restricts its use, poor water solubility, high viscosity (in the case of some of them) which complicates handling and high sensitivity (in most cases) to light and temperature. The product not only meets these expectations, but has proven effective against house flies in laboratory tests.
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Alessandro Lascialfari professor at the University of Pavia and Milan (Italy), where he combines his teaching with research. He is an expert in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and visit us at the University of Zaragoza as a court to participate in the reading of the thesis Ainhoa Urtizberea Lorente, which addresses unresolved issues on the magnetic behavior of nanoparticles iron oxide.
Could you explain briefly what your field of research and its importance to the lives of people?
I have three main lines: one of superconductivity, magnetism and another is on fundamental physical problems, the third, why I am here today is on compounds with applications in medicine.
In the hospitals of the diagnostic tools is the magnetic resonance imaging with taking pictures of internal body parts such as liver or brain. To apply this technique can be used magnetic nanoparticles. When it comes to nanoparticles, we are talking about particles having a size of a billionth of a meter.
These nanoparticles enhance the presence of a pathology. You can see more problems like edema, or ischemic stroke, tumors also. The new idea is the development of new nanoparticles, which have two uses in diagnosis and in therapy. This is part of the collaboration I have with Fernando Palacio (ICMA (CSIC-UZ)).
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The plane tree ( Platanus x hispanica ) is a very common tree species in parks and gardens of Castilla y Leon for its resilience. It assumes, for certain allergies, a headache at times of pollination. Or maybe, from now on, moments before pollination. An investigation by a group of scientists from the University of Leon has shown that the presence of an allergen (the protein that causes the allergic reaction) produced by this tree that can be independent of the reproductive process.
The research may help answer a question that may have certain allergies. Why did not always match the height of the itching, sneezing and other allergic reactions to the period of maximum presence of pollen in the air? Published in the journal Clinical & Experimental Allergy , the study area of Botany in the Department of Biodiversity and Environmental Management, says an answer: “The number of patients who display polysensitized banana allergy suggests that allergy symptoms are caused by or cosensibilización cross-reaction involving a number of particles. ” In other words, the peak phase of the tree pollination alone does not explain the allergic reaction.
Scientists studied the plane trees that decorate streets and gardens of Leon. In this city, it is customary to “prune them until they were almost like stumps,” says the Coordinator, Delia Fernandez.
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In the last three decades the overall number of people with diabetes has doubled, according to a comprehensive study on the prevalence of this disease, which now publishes The Lancet . The figures have soared both in the developed world and developing because of the growing and aging population, obesity and diet.
(347 million people suffer from diabetes on the planet.Picture: Jill A. Brown)
Diabetes has become a global disease, including obesity, high blood pressure or cholesterol, affecting both developed and developing countries: 347 million people suffer from diabetes in the world, more than double the 153 million were recorded in 1980.
These are the conclusions of epidemiological study that an international team of researchers recently presented in the medical journal The Lancet . Using data from more than 2.7 million people and models to estimate the prevalence of the disease, found that from 1980 to 2008 the prevalence of diabetes in adults has increased from 8.3% to 9.8% men (18% growth) and 7.5% to 9.2% for women (23%).
“We established a network of more than one hundred employees in countries around the world, and also help the World Health Organization collected a large number of studies already available.
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A system developed at the Science Park can automatically convert autostereoscopic three-dimensional stereoscopic images. His first beneficiaries will be museums, publishers, film and video producers and manufacturers in the audiovisual sector, and before a year is expected to have a hardware that will allow domestic 3D TV without glasses.
(The system can display virtual reconstructions of historical pieces. Image: PCUV)
Mirage Technologies The company has developed a technology that can automatically convert stereoscopic images (3D) images autostereoscopic, ie that can be viewed in 3D with the naked eye without using special glasses. This is the only company in the world to offer this conversion service, which has already content producers to showcase their productions in 3D glasses-free 3D displays.
Based on the calculation of the depth in the couple of images that provides the stereoscopic-the one used in films and 3D-TV channels, the technique constructs a 3D model of the scene and calculates the additional views needed to autoestereoscopía (up to eight or nine) as if they took photographs of the virtual scene from different angles, mimicking what the eye would see from any position.
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According to experts, bioethanol is and will be one of the main biofuel in Europe. Currently, production is based on the fermentation of sugar and starch crops as raw materials using corn, wheat, barley, beet, which is called first-generation bioethanol.
(Sorghum.)
In order to diversify the current market for this biofuel in the European Union, researchers from three countries Sweethanol working on the project, which aims to use the sugary sweet sorghum as a crop for sustainable production innovation, promoting the creation of small decentralized plants and medium scale.
The project, located in Ecuador of its development, has a budget of 1.2 million euros from the IEE-II program 2009 (Intelligent Energy Europe) of the European Commission. It involves two Spanish banks, the Association for the Diffusion of Utilization of Biomass in Spain (ADAB) and the Foundation of Valladolid Cartif and research institutions and two other Southern European countries where sorghum can be grown Sweet, Italy and Greece.
Specifically, as explained in comments reported by the investigator Cartif DiCYT Oscar Leon, is the Regional Energy Agency of Central Macedonia-Anatoliki (REACM) and the Agricultural Cooperative of Halastra of Greece and INIPA-Coldiretti and Center for Theoretical and Applied Ecology (CETA) of Italy, who coordinates the project.
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The second Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-2) of the European Space Agency, named Johannes Kepler , disintegrated during re-entry last night in Earth’s atmosphere. The ship, from the International Space Station had to deal with an other debris prior to its destruction under control.
(Representation of the reentry of ATV-2. Image: ESA – D.Ducros.)
The freighter or ATV European resupply ship completed its mission last night to disintegrate during a controlled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, becoming a shooting star. Contact with the ship was lost at 22h41 (GMT) at an altitude of 80 km.
The ship left the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday at 16h46, starting a solo flight as the team’s mission control in Toulouse (France), estimated parameters for controlled destruction. During this phase, the ATV had to make an unplanned maneuver: to avoid a piece of space junk, about two hours after leaving the station
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The T2K experiment in Japan has probably revealed, for the first time, the transformation of muon neutrinos into electron neutrinos.
(© Kamioka Observatory, ICRR, University of Tokyo
The interior of the Super-Kamiokande detector, before it is filled with water.)
Neutrinos, elementary particles that interact very little with matter, come in three types: e (the type of neutrinos emitted during beta decay), muon and tau (named after the heavy electrons which they are associated, the muon and tau). Theorists had predicted in 1956 that if neutrinos have nonzero masses, they can spontaneously transform from one species to another – a phenomenon called oscillation because the corresponding probabilities are periodic functions of time. The existence of neutrino oscillations has been confirmed for the first time in 1998 thanks to the Super-Kamiokande detector Japanese. The results of the international experience T2K, Japan, are now providing the last piece of the puzzle of neutrino oscillations.
In 1998, Super-Kamiokande was detected in the particles produced by interactions between cosmic rays and the upper atmosphere, fewer muon neutrinos than expected, we could interpret as a consequence of the transformation of some of muon neutrinos into tau neutrinos. Since then, transformation of electron neutrinos into muon neutrinos or tau have been demonstrated by various experiments on neutrinos emitted by the Sun or a nuclear reactor.
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An early migration to the interior of Jupiter in the solar system explain the mass of terrestrial planets and the asteroid belt.
(© Dan DURD / SwRI,
In this artist’s view, Jupiter and Saturn are carpets on the edge of our solar system. Their migration near the orbit of Mars could have guided the formation of terrestrial planets.)
Jupiter at the current position of Mars? This is the scenario envisaged by Alessandro Morbidelli of the Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur, Sean Raymond, of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, and their colleagues to explain the characteristics of the inner solar system – Mercury to the asteroid belt beyond the orbit of Mars. In this scenario, Jupiter would have migrated to the Sun to the current position of Mars early in the history of the solar system, before moving to its current position.
The mass of Mars, ten times lower than that of the Earth, has long been a puzzle for models of planetary formation. In 2009, Brad Hansen of the University of California at Los Angeles, proposed a model in which the terrestrial planets were born of a disk of material that ranged from 0.7 to 1 astronomical unit (1 astronomical unit, or AU is the mean Earth-Sun distance). The central region of the ring, the denser, contain materials necessary for the formation of Venus and Earth. The inner and outer edges would, in turn, led to Mercury and Mars, which would then mlgré their current position (0.38 and 1.52 AU).
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(© Kamioka Observatory, ICRR, University of Tokyo