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Snippets 10/2005
A lot of nothing
Just one tablespoon of the lately developed MIL-101 has the surface area of 6 football fields, although the highly porous material consists of 90 % eempty space.
Scientists of the Lavoisier Institute at the University of Versailles build the complex material, which consists of inorganic chromium clusters linked by organic moieties.
MIL-101 could be used for example as nanoresersoirs or nanoreactors, which might form new kinds of multifunctional nanomaterials.
For further information:
Chemical & Engineering News
29 September 2005
http://pubs.acs.org
Successful transplantations
Since less people in Germany agree to organ transplantations after their death, increasing numbers of organs from living people are used.
The advantages of this method can be seen especially with kidney transplantations:
the "new" kidneys are working for longer time, the patients are in a more stable state and the organs can be transplanted straight from donator to receiver.
To solve the problem of different blood groups, cross-over tranplantations between two couples are possible but not undiscussed by lawyers.
Another solution is to treat the immuno system of the receiver in order to tolerate the new organ.
Although this immunoadsorption is not always successful and expensive, progress is made.
Other problems are dealt with for transplantation of liver or pancreas.
Collected from:
FAZ
30 September 2005
www.faz.net
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Biomolecular switch
Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institute for biophysical chemistry revealed the molecular mechanism that switches between the fluorsecent and non-fluosrescent state of the protein asFP595.
This protein protects the tentacles of Anemonia sulcata by absorbing green light and donating red light.
The scientists purified and chrystalized asFP595 before analyzing the structure by X-rays.
They found, that the chromophor only moves 3 x 10 -10 m to change between the two states. Possible devices are microscopy or optical data information in protein crystals.
Read more at:
Bionity.com
23 September 2005
www.bionity.com
New biomaterial as scaffold for tissue engineering?
Biomaterials can hardly imitate the vascular system, because of little possibilities to vary concentrations of species within their bulk.
Abraham Stroock and his team from Cornell University created a new "microfluidic biomaterial", that might overcome this problem.
They showed, that soluble species can diffuse between the channels in the calcium alginate hydrogel and the mass transfer through the material can be regulated by pressure.
This device could be an accurate scaffold for tissue engineering, hopes Stroock.
Read more at:
Chemical & Engineering News
22 September 2005
http://pubs.acs.org
Coaching clothes
Human coaches are obviously not able, to get the last bit out of athlets.
Therefore, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research in Soesterberg has developed clothes, that tell sportsmen when their efficiency is lowering.
Sensors at certain places detect, whether the optimum is kept and vibrating pads give the information to the athlet.
By this way, faster feedback is given and training can be more efficient than with only a human coach.
Devices for runners and skaters are already created, the next generation of coaching clothes will also include dresses for footballers.
Collected from:
The Guardian
29 September 2005
www.guardian.co.uk
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