Scientists reveal how organisms avoid carbon monoxide poisoning

Scientists have discovered how living organisms – including humans – avoid poisoning from carbon monoxide generated by natural cell processes.

Posted by Biomechanism 

Carbon monoxide is a toxic gas that can prove fatal at high concentrations; the gas is most commonly associated with faulty domestic heating systems and car fumes, and is often referred to as ‘the silent killer’.

But carbon monoxide – chemical symbol CO – is also produced within our bodies through the normal activity of cells. Scientists have long wondered how organisms manage to control this internal carbon monoxide production so that it does no harm.

University of Manchester researchers, working with colleagues at the University of Liverpool and Eastern Oregon University, have now identified the mechanism whereby cells protect themselves from the toxic effects of the gas at these lower concentrations.

Carbon monoxide molecules should be able to readily bind with protein molecules found in blood cells, known as haemproteins. When they do, for instance during high concentration exposure from inhaling, they impair normal cellular functions, such as oxygen transportation, cell signaling and energy conversion. It is this that causes the fatal effects of carbon monoxide poisoning.

The haemproteins provide an ideal ‘fit’ for the CO molecules, like a hand fitting a glove, so the natural production of the gas, even at low concentrations, should in theory bind to the haemproteins and poison the organism, except it doesn’t.

“Toxic carbon monoxide is generated naturally by chemical metabolic reactions in cells but we have shown how organisms avoid poisoning by these low concentrations of ‘natural’ carbon monoxide,” said Professor Nigel Scrutton, who is based in the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre within the Faculty of Life Sciences.

“Our work identifies a mechanism by which haemproteins are protected from carbon monoxide poisoning at low, physiological concentrations of the gas. Working with a simple, bacterial haemprotein, we were able to show that when the haemprotein ‘senses’ the toxic gas is being produced within the cell, it changes its structure through a burst of energy and the carbon monoxide molecule struggles to bind with it at these low concentrations.

“This mechanism of linking the CO binding process to a highly unfavourable energetic change in the haemprotein’s structure provides an elegant means by which organisms avoid being poisoned by carbon monoxide derived from natural metabolic processes. Similar mechanisms of coupling the energetic structural change with gas release may have broad implications for the functioning of a wide variety of haemprotein systems. For example, haemproteins bind other gas molecules, including oxygen and nitric oxide. Binding of these gases to haemproteins is important in the natural functions of the cell.”

Co-author Dr Derren Heyes, also based in the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre, added: “We were surprised to discover that haemproteins could have a simple mechanism involving unfavourable energetic changes in structure to prevent carbon monoxide binding. Without this structural change carbon monoxide would bind to the haemoprotein almost a million times more tightly, which would prevent the natural cellular function of the haemprotein.”

The scientists say the work has potential for the use of haem-based sensors for gas sensing in a wide range of biotechnological applications. For example, such sensors could be used to monitor gas concentrations in industrial manufacturing processes or biomedical gas sensors, where accurate control of gas concentration is critical.

The study, headed by Professor Samar Hasnain, from the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Integrative Biology, is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Cancer detection from an implantable, flexible LED

“A KAIST research team has developed a new type of biocompatible and bendable GaN LED biosensor.”

Posted by Biomechanism 

Can a flexible LED conformably placed on the human heart, situated on the corrugated surface of the human brain, or rolled upon the blood vessels, diagnose or even treat various diseases? These things might be a reality in the near future.

Caption: The team of professor Keon Jae Lee (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KAIST) has developed a new concept: a biocompatible, flexible gallium nitride (GaN) LED that can detect prostate cancer. Credit: KAIST

The team of Professor Keon Jae Lee (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KAIST) has developed a new concept: a biocompatible, flexible Gallium Nitride (GaN) LED that can detect prostate cancer.

GaN LED, a highly efficient light emitting device, has been commercialized in LED TVs and in the lighting industry. Until now, it has been difficult to use this semiconductor material to fabricate flexible electronic systems due to its brittleness. The research team, however, has succeeded in developing a highly efficient, flexible GaN LED and in detecting cancer using a flexible LED biosensor.

Prof. Lee was involved in the first co-invention of “High Performance Flexible Single Crystal GaN” during his PhD course at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This flexible GaN LED biosensor utilized a similar protocol to transfer thin GaN LED films onto flexible substrates, followed by a biocompatible packaging process; the system’s overall potential for use in implantable biomedical applications was demonstrated.

Professor John Roger (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UIUC) said,

“Bio-integrated LEDs represent an exciting, new technology with strong potential to address important challenges in human health. This present work represents a very nice contribution to this emerging field.”

Below is a video on “Flexible GaN LED for Implantable Biomedical Applications.”

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This paper was published in the online issue of Nano Energy Elsevier Journal (Editor, Prof. Zhong Lin Wang) dated September 16, 2011.

World’s oldest fossils found

HOPE HOLBOROW, SCIENCENETWORK WA

The microfossils found in basal sandstone at Strelley Pool Formation, 60 km west of Marble Bar, are dated at 3.4 billion years old. Microfossils of sulphur-metabolizing cells in 3.4-billion-year-old rocks of Western Australia published in the journal Nature Geoscience provide convincing morphological evidence from sulphur isotope data that sulphur-metabolising extremophiles were thriving in an atmosphere devoid of oxygen. UWA Postdoctoral Research Fellow and senior author Dr David Wacey was part of the long-running research program led by Martin Brasier of Oxford University. “[What we found] were microfossils of sulphur-metabolising cells. The evidence for [the presence of] sulphur was that the microfossils were found right next to grains of pyrite—an iron/sulphur mineral,” Dr Wacey says. Dr Wacey says the microbes had the appearance of coating the grains within the sandstone and were extracting sulphur from them as well as from pyrite and silica. “It was the close association in space plus the isotopic data from the pyrite which led us to conclude that they were sulphur metabolising [microbes]. “There’s quite a lot of evidence there was very little to no oxygen [present] on the early earth but there was a lot of carbon dioxide and methane, so any present life had to metabolise alternatively.” According to the research, the discovery has been identified as microfossils of spheroidal and ellipsoidal cells and tubular sheaths demonstrating the organisations of multiple cells. “The cells are spheres and tubes of about 10 micrometers across and they cluster together just as you might expect modern bacteria to do,” Dr Wacey says. The fossils were found in what would have been a beach-like setting and were remarkably well preserved due to the high silica content in the Archaen oceans. “These [microbes] were preserved by silica which precipitated around them. Essentially sediment became rock, ensuring good preservation,” he says. The first structures were found in 2006 and have undergone about four years of testing and analysis through a variety of techniques including electron microscopy, ion probe analysis and mass spectrometry measuring isotopes within carbon and sulphur. Optical petrography, morphological analysis and fabric mapping were carried out on 30 μm and 100 μm thin sections under bright-field transmitted and reflected light using Nikon Optiophot-2 (biological), Optiophot-pol (polarizing) and Leica 2,500 DM microscopes. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Saltbush keeps sheep healthy

THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Feeding saltbush to sheep can increase their vitamin E levels.  Image: Engamon/iStockphoto Feeding saltbush, a native shrub used to revegetate areas of dryland salinity, to sheep can provide a good dietary source of Vitamin E, which can then help reduce the unsightly browning of meat that can occur if animals are deficient in Vitamin E. This is the finding of Chelsea Fancote, originally from a Brookton, WA, farm, who began her PhD at The University of Western Australia (UWA) in 2008, researching the potential benefits of saltbush as a source of Vitamin E to improve sheep production, health and meat quality. To help her further pursue her PhD research, she was recently announced as one of two recipients of the 2011 Mike Carroll Travelling Fellowship. The other is fellow UWA PhD student, Xixi Li. Ms Fancote and Ms Li this month attended the 8th International Symposium on the Nutrition of Herbivores in Wales, UK, where Ms Fancote presented a poster and discussed her UWA Institute of Agriculture (IOA) research with world leading scientists in her discipline. She also attended the 8th Annual  Meeting of the European Association for Animal production in Norway, where she gave an oral presentation. Her PhD supervisors are Dr Ian Williams and Professor Phil Vercoe, both of UWA, Dr Hayley Norman of  CSIRO and Dr Kelly Pearce of Murdoch University and her PhD research is supported by UWA, CSIRO and Future Farm Industries CRC. Dr Williams, in a Mike Carroll Travelling Fellowship reference for Ms Fancote to UWA IOA Director, Winthrop Professor Kadambot Siddique, described her results, so far, as "exciting". "Chelsea chose a degree in agricultural science at UWA because she wanted to contribute to the farming community. During her first class honors, which I supervised, she produced excellent results that are now published, fuelling her desire to start a PhD," Dr Williams said. Ms Fancote's PhD has investigated the implications for animal production, animal health and meat quality of including saltbush (Atriplex spp.) in sheep diets. "With salinity such a threat to extensive agriculture in Western Australia, including saltbush could potentially reduce the area lost to productive cropping and the additional biomass could provide a valuable source of green feed as fodder during typically long, dry summers," she said. "Persistent lack of green feed during summer can lead to vitamin E deficiency and subsequent onset of the potentially fatal disease known as nutritional myopathy. "Beyond the farm gate, adequate levels of vitamin E in muscle tissue are integral for meat colour and because colour is the main determinant of consumer meat choice, it's extremely important for the sustained growth of the lamb industry," she said. Key animal production, animal health and meat quality findings from Ms Fancote's PhD field experiments are: Saltbush can be used as feed for sheep to maintain liveweight over summer with minimal grain supplementation. Carcasses from lambs backgrounded on saltbush are heavier than those fed control pastures. Saltbush is an excellent source of vitamin E. Grazing saltbush is more effective in improving plasma vitamin E and preventing deficiency than commercially available synthetic vitamin E supplements. Meat from animals backgrounded on saltbush is redder and has a longer shelf life than meat from animals without access to saltbush. At CSIRO, Floreat, Ms Fancote has also been investigating short term feeding of saltbush to young sheep. She hopes to determine how this improves their vitamin E status, how long sheep need to graze saltbush to adequately boost their vitamin E status and how long this will prevent vitamin E deficiency. "With animal production at a crossroads, we need farming systems able to cope with our dry climate, while responding to consumer concerns about using synthetic additives in animal diets and without compromising meat quality or whole-farm profitability," Ms Fancote concluded. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Laser beam reveals gold origin

UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA

Image: bashta/iStockphoto A team of researchers at the University of Tasmania has settled a long-running debate over the origins of the world’s largest and deepest gold deposit. The team, led by Professor Ross Large, Director of the ARC Centre for Excellence in ore Deposits (CODES) at UTAS, released the groundbreaking findings recently at the Geological Society of London Fermor Conference, where Prof Large was an invited keynote speaker. The source of the renowned Witwatersrand ore deposit in South Africa has been a topic of debate among geologists for more than a century. This giant ore-body has been one of the cornerstones of South Africa’s economy, producing more than 40,000 tonnes of gold since its discovery in 1884. Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of interest in how this geological phenomenon occurred. The theorists fall into two camps: the ‘placerists’ and the ‘hydrothermalists’. Prof Large said it turned out both camps were correct. “We developed a novel analytical technique that scans a very narrow laser beam across the gold and associated minerals to determine the origin and history of the gold. “We found that the placerists were correct in how the initial concentration of gold had formed in the conglomerates about three billion years ago, but then, about 800 million years later, the reef was hit by a pulse of fluids rich in gold, which supported the ‘hydrothermalists’ theory. Professor large commented that it was very satisfying to show that both lines of previous research had proved to be correct. He said major research advances in science are commonly borne from debates and controversies of this type, however the outcome usually comes down on one side of the fence. “In this case, the excellent research over many previous decades by hundreds of geologists, had proved right on both counts. “This result explains why the Witwatersrand deposit is the biggest and richest in the world,” said Prof Large. “These two major geological events combined to produce a greater volume of gold.” Prof Large said very few laboratories in the world have this technological capability and for this reason the UTAS team was invited to assist in resolving the debate. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Study finds ‘stroke proteins’

NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

The research is expected to help the development of a sensitive diagnostic tool – possibly in the form of a simple blood test. Image: Sage78/iStockphoto A simple blood test is all it could take to tell if you are going to have a heart attack or stroke. A team of international scientists have discovered more than 10 types of unique proteins which are commonly present in the blood of a person who recently suffered a stroke or heart attack. The breakthrough is a result of an international collaboration led by Nanyang Technological University (NTU)’s lead scientist Assistant Professor Newman Sze and the Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands (ICIN)’s lead cardiology scientist Professor Dominique de Kleijn who have been working together for more than five years. Lead clinicians Professor Lee Chuen Neng and Dr. Vitaly Sorokin of the National University Hospital (NUH) joined the research team in 2010 to provide medical expertise, clinical samples and data. The team will now expand their research to study the existence of these proteins, also known as bio-markers, in Singapore’s multi-racial population. Their research is expected to result in the development of a sensitive diagnostic tool – possibly in the form of a simple blood test - which can detect these bio-markers so as to help pinpoint the risk of heart diseases in a person before it happens. This is because the more such biomarkers are found in the blood, the higher the risk of a heart attack or stroke. As these biomarkers are newly discovered, specialised instruments are needed for further research. To this end, Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A), the world's premier measurement company and a technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis, will be partnering NTU to provide top-of-the-line equipment to NTU. The equipment is used to identify and validate more protein biomarkers associated with cardiovascular diseases. Known as the Agilent HPLC-Chip LC/MS Triple Quadrupole system, this equipment works much faster than other existing methods as it can measure all the biomarkers of interest in a sample at once, speeding up the research process from five years down to one year. As the cutting-edge equipment is able to process multiple samples simultaneously, the team will also be able to validate over 100 biomarkers in one year, as compared to 10 biomarkers over five years using the conventional method. Assistant Professor Newman Sze, from NTU’s School of Biological Sciences, lead researcher of the project, said the local study will take one year and will involve some 2,000 samples collected in Singapore and the Netherlands. “After discovering that such biomarkers exist, we need to validate them further to ascertain that people with these proteins are really at a risk of heart attack and stroke. This approach is expected to lead to the development of new and improved tools for early diagnosis of heart attack and stroke patients, way before the diseases strike,” said Prof Sze. Dr Vitaly Sorokin, part of the team at the NUH involved in this research, said that Singapore is a good place to validate these biomarkers, as this is a unique opportunity to involve and compare results among the multi-racial population. “This biomarkers which allows prediction of major cardiovascular events, carries great benefits for the doctors, and will likely lead to the development of prevention strategies or algorithm which will give us a chance to stop heart complications from happening or to improve the clinical outcome of treatment,” said Dr Sorokin, a Russian. “Having the opportunity to screen and diagnose condition like myocardial infarction and stroke, will give doctors time to prevent the complication of atherosclerosis – the hardening of arteries which causes heart attacks and strokes. With such a technology, patients with known conditions like ischemic heart disease and cerebro-vascular disease can be monitored more effectively.” Coronary heart disease and stroke are major worldwide health problems. In Singapore, it accounts for more than 30 per cent of all deaths, with about 15 people dying daily because of heart attack and stroke. This research innovation is the latest in a series of healthcare breakthroughs by NTU. Future Healthcare is one of NTU’s Five Peaks of Excellence which the university aims to make its mark globally under NTU 2015 five year strategic plan. The other four peaks include sustainability, new media, the best of the East and West, and innovation. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

medha suktam - sacred chants

A Future of Fossil Fuels

EIA's latest numbers shows a continuous growth in energy consumption, led by China and India.

DAVID ROTMAN 

Source: EIA.

For those hoping for a quick transition to cleaner energy sources, the numbers are sobering. The world's energy consumption is projected to continue to rise at a rapid pace, increasing by 53 percent by 2035, with much of that growth coming from China and India, according to numbers released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Fossil fuels will continue to be, by far, the dominant source of that energy, supplying 78 percent of the world's energy in 2035, says the EIA.

Source: EIA.

But it is in the renewables statistics that are truly revealing. Even though it they the fastest growing source of energy, renewables will still represent only 15 percent of the world's energy in 2035 (up from 10 percent today). Oil, coal, and natural gas will still dominate—and will grow at a relatively robust rate over the next two decades. Though no surprise, the EIA's numbers are reality check on the challenge ahead for clean technologies if they are to make an impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

EIA's important caveat: its projection "does not incorporate prospective legislation or policies that might affect energy markets."

The Future of Hydrogen Cars

Gas tank: A tank of hydrogen that is used to fuel 90 small vehicles at a BMW plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Credit: BMW

ENERGY

The Future of Hydrogen Cars

Proton OnSite's lack of progress toward its proposed "hydrogen highway" demonstrates the low priority America gives this alternative fuel.

• BY LAURIE WIEGLER

Audio »

In October 2010, Proton OnSite's subsidiary SunHydro opened a hydrogen fuel station near its Wallingford, Connecticut, headquarters. The station was the first of at least nine that the company planned to build up and down the East Coast to supply hydrogen-powered fuel-cell electric vehicles. Yet SunHydro has not built a single additional station since.

Despite the stall, Proton investor and SunHydro cofounder Tom Sullivan, who made his fortune with the Lumber Liquidators hardwood flooring chain, sees only opportunity.

Fuel-cell cars are ultimately electric cars, but they use hydrogen as fuel. The fuel cells convert the energy stored in hydrogen into electricity, yielding water vapor as the only byproduct. SunHydro also uses water as its starting point for producing hydrogen, splitting the molecules into hydrogen and oxygen by means of solar power, theoretically making the whole fuel chain ecologically sound.

Proton's cofounder and CEO Robert Friedland says the company is still planning to roll out SunHydro stations, but in clusters within cities rather than as individual stations hundreds of miles apart. He explains the change as having been dictated by the needs of carmakers. "[A cluster] would allow automakers to sell their vehicles in that geographic location because the refueling need for the local vehicles would be satisfied," Friedland says. But clearly the company is also responding to the less-than-humming hydrogen-energy business climate. The company, founded as Proton Energy, rebranded itself as Proton OnSite in April when it increased its offerings from hydrogen production systems to include nitrogen generators, tanks, and compressors.

Friedland admits the cluster model is a departure from the original "hydrogen highway" plan. "While [that plan] might work in terms of allowing someone to drive from Maine to Miami, it does not resolve the day-to-day, week-to-week need of filling up," he says. Since opening that first station, SunHydro has begun working with carmakers to synchronize plans for station openings with those for rollouts of hydrogen fuel-cell cars on the East Coast. Carmakers say their markets are likely to include New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Washington, DC. "This does not imply that clusters will not evolve in other states along the East Coast," Friedland says.

Yet, he concedes, plans remain tentative. "Tom [Sullivan] is pragmatic at the end of the day, and I think he expected a higher level of engagement from the auto manufacturers to bring vehicles to the East Coast," Friedland says. "We speak to the car people several times a month, and plans for East Coast vehicles are still up in the air."

Friedland says automakers have expressed definite intentions to introduce production fuel-cell vehicles sometime in 2014 or 2015. But, he adds, "they have also been clear that early rollout will be in areas that have adequate refueling infrastructure." This demonstrates the chicken-and-egg problem that has plagued fuel-cell cars for over a decade: carmakers fear there won't be a market unless consumers have easy access to hydrogen fuel stations, but there's little incentive for entrepreneurs to build stations without cars to fill.

Although the automotive industry continues to insist that fuel-cell vehicles will be retail-ready in the next few years, hydrogen is simply not the alternative fuel of choice, even for companies seeking to burnish their image.

Energy giant BP, for example, has abandoned hydrogen. A spokesperson for the company said in an e-mail that its highly publicized Singapore retail station stopped producing hydrogen a while back, and the company is now favoring biofuels.

Price is another reason hydrogen seems to have fallen out of favor. Consumer fuel-cell vehicles will initially cost much more than comparably sized non-hydrogen vehicles. Toyota's hydrogen-powered car costs more than $120,000. Its target for a consumer rollout a few years hence is $50,000—but a new gasoline-hybrid Prius starts at around $23,500, and the company plans to launch a version that also allows "plug-in charging" in 14 states next spring. The announced starting price for the plug-in Prius Plug-In is just $32,000.

What's more, the technology isn't quite living up to the hype, according to Timothy Maxwell, a mechanical engineering professor at Texas Tech University. One problem is that the transmission systems in fuel-cell vehicles use a lot of energy, cutting efficiency. Maxwell says GM's last estimates for its Chevrolet Sequel, a prototype fuel-cell SUV revealed in 2007, were that the vehicle would travel 300 miles on about 8 kilograms of hydrogen compressed to 700 bar—twice the pressure, and hence twice the effective fuel capacity, of any other fuel-cell vehicle at the time.

Meanwhile, according to Patrick Serfass, vice president of the Hydrogen Education Association, the American political climate has stymied progress on fuel-cell vehicles. "We need to eliminate negative rhetoric about fuel-cell electric vehicles from elected officials in the federal government," he says. "And we need to restore confidence in American companies to make the investments needed to graduate from our current level of deployment—preproduction vehicles and few fueling stations—to production vehicles with clusters of stations to allow the first several thousand early-adopter customers to conveniently refuel near where they live." He believes government financial support could accelerate both installation of the infrastructure and manufacturing of vehicles, spurring the public to open its pocketbooks as well.

Countries including Japan, Norway, and Germany are adopting fuel-cell technology faster than the United States. Friedland says this is not because these countries have more money to support hydrogen fueling stations but because of government leadership. He points to Germany's plans to have 1,000 hydrogen fueling stations operating by 2020, and a commitment by Japan's government, national energy companies, and major automakers to coöperatively build an infrastructure for fuel-cell vehicles by 2015. 

"The U.S. government broadly does not have a similar will to move forward," Friedland says. "The international community is moving forward with alternative energy at a much more rapid pace, not because they have necessarily stronger economies but they have much stronger political will."

Indeed, a year ago the Obama administration often came up in conversations about hydrogen fuel, but that's not always the case anymore. Herb Dwyer, an analyst with the consulting firm Kevin Kennedy Associates, in Indianapolis, says, "I don't know what the Obama administration's policy is at this point, and I am not sure they know. I think the bottom line is there are other potential applications, such as compressed natural gas," that the administration is looking at first.

Unfortunately, Serfass says, the Obama administration has been promoting electric vehicles and ramping up funding for battery-powered plug-ins by factors of 10 while repeatedly cutting funds for fuel-cell electric vehicles. But to take full advantage of electricity for transportation, he says, "one needs more than batteries, unless you're only going to design a small urban vehicle optimized for short trips at relatively lower speeds."

Even assuming that the technical and price problems are solved, though, will the American public buy into fuel cells?

Dwyer says he doesn't expect fuel-cell vehicles to take off unless they can directly replace existing gas-powered cars without any loss of performance, comfort, or safety, and for the same price. Still, he says, "the major challenge will be the infrastructure that is required to support it." So far, that's a problem that not even Tom Sullivan's enthusiasm has been able to solve.

MR Radha speech-M.G.R-ரை ஏன் சுட்டேன்?

Old madras 1942

Earlier Madurai - Rare Footage