                                                                                              
Participation in exhibitions
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Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Yuliya Luchkina Paintings
Hep C vaccine breakthrough
| BURNET INSTITUTE |
Hepatitis C affects around 200 million people around the world, and has a great ability to change its structure and evade the immune response, making it hard to vaccinate against. But the new vaccine candidate only contains the most essential, conserved parts of the viral surface protein, so it works on a variety of strains. This is an illustration of a hepatitis B virus, which already has a preventative vaccine against it, as does hepatitis A.
Image: somersault18:24/iStockphoto
Researchers at the Burnet Institute have solved a hepatitis C vaccine mystery which, once developed could be the first ever preventative vaccine for the virus.
Currently undergoing formal preclinical studies, the vaccine is the result of breakthrough work done by Associate Professor Heidi Drummer with her team from the Institute’s Centre for Virology. Hepatitis C affects around 200 million people around the world – a preventative vaccine has the potential to have a significant global health impact. Associate Professor Drummer and her team have overcome a major hurdle in HCV vaccine research, developing a vaccine candidate that protects against a number of different HCV strains. “Hepatitis C has a great ability to change its structure and evade the immune response. This makes vaccine development challenging,” Associate Professor Drummer said. “Our vaccine is unique as it contains only the most essential, conserved parts of the major viral surface protein, eliciting antibodies that prevent both closely and distantly related hepatitis C viruses from entering cells, thereby preventing infection.” Associate Professor Drummer unveiled the details about her HCV vaccine project at the prestigious Immunotherapeutics and Vaccine Summit (ImVacS) in Cambridge, Massachussets on August 13.
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.
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Ghee Rice
Ghee rice as the name suggests is a very rich concoction and meant for special occasions. My mother who doesn’t believe in coconut milk has never cooked it. When at school my friends talked about ghee rice, I always thought that it meant white rice mixed with ghee. I can’t remember when I first tasted the actual Ghee rice or when I cooked it first or where I got this recipe from. But this is a pretty standard recipe, mildly flavored by spices and needless to say a little unfriendly around the hips.
Without much ado here is the recipe,
- Onion – 1 thinly sliced
- Green chillies – 5
- Cardamom – 2
- Cloves - 2
- Cinnamon – 1 inch stick
- Bay leaf – 1
- Ginger-garlic paste – 1 Tbsp
- Cashewnuts – 10 (optional)
- Basmati rice – 2 cups
- Ghee or butter – 50 gms
- Coconut milk – 1 cup
- Mixed chopped vegetables – 1 cup (carrot, peas and potato)
Heat the butter or ghee in a pan and add the spices. In recent years I use sunflower oil or Olive oil. Then add the onions and Chillies and fry until it is soft (don’t brown them). Then add the ginger and garlic paste and fry till the raw smell disappears. To this add the cashew nuts and the vegetables. Any vegetable can be added, to make it look nice include green and red colour vegetables like peas, beans, broccoli, carrot. I tend to add frozen vegetables, saves time on cutting the veggies. Saute them for a few minutes and then add the washed rice and fry it briefly in the ghee mixture. For 2 cups of rice, 4 cups of liquid is required. Add one cup of coconut milk (The tinned ones are very good) and add 3 cups of water. The general rule is to add one fourth of coconut milk and three fourths water. When the water starts boiling reduce the fire to the least possible level and close with a lid and cook until done. For 2 cups of rice, it generally takes 20 mins to cook thru. When done mix the rice gently with a fork or the back of a wooden spoon. Server hot with a raita and enjoy all the praise from the guests. If I use frozen veggies and coconut milk from a can, this rice gets ready in 30 minutes.
thanks http://tamilspice.blogspot.com
thanks http://tamilspice.blogspot.com
Top ten Anti Aging Foods
Here are other 10 of the best anti-aging foods to nourish your body for a glow that comes from within.
- Watercress. The health benefits of watercress don't disappoint
- Red bell pepper. Red bell peppers are loaded with antioxidants which reign supreme when it comes to anti-aging
- Papaya.
- Blueberries.
- Broccoli.
- Spinach.
- Nuts.
- Avocado.
- Sweet potatoes
- Pomegranate seeds
Highest quality colour images produced
| AGENCY FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH |
The image on the left is before the addition of metal in the nanostructures. The image on the right shows colours under the same microscope after the addition of the metal layers to the nanostructures in specific patterns. Current industrial printers can only achieve full-spectrum colour images up to 10,000 dots per inch (dpi), whereas the new method relies on metal nano-structures and can produce full colour images at 100,000 dpi.
Image: Nature
Inspired by colourful stained-glass windows, researchers from Singapore have demonstrated an innovative method for producing full-colour images at 100,000 dots per inch (dpi) which can be used in reflective colour displays, anti-counterfeiting, and high-density optical data recording.
Researchers from A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) have developed an innovative method for printing sharp, full-spectrum colour images at 100,000 dpi, using metal-laced nanometer-sized structures, without the need for inks or dyes. In comparison, current industrial printers such as inkjet and laserjet printers can only achieve up to 10,000 dpi, while research grade methods are able to dispense dyes for only single colour images. This novel breakthrough allows colouring to be treated not as an inking matter but as a lithographic matter, which can potentially revolutionise the way images are printed and be further developed for use in high-resolution reflective colour displays as well as high density optical data storage. The inspiration for the research was derived from stained glass, which is traditionally made by mixing tiny fragments of metal into the glass. It was found that nanoparticles from these metal fragments scattered light passing through the glass to give stained glass its colours. Using a similar concept with the help of modern nanotechnology tools, the researchers precisely patterned metal nanostructures, and designed the surface to reflect the light to achieve the colour images. "The resolution of printed colour images very much depends on the size and spacing between individual ‘nanodots’ of colour", explained Dr Karthik Kumar, one of the key researchers involved. "The closer the dots are together and because of their small size, the higher the resolution of the image. With the ability to accurately position these extremely small colour dots, we were able to demonstrate the highest theoretical print colour resolution of 100,000 dpi." “Instead of using different dyes for different colours, we encoded colour information into the size and position of tiny metal disks. These disks then interacted with light through the phenomenon of plasmon resonances,” said Dr Joel Yang, the project leader of the research. “The team built a database of colour that corresponded to a specific nanostructure pattern, size and spacing. These nanostructures were then positioned accordingly. Similar to a child’s ‘colouring-by-numbers’ image, the sizes and positions of these nanostructures defined the ‘numbers’. But instead of sequentially colouring each area with a different ink, an ultrathin and uniform metal film was deposited across the entire image causing the ‘encoded’ colours to appear all at once, almost like magic!” added Dr Joel Yang. The researchers from IMRE had also collaborated with A*STAR’s Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC) to design the pattern using computer simulation and modelling. Dr Ravi Hegde of IHPC said, “The computer simulations were vital in understanding how the structures gave rise to such rich colours. This knowledge is currently being used to predict the behaviour of more complicated nanostructure arrays.” The researchers are currently working with Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd (ETPL), A*STAR’s technology transfer arm, to engage potential collaborators and to explore licensing the technology. The research was published online on 12 August 2012 in Nature Nanotechnology, one of the top scientific journals for materials science and nanotechnology.
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.
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