Disorder could bring cheap, clean hydrogen
Scrambling the atomic structure of titanium dioxide nanocrystals has created an efficient catalyst to use the sun’s energy to extract hydrogen from water.
Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory: 28 January 2011
Image: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
A nanoscale look at a photocatalyst that is both durable and very efficient. This high-resolution transmission electron microscope image of a titanium dioxide nanocrystal after hydrogenation reveals engineered disorder on the crystal’s surface, a change that enables the photocatalyst to absorb infrared light.
Emotional attachment to Cro-Magnon
By Jason Major
TechNyou
Did anyone watch “Faces of America” Episode 4 last night on SBS? I thought it was a fascinating insight into the emotional connection people (or at least the celebrities on the program) have to their ancestors. OK, I can understand the deep connection we have with immediate ancestors, those that we can track through written records. I think we all, especially as we get older, have a desire to know where we come from. My wife’s family had a castle in Ireland before being shipped out here as convicts. Hmmm…Lord Jason. What I found most interesting was the connection the guest appeared to have to our more distant cousins, the ones only analysis of our DNA can reveal.
My cousin the Cro-magnon
The emotional response these guests had when the program presenter revealed their distant genetic connections, even back to their links to specific genetic groups that first walked out of Africa was suprising, given we are not examing a specific person and what they did in their lives. We are simply matching chunks of DNA.
Personally I find it a remarkable bit of DNA detective work, one that presents clearly that we really are essentially the same, not that we needed a micro-array analysis to know this. I don’t know if I can feel such emotional or familial ties to such distant ancestors.
We share 66% of our genes with a fruit fly and I can’t imagine anyone claiming blood ties to those beasties. For me, the interest remains academic.
World changing
One comment from Dr Oz, a guest on the show baffled me a bit. The program arranged for an analysis of their guests’ genetic haplotypes – chunks of DNA whose sequence has been conserved over thousands of years and can be used to determine relatedness – albeit distant relatedness.
Dr Oz was apparently raised a Muslim. An analysis of his DNA, however, showed his genetic haplotypes were exactly the same as another of the program’s guests whose descendants were Russian Jew on one side and German Jew on the other. The point being made was that Muslims and Jews descended from the same common ancestors. This seemed to shock Dr Oz, though program editing might have made it appear this way or emphasized it more than the reality. His comments were that this information is “world changing” and that it was a hard truth to admit, but the only differences separating one human from another is the way we think about things. Well, Duh! I am unsure how this is any sort of revelation, especially for a man educated in the sciences.
And will such information really change the way we view each other? The way the show was framed it suggested that this sort of information did make some of the guests, at least, think differently, which if it actually did, surprises me. Maybe as the technology improves we can reveal more, but for now I think such info is interesting as it provides us with another perspective on human history, but I don’t think it is going to change how we view each other. It certainly isn’t going to stop any ideological intolerance. When we get a handle on how the environment plays a role in the development of human nature – both in how it acts on our genes and non-genetic responses – then we might go some way toward a “world changing” bit of knowledge.
But it will be many decades, if not longer, before that happens. The genome is a complex beast.
More info
National Geographic Genographic Project
How toxic are nanoparticles? New ISO standard helps find out
The International Organisation for Standardisation has published an International Standard to support the inhalation toxicity testing of nanoparticles.
ISO: 26 January 2011
Image: Tich-Lam, Bio21 Institute University of Melbourne
Final report of Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy
The panel conducting the Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy has presented its report to Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing.
Food Labelling Review Dept of Health and Ageing
Note TechNyou:
Based on the following extract re: GM foods, I expect the eruption of some lively debate:
“On the vexed question of genetically modified foods, the Panel assessed the various exemptions from genetic modification labelling in line with its principles and the relevant scientific evidence. The Panel endorses the exemption of foods or ingredients that have no altered characteristics or no detectable novel deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or protein; endorses the present exemption for adventitious presence but recommends follow-up and monitoring of any adventitious event.”
Bioethicist urges discussion on fetal genetic tests
Soon to be available non-invasive fetal testing technologies for identifying genetic diseases and traits could present a number of thorny ethical and social issues
Genome Web Daily News: 26 January 2011
Protein used to harvest energy from sunlight
A common protein could potentially react with sunlight and harvest its energy – similar to what chlorophyll does during photosynthesis.
Brigham Young University: 26 January 2011
Image: Brigham Young University. The color change signaled that the energy transfer had taken place.
Meta materials may bring advanced optical technologies, cloaking
A new class of plasmonic metamaterials could make possible “nanophotonic” devices for ultrapowerful microscopes and computers, improved solar cells, and a possible invisibility cloak.
Purdue University: 21 January 2011
Image: Researchers are developing a new class of “plasmonic metamaterials” as potential building blocks for advanced optical technologies and a range of potential breakthroughs in the field of transformation optics. This image shows the transformation optics “quality factor” for several plasmonic materials. For transformation optical devices, the quality factor rises as the amount of light “lost,” or absorbed, by plasmonic materials falls, resulting in materials that are promising for a range of advanced technologies. (Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University)
Beware the public opinion survey
By Jason Major
TechNyou
Those public attitude surveys
Public attitude surveys can only ever be a rough guide. Alone they generally reveal nothing about the realities of public attitudes toward a particular technology. There is often inherent bias in the framing of the questions or the questions are too few or too general to be useful for anything specific. What they can do is expose the deeper questions we need to ask in more qualitative studies to get to the understanding we need to develop communication strategies or policy. The problem is interest groups will often cherry pick data from these surveys to “prove” their point. The media then conveys their message.
Professor Dietram A. Scheufele has written a draft article investigating the research involving public attitude surveys that is also a good overview of risk communication research and some of the issues and challenges we face as communicators in engaging the public on issues of emerging technologies.
Professor Scheufele’s article will eventually become a chapter on public attitudes toward nanotechnology for Susanna Priest’s new book on risk communication and public perception of nanotechnology.
Risky business
One of the trickiest things to get a handle on is how people perceive risk relative to their acceptance of a particular technology or how it is used, something that public attitude surveys have tried to do with many copping serious criticism – see Prof Scheufele’s article.
One of the criticisms Professor Scheufele points to in public attitude surveys is the use of a single question asking people whether they think the risks of nanotechnology (or any technology really) outweigh the benefits; the benefits outweigh the risks; or the risks and benefits are about equal. As he rightly points out this question alone without something more qualitative is useless and reveals nothing. I personally would not be able to answer that question: which nanotechnology are we talking about (they all have completely different set of risks and benefits); who is responsible for managing the risks and how are they being handled; what sort of regulatory system is in place….and so on?
Dietram A. Scheufele is the John E. Ross Chaired Professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communication in the College of Agricultural & Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin.
Using nanoparticles in food packaging
Scientists have found that silver nanoparticles in paper have antimicrobial properties which could lead to its use in food packaging.
PhysOrg, 21 Jan 2011
Should we clone the woolly mammoth?
By Jason Major
TechNyou
Japanese researchers plan to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years time.
See ABC Science News story
And the purpose of this is…?
I find this fascinating science and down the track the knowledge generated by perfecting this cloning technology may lead to useful medical treatments and a better understanding of human development, among other cool stuff. But ultimately, in my humble opinion I have to question why we are trying to clone a mammoth, or any other long-extinct creature.
The scientists’ rationale for this research (at least according to the ABC story) is to “examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors.”
For the time and expense, I consider this a relatively unimportant bit of knowledge. Sure if money and scientific expertise was in abundance then great, but it ain’t.
Besides what are you going to do with the hairy beast once it is born? It will be a lab rat and a circus show. You can’t release it back to its natural habitat; there isn’t one – and there is likely to be less soon, if the ice keeps melting. Effectively the beast will still be extinct as it won’t exist in the wild. It will be a living genome stored in a lab or zoo pen. The only difference between this and other extinct animals is that this one will require food, water and someone to muck out its pen.
For what purpose are we doing this short of trying to find out why it went extinct? I think you would be better spending the money on helping prevent existing endangered species suffering the same fate.
The researchers hope to examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct (Source: Rob Pongsajapan/Flickr)