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The Score Project (Stove For Cooking, Refrigeration And Electricity) Designed To Help Rural Communities In Africa And Asia
A low-cost generator with the potential to transform lives in the world"s poorest communities is now being tested across the UK and in Nepal. The Score project, led by The University of Nottingham, is developing a bio-mass burning cooking stove which also converts heat into acoustic energy and then into electricity, all in one unit.
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Jellyfish Shed Fluorescent Light On How The Brain Works
Scientists at the University of Leicester are developing new ways of studying how brain cells work -thanks to jellyfish!
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Obama Leaves Door Open To Tax On Health Benefits
"President Barack Obama on Wednesday rejected the idea of fully taxing Americans" employer-provided health insurance benefits, but suggested he might be persuaded to tax so-called Cadillac coverage ... in the interest of a compromise with Congress," McClatchy/The Star-Telegram reports. The President, speaking at a "town hall-style event" taped at the White House and aired on ABC News, "said he would prefer to pay for expanded coverage by eliminating some deductions for higher-earning taxpayers but that "there"s going to have to be some compromise." The President "said he understands Americans" trepidation about changing the system: "They know that they"re living with the devil, but the devil they know they think may be better than the devil they don"t." He said any reform would be phased in, not happen overnight" (Talev and Lightman, 6/24).
Diagnostics

Enzyme-Equipped Liposomes Embedded In Polymer Capsules As A Novel Biomedical Transport System

When cells cannot carry out the tasks required of them by our bodies, the result is disease. Nanobiotechnology researchers are looking for ways to allow synthetic systems take over simple cellular activities when they are absent from the cell. This requires transport systems that can encapsulate medications and other substances and release them in a controlled fashion at the right moment. The transporter must be able to interact with the surroundings in order to receive the signal to unload its cargo. A team led by Frank Caruso at the University of Melbourne has now developed a microcontainer that can hold thousands of individual "carrier units" - a "capsosome". As they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, these are polymer capsules in which liposomes have been embedded to form subcompartments. Currently, the primary type of nanotransporter used for drugs is the capsule: Polymer capsules form stable containers that are semipermeable, which allows for communication with the surrounding medium. However, these are not suitable for the transport of small molecules because they can escape. Liposomes are good at protecting small drug molecules; however, they are often unstable and impermeable to substances from the environment. The Australian researchers have now combined the advantages of both systems in their capsosomes. Capsosomes are produced by several steps. First, a layer of polymer is deposited onto small silica spheres. This polymer contains building blocks modified with cholesterol. Liposomes that have been loaded with an enzyme can be securely anchored to the cholesterol units and thus attached to the polymer film. Subsequently, more polymer layers are added and then cross-linked by disulfide bridges into a gel by means of a specially developed, very gentle cross-linking reaction. In the final step, the silica core is etched away without damaging the sensitive cargo. Experiments with an enzyme as model cargo demonstrated that the liposomes remain intact and the cargo does not escape. Addition of a detergent releases the enzyme in a functional state. By means of the enzymatic reaction, which causes a color change of the solution, it was possible to determine the number of liposome compartments to be about 8000 per polymer capsule. "Because the capsosomes are biodegradable and nontoxic", says Brigitte Staedler, a senior researcher in the group, "they would also be suitable for use as resorbable synthetic cell organelles and for the transport of drugs." In addition, the scientists are planning to encapsulate liposomes filled with different enzymes together and to equip them with specific "receivers" which would allow the individual cargo to be released in a targeted fashion. This would make it possible to use enzymatic reaction cascades for catalytic reaction processes. Author: Frank Caruso, University of Melbourne (Australia) Title: A Microreactor with Thousands of Subcompartments: Enzyme-Loaded Liposomes within Polymer Capsules Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2009, 48, No. 24, 4359-4362, doi: 10.1002/anie.200900386 Frank Caruso Wiley-Blackwell


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