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AL | Science News


Gas Analyzer Diagnoses Disease, Determines Freshness of Foods


Using semiconductor sensors, a new gas analyzer/electronic nose can determine the freshness of produce and evaluate exhaled gases to enable disease detection. It can also aid in the detection of drugs and explosives.


According to Timur Muksunov of the National Research Tomsk State University, which developed the technique, “[T]he conductivity of the semiconductor probe changes during sedimentation of the gas molecules from the atmosphere, allowing their presence to be determined. During manufacture the sensor can be customized to react well to some gases and react badly to the others.”


However, it’s not possible to design a sensor that reacts to only one gas; it needs the sensitivity and selectivity to accurately recognize the gas mixture in the air. Te researchers tested the sensor’s ability to determine the freshness of fruits and vegetables, which emit hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and other gases. As part of their experiment, they refrigerated apples as the control group, while another group of apples was leſt at room temperature. Aſter a period of 12 hours, the sensor was able to determine that the latter group emitted more gases than the control group.


Muksunov said, “Now the vegetable warehouse receives products by their organoleptic characteristics, and using the device it will be able to more accurately determine the shelf life of products, which will affect [their] quality.”


Epigenetics Breakthrough Garners NIH Biomedical Sciences Award


Jeannie T. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of Genetics and Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, has been awarded the 2016 Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). Dr. Lee investigated


how a whole sex chromosome can be shut down and how X-chromosome inactivation can be leveraged to treat congenital diseases, and numerous cancers such as breast, ovarian, blood, intestinal and male germ cell tumors where there is oſten an extra x-chromosomal copy.


Dr. Lee’s work on X-inactivation and noncoding RNA (lncRNA) has important implications for many types of epigenetic therapies. Her discoveries shed light on the complex interplay between lncRNA and general biological processes. Te discoveries are changing current ideas about how specific genes can be turned on and off precisely with respect to time and location, and how complex human diseases arise and might eventually be cured.


5-D Digital Data Archiving Technique Stores Information for Billions of Years


Using nanostructured glass, scientists from the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) have developed the recording and retrieval processes of five- dimensional digital data by femtosecond laser writing. Te technique features 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1000 °C and virtually unlimited lifetime at room temperature (13.8 billion years at 190 °C). Major documents from human history, such as the Magna Carta and the Kings James Bible, have been saved as digital copies that could survive the human race.


An ultrafast laser, producing extremely short, intense pulses of light, was used to record the documents. Te file is written in three layers of nanostructured dots separated by one millionth of a meter. Self-assembled nanostructures change the way light travels through glass, modifying polarization of light that can then be read by a combination of an optical microscope and a polarizer. Data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in fused quartz. Te information encoding is done in five dimensions: the size and orientation in addition to the 3-D position of these nanostructures.


AMERICAN LABORATORY 8 MARCH 2016


Virus Outbreaks Linked to Coral Bleaching


Major outbreaks of viruses may be associated with coral bleaching events, especially as a result of multiple environmental stresses, found researchers at Oregon State University. Bleaching can occur when corals are exposed to stressful environmental conditions, such as warmer water, overfishing or pollution, causing them to expel symbiotic algae that live in their tissues and lose their color. Te coral loses its major source of food and is more susceptible to disease. In severe or prolonged cases, the bleaching can be lethal to corals.


In a natural experiment, an area of corals on the Great Barrier Reef was exposed to high levels of ultraviolet light at low tides during a period of heavy rain and high temperatures, all of which are sources of stress for the corals. At that time, viral loads in those corals exploded to levels 2–4 times higher than ever recorded in corals, and there was a significant bleaching event over just three days. Te viruses included retroviruses and megaviruses, and a type of herpes virus was particularly abundant. Ancient herpes viruses are found in a wide range of mammals, marine invertebrates, oysters, corals and other animals. Te findings suggest that a range of stresses may have made the corals susceptible to viral attack, particularly high water temperatures such as those that can be caused by an El Niño event and global warming. Viruses may become a serious threat only when their numbers reach extremely high levels, which in this case was associated with other stressful environmental conditions, the scientists said.


Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Uncovers Immune Cell Subgroups


Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are a group of immune cells that have been discovered in humans relatively recently, and most current knowledge comes from animal studies. Now, in a study of ILCs from human tonsils, researchers were able to sort individual tonsil cells and measure their expression across thousands of


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