Bringing you the latest research & events news from the science Industry RESEARCHNEWS & events Study reveals ocean island’s rich biodiversity
A study around the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia by a team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has revealed a biologically rich marine region greater than even many tropical sites. Funded by the British Government’s Darwin Initiative and the South
Georgia Heritage Trust, the team examined over 130 years of polar records, highlighting about 1500 species from around South Georgia and its surrounding islands.
Lead author Oliver Hogg from BAS said: “The biodiversity of South Georgia exceeds that of its nearest rivals such as the Galapagos and Equador in terms of the number of species inhabiting its shores. During the breeding season it hosts the densest mass of marine mammals on Earth.”
Weed in foreground is Himantothallus grandifolius. Background is Macrocystis pyrifera and fur seal (Arctocephalus gazelle). Location Husvik
Sun star (Labidiaster annulatus). Location Stromness South Georgia
Specimens were collected from scientific cruises, fisheries vessels and by scuba divers from the seas around South Georgia, famous for great polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition. Species identified
include sea urchins, free- swimming worms, fish, sea spiders and crustaceans. Most are rare and many occur nowhere else on Earth. The near-surface waters around South Georgia are some of the fastest warming on Earth so this study provides a framework to identify ecologically sensitive areas and species, identify conservation priorities and monitor future changes.
Oliver Hogg continued: “This is the first time anybody has mapped out the biodiversity of
a small polar archipelago in the Southern Ocean. If we are to understand how these animals will respond to future change, a starting point like this is really important.”
Icefish (Chaenocephalus aceratus) Signy Island
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Genome sequencing heralds new era in medical diagnostics
The University of Oxford and Illumina, a leading manufacturer of sequencing systems have announced a project that will push the boundaries of genome research into more generalised medical practice as the genomes of 500 people with a range of diseases – including cancer, immunological disorders, and rare inherited diseases – are to be sequenced in full detail. The results could have potential for offering diagnosis and treatment outcomes for individual patients in the future.
“It is a really exciting opportunity to explore the potential for moving next-generation sequencing into the clinic,” said Professor Peter Donnelly, Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford. “Overall, we will study over a hundred different conditions – we want to cast the net as wide as possible in order to learn the areas in which sequencing can make a real impact.
“The initiative represents a crucial step as we move towards a new healthcare paradigm in which genetic information from
next-generation sequencing is likely to become much more widely used in routine medical practice. It is a very large study by any standards,” Dr Donnelly added. The project will focus on conditions involving mutations that would be difficult or impossible to discover by standard genetic tests.,”
“This collaboration represents a remarkable and very important step toward using whole-genome sequencing for translational medicine – where a patient’s individual genetic information can be used to make key healthcare decisions,” said David Bentley, Vice President and Chief Scientist at Illumina. “We are excited to be working with Oxford on this effort. This collaboration also will help Illumina advance its technology to better meet the specific needs of clinical environments.”
The collaboration will see 400 genomes sequenced at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford using Illumina systems. The other 100 genomes will be sequenced at Illumina’s UK site in Chesterford, Essex.
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In his latest quest to promote science in primary schools, Graham Rideal CEO Whitehouse Scientific took 32 ten and eleven year olds from a local school to the Salt Museum, part of the Weaver Hall museum in Northwich, Cheshire. “The salt museum is an ideal place to introduce students to basic chemical principles such as dissolving, solution, evaporation, crystallisation and filtration,” said Rideal. In a very exciting day, the children not only looked around the museum and discovered how the process of salt making has evolved from early man into the fully automatic, computer controlled mines of today, but actually made some salt of their
own in the laboratory workshop of the museum. Starting with road ‘grit’, which is actually crushed rock salt, mined from caverns directly under the museum, the children applied all the above processes to produce a highly purified table salt for their dinner that evening (but whether their parents had the courage to use it is another matter.) “The highlight of the day,” said Rideal, “was when one young boy said excitedly ‘I never knew science could be so much fun!” To him that was ‘mission accomplished! To reinforce their knowledge, Rideal followed up the visit with a special lesson on salt and presented each child with a video of the day and highly colourful work book.
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Engineers create Antibacterial Stainless Steel
Materials scientists at the University of Birmingham have devised a way of making stainless steel surfaces resistant to bacteria in a project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. By introducing silver or copper into the steel surface (rather than coating it on to the surface), the researchers have developed a technique that not only kills bacteria but is very hard and resistant to wear and tear during cleaning. Potentially beneficial to hospital environments, these bacteria resistant surfaces would also be of use to the food industry and in domestic kitchens. The team has developed a novel surface alloying technology using Active Screen Plasma (ASP) with a purpose designed composite or hybrid metal screen. The combined sputtering, back-deposition and diffusion allows the introduction of silver into a stainless steel surface, along with nitrogen and carbon. The silver acts as the bacteria killing agent and the nitrogen and carbon make the stainless steel much harder and durable. The researchers replicated the cleaning process for medical instruments in hospitals. After cleaning the treated instruments 120 times they found that the antibacterial properties of the stainless steel were still intact and the surface still resistant to wear. Hanshan Dong, Professor of Surface Engineering at the University of Birmingham and lead investigator, said: “Previous attempts to make stainless steel resistant to bacteria have not been successful as these have involved coatings which are too soft and not hard-wearing. Thin antibacterial coatings can be easily worn down when interacting with other surfaces, which leads to a low durability of the antibacterial surface. Our technique means that we avoid coating the surface, instead we modify the top layers of the surface.” Professor Dong’s team are confident that this technique could be used in the manufacturing of stainless steel products as they are already able to surface engineer items of up to two metres x two metres in the laboratory
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Giant Isopod (Glyptonotus antarcticus) Location Husvik
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