Sri Lanka has become the latest victim of China’s toxic counterfeit culture. After receiving the first consignment of organic fertilizers from China, the Sri Lankan agriculture ministry has found that 20,000 metric tons of fertilizers are toxic.
#Srilanka #China #Fertilizers.
The team used a high-resolution atomic force microscope (AFM) operating in a controlled environment at Princeton’s Imaging and Analysis Center. The AFM probe, whose tip ends in a single copper atom, was moved gradually closer to the iron-carbon bond until it was ruptured. The researchers measured the mechanical forces applied at the moment of breakage, which was visible in an image captured by the microscope. A team from Princeton University, the University of Texas-Austin and ExxonMobil reported the results in a paper published Sept. 24 in Nature Communications.
“It’s an incredible image—being able to actually see a single small molecule on a surface with another one bonded to it is amazing,” said coauthor Craig Arnold, the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and director of the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM).
“The fact that we could characterize that particular bond, both by pulling on it and pushing on it, allows us to understand a lot more about the nature of these kinds of bonds—their strength, how they interact—and this has all sorts of implications, particularly for catalysis, where you have a molecule on a surface and then something interacts with it and causes it to break apart,” said Arnold.
Conventional lung cancer treatments include surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy; however, these treatments are often poorly tolerated by patients. Cannabinoids have been studied for use as a primary cancer treatment. Cannabinoids, which are chemically similar to our own body’s endocannabinoids, can interact with signalling pathways to control the fate of cells, including cancer cells. We present a patient who declined conventional lung cancer treatment. Without the knowledge of her clinicians, she chose to self-administer ‘cannabidiol (CBD) oil’ orally 2–3 times daily. Serial imaging shows that her cancer reduced in size progressively from 41 mm to 10 mm over a period of 2.5 years. Previous studies have failed to agree on the usefulness of cannabinoids as a cancer treatment. This case appears to demonstrate a possible benefit of ‘CBD oil’ intake that may have resulted in the observed tumour regression. The use of cannabinoids as a potential cancer treatment justifies further research.
By contrast, Lewis’s studies suggest it is extremely difficult for B. burgdorferi to evolve resistance to hygromycin. The chemical resembles essential nutrients that spirochaetes cannot make themselves and take up using a specific transporter, so mutations that block the take-up of hygromycin would also deprive spirochaetes of these nutrients.
Lewis says his team isn’t the first to discover the value of hygromycin. It was studied as a potential treatment for a pig disease in the 1980s but abandoned.
Vaccines against Lyme disease are also being developed, but eradicating the disease would be an even better option.
Continue reading “Drug treatment for Lyme disease could lead to its eradication” »
International diplomacy has traditionally relied on bargaining power, covert channels of communication, and personal chemistry between leaders. But a new era is upon us in which the dispassionate insights of AI algorithms and mathematical techniques such as game theory will play a growing role in deals struck between nations, according to the co-founder of the world’s first center for science in diplomacy.
Michael Ambühl, a professor of negotiation and conflict management and former chief Swiss-EU negotiator, said recent advances in AI and machine learning mean that these technologies now have a meaningful part to play in international diplomacy, including at the Cop26 summit starting later this month and in post-Brexit deals on trade and immigration.
Mitochondrial disorders, nano-medicine drug delivery, and innovative therapeutic interventions — dr. volkmar weissig scd, phd — president, world mitochondria society — professor, midwestern university.
Dr. Volkmar Weissig, Sc. D., Ph.D. is a Tenured Full Professor of Pharmacology, Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Co-Director of the Nanomedicine Center of Excellence in Translational Cancer Research, at Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ, USA.
The world’s electric grids are creaking under the pressure of volatile fossil-fuel prices and the imperative of weaning the world off polluting energy sources. A solution may be at hand, thanks to an innovative battery that’s a cheaper alternative to lithium-ion technology.
SB Energy Corp., a U.S. renewable-energy firm that’s an arm of Japan’s SoftBank Group, is making a record purchase of the batteries manufactured by Energy Storage Systems. The Oregon company says it has new technology that can store renewable energy for longer and help overcome some of the reliability problems that have caused blackouts in California and record-high energy prices in Europe.
The units, which rely on something called “iron-flow chemistry,” will be used in utility-scale solar projects dotted across the U.S., allowing those power plants to provide electricity for hours after the sun sets. SB Energy will buy enough batteries over the next five years to power 50,000 American homes for a day.
Continue reading “Oregon company’s iron battery breakthrough could eat lithium’s lunch” »
Toxic chemicals known as PFAS exist in almost 42,000 sites around the U.S., according to research released on Tuesday by the Environmental Working Group.
The research published in the American Water Works Association’s journal Water Science found tens of thousands of potential point sources for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances contamination around the country. Researchers analyzed data collected between August 2016 and March 2021. They found numerous previously unknown PFAS sites in samples of water downstream from manufacturing facilities.
“We don’t as of yet have great information on how frequently these different sources are contributing to the PFAS contamination we’re finding in surface water and drinking water,” lead study author David Andrews told The Hill.
Continue reading “Study finds tens of thousands of ‘forever chemical’ sites in US” »
“Lower levels of DHA are associated with inflammation, cardiovascular and brain disorders, such as depression, which are all linked to migraine risk.”
Professor Nyholt said LPE(20:4) was a chemical compound that blocked the production of an anti-inflammatory molecule called anandamide.
Summary: Researchers have identified causal genetic links to three blood metabolite levels that increase migraine risks.
Continue reading “Migraines Caused by Alterations in Metabolite Levels” »
Daily exposure to chemicals called phthalates, which are used in the manufacture of plastic food containers and many cosmetics, may lead to roughly 100,000 premature deaths among older Americans each year, a new study shows. The resulting annual economic burden is between $40 billion and $47 billion, a value more than quadruple that of previous estimates.
NYU Langone study shows deaths linked to endocrine-disrupting chemicals called phthalates may cost United States billions in lost productivity. Learn more.
