August 2013 story tips from Oak Ridge National Laboratory
2013-08-02
(Press-News.org) ENERGY – Green battery . . .
By substituting lignin for highly engineered, expensive graphite to make battery electrodes, researchers have developed a process that requires fewer steps and offers better performance. Renewable Electrodes from Wood Products, or ReNEW-PRO, is a low-cost lithium-ion battery anode made inexpensively from lignin, a renewable resource and byproduct of the pulp and paper industry. ReNEW-PRO was developed in collaboration with GrafTech International Holdings. The ORNL team was led by Orlando Rios of the Materials Science and Technology Division. [Contact: Ron Walli, (865) 576-0226; wallira@ornl.gov]
PROSTHETICS – Better fit, function . . .
The Mobile Gait Analysis System improves prosthesis fit and performance for soldiers who have lost a leg, helping them to maintain an active physical lifestyle. The team's device allows a prosthetic limb to be properly fitted to patients by measuring and analyzing the motions and forces exerted while they walk. The portable, inexpensive system helps clinicians teach patients how to use the prosthetic limb most effectively and avoid overuse injuries or chronic problems such as arthritis. The system was developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Otto Bock Healthcare Products and the Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center. [Contact: Morgan McCorkle, (865) 574-7308; mccorkleml@ornl.gov]
MATERIALS – Best of both worlds . . .
With Vari-k-Graphmet, a combination of highly conductive graphite foam and ductile metal powders, Oak Ridge National Laboratory has created an entirely new family of metal matrix composites that broadens the use of graphite foam. Vari-k-Graphmet offers high-strength, low-mass titanium-graphite foam composites with thermal conductivities up to 20 times higher than pure titanium. Using this approach, scientists can marry materials with dissimilar properties – for example high strength on one surface and high thermal conductivity on the other – creating a product with the best qualities of each individually. These can be tailored to varied applications and can potentially be applied to electronics, automobile exhaust systems, brakes, LED lighting, refrigeration, power converters, heat sinks and heat exchangers. Vari-k-Graphmet was developed by Paul Menchofer and James Klett. [Contact: Ron Walli, (865) 576-0226; wallira@ornl.gov]
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2013-08-02
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have identified a characteristic unique to cancer cells in an animal model of cancer -- and they believe it could be exploited as a target to develop new treatment strategies.
An enzyme that metabolizes the glucose needed for tumor growth is found in high concentrations in cancer cells, but in very few normal adult tissues. Deleting the gene for the enzyme stopped the growth of cancer in laboratory mice, with no associated adverse effects, reports Nissim Hay, UIC professor of biochemistry and molecular ...
2013-08-02
Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT), with first lights at nine new 1-meter telescopes since April of 2012, achieved another critical milestone by capturing the first on-sky image with a production Sinistro camera. In development for over six years, the camera is arguably more important than the telescopes that will use them. "A telescope is really nothing more than a large camera lens," explained Joe Tufts, instrumentation scientist on the Sinistro project. "A large, precise, stable, and very expensive camera lens."
Sinistro is the primary science camera ...
2013-08-02
NEW YORK (August 1, 2013) -- Researchers have discovered how an experimental drug is capable of completely eradicating human lymphoma in mice after just five doses. The study, led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College, sets the stage for testing the drug in clinical trials of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the most common subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, itself the seventh most frequently diagnosed cancer in the U.S.
In the journal Cell Reports, published today online, the scientists describe how the powerful master regulatory transcription factor Bcl6 ...
2013-08-02
A boost in the speed of brain scans is unveiling new insights into how brain regions work with each other in cooperative groups called networks.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Institute of Technology and Advanced Biomedical Imaging at the University of Chieti, Italy, used the quicker scans to track brain activity in volunteers at rest and while they watched a movie.
"Brain activity occurs in waves that repeat as slowly as once every 10 seconds or as rapidly as once every 50 milliseconds," said senior researcher Maurizio Corbetta, ...
2013-08-02
EAST LANSING, Mich. — If two women have the same genetic mutation that puts them at higher-than-average risk for a disease such as breast cancer, why does only one develop the disease?
In the current issue of PLOS Genetics, Michigan State University genetic scientists have begun to understand how the rest of the genome interacts with such mutations to cause the differences we see among individuals.
"It's been known for a while that genetic mutations can modify each other's effects," said Ian Dworkin, MSU associate professor of zoology and co-author of the paper. "And ...
2013-08-02
A trace substance in caramelized sugar, when purified and given in appropriate doses, improves muscle regeneration in a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The findings are published today, Aug. 1, in the journal Skeletal Muscle.
Morayma Reyes, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and Hannele Ruohola-Baker, professor of biochemistry and associate director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, headed the University of Washington team that made the discovery. The first authors of the paper were Nicholas Ieronimakis,UW Department of ...
2013-08-01
In women who use donor eggs to become pregnant through in vitro fertilization (IVF), those who are obese are just as likely to become pregnant as normal weight women, according to a new report.
Studies have shown that obesity is associated with lower chances of pregnancy using IVF, but most of this work is limited to women using their own eggs. Research on outcomes for obese women using donor eggs has had mixed results.
The new analysis by investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California-Los Angeles pooled and analyzed ...
2013-08-01
Irvine, Calif., July 31, 2013 — Breath analysis may prove to be an accurate, noninvasive way to quickly determine the severity of bacterial and other infections, according to a UC Irvine study appearing online today in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
Employing a chemical analysis method developed for air pollution testing, UC Irvine microbiologists and chemists were able to correlate inflammation levels in laboratory mice to the amount of naturally produced carbon monoxide and other gases in breath samples.
The findings point to human applications of this technology ...
2013-08-01
DENVER - Researchers at National Jewish Health have identified an enzyme that is essential to the allergic reaction to peanuts. Blocking the enzyme's activity in sensitized mice prevented diarrhea and inflammation, and reduced levels of several proteins associated with allergies. The findings, published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, identify the enzyme, known as Cyp11a1, as a potential target for treatment of increasingly common and potentially deadly food allergy.
"Right now, we have no therapy for food allergy other than to avoid the allergenic ...
2013-08-01
Heart failure occurs when the heart cannot pump enough blood to meet the body's needs. It's a very common condition, affecting about six million people in the United States, but current therapies are not adequately effective at improving health and preventing deaths. A study published by Cell Press August 1st in the journal Cell reveals the key role of a family of molecules known as bromodomain and extraterminal domain (BET) proteins in activating genes that contribute to heart failure. The study also demonstrates that a BET-inhibiting drug can protect against heart failure ...
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[Press-News.org] August 2013 story tips from Oak Ridge National Laboratory
