(Press-News.org) This press release is available in Spanish.
Outfitting soldiers with clothing that effectively repels or kills insects is one of the strategies U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are using to help protect U.S. military personnel deployed overseas against disease-transmitting mosquitoes and sand flies.
As part of the Deployed War-Fighter Protection Research Program, scientists at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Entomology (CMAVE) in Gainesville, Fla., and other ARS laboratories are collaborating with U.S. Department of Defense personnel to improve personal protection for troops. They're also developing public health insecticides and devising improved application technologies to kill insects. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency.
ARS chemist Ulrich "Uli" Bernier and his colleagues at the Gainesville center work with military personnel on a number of projects, which include evaluating the effectiveness and assessing the quality of various combat uniforms, factory-treated with permethrin.
A bite protection test, which requires placing a treated uniform sleeve into a cage of mosquitoes, was developed by Bernier to assess how well uniforms protect soldiers. About 65 U.S. military uniform constructions and compositions have been evaluated so far. Fabrics are tested immediately after factory treatment and after laundering 20 to 50 times.
Bernier recently verified bite protection testing on Army combat uniforms constructed of a more durable fire-resistant fabric. Alternative fabrics were needed because the original fire-resistant uniform material tore too easily, reducing its ability to protect against insects.
For additional and longer protection, scientists are designing new products to augment uniforms. ARS chemist Kamal Chauhan at the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Md., and Bernier have created an attachable repellent-treated band that can be worn on a sleeve or collar to help protect exposed skin. Preliminary evaluations indicate that the band comprising novel-high vapor pressure compounds may also be used against pyrethroid-resistant mosquitoes and bed bugs.
Chauhan also has filed a patent for his latest invention—a disposable, reversible band-aid that offers short-term protection against biting insects. This new product may potentially be used in applications for recreational activities and to ward off insects that pester pets and livestock.
###Read more about this research in the November/December 2012 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/nov12/insects1112.htm
USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Office of Adjudication, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (866) 632-9992 (Toll-free Customer Service), (800) 877-8339 (Local or Federal relay), (866) 377-8642 (Relay voice users).
Dressing US troops to safeguard against insect attacks
2012-12-03
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
U-M study shows BPA exposure in fetal livers
2012-12-03
ANN ARBOR—New research from the University of Michigan School of Public Health found BPA, or bisphenol A, in fetal liver tissue, demonstrating that there is considerable exposure to the chemical during pregnancy.
Researchers also found a proportionately higher concentration of free BPA—as opposed to the conjugated forms modified by the body for elimination—further showing that in fetuses the ability to eliminate the chemical from the body is not the same as in adults.
"The general message from our research is that people have to be cognizant of the fact that the adult ...
Kansas State University research shows iron's importance in infection, suggests new therapies
2012-12-03
MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A Kansas State University research team has resolved a 40-year-old debate on the role of iron acquisition in bacterial invasion of animal tissues.
The collaborative research -- led by Phillip Klebba, professor and head of the department of biochemistry -- clarifies how microorganisms colonize animal hosts and how scientists may block them from doing so. The findings suggest new approaches against bacterial disease and new strategies for antibiotic development.
The study -- in collaboration with Tyrrell Conway, director of the Microarray and Bioinformatics ...
Steps towards filming atoms dancing
2012-12-03
This press release is available in Spanish.
With their ultra short X-ray flashes, free-electron lasers offer the opportunity to film atoms in motion in complicated molecules and in the course of chemical reactions. However, for monitoring this motion, the arrival time and the temporal profile of the pulses which periodically illuminate the system, must be precisely known. An international team of scientists has now developed a measurement technique that provides complete temporal characterization of individual FEL (free-electron laser) pulses at DESY's soft-X-ray ...
Gender and race: How overlapping stereotypes affect our personal and professional decisions
2012-12-03
NEW YORK -- December 3, 2012 -- Racial and gender stereotypes have profound consequences in almost every sector of public life, from job interviews and housing to police stops and prison terms. However, only a few studies have examined whether these different categories overlap in their stereotypes. A new study on the connections between race and gender – a phenomenon called gendered race – reveals unexpected ways in which stereotypes affect our personal and professional decisions.
Within the United States, Asians as an ethnic group are perceived as more feminine in comparison ...
How 'transparent' is graphene?
2012-12-03
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The amazing electrical, optical and strength properties of graphene, a single-atom-thick layer of carbon, have been extensively researched over the last decade. Recently, the material has been studied as a coating that might confer electrical conductivity while maintaining other properties of the underlying material.
But the "transparency" of such a graphene coating to wetting — a measure of the degree to which liquids spread out or bead up on a surface — is not as absolute as some researchers had thought. New research at MIT shows that for materials ...
Record high for global carbon emissions
2012-12-03
UEA research shows record high for global carbon emissions
Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are set to rise again in 2012, reaching a record high of 35.6 billion tonnes - according to new figures from the Global Carbon Project, co-led by researchers from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
The 2.6 per cent rise projected for 2012 means global emissions from burning fossil fuel are 58 per cent above 1990 levels, the baseline year for the Kyoto Protocol.
This latest analysis by the Global Carbon Project is published ...
Insights into the genetic causes of coronary artery disease and heart attacks
2012-12-03
In the largest genetic study of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) to date, researchers from the CARDIoGRAMplusC4D Consortium report the identification of 15 genetic regions newly associated with the disease, bringing to 46 the number of regions associated with CAD risk.
The team identified a further 104 independent genetic variants that are very likely to be associated with the disease, enhancing our knowledge of the genetic component that causes CAD.
They used their discoveries to identify biological pathways that underlie the disease and showed that lipid metabolism and ...
Bismuth provides perfect dance partners for quantum computing qubits
2012-12-03
New research has demonstrated a way to make bismuth electrons and nuclei work together as qubits in a quantum computer.
The discovery, published in Nature Materials, takes us a key step further to creating practical quantum computing which could tackle complex programs that would otherwise take the lifetime of the universe to finish.
The collaboration partners are based in the University of Warwick, UCL, ETH Zurich and the USA Sandia National Labs.
Information on our normal computers is stored as bits, which are either ones or zeros. Quantum bits work differently ...
The role of the cellular entry point of anthrax identified
2012-12-03
Anthrax uses a receptor on the surface of cells to inject its lethal toxins. However, the physiological function of this receptor, named Anthrax Toxin Receptor 2a (Antxr2a), remained unknown until now. A team led by Marcos Gonzalez-Gaitan, a professor at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, in collaboration with Gisou van der Goot at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), reveals that Antxr2a actually plays a role in embryonic development, orienting cell division along a specific plane, which is a prelude to the formation of future tissues and organs. ...
New gene-sequencing tools offer clues to highest-risk form of a childhood cancer
2012-12-03
Using powerful gene-analysis tools, researchers have discovered mutations in two related genes, ARID1A and ARID1B, that are involved in the most aggressive form of the childhood cancer neuroblastoma. While these findings do not immediately improve clinical treatments, they identify a novel pathway that is defective in these cancers, a pathway that scientists can now study to develop potential new therapies.
"These gene alterations were not previously known to be mutated in neuroblastoma, and they may significantly advance our knowledge of the underlying biological pathways ...