Laboratory Equipment

An excellent international resource for the laboratory equipment industry.

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Method Enables Design of Hybrid Glasses, Revolutionizes Gas Storage

A new method of manufacturing glass could lead to the production of “designer glasses” with applications in advanced photonics, while also facilitating industrial scale carbon capture and storage. An international team of researchers, writing today in the journal Nature Communications, report how they have managed to use a relatively new family of sponge-like porous materials to develop new hybrid glasses.

The work revolves around a family of compounds called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which are cage-like structures consisting of metal ions, linked by organic bonds. Their porous properties have led to proposed application in carbon capture, hydrogen storage and toxic gas separations, because of their ability to selectively adsorb and store pre-selected target molecules, much like a building a sieve that discriminates not only on size, but also chemical identity.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/method-enables-design-hybrid-glasses-revolutionizes-gas-storage

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Scientists Can't Duplicate Results of Many Psychology Experiments

A large group of researchers set out to repeat 100 experiments published by leading psychology journals to see how often they would get the same results.

The answer: less than half the time.

That doesn't mean all those unconfirmed studies were wrong. But it's a stark reminder that a single study rarely provides definitive answers and why scientists often greet new findings by saying, "More research is needed."

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/scientists-cant-duplicate-results-many-psychology-experiments

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Epic Storm Caused 1,000 Years’ Worth of Erosion

The historic September 2013 storm that triggered widespread flooding across Colorado’s Front Range eroded the equivalent of hundreds, or even as much as 1,000 years’ worth of accumulated sediment from the foothills west of Boulder, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered.

The findings, which were recently published in the journal Geology, suggest that erosion may not always be a slow and steady process, but rather can occur in sudden, rapid bursts because of extreme weather events such as hundred- and thousand-year storms.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/epic-storm-caused-1000-years-worth-erosion

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Material Could Make Life is Space Safer

For astronauts living in space with objects zooming around them at 22,000 miles per hour like rogue super-bullets, it’s good to have a backup plan. Although shields and fancy maneuvers could help protect space structures, scientists have to prepare for the possibility that debris could pierce a vessel. In the journal ACS Macro Letters, one team reports on a new material that heals itself within seconds and could prevent structural penetration from being catastrophic.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/videos/2015/08/material-could-make-life-space-safer

[amnhnyc]

A peek into the Museum archives: Preparing African Buffalo Group, 1934

See over 10,000 images from the Museum’s History. 

AMNH/281097

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Brain's Visual Cortex is Repurposed in Blind Children

In 2011, MIT neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe and colleagues reported that, in blind adults, brain regions normally dedicated to vision processing instead participate in language tasks such as speech and comprehension. Now, in a study of blind children, Saxe’s lab has found that this transformation occurs very early in life, before the age of four.

The study, appearing in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggests that the brains of young children are highly plastic, meaning that regions usually specialized for one task can adapt to new and very different roles. The findings also help to define the extent to which this type of remodeling is possible.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/brains-visual-cortex-repurposed-blind-children

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Does Neuroticism Spring from Overthinking?

Isaac Newton was a classic neurotic. He was a brooder and a worrier, prone to dwelling on the scientific problems before him as well as his childhood sins. But Newton also had creative breakthroughs — thoughts on physics so profound that they are still part of a standard science education.

In a Trends in Cognitive Sciences Opinion paper published this week, psychologists present a new theory for why neurotic unhappiness and creativity go hand-in-hand. The authors argue that the part of the brain responsible for self-generated thought is highly active in neuroticism, which yields both of the trait's positives (e.g., creativity) and negatives (e.g., misery).

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/does-neuroticism-spring-overthinking

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Does Sperm Harpoon the Egg?

Spiky filaments at the head of sperm cells may lash together, effectively allowing the swimming cells to harpoon an egg to facilitate fertilization.

The new find, published in the journal Andrology, could be a revelation in a fundamental process of life that is 14 years in the making, according to the University of Virginia researchers.

“This finding has really captured our imagination,” said John Herr, one of the authors, in a statement released by the school. “We now postulate they’re involved in penetrating the egg – that’s the new hypothesis emerging from the finding, which leads to a whole new set of questions and new hypotheses about the very fine structure of molecular events during fertilization.”

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/does-sperm-harpoon-egg

[nevver]

Ten years after, Frank Relle

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

‘Bible of Homicide Investigation’ Author Vernon Geberth on the Extensive 5th Edition

Vernon Geberth has a maxim for all young homicide detectives: “Do it right the first time. You won’t get a second chance.”

It’s a piece of wisdom the retired NYPD “murder cop” has imparted to some 70,000 investigators nationwide over his years in the business. Geberth himself got it right the first time, writing the textbook Practical Homicide Investigation in 1982, the first handbook to assist investigators in the practical aspects of solving violent killings in America.

More than three decades later, it's now commonly referred to as “the Bible of Homicide Investigation” – and he is still teaching detectives nationwide. In May, he published a fifth edition that’s essentially a whole new book, including advances in DNA and other technologies that were unthinkable 30 years ago.

Read more: http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2015/08/bible-homicide-investigation-author-vernon-geberth-extensive-5th-edition

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Canceling an Action Saps Memory

You’re driving on a busy road and you intend to switch lanes when you suddenly realize that there’s a car in your blind spot. You have to put a stop to your lane change — and quickly.

A new study by Duke University researchers suggests that this type of scenario makes a person less likely to remember what halted the action — for example, the make and model of the car in the blind spot.

People and non-human primates excel at “response inhibition.” Our sophisticated brains allow us to cancel an action even when it’s something engrained, like driving on the right side of the road. Although it’s not easy, we can override this inclination when we drive in foreign countries with left-hand traffic.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/canceling-action-saps-memory

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Forget Calories, Monitor Nutrition for Heart Health

It's time to stop counting the calories, and instead start promoting the nutritional value of foods, if we are to rapidly cut illness and death from cardiovascular disease and curb the rising tide of obesity, say experts in an editorial published in BMJ’s online journal Open Heart.

Drawing on published evidence, Aseem Malhotra and James DiNicolantonio and Prof. Simon Capewell argue that, rather like quitting smoking, simple dietary changes can rapidly improve health outcomes at the population level.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/forget-calories-monitor-nutrition-heart-health

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Researchers Seek Hypoallergenic Parks

Ah-choo! If you suffer from seasonal allergies, you’re probably sick of this refrain. And you’re not alone. Millions of Americans suffer from seasonal allergies. Moreover, there are allergy sufferers around the world echoing this allergy anthem.

Scientists, making a preemptive strike against seasonal allergies, are studying how the plants in urban green spaces affect air quality. The researchers hope their efforts will lead to fantastic urban green spaces that don’t cause allergic reactions.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/researchers-seek-hypoallergenic-parks

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Colorful Potatoes May Prevent Cancer

Compounds found in purple potatoes may help kill colon cancer stem cells and limit the spread of the cancer, according to a team of researchers.

Baked purple-fleshed potatoes suppressed the growth of colon cancer tumors in petri dishes and in mice by targeting the cancer's stem cells. Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. and responsible for more than 50,000 deaths annually, according to the American Cancer Society.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/colorful-potatoes-may-prevent-cancer

[nevver]

San Francisco

[ri-science]

Extreme physics BBQ!

This is what happens when you pump mains electricity through a steak (using a kettle as a resistor), when you focus the beams from a strong light source onto one piece of steak, and when you try to fry prawns using a bottle rocket.

As electricity is forced through the steak, electrons interact with the atoms and molecules of the meat. As the steak doesn’t conduct very well, the electrons have to push very hard, and in doing so transfer energy to the meat - a process known as joule heating.

Parabolas focus all the incoming energy into one spot. We harnessed that to cook a steak.

And we whipped out our old favourite - bottle rockets - to fry our prawns. Had to sort out a projectile prawn issue first, though.

Click here to watch the whole video on our YouTube channel. And check out the extreme chemistry approach over at Brit Lab.

[laboratoryequipment-blog]

Rare Blue Pigment Used in Ancient Mummy Portraits

Mostly untouched for 100 years, 15 Roman-era Egyptian mummy portraits and panel paintings were literally dusted off by scientists and art conservators from Northwestern University and the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology as they set out to investigate the materials the painters used nearly 2,000 years ago.

What the researchers discovered surprised them, because it was hidden from the naked eye: the ancient artists used the pigment Egyptian blue as material for underdrawings and for modulating color — a finding never before documented. Because blue has to be manufactured, it typically is reserved for very prominent uses, not hidden under other colors.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/08/rare-blue-pigment-used-ancient-mummy-portraits