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MAKING DISCOVERIES
Astronomers find a smaller planet in another solar systemA team of astronomers of The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory discovered a very small planet orbiting a nearby star known as rho1 Cancri. The existence of such planets about the size of Neptune offer the possibility that planets of Earth’s size, if not its conditions, are out there.
Barbara McArthur led the team, which included Michael Endl, William Cochran and Fritz Benedict. They used the McDonald Observatory’s Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) and its High Resolution Spectrograph to spot the planet. Astronomers already knew that three planets, with orbits of 14.6, 44 and 4,520 days, circle around rho1 Cancri, a star about the same size as the Sun. This new planet is closer to the star than the other three. Named rho1 Cancri e, it orbits the star every 2.8 days at a distance of only 0.038 Astronomical Units (3,534,000 miles). This makes the system the first known extrasolar four-planet system. The highlight of the work is the fact that the newly discovered planet has a minimum mass of only 14 Earth masses, and a most likely mass of just 18 Earth masses—about the mass of Neptune. It is the lowest mass planet that has been discovered. Most of the 120 or so known extrasolar planets are Jupiter-sized. (At about 300 times the mass of Earth, Jupiter is the most massive planet in our solar system.) Read more about the lowest mass planet that has been discovered. “Nano-scissors” laser shows precise surgical capabilityA laser that can perform extremely precise surgery on tiny roundworms may be the key to understanding nerve regeneration and is an important step toward treatment of human neurological disease.
Dr. Adela Ben-Yakar, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, led the development of the technique. The ultra-short pulse laser acts like a pair of tiny “nano-scissors,” able to cut, for example, nano-sized units like nerve axons, the parts of nerve cells that carry nerve impulses away from the cells to muscles or to other cells. “This tool opens up a new frontier for biologists studying nerve regeneration,” Ben-Yakar says. “We can also apply it to many other studies that require nanosurgery, so it’s a very versatile tool.” The beauty of this laser, she says, is its ability to cut organelles (parts of cells—they are what organs are to organisms) precisely, without damaging surrounding tissue. Usually, conventional lasers used in surgery heat the area to be cut, then cut it, but this heightens the risk for tissue damage. Dr. Yakar published her research in the journal Nature. Read more about the laser that can perform extremely precise surgery. Researcher discovers how Lance Armstrong keeps on winningA marked improvement in muscle efficiency and large reductions in body fat and body weight are keys to Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong’s cycling success, according to a seven-year study by University of Texas at Austin Professor Ed Coyle.
In his study of the seven-time consecutive Tour de France winner, Coyle documented physiological changes in Armstrong, discovering that, among other things, his overall cycling power improved by 8 percent through increased muscle efficiency and his cycling power per pound of body weight increased by 18 percent. Coyle studied physical determinants of Armstrong’s endurance, such as oxygen uptake and muscle efficiency, from the time Armstrong was 21 until he was 28 and found that, in addition to gaining muscle efficiency, Armstrong also had significant reductions in body fat and weight in the months before the Tour de France competition. “Lance has learned how to reduce his body weight and body fat by 10 pounds prior to each of his Tour de France victories,” said Coyle, director of the Human Performance Laboratory in the College of Education’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Education. “As a result, he’s increased his power per kilogram of body weight by a remarkable 18 percent—this is a tremendous benefit when he’s cycling up steep mountains in France, for example.” Read more about keys to Lance Armstrong’s cycling success. Researchers from Mexico, United States
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| Dr. Christine Schmidt led a project that found a protein that attaches to plastic that could play a role in nerve regeneration and other biomedical applications. |
In the study led by Dr. Christine Schmidt, the researchers identified a piece of protein from among a billion candidates that could perform the unusual feat of attaching to polypyrrole, a synthetic polymer (plastic) that conducts electricity and has shown promise in biomedical applications. When the protein piece, or peptide, was linked to a smaller protein piece that human cells like to attach to, polypyrrole gained the ability to attach to cells grown in flasks in the laboratory.
“It will be very useful from a biomedical standpoint to be able to link factors to polypyrrole in the future that stimulate nerve growth or serve other functions,” said Schmidt, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at the university.
Schmidt, who holds the Laurence E. McMakin Jr. Centennial Fellowship in Chemical Engineering, is the principal author for the study conducted with colleague Dr. Angela Belcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was published online by the journal Nature Materials.
Polypyrrole is of interest for tissue engineering and other purposes because it is a non-toxic plastic that conducts electricity. As a result, it could be used to extend previous experiments in Schmidt’s laboratory. The experiments involve wrapping a tiny strip of plastic around damaged, cable-like extensions of nerve cells called neurites to help them regenerate.
Read more about modifying a plastic to anchor molecules that promote nerve regeneration.
A sensing device tailored for mass production of highly sensitive and stable nerve-gas detectors has been developed by a research group led by a mechanical engineer at The University of Texas at Austin.
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| Dr. Li Shi and colleagues developed a sensing device that is tailored for mass production that can detect a tiny amount of toxic gas. It would mean early warning for some bio-terror attacks. |
The sensor has the potential ability to detect a single molecule of the nerve gas, sarin, the most toxic of biological warfare agents.
The researchers, led by Dr. Li Shi, designed and tested a nanometer-thin crystal of tin oxide sandwiched between two electrodes. When a built-in micro-heater heated the super-thin device, the tin oxide reacted with great sensitivity to gases.
Shi’s group experimented with a non-toxic gas, dimethly methylphosphonate (DMMP) widely used to accurately mimic sarin and other nerve agents. The sensor element responded to as few as about 50 molecules of the DMMP in a billion air molecules.
Both the nano-sizing of the metal-oxide and the unique micro-heater element of the sensor gave the detector its high sensitivity, stability and low power consumption, said Shi, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
The thinner a metal-oxide sensor becomes, the more sensitive it becomes to molecules that react with it. In addition to improved sensitivity, the group found its single-crystal metal-oxide nanomaterials allowed the detector to quickly dispose of previously detected toxins and accurately warn of new toxins’ presence.
Read more about a sensing device for mass production of nerve-gas detectors.
It’s the little things—sometimes as simple as giving the resident a choice of when to take a shower—that count when considering what is good quality of care in a nursing home, says a University of Texas at Austin researcher in a study.
In her research on the nursing home industry in Texas, Dr. Roberta Greene, professor in the School of Social Work, examined what people want in terms of a nursing home. “We wanted to shed light on what makes a good nursing home,” said Greene. “We know a great deal about what makes a bad one.”
Findings from Greene’s study, “The Nursing Home Crisis: A Consumer Study of Texas Nursing Home Care,” were published in the Journal of Gerontological Social Work. Funding for the study was provided by the Wolens Foundation.
“Good homes give people more choices and make livings spaces more individualized—like putting wallpaper up and hanging pictures and awards,” Greene said. “There could be a choice of two or three things for dinner or having a bubble bath.”
Residents also value a caring, cheerful and loving staff.
“Clearly, quality of care involves more than readily identifiable medical aspects of care,” Greene said. “The best care, in fact, involves a radical culture change: creating a partnership of families, friends and staff—nurses, social workers, dieticians and janitors—to review the specific needs and likes and dislikes of a nursing home resident.
“The more family and friends are attentive, the more the staff is attentive,” she said. “Family and friends should never sell themselves short. They, too, can influence the quality of care.”
Read more about what makes a good nursing home.
Scientists have learned how to create protein barriers near living nerve cells that influence their direction of growth, which could one day provide a way to precisely control nerve-cell interactions to better understand memory formation and other brain functions.
“It would be a powerful thing if we had the capacity to control where a particular contact is made,” said Jason Shear, the lead researcher from The University of Texas at Austin.
In a paper published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Shear’s laboratory demonstrated that it could build microscopic walls of protein near a nerve cell growing on a glass slide after a thick liquid containing dissolved copies of the protein was added.
The microscopic walls developed by forming chemical bonds, or cross-links, between copies of the protein to produce a dense interconnected network. Another chemical in the soupy liquid known as a photosensitizer was activated by laser light to generate reactive chemicals that drove the proteins’ interaction.
Using this laser-induced process of building protein structures called microfabrication, the group built walls near living nerve cells that were made of albumin or other proteins. Shear’s laboratory also demonstrated that a wall could be used to guide and direct two nerve cells to interact at a specific site at the end of a wall.
Shear and his lab demonstrated that they could tether a similar attractant molecule to a protein wall in a container of bacteria and have them rapidly migrate to that site.
“We want to make this microfabrication guidance method capable of creating a much more complex nerve-cell landscape—not just physical barriers, but ones that also interact with cells chemically and electronically,” he said.
Read more about protein barriers that influence direction of growth of living cells.
Global warming has forced U.S. plants and animals to change their behavior in recent decades in ways that can be harmful, according to a report for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change
“Human-driven climate change has affected species all across the U.S., from new tropical species arriving in Florida to changes in the basic functioning of ecosystems in Alaska,” said an author of the report, Camille Parmesan, an integrative biologist at The University of Texas at Austin.
She and Hector Galbraith of Galbraith Environmental Services, who is affiliated with the University of Colorado at Boulder, prepared the report for the Pew Center.
They reviewed more than 40 studies and their analyses revealed that more than half the studies provided strong evidence of a direct link between global warming and changes in the behavior of species in the continental United States and Alaska.
The report revealed that some plants are flowering earlier in the spring than ever before and some birds breeding earlier. In addition, species from Edith’s checkerspot butterflies to the red fox have been gradually moving northward or to higher elevations, where more tolerable climate conditions now exist. Some of these species are also disappearing from southern, or lower elevation, portions of their ranges.
These shifts sometimes have had no overall negative impact. But in other cases, they have made survival tougher as the large-scale movements bring new species into contact with each other, often resulting in direct competition, such as what appears to be occurring as the competitively superior red fox pushes the arctic fox farther towards the sea. But more subtle changes are also likely to result from species relocating themselves, such as changes in food quality or in availability of breeding sites.
Read more about how global warming has forced U.S. plants and animals to change their behavior.
Early testing indicates a new technology developed by a research team at The University of Texas at Austin holds strong promise in the fight against pulmonary fungal infections, a serious threat to lung transplant patients, patients undergoing chemotherapy treatment and HIV/AIDS patients.
Dr. Robert O. Williams III, professor of pharmaceutics, said fungal infections represent 9 percent of all hospital acquired infections and results in an annual cost of $2.6 billion or about $72,000 per patient.
“Transplant patients are particularly susceptible to infections since their immune system is suppressed to prevent the body from rejecting the transplant,” he said. “Lung transplant patients find themselves especially vulnerable since it is difficult to get traditional fungal fighting medications to the lungs before the body eliminates them.”
Williams and Dr. Keith Johnston, professor of chemical engineering at the university, have developed the technologies that produce nanoparticles of a variety of pharmaceuticals. Because of their tiny size and increased surface area, the treated particles are broken down in the body quickly and the rate of absorption is increased.
Read more about technology that holds promise in the fight against pulmonary fungal infections.
By studying cancer in mice, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have gained preliminary evidence that a novel compound that resembles vitamin E reduces the size of tumors and the ability of cancer to spread to other body sites by half.
“We have clear evidence that this chemical is directly causing cancer cells to die,” said Kimberly Kline, a nutrition professor in the Department of Human Ecology who directed the research in collaboration with Bob G. Sanders, a professor in the School of Biological Sciences.
The findings result from studies involving treatment of genetically identical mice, which were given the novel vitamin E compound either orally or by aerosol.
Based on earlier, similar findings by Kline and colleagues, the National Cancer Institute is funding national efforts to investigate the ability of this novel compound, RRR-alpha-tocopherol ether acetic analog (alpha-TEA), to prevent colon and breast cancers in preclinical animal models.
Read more about how a novel compound that resembles vitamin E reduces the size of tumors.
