One flu over - X-ray studies have revealed details of the structure of a protein used by the avian influenza, H5N1, that allows it to hide its RNA from the infected host’s immune system. The structure could provide a new target for the development of antiviral drugs against this potentially lethal virus

Minestrone and magnetic resonance - Researchers in the US and France may have overturned decades of theory in magnetic resonance studies by spotting a discrepancy in the way nuclear spins behave. Their new mathematical model of the process improves our understanding of atomic behaviour and could lead to better NMR spectra, sharper magnetic resonance images, and perhaps one day a fully portable MRI machine.

Organic soil matters - Could the earth beneath our feet hold the key to climate change? According to scientists at the University of Toronto Scarborough their NMR results show that global warming is changing the molecular structure of organic matter in soil.

Battery capacity is full of holes - Researchers in Korea have developed a novel material for the anode in rechargeable batteries, which they say could make them much more efficient and extend significantly the length of time between charges.

And on ChemWeb for science news with a chemical element:

First on the list in this week’s Alchemist, more on the new anode material, which is potentially good news for the iPod generation. In analytical research, HPLC has been used to spot dummy tequila and in medical chemistry US radiologists suggest that a dose of modified vitamin D could protect citizens from a dirty bomb attack. Next up, a new approach to addressing qubits allows for faster measurements that could take us a step closer to a quantum computer, while Yorkshire chemists are working out the best mix of starting materials to get the maximum height yield on their tasty products. Finally, this week’s award is a record breaker in the State where big is everything.

Flu Structure, Extended mp3s, and Magnetic Minestrone

Anyway, here’s the Top Five SNPs that might be described as having no obvious direct medical importance.

• rs1815739 sprinters vs endurance athletes (I reckon I lack both)
• rs7495174 green eye color and rs12913832 for blue eye color
• rs6152 can prevent baldness (this was discovered far too late for me)
• rs1805009 determines red hair (some “comedians” might suggest this be swapped to the second list below)
• rs17822931 determines earwax (and presumably how well your ears stay clear of insect infestation)

And, here’s the more sober list of SNPs that could have serious medical implications should you happen to discover you have one of these when you have your genome read by the likes of 23andMe.

• rs9939609 triggers obesity (not a genetic excuse for eating too much)
• rs662799 prevents weight gain from high fat diets (ditto)
• rs4420638 and rs429358 can raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by tenfold or more
• rs7903146 and rs12255372 linked to type-2 diabetes, the latter also to breast cancer
• rs324650 influences alcohol dependence, rs1799971 makes alcohol cravings stronger (it would not be funny to say, “Mine’s a pint, with a whisky chaser”, right now)

It was a twitter discussion between SNP experts mza and attilacsordas that led me to the SNP list.

Top Ten SNPs

Incidentally, for those unaware of the history of noble gases, they were at one time known as inert gases because chemists thought their full outer shell of electrons made them unreactive. As more and more reactions for these so-called inert gases were discovered, it became necessary to abandon the “inert” label and focus on their nobility.

A neon light is not really much more than a fluorescent tube (actually, it’s less as it needs no phosphor coating on the inside), neon tubes contain the noble gas neon, surprise, surprise. Pass an electric discharge through a tube containing low pressure neon and it will glow with that familiar orange-red glow, so evocative of late-night bars and sleazy movies.

A neon light uses a very high voltage to propel an electric current through a low-density gas of neon atoms held in a glass tube. Charges from the electrode at each end of the tube fly through the gas colliding frequently with neon atoms and transferring some of their energy to the neon atoms. This kicks the neon atoms into a higher energy, excited state, with an electron in a higher orbital than normal. This excited state does not last and as the electron loses energy the atom drops back to a lower energy state and releases a photon of light. The energy of this photon is equivalent to the energy fall and for neon atoms that coincides with an energy that produces a reddish glow.

Many people, unfamiliar with the noble gas group of the periodic table - the p-block, assume that all coloured fluorescent tubes used in signage are neon signs. However, there are two ways to produce other colours - paint a standard mercury tube with the colour you want or far more effectively use a different noble gas in the tube instead of neon, perhaps together with mercury vapour to give a stronger glow. Here’s a break down of the discharge colours for each noble gas.

Helium (He) - Orangey white, usually
Neon (Ne) - Orange-red glow
Argon (Ar) - Violet, pale lavender blue
Krypton (Kr) - Grayish dim off-white
Xenon (Xe) - Blue-grey
Radon (Rn) - radioactive, not used in lighting

Of course, it is not only the noble gases and mercury vapour that can be added to lighting tubes. Nitrogen produces a slightly pinker glow than argon, oxygen glows violet-lavender but dimly. Hydrogen glows lavender at low currents, but pinkish magenta above 10 milliAmps, while carbon dioxide produces a slight bluish-white. Mercury can be made to glow in the ultraviolet, and is used in so-called black lights. Sodium vapour at low pressure glows the bright yellow of street lighting, particularly in England. And, even water vapour produces a glow similar to hydrogen, only dimmer .

Shedding Light on Neon Signs

It tracks the shifts that are occurring today and extrapolates them into implications for those currently in high school and higher education. Think about it, if you start a technical degree this year, half of what you learn in that four-year course will be outdated before you reach the end of the third year. After all, it took radio 38 years to reach a 50 million audience, television 13 years, the internet 4 years, and Facebook achieved a market penetration that size in just 2 years.

In 1984, the year I started university, there were 1000 internet devices around the world (I certainly didn’t send an email till more than four years after that). By 1992, that number was 1,000,000. Today, there are at least a billion internet devices and that number will inevitably rise as people with at least one personal computer augment their connectivity with more and more mobile devices. Incidentally, you can get Sciencebase on your mobile here.

The video was produced by the zyOzy Foundation, which believes that the themes in the “Did You Know?” video are global in nature and apply to schools and children around the world.

The Future

However, another climate change conference with a difference also begins today in Sweden. That conference hopes to address the issues from a religious rather than a scientific angle with Christians, Muslims, Jews, Chinese Daoists and a native American representative, among others, taking part in the two-day event, which is the first of its kind, apparently.

It is timely then that a new scientific study of technology among religious people is to be published in the first 2009 issue of the International Journal of Innovation and Learning. The paper found that technological uptake seems to hint that the apparently more trusting character of many religious people makes them more accepting of new technologies. Though it pains me to say it, could religious faith by our saving grace?

If the devout are more inclined to trust new technology, then perhaps they will embrace more quickly novel suggestions for tackling the global issue of climate change. Or, does the research simply reveal that this trusting benevolence apparently associated with “being religious simply means that the devout are not quite so cynical of the hidden agendas of others, which make them more susceptible to the wiles of scammers, spammers, and charlatans.

The research paper discusses a relatively small-scale study into the link between strength of religious belief and how this relates to technology acceptance. The researchers wanted to find out whether people of faith are likely to be more trusting of commercial websites than other people.

With increasing commercial globalisation and international travel, the advent of the internet and online communities, the concept of social trust has become a key focus of research. Social trust
has
always played
a crucial role
in building societiesSocial trust has always played a crucial role in building societies and is based on the sum total of connections among people, their social networks and how trustworthiness is reciprocated. Civic participation is facilitated by social capital, as reflected in the social networks characterised by norms of reciprocity and trust, the researchers report.

In this context, they used a standard Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to track online behaviour among a group of users and combined the data with results from an assessment of religious faith known as the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith instrument. The aim being to see how faith, trust, and technology mesh in the modern world.

The researchers questioned 161 current and former postgraduate university students and others with varying levels of internet experience and different religious convictions. They assessed religious strength based on dedication to prayer and how much a person’s faith plays a role in each individual’s daily life. Attitudes to ecommerce were assessed by testing their interaction with an experimental ecommerce website and asking whether users felt the website operated with their best interests in mind and whether it is run competently and sincerely.

An analysis of the results suggests that fundamentally religious faith increases benevolence, which in turn influences perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and behavioural intention. The more religious were more trusting, it seems.

Although one might suggest that this would imply gullibility, the researchers extrapolate their findings to say that communities with strong religious faith may be among the leaders rather than the followers when it comes to technology acceptance, the early adopters in other words. Those people may be the ones paving the way for less trusting and accepting individuals.

The researchers say that it is surprising that religion, given its cultural prominence in some parts of the world, has been largely overlooked in studies of this kind. They hope that the present research will enthuse sociologists, economists, and business experts to investigate more closely how religious faith might affect internet use, with a view to improving the experience.

But, the big question of the day is who will you be listening to, the scientists virtualised in second life or those people of faith in Sweden?

Stuart J. Barnes (2009). Strength of religious faith, trusting beliefs and their role in technology acceptance International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 6 (1), 110-126

Religious Faith in Technology

In the current economic climate, the “Downturn” as the BBC has so brazenly logo-ized it, when banks are running and companies are being crunched like so many cornflakes eaten during the breakfast news, tech companies need all the good advice they can get. This is where Guy Kawasaki, entrepeneur, evangelist, venture capitalist, blogger, and guru can help.

Kawasaki’s latest book - Reality Bites - sucks up to no one, but teaches you to suck down, it takes no bull shiitake and overturns much of the received wisdom of Si-Valley. Moreover, Reality Check is the self-professed “irreverent guide to outsmarting, outmanaging, and outmarketing your competition. If Bubble 2.0 is about to burst, then irreverent advice of this kind could mean the difference between a startup never getting off the blocks before reality bites.

Now, I’ve never quite got the hang of speed reading, boredom, tiredness, and aching eyeballs will often mean I take ten times as long as the average reader to plough through a lacklustre book.

With Kawasaki it has been very different. It has been a long read for me (and I’m still not quite finished as I write this review), but that’s most definitely not because of boredom or tiredness, it’s because I’ve been
in
and out
of my chair
as he
triggers new thoughts
and ideas with almost
every paragraphI’ve been in and out of my chair as he triggers new thoughts and ideas with almost every paragraph. Each page I turn I come across a new idea that I cannot wait to work on, write about, implement, or even just use to create my latest tweet. And I’m not even running a tech startup, if that’s how I feel reading his words, then I suspect anyone hoping to storm the market with a new gadget, program or their latest paper will get even more out of it than me.

If there were some way to read and work at the same time without compromising either, I’d have Guy sitting on my desk every day. His ideas seem to transcend the jargon and bozo explosions of the day, anyone - individual entrepreneur, blogger, fledgling CEO, head of department - would do well to keep him close to hand while they build their business plan, work on their prototype and develop their team.

All of what Kawasaki discusses is about people whether he’s explaining the top ten lies of venture capitalists or how old geezers can capture or enrapture the youth market, whether he’s telling you about how late he came to blogging or how creating a community is not just the latest fad, something scientists are beginning to recognise.

And, that’s no bull shiitake.

You can visit Guy Kawasaki’s website here (and read his blog), get the latest true rumours via his Truemors site, or check out aggregated headlines from top news sources and blogs in almost every field of endeavour you care to mention at Alltop.com, and yes, of course, there is a science.alltop.com

This Guy Needs a Reality Check

But, could some good have come out of this scandal? Apparently, breast-feeding rates have bounced back across Asia, according to some reports and a roundtable, Secure nutritious diet: Save children’s lives, organised jointly by Save the Children UK and others is using the melamine scare to help promote the breast is best message. It has been demonstrated time and again that breastfeeding reduces infant mortality rates particularly in the developing world. One wit even suggested that the melamine contamination was done deliberately to promote breastfeeding, a nonsense, obviously.

Others are now reporting that the formula manufacturers are hoping to restrict this renewed enthusiasm for breastfeeding by heavy promotion of their products even if they are in breach of WHO guidelines on marketing of breast milk substitutes.

Others benefiting from the melamine scandal, although not in the same cynical way are chemical analysis companies, who, according to the Boston Globe are seeing improved business as food safety scares raise the profile of state-of-the-art testing equipments, including melamine test kits. The Gainesville Sun even reported on a woman who had developed her own testing kit for melamine.

As was mentioned in a comment on a previous melamine post, the US FDA has updated its import alert on melamine: “Detention without physical examination of all milk products, milk derived ingredients and finished food products containing milk from china due to the presence of melamine and/or melamine analogs.”

Breast is Best in Melamine Scandal

Recycled virgin - Recycled engine oil has high levels of organic impurities, heavy metals, and carcinogenic compounds, according to work carried out by researchers in Jordan. They have used atomic absorption (AA), inductive couple plasma (ICP) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analyses to spot the differences between virgin and recycled engine oil.

In a spin over nanomaterials - Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, are hoping to spread the word far and wide of a new analytical technique that can help scientists and technologists working with nanomaterials. They say that their discovery could help accelerate the development of materials for the next generation of solar energy conversion and computer data storage.

Deadly proteins and trigger points - US researchers have used NMR to identify a previously undetected trigger point on a naturally occurring “death protein” that helps the body get rid of damaged or diseased cells. The researchers suggest that their findings may offer a novel target for new drugs that could be used to treat cancer by forcing malignant cells to undergo apoptosis, or cellular suicide.

Finally, a rather technical item that will appeal to that specialist niche working on time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. German researchers have found a new way to fit a statistical model to TRLFS spectra that could reveal hidden details and remove background noise, much more effectively than before. The method could allow samples containing various radioactive elements to be analysed effectively despite the interferences from the different ions present.

Recycled Virgins, Nano, and Trigger Points

In biological research, US scientists are suggesting that a specific active form of vitamin D could be useful as a protective agent against nuclear incidents. And, in interplanetary chemistry, Johns Hopkins researchers have found spectroscopic evidence that water-bearing opal formed on Mars much more recently than previously thought.

Finally, we’re going Dutch with this week’s award in which technology transfer in the area of solar energy conversion brings a financial reward and prestige to a graduate student and his colleagues. Get the full skinny and the links in current issue of The Alchemist

Polymer, Nanotech, Vitamins

IT consultant Maire Heikkinen of University of Tampere, Finland, has focused on how the internet might be used in rehabilitation courses for sufferers of long-term neurological diseases including Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

Today, more than 2,500,000 people have MS, a disorder that affects different areas of the central nervous system and so leads to a wide range of symptoms from blurred vision and numbness to weak limbs, unsteadiness, and fatigue. Periods of relapse and remission are often characteristics of the disease but for other people the disease progressively worsens. Either way, it can limit everyday life seriously and makes for an uncertain future for sufferers and those close to them. “There is no known medical cure,” Heikkinen told Sciencebase, but medicine can help moderate the symptoms and prevent relapses, and rehabilitation can help people considerably.”

Getting hold of useful information about one’s disease, discussing problems, and following rehabilitation schemes, is Heikkinen explains an essential part of the process of healing.The rehabilitation for MS patients has traditionally been face-to-face courses and personal physiotherapy, but the internet has enabled some forms of online rehabilitation.

She has looked at the concept of a virtual community for rehabilitation and, in particular, the opportunities for sociability among participants. She found that peer support and the swapping of experiences were the most important part of the online activities. But, perhaps most intriguingly, the MS patients in her study seemed to have a higher trust level among themselves than is common in some online activities. The participants apparently preferred to get to know each other rather than operating anonymously as is common on other internet rehabilitation and support courses, those for cancer sufferers, she cites.

The internet course Heikkinen studied was “Power and Support from the Net”, which was organised by the Finnish MS Society. While there are those who claim that such virtual communities are somehow worth less than face-to-face contacts, others point out that circumstances and ill-health often prevent people from making direct social contact. It is the virtual nature of “online” that seems to offer a significant advantage in a virtual rehabilitation community, in that people are often more willing to discuss problems online than they would be in a face-to-face meeting.

There is evidence that being online is not the depressing default state that those railing against it would have us believe. Heikkinen’s study certainly suggests this is true with regard to outcomes for MS sufferers involved with PSN.

The internet was shown to be a suitable tool for arranging rehabilitation courses for MS sufferers, she says. The course team could build a virtual community at least for the duration of the course, but it will also be possible to continue the team after the course. The course may thus serve as an initiator for a longer-lasting virtual team that will exist for as long as the participants stay active.

Various researchers have outlined the benefits of online community in the past. Virtual communities are inherently social networks because at the base level they link together people, organisations and knowledge. They can become integrated into our daily lives and, as anyone with an active web 2.0 account knows, the internet can increase our contact with friends, relatives, and other contacts regardless of geography, time, or state of health. Fundamentally, adds Heikkinen, “When computer systems connect people and organisations, they form social networks.”

Maire Heikkinen (2009). Power and support from the net: usability and sociability on an internet-based rehabilitation course for people with multiple sclerosis Int. J. Web Based Communities, 5 (1), 83-104

Virtual Rehabilitation for MS Sufferers