oil
Scientists have discovered that a little-understood tensile force, which was previously thought to be an oddity found only in the types of plastics used to make bulletproof vests, occurs in everyday emulsions like mayonnaise and salad dressing. First identified about 25 years ago, the phenomenon known as "negative first normal stress difference" refers to an attractive force that is created within fluids under certain conditions. For example, imagine two glass plates that are stacked like a sandwich, with a thin layer of liquid between. If the bottom plate is held still and the top plate is moved quickly to one side, it sets the fluid in motion, and creates forces within the fluid that, in turn, act upon the glass.
Self-cleaning hydrogen sensors may soon join the ranks of self-cleaning ovens, self-cleaning windows and self-cleaning public toilets, according to Penn State researchers. "The photocatalytic properties of titania nanotubes are so large -- a factor of 100 times greater than any other form of titania -- that sensor contaminants are efficiently removed with exposure to ultraviolet light, so that the sensors effectively recover or retain their original hydrogen sensitivity in real world application," says Dr. Craig A. Grimes, associate professor of electrical engineering and materials science and engineering.
Scientists have revealed new clinical data showing that Cod Liver Oil really is effective in slowing the destruction of joint cartilage in patients with osteoarthritis. For the first time, the clinical study provides unique human evidence (in vivo) of the effectiveness of Cod Liver Oil in the management of osteoarthritis. The trial shows that 86% of pre-operative patients with arthritis, who took Cod Liver Oil capsules daily, had absent or significantly reduced levels of the enzymes that cause cartilage damage compared to 26% of those given a placebo oil capsule. In addition, the result showed a marked reduction in some of the enzymes that cause joint pain, in those patients taking the Cod Liver Oil.
Although low-fat diets are recommended for heart health, a moderate-fat weight loss diet reduced dieters' cardiovascular risk better than a low-fat diet in a study conducted at Penn State. The moderate-fat diet, in which half the fat was monounsaturated fat from peanuts and peanut oil, produced a 14 percent reduction in cardiovascular disease risk. The low fat group experienced a nine percent improvement. Both the moderate and low fat diets were controlled so that all participants lost about the same amount of weight -- approximately 2.4 to 2.7 pound a week on average.
A Princeton professor of chemistry, has invented a technique for making protein molecules from scratch, a long-sought advance that will allow scientists to design the most basic building blocks of all living things with a variety of shapes and compositions far greater than those available in nature. The technique, which was developed over the last 10 years and validated in experiments to be published in November, could prove useful in a wide range of fields. Custom-designed proteins, for example, could become a source of new drugs or could form the basis of new materials that mimic the strength and resilience of natural substances.
A staggering 98 tons of prehistoric, buried plant material ? that's 196,000 pounds ? is required to produce each gallon of gasoline we burn in our cars, SUVs, trucks and other vehicles, according to a study conducted at the University of Utah.
"Can you imagine loading 40 acres worth of wheat ? stalks, roots and all ? into the tank of your car or SUV every 20 miles?" asks ecologist Jeff Dukes, whose study will be published in the November issue of the journal Climatic Change.
As politicians and the public leap aboard the hydrogen fuel bandwagon, a University of California, Berkeley, energy expert suggests we all step back and take a critical look at the technology and consider simpler, cheaper options.
In a paper appearing in the July 18 issue of Science, Alex Farrell and David Keith present various short- and long-term strategies that they say would achieve the same results as switching from gasoline-powered vehicles to hydrogen cars.
"Hydrogen cars are a poor short-term strategy, and it's not even clear that they are a good idea in the long term," said Farrell. "Because the prospects for hydrogen cars are so uncertain, we need to think carefully before we invest all this money and all this public effort in one area."
IVF procedures are spreading rapidly in the Muslim world, as both Sunnis and Shi'ites embrace assisted reproductive technology as a means of overcoming the suffering caused by fertility, an international conference of fertility experts heard today. Medical anthropologist, Dr Marcia Inhorn, told the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology that legal adoption was not allowed in Middle Eastern Muslim countries, although children were loved and valued. As a result, IVF remained many couples' last hope of having children, and IVF centres have opened in nearly 20 nations in the Muslim Middle East, ranging from small, oil-rich Bahrain and Qatar to larger but less prosperous Morocco and Egypt.
Cooking with sesame oil in place of other edible oils appears to help reduce high blood pressure and lower the amount of medication needed to control hypertension, researchers reported today at the XVth Scientific Meeting of the Inter-American Society of Hypertension. The meeting is co-sponsored by the American Heart Association's Council for High Blood Pressure Research.
Drug-primed contact lenses could deliver medicine more safely and effectively than eyedrops, researchers have reported. At the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, researchers described a process for manufacturing soft contact lenses containing timed-release capsules for drug delivery. The medicine is encapsulated in oil-based nanoparticles so small they are invisible to the eye and will not cloud the lenses.
The Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency today announced a settlement with Colonial Pipeline Company, resolving charges that the company violated the Clean Water Act on seven recent occasions by spilling 1.45 million gallons of oil from its 5,500 mile pipeline in five states. Under the consent decree, Colonial will upgrade environmental protection on the pipeline at an estimated cost of at least $30 million, and pay $34 million, the largest civil penalty a company has paid in EPA history.
Eating fish regularly reduced the risk of heart disease in diabetic women by as much as 64 percent, according to a new study. "We found that women with type 2 diabetes who ate more fish had significantly lower risk of coronary heart disease and total death than those who rarely ate fish," says Frank B. Hu, M.D., lead author and associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "Previous studies have found that fish consumption reduces risk of heart disease in a largely healthy population. This is the first study to look at the relationship among diabetic patients, who have very high risk of heart disease."
Cats may adore catnip, but termites hate it. That's what two researchers found in a new study presented today at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, held this week in New Orleans. The oil derived from the catnip plant was found to repel and kill termites in a laboratory test. The researchers hope that eventually a commercial product derived from the oil might provide a less toxic alternative to pesticides used today. Termites cause damages estimated at more than $1 billion annually in the United States. In New Orleans, the aggressive Formosan subterranean termite ? now found in at least 11 states ? is believed to infest about 30 percent of the area's live oak trees and costs home owners more than $300 million a year.
The Department of Defense has designated the Army as Executive Agent for implementing plans to extinguish oil well fires and to assess the damage to oil facilities during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The plan, which was turned over to the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), encompasses the full range of activities that might be necessary to restore or continue the operation of the Iraqi oil infrastructure, which is of vital importance to the future health of Iraq?s economy.
Vegetable oil similar to the stuff you use to cook your food may one day fill your car?s engine. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture have developed a chemically modified version of the edible oil that shows promise as a cleaner, renewable alternative to petroleum-based motor oil, while enhancing its protective properties. Veggie motor oil could eventually be produced cheaper than petroleum-based oil and may help reduce this country?s dependence on foreign oil, the researchers say.
