Nerdy Science Blog

A fast and cheap mercury detection method was developed last week, and a method to detect pesticide in food has been developed this week.  This method is developed by ETH Zurish chemists, Renato Zenobi and Matthias Jecklin, to detect pesticide residues.  The detection method uses a faster mass spectrometric method to detect pesticide residues in foodstuffs.  A gadget can be designed so that consumers can know if the daily food products and plants they buy from market is organic or non-organic.  This can also be used for regular quality checks, but the quantitative reading cannot be read by this method.  The same method can be applied in forensic and medical purposes, such as drugs detection, human sweat and breath analysis.

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“Resting to walk a longer distance,” is a Chinese proverb.  It has the same meaning as English proverb “after dinner sit a while, after supper walk a mile.”  This ‘resting’ philosophy has been proved by a recent study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research.

The study showed that exercise is important in reducing women’s cancer risk, and sleeping itself is also essential in prevention.  The lead author, James McClain, who is also cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute said that consistent exercise may alter hormone levels, immune function, and body weight to prevent cancers, including breast and colon cancers.  The study focused on the connection between physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE), sleep duration, and risk of beast and colon cancers.  The study started in 1998, following 5968 women who are at least 18 years through the Washington County Cancer Registry and Maryland State Cancer Registry.  The study showed that women slept less than seven hours a day had higher cancer risk.  The link between physical activity and sleeping is not clear yet.  Researchers will investigate the potential mechanisms involved in cancer prevention, and also assess the effect of insufficient and prolonged sleep duration.

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Who say biologists are nerd and bore? We too can produce “LOL” and “ahem…” type of “professional jokes”, from molecular biologists to molecular biologists, and only molecular biologists can catch it. Sit back and have fun~

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“I’ve been single-stranded too long! Lonely ATGCATG would like to pair up with congenial TACGTAC.”

“Menage a trois! Ligand seeks two receptors into binding and mutual phosphorylation. Let’s get together and transduce some signals.”

“Some dates have called me a promotor. Others have referred to me as a real operator. Personally, I think I’m just a cute piece of DNA who is still looking for that special transcription factor to help me unwind.”

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Shortage of PhDs to be lecturers in tertiary education has been a long problem.  There are many cocky Malaysian lecturers who think they are the mighty in the university.  Guess what?  These people only hold Masters Degree.

Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education came up with a programme to select candidates to pursue Doctor of Philosophy degree.  The programme is known as the Ministry of Higher Education Scholarship.  Deputy Minister Datuk Idris Haron said the programme is inspired by the enquiry of Datuk Lee Chee Leong in the criteria of how the university lecturers are selected.  Deputy Minister set the target of achieving 60% of the lecturers hold PhDs by 2013.  He said currently only 31.6% of lecturers had PhD qualification.

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Sperm’s tail generates thrust to swim.  Sperm’s tail is the structure that determines how fast the sperm swim has been a common scientific belief.  However a paper published by Stuart Humphries, Jonathan P Evans and Leigh W Simmons in BMC Evolutionary Biology suggested otherwise.  According to the researchers, there is no evidence linking the tail length to swimming speed.  The speed of a sperm should be look from head to tail, but not only focus on single part.

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One of the deadliest pandemics in human history is the Black Death a.k.a. Black Plague, which is highly suspected to be caused by Yersinia pestis bacterium.  Although Influenza has been thought to be the next pandemic, scientists found that the next pandemic could be caused by rats.

A paper will be published in the December issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology suggesting the biggest and most common rats in Europe, the brown rats, may carry bacteria that cause the 21st century plague.

Bartonella bacteria are zoonotic pathogens that can cause serious illness in humans worldwide, such as heart disease, and spleen and nervous system infection.  The new species of Bartonella bacteria, Bartonella rochalimae, was discovered and identified to cause spleen infection led the scientists to study this bacteria species in rodents.  It is discovered that rats carry several pathogenic species of Bartonella, for example B. elizabethae and B. grahamii, and B. tribocorum.  A new strain which is closely related to B. rochalimae was found in rats.  The infections can be transmitted by fleas.

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Baby baboon, “Daddy, can we have banana for dinner?”

Daddy baboon, “No!  We’ll be having mash banana for dinner.”

Baby baboon, “But we’re having mash banana for dinner since you’re the king.”

Daddy baboon, “I said MASH BANANAAAAA!”

A report published in the November 20th issue of Current Biology shows that baboons are loyal animal who follow what their leader tell them, for example, where to eat and what to eat.  This study is done by researchers of Zoological Society of London, which includes Andrew J. King, Caitlin M.S. Douglas, Elise Huchard, Nick J.B. Isaac, and Guy Cowlishaw.  The findings show that this can provide a lowest cost (in this case, food) compared to the ‘democratic’ in short-term.  The followers can also gain long-term benefits, such as reduced risk of being eaten by predators.  This study also helps us understand how a group makes decisions, how leaders emerge, and the psychology of followers.

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Mercury contamination in fish has been a serious problem that can harm human’s health.

A quick and simple method to detect mercury in fish has been developed by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh.  The method will use fluorescent substance to contact with fish, and if there is any presence of oxidized mercury, the substance will glows in bright green colour.  This does not only give qualitative result (like the traditional test kits do), but also quantitative result.  This technique is developed in the laboratory of Kazunori Koide.  The new technique can be applied onsite.  It only takes 10 to 30 minutes to detect mercury level in fish.

The fluorescence detection method can also be used in detecting mercury in wastewater.

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Do you know what is your blog personality?

According to Typealyzer, this blog personality is ESTP, the DOER.

The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Typealyzer uses texts, words and sentences to determine the blog characteristic.  I tried it on several blogs of mine, and they showed the same result.

By the way, Kiwi just wins the Rugby World Cup!

Wound that takes days or even weeks to recover might be able to shorten via a new device.  The new medical gadget creates a low-pressure area on top of the wound and speeds up regeneration by helping the blood diffuse better in the new tissue.  It is a small handheld console that has a cup which is applied on the wound site.  The air is then sucked from underneath of the cup creating low-pressure area.  The patent of this “wound sucker” has been submitted and currently being reviewed by independent researchers.

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