Could diners of the future be able to send food back because it has the wrong DNA?
CNN reports on how two New York teenagers, Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, collected food samples from a selection of sushi restaurants and grocery stores. They then sent these off to be analysed. The DNA sequences were mapped out, producing a “DNA barcode” that was then matched against a library of known species.
The results weren’t encouraging. A quarter of the samples tested weren’t what they claimed to be with cheaper fish being substituted instead. This substitution wasn’t necessarily the fault of the restaurant or shop, it could have happened anywhere in the chain from sea to plate.
Mark Stoeckle, father of one of the girls, described their experiment as being “like CSI for fish”.
Today such samples must be sent off to the lab for DNA analysis and matching. However with improvements in technology I can imagine simple sequencing equipment one day becoming portable.
Maybe in the future we’ll all be able to buy a personal DNA testing kit with a built-in library of common patterns. That way we’ll be able to find out what’s really in our meat pie or burger.
Then again, maybe we’re happier not knowing.
Image copyright © cre8tive_studios / iStockphoto
August 24th, 2008
Posted by
trevor |
Genetics |
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A new report by the US National Research Council suggests that hydrogen vehicles could be the future of the automobile industry. The report, “Transitions To Alternative Transportation Technologies: A Focus On Hydrogen”, says that there could be two million hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCV) on American roads by 2020. This would make a big dent in the country’s dependence on fossil fuels and help reduce carbon emissions.
Unfortunately this is a best-case scenario. The report points out the obstacles to achieving the switch over from carbon-based fuels to hydrogen, including the cost of production and the lack of a support infrastructure.
In other words: it’ll cost money.
The report also looks at other alternatives to fossil fuels including biofuels, low-carbon fuels and more efficient conventional vehicles. Combining all of these could provide a significantly lower CO2 future for the US and help the fight against climate change.
If the American government and the people have the will to take the necessary steps.
July 21st, 2008
Posted by
trevor |
Transport |
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New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests an unexpected effect of global warming: a future expansion of the US “kidney stone belt”.
According to the research, increasing global temperatures will result in more cases dehydration and low urine production leading to kidney stones (calcium deposits).
The US already has a “kidney stone belt” in which occurences of the painful condition are twice as common as in the rest of the country. The research predicts:
“The fraction of the U.S. population living in high-risk zones for nephrolithiasis will grow from 40% in 2000 to 56% by 2050, and to 70% by 2095.”
If the research findings are correct then millions of Americans could literally feel the pain of global warming.
Photo Credit: Trevor Blake (Creative Commons)
July 15th, 2008
Posted by
trevor |
Health |
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No, don’t worry - this isn’t some kind of alternative history. We’re actually talking about being the first country back to the moon’s surface.
Nasa plans to launch a manned Orion lunar mission by 2020. However Nasa head Dr Michael Griffin told the BBC that China could get there first - if they wanted to. China has said that it currently has no plans for such a project but that an eventual Chinese manned lunar misison is “inevitable”.
The discussion reflects a possible future trend in space exploration. As public interest and spending decline in the West, countries such as China and India are advancing rapidly.
If a manned spacecraft ever does reach the stars, Americans and Europeans may have to be content to tag along as passengers.
Photo Credit: Rhys Jones (Creative Commons)
July 15th, 2008
Posted by
trevor |
Space |
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New research suggests that nanotechnology could give a “second chance” to drugs that had previously been abandoned.
Researchers at the Children’s Hospital Boston have been investigating an angiogenesis inhibitor drug called TNP-470. Clinical trials in the 1990s found that TNP-470 “suppressed a surprisingly wide range of cancers, including metastatic cancers, and produced a few complete remissions”. However the drug was abandoned because of the neurological side-effects.
Using nanotehnology the researchers have produced a novel, slow-release version of the drug which is called Lodamin. In trials with mice, Lodamin “appears to retain TNP-470’s potency and broad spectrum of activity, but with no detectable neurotoxicity and greatly enhanced oral availability”.
Lodamin essentially takes TNP-470 and surrounds it with nanoparticle polymer strands. These hold the TNP-470 in and protect it from stomach acid until the Lodamin reaches the tumour and water breaks down the polymer strands.
It’s still early days yet - the new version of Lodamin has only been tested on mice. However if the technique turns out to be generally applicable then the future could see a greater choice of medication as older drugs have their side-effects removed.
The research was published in Nature Biotechnology and is dedicated to the memory of senior author Judah Folkman who died unexpectedly in January this year.
Picture Credit: Kristin Johnson
July 15th, 2008
Posted by
trevor |
Health, Nanotechnology |
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If the polar icecaps continue melting then the sea levels will rise, causing floods. Up until now it had been thought that regions most at risk from the flooding would be tropical islands in the Pacific. However new research suggests that the US and Europe could be hit first.
Computer models run by Detlef Stammer of Hamburg University show that the pattern of flooding is unlikely to be even across the globe. Instead the water from the Greenland ice cap is likely to remain mostly in the Atlantic for almost fifty years. First to be hit by floods will be northern areas such as coastal areas of the US and Europe. In particular, sea-level rises on the East coast of the USA could be 30 times greater than in the Pacific.
That should serve to focus some minds!
July 7th, 2008
Posted by
trevor |
Environment |
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