LabGrab

A Swiss/Australian research team has utilized an interesting method for assessing whether or not sunscreens containing certain zinc oxide products could pose any potentially harmful health consequences to consumers.

Zinc Oxide nanomaterials are characterized by several unique optical properties which make them particularly well-suited for use in ultraviolet “optoelectronics” that can act as transducers to convert an optical signal to an electrical one (or vice-versa). These same optical properties, most notably a high level of optical UVA and UVB absorption, have led to the inclusion of these materials in a variety of sunscreen formulations in an attempt to minimize skin damage caused by sunlight. Additionally, these ZnO formulations tend to provide excellent transparency when applied topically, and from a cosmetic industry standpoint, any method of increasing this transparency should be highly advantageous.

A "Brinicle" ... what the heck is that?

Yup - that's exactly what we said when we saw this article from Nature news ... 'Brinicle' ice finger of death....

In the Antarctic, as new sea ice forms on the ocean surface it leaves behind brine that is so salty and dense, it rapidly sinks towards the sea floor. As this salty slurry sinks, it instantly freezes the water surrounding it - forming a salt icicle, or a brinicle - which freezes everything in its spidery path, including starfish and sea urchins.

Earlier this summer, a team of researchers led by Dennis J. Selkoe of Harvard Medical School published a potentially significant finding in Nature suggesting that alpha-synuclein, the protein that aggregates into insoluble fibrils within Lewy bodies in patients with Parkinson’s disease, has been mischaracterized. In contrast previous understanding of alpha-synuclein as a natively unstructured protein, Selkoe and his lab proposed that alpha-synuclein naturally exists as a stable tetramer before destabilization and pathological aggregation. In a push forward in Parkinson’s disease research, a recent independent study by the Petsko-Ringe and Pochapsky laboratories at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, confirmed the hypothesis by Selkoe and colleagues. The finding is supported by analytical techniques--namely NMR and circular dichroism spectroscopy--different from the Selkoe lab and is published in the October 25 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to a group of researchers led by Dr. Kristina Aldridge, an assistant professor of anatomy at the University of Missouri School of Medicine and the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, certain facial features of children with autism are distinctly different compared to those of typically developing children. Using a 3-D cranial imaging system, the scientists found that autistic compared to non-autistic boys aged 8 to 12 years have a broadened upper face, including wider eyes, shortened middle region of the face, including the cheeks and nose, and broadened mouth and philtrum, the cleft between the nose and upper lip. Additionally, two subgroups of autistic boys had facial morphology different from the majority of other autistic and typically developing boys. These findings published in the October 14, 2011 issue of Molecular Autism suggest that there are potentially multiple etiologies and genetic differences that can lead to autism.