Filters Blog

Procedure offers hope in type 1 diabetes

anthea — Thu, 10 May 2012 08:34:26 +0000

A three-pronged strategy — to knock out renegade immune cells, replace them and revitalize other cells that make insulin — might reverse type 1 diabetes. Scientists report in the May 9 Science Translational Medicine that seven of 12 diabetic mice treated with this combination were cured shower water filters even after having lost the ability to make insulin for several weeks, the equivalent of a human patient who has needed insulin injections for a couple of years.

Type 1 diabetes often strikes at an early age and relegates a person to a lifetime of blood sugar tests and insulin shots. The condition results when one’s own immune cells kill insulin-making cells called beta cells housed in the pancreas. A few of these beta cells usually survive, but don’t produce adequate insulin to process sugars.

In the new study, researchers used specially designed antibodies in the mice to first wipe out rogue beta-cell-killing T cells from the immune system.

The mice then received a mismatched bone marrow graft to replace the immune cells. The mismatch seems necessary to prevent the newly developing T cells from targeting beta cells, says study coauthor Miao Wang, an endocrinologist at the City of Hope Beckman Research Institute in Duarte, Calif. Recipient mice also got stripped-down T cells from the spleens of the mismatched donor mice. These cells may help to avoid a backlash effect called graft-versus-host disease in which transplanted tissue attacks its new host.

To restore insulin production by beta cells, the mice received hormone and growth-factor injections for 60 days.

The seven mice cured of type 1 diabetes Undersink RO filters regained about 25 percent of their normal supply of beta cells, which made enough insulin to fend off high blood sugar. The beta cells were a mix of old cells that began to multiply after treatment and new beta cells with mysterious origins. “We believe there are pre-existing beta-cell progenitors inside the pancreas,” and these developed into new beta cells, says Wang.

Wearable electronics

anthea — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 08:01:48 +0000

The most transparent, lightweight and flexible material ever for conducting electricity has been invented by a team from the University of Exeter. Called GraphExeter, the material could revolutionize the creation of wearable electronic devices, such as clothing containing computers, phones and MP3 players.

GraphExeter could also be used for the creation of ’smart’ mirrors or windows, with computerised interactive features. Since this material is also transparent over a wide light spectrum, it could enhance by more than 30% the efficiency of solar panels.

Adapted from graphene, GraphExeter is much more flexible Undersink RO filters than indium tin oxide (ITO), the main conductive material currently used in electronics. ITO is becoming increasingly expensive and is a finite resource, expected to run out in 2017.

These research findings are published in Advanced Materials.

At just one-atom-thick, graphene is the thinnest substance capable of conducting electricity. It is very flexible and is one of the strongest known materials. The race has been on for scientists and engineers to adapt graphene for flexible electronics. This has been a challenge because of its sheet resistance, which limits its conductivity. Until now, no-one has been able to produce a viable alternative to ITO.

To create GraphExeter, the Exeter team sandwiched molecules of ferric chloride between two layers of graphene. Ferric chloride enhances the electrical conductivity of graphene, without affecting the material’s transparency.

The material was produced by a team from shower water filters the University of Exeter’s Centre for Graphene Science. The research team is now developing a spray-on version of GraphExeter, which could be applied straight onto fabrics, mirrors and windows.

Lead researcher, University of Exeter engineer Dr Monica Craciun said: “GraphExeter could revolutionize the electronics industry. It outperforms any other carbon-based transparent conductor used in electronics and could be used for a range of applications, from solar panels to ’smart’ teeshirts. We are very excited about the potential of this material and look forward to seeing where it can take the electronics industry in the future.”

The Centre for Graphene Science brings together the Universities of Exeter and Bath in internationally-leading research in graphene. The Centre is bridging the gap between the scientific development and industrial application of this revolutionary new technology.

Process of Evolution in Bacteria

anthea — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 09:32:02 +0000

Bacteria are the most populous organisms on the planet. They thrive in almost every known environment, adapting to different habitats by means of genetic variations that provide the capabilities essential for survival. These genetic innovations arise from what scientists believe is a random mutation and exchange of genes and other bits of DNA among bacteria that sometimes confers an advantage, and which then becomes an intrinsic part of the genome.

But how an advantageous mutation spreads from a single bacterium to all the other bacteria in a population is an open scientific question. Does the gene containing PM 2.5 membrane an advantageous mutation pass from bacterium to bacterium, sweeping through an entire population on its own? Or does a single individual obtain the gene, then replicate its entire genome many times to form a new and better-adapted population of identical clones? Conflicting evidence supports both scenarios.

In a paper appearing in the April 6 issue of Science, researchers in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) provide evidence that centrifuge tube advantageous mutations can sweep through populations on their own. The study reconciles the previously conflicting evidence by showing that after these gene sweeps, recombination becomes less frequent between bacterial strains from different populations, yielding a pattern of genetic diversity resembling that of a clonal population.

Organics Formed in Early Solar System

anthea — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 08:00:16 +0000

Complex organic compounds, including many important to life on Earth, were readily produced under conditions that likely prevailed in the primordial solar system. Scientists at the University of Chicago and NASA Ames Research Center came to this conclusion after linking computer simulations to laboratory experiments.

Fred Ciesla, assistant professor in geophysical sciences centrifuge tube at UChicago, simulated the dynamics of the solar nebula, the cloud of gas and dust from which the sun and the planets formed. Although every dust particle within the nebula behaved differently, they all experienced the conditions needed for organics to form over a simulated million-year period.

“Whenever you make a new planetary system, these kinds of things should go on,” said Scott Sandford, a space science researcher at NASA Ames. “This potential to make organics and then dump them on the surfaces of any planet you make is probably a universal process.”

Although organic compounds are commonly found in meteorites and shower water filters cometary samples, their origins presented a mystery. Now Ciesla and Sandford describe how the compounds possibly evolved in the March 29 edition of Science Express. How important a role these compounds may have played in giving rise to the origin of life remains poorly understood, however.

The grains also moved in and out of warmer regions in the nebula. This completes the recipe for making organic compounds: ice, irradiation and warming.

“It was surprising how all these things just naturally fell out of the model,” Ciesla said. “It really did seem like this was a natural consequence of particle dynamics in the initial stage of planet formation.”

Meteorites Reveal Another Way to Make Life’s Components

anthea — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 06:14:03 +0000

Creating some of life’s building blocks in space may be a bit like making a sandwich — you can make them cold or hot, according to new NASA research. This evidence that there is more than one way to make crucial components of life increases the likelihood that life emerged undersink water filters elsewhere in the Universe, according to the research team, and gives support to the theory that a “kit” of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by impacts from meteorites and comets assisted the origin of life.

In the study, scientists with the Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., analyzed samples from fourteen carbon-rich meteorites with minerals that indicated they had experienced high temperatures — in some cases, over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. They found amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins, used by life to speed up chemical reactions and build structures like hair, skin, and nails.

Previously, the Goddard team and other researchers have found amino acids in carbon-rich meteorites with mineralogy that revealed the amino acids tap water filters were created by a relatively low-temperature process involving water, aldehyde and ketone compounds, ammonia, and cyanide called “Strecker-cyanohydrin synthesis.”

“Although we’ve found amino acids in carbon-rich meteorites before, we weren’t expecting to find them in these specific groups, since the high temperatures they experienced tend to destroy amino acids,” said Dr. Aaron Burton, a researcher in NASA’s Postdoctoral Program stationed at NASA Goddard. “However, the kind of amino acids we discovered in these meteorites indicates that they were produced by a different, high-temperature process as their parent asteroids gradually cooled down.” Burton is lead author of a paper on this discovery.

Carbon dioxide breaking down marine ecosystems

anthea — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:20:41 +0000

If carbon dioxide emissions don’t begin to decline soon, the complex fabric of marine ecosystems will begin fraying — and eventually unravel completely, two new studies conclude.

The diversity of ocean species thins and any survivors’ health declines as the pH of ocean water falls in response to rising carbon dioxide levels, scientists from England and Florida reported February 18 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the undersink water filters Advancement of Science. What’s more, affected species aren’t restricted to those with shells and calcified support structures — features particularly vulnerable to erosion by corrosive seawater.

Jason Hall-Spencer of the University of Plymouth, England, and his colleagues have been collecting data from marine sites off Italy, Baja California and Papua New Guinea, where high concentrations of carbon dioxide percolate out of the seabed from volcanic activity below. Directly above these CO₂ seeps, pH plummets to at least 7.8, a value that is expected to occur widely by 2100 and that is substantially lower than the normal level for the area, 8.1. These sites offer a preview of what may happen to tap water filters seafloor ecosystems as CO₂ levels continue to rise, causing ocean water pH to drop.

Compared with nearby normal-pH sites, species richness in low-pH zones was diminished by 30 percent, Hall-Spencer reported. “Coral and some algae are gone. And the sea urchins are gone,” he said. Fish may be present, but unlike in areas with a normal pH, they won’t deposit their eggs there.

Although seagrasses appear to survive just fine in the low-pH seawater, close inspection showed that fish had nibbled the fronds, Hall-Spencer found. He identified one likely explanation: At low pH, these grasses no longer produced the phenolic defense compounds that typically deter munching by grazing animals.

His team also transplanted a host of healthy marine species to sites along a gradient of pH values leading up to an Italian seep, then monitored the immigrants’ health for a year.

New Molecular Map

anthea — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:05:09 +0000

The molecular structure, described in the February 17, 2012 issue of the journal Science, is unique as the first-ever-to-be-determined lipid G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR). Molecules of this type play important roles in everything from cancer to metabolism, and this recent success should pave the way for researchers to establish the structures of other family members.

“There’s something special about the S1P₁ receptor,” said Hugh Rosen, MD, PhD, a Scripps Research chemical biologist who co-led the PM 2.5 monitor work with Raymond Stevens, PhD, a structural biologist also from The Scripps Research Institute. “The biological consequences of even small changes with this receptor are profound. Understanding its structure provides clues about fundamental processes important in both health and disease.”

“Being able to finally look at a lipid GPCR and the occluded cell surface binding pocket was a surprise but explains many of the issues we wondered about,” said Stevens. “It is likely that other members of this subfamily will have a similar protein architecture.”

The study is a result of decades of research by the Stevens lab to develop methods domino inkjet filters to determine the structure of GPCRs, much work in the Rosen lab on the receptor biology and chemical tools to stabilize such molecules, and a multi-disciplinary collaboration between the two labs, which Rosen notes is one of the hallmarks of research at The Scripps Research Institute. The scientists acknowledge the support of the National Institutes of Health Common Fund as making the new findings possible.

“This work promises to underscore the importance of research collaboration to accelerate scientific discovery and development of new drug therapies,” said James M. Anderson, MD, PhD, director of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives that guides the NIH Common Fund. “Combining structure-based analysis with small molecule screening serves as a model for effective drug design.”

German UF developer InnoWa taken over

Yu — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 11:29:05 +0000

German hollow-fibre membrane developer InnoWa has been acquired by Stuttgart-based Mahle Industry GmbH, a manufacturer of industrial filtration equipment.

InnoWa specialized in development, application and manufacture of high-performance filter systems based on ultrafiltration technology. The company emerged from the former EBG GmbH and currently employs 20 people who will be taken over.

In future, InnoWa will operate under the name Mahle InnoWa GmbH, headquartered in Stuttgart. the company announced on 31 January 2012.

Mahle Industry already has a globally active sales network and an excellent reputation in the market. The integration of InnoWa Membrane into the Industrial Filtration division creates a new platform within Mahle Industry with a focus on water treatment.

“By acquiring InnoWa Membrane, we are opening up new areas of application for our company in the field of filtration, such as the increasingly important segment of water treatment,” said Dr Michael Matros, corporate executive vice president and general manager of Mahle Industry. “This acquisition also strengthens our core markets of food and beverage, power generation and general industrial applications”.

J.G. Finneran Introduces the 300µL Vial

Yu — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:38:40 +0000

Chromatography sample vials and inserts with one-piece design provides a safe, secure sample containment for use with robotic arm autosamplers

Vineland, NJ (PRWEB) February 02, 2012

Here is a unique product for researchers tasked with managing a lot of chromatography sample vials in their laboratories: the new 300µL Interlocked R.A.M. (Robotic Arm Machine) Vial with 9mm Thread Finish, by J.G. Finneran Associates. Composed of a clear or amber Type I borosilicate glass, the vial and insert are fused together keeping the insert permanently in place. This design enables accurate automated injection, and eliminates contamination risk around the seam or space between the neck of the vial and the insert. The Interlocked R.A.M. Vial arrives ready to use saving valuable time in the laboratory.

The Interlocked R.A.M. Vial is specifically designed to work in robotic arm autosamplers such as those available from Agilent Technologies and others. The 12mm x 32mm outer dimensions is designed for robotic arms to easily grasp. Chromatography samples are contained in a clear Type I borosilicate glass 300µL conical tip insert. The Interlocked R.A.M. Vial includes a marking spot, which can be written on with a pencil. The vial is also available with a 9mm Screw Thread Closure option.

Learning to work Lean in L-A

Yu — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:58:00 +0000

For decades, Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers handcrafted heirloom furniture the same way, at pretty much the same speed.

Peter Brown, operations manager for Strainrite in Auburn, a manufacturer of bag filters, holds a sample of its product in the production plant.

It did it to maintain quality, yes, but the Auburn company also didn’t know how else to work. It made its chairs, tables and beds in small batches and stockpiled the inventory. When customers started asking for variation — different styles, different sizes, different colors — Thos. Moser had to be more flexible. And the company couldn’t do it.

Orders were taking up to six months to fill.

“The same principles didn’t work for us,” said Manufacturing Manager Rick Foss.

So Thos. Moser called in the Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership, or MEP, a little-known government-backed organization that helps small and medium Maine manufacturers become more efficient, productive and competitive. Through its Lean initiative, Maine MEP cross-trained Thos. Moser workers, changed the manufacturing floor’s layout to make it more efficient and created work centers for specific products so components and products could be made in the same area at the same time and with less opportunity for error.

The company, which used to make 25 to 30 types and styles of furniture, now makes more than 250. It handcrafts products in four months — a third less time than before. Soon, it believes, it can get those pieces done in two months, without sacrificing quality.

Foss credits Maine MEP for the turnaround.

“It’s great. We’ve changed our business practices for the better two-fold, three-fold,” he said.

Thos. Moser isn’t the only one, even in the small city of Auburn. The Strainrite Companies, a liquid filtration manufacturer, used Maine MEP to help improve both efficiency and employees’ job satisfaction. Falcon Performance Footwear used Maine MEP and recently cut its production time in half.

Over the past 13 years, Maine MEP has helped dozens of manufacturers across the state streamline, cut costs and become more efficient, all without cutting one of the most expensive parts of business — employees.

“It’s about eliminating waste. It’s not about eliminating jobs,” said MEP Project Manager Wayne Messer.

That’s something manufacturers like. During the economic downturn, demand for the Maine MEP’s Lean initiative has remained steady, even when businesses have to pay for it. In the long run, they say, the savings of time, money and energy is worth it.

“It’s great financially for us and it’s great for the customers as well,” said Falcon President Carl Spang.

The faster the better

When a business asks Maine MEP for help, project managers — people with industry experience — visit the company to assess its situation. Sometimes they can pick out what’s wrong just by walking the manufacturing floor.

“You can actually see areas where an organization is very inefficient,” Messer said. “You can see piles of inventory that shouldn’t be there because every time you’ve got inventory piled up you have labor and materials, which are dollars, tied up on the floor that aren’t being put to good use.”

Visits and assessments are free, as are the suggestions specialists makes. If the company wants to hire Maine MEP to help make those changes, that can cost anywhere from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on service and time required. Projects can take days to weeks to complete.

Thos. Moser has sought Maine MEP’s help several times.

In 1998, the furniture maker participated in “Lean 101,” a course that simulates a poorly run business and shows company leaders and employees how to fix it. In 2003, Maine MEP helped Thos. Moser streamline production by creating work centers for specific products. Until that point, employees made components — table legs and table tops, for example — and assembled them at different times and in completely different areas.

“You never knew if your parts were right, if they fit,” Foss said. “Now where we build them in the product family work centers, they build the parts and they assemble at the same time.”

In 2005, Thos. Moser asked Maine MEP to help train its workers in Lean techniques to make their work more efficient. The company also changed the layout of the production floor and cross-trained employees.

Today Thos. Moser is working with Maine MEP to review the administrative side of the business, including order entry, shipping and supply. It hopes to cut its order-to-door time to a fraction of what it once was.

“We can satisfy (customers) quicker, we can put the money back into the company quicker, and we can generate more customer interest, because when they hear 17 weeks or 20 weeks, it’s a long time and it discourages some customers,” Foss said.

Falcon Performance Footwear asked the Maine MEP for help late in the summer of 2010, and it has worked with the group constantly since. The most significant change: making shoe parts — such as leather uppers and bootie inserts — at the same time, rather than one right after the other. The change, from sequence manufacturing to parallel, meant there wasn’t as much waiting around. The company cut its boot production time in half, from 14 days to 7.

“All of our fire boots are made to order. We have no finished goods inventory, so the faster we can make them the better off we are,” Spang said.

He has come to rely on Maine MEP to provide “a second set of eyes.”

“You begin to accept things the way they are. You don’t question as much as you should when you’re associated with an operation over time and you might be a little risk averse,” Spang said. “MEP is very good at taking a fresh look at things, understanding the possibilities and pursuing them in a rational way.”

At the Strainrite Companies, Operations Manager Peter Brown has been working with Maine MEP for years. He first encountered a Manufacturing Extension Partnership in New Hampshire several years ago — funded in part by the U.S. Department of Commerce, there’s at least one MEP in every state — and he thought the group’s Lean focus could help his new employer in Auburn. Like Thos. Moser and Falcon Performance Footwear, Strainrite learned ways to make manufacturing more efficient. But, Brown said, his company’s biggest change was employee satisfaction.

As part of the Lean initiative, workers are encouraged to bring up issues bothering them, whether the problem is low morale or a high scrap rate on the manufacturing floor. Those issues are then addressed.

“We saw (improvement) in terms of employee morale, employee longevity, employee satisfaction. Which, in and of itself, translates into improvements in efficiency, better relationships between management and employees, and overall better work environment,” Brown said.

Over the past 10 years, Maine MEP has helped 600 to 800 of Maine’s nearly 1,800 small- and medium-sized manufacturers, assisting with technology, supply chain management and international sales. Although businesses can ask for help with efficiency only, nearly all of MEP’s services involve Lean initiatives in some way.

A nonprofit organization, Maine MEP’s funding comes in equal parts from the federal government, the state and the fees manufacturers pay for service. The group’s annual federal funding is based in part on its effectiveness. It loses that funding if surveys show manufacturers aren’t getting enough out of the program.

So far, that hasn’t been a problem. In Auburn, Thos. Moser, Falcon Performance Footwear and Strainrite Companies all said they would recommend Maine MEP and its Lean work.

“Absolutely,” said Brown at Strainrite. “I’ve been a Lean cheerleader for a long time.”

At Maine MEP, Messer believes Lean — and getting leaner — will only become more important to companies’ survival.

“It’s not a destination, it’s a journey,” he said.