Just as a credit crunch is reshaping the global economic landscape, an often-unheralded shortage of clean water is confronting business and industry with a range of profound new challenges and opportunities, according to an article scheduled for the October 6 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS’ weekly news magazine.

The cover story, written by C&EN Senior Business Editor Melody Voith, points out that big industrial companies, such as Dow Chemical, General Electric, Nalco, and Ashland, must manage day-to-day operations in ways that conserve and reuse water.  Once regarded as a cheap and inexhaustible resource, clean water increasingly is in short supply around the world, Voith explains, noting that lack of clean water is “a growing risk” to industry.

“There is just no replacement for good, clean water — and it is getting harder to come by,” Voith states.  At the same time, companies that supply water purification and conservation technology are taking advantage of new opportunities.  The articles explain how companies are investing in new technologies to meet the evolving demand for water treatment chemicals, services, and equipment.

Researchers in Iran are publishing what they describe as the first study on a fungus that can remove sulfur — a major source of air pollution — from crude oil more effectively than conventional refining methods.  The finding could help reduce air pollution and acid rain caused by the release of sulfur components in gasoline and may help oil companies meet tougher emission standards for fuel, the scientists say.  Their study is scheduled for the Oct. 1 issue of ACS’ Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, a bi-weekly journal.

Jalal Shayegan and colleagues point out that existing processes for refining so-called “heavy,” or high-sulfur, crude oil convert sulfur to hydrogen sulfide gas at high temperatures and pressures.  However, they leave behind some kinds of sulfur-based compounds, which wind up in gasoline and other fuels.  Scientists long have known that certain microbes can remove sulfur from oil.  But nobody had tried using these microbes in so-called biodesulfurization of heavy crude oil until now, they indicate.

In the new study, the scientists describe isolation and testing of the first fungus capable of removing sulfur from heavy crude oil.  The fungus, called Stachybotrys, removed 65-76 percent of the sulfur present in certain heavy crude oil from two different oil fields.  The process does not need high temperatures and high-energy consumption because it occurs slightly above room temperature, they scientists note.

In what may be an unintended consequence of efforts to make furniture safer and less flammable, residents of California have blood levels of potentially toxic flame retardants called PBDEs at levels nearly twice the national average, scientists from Massachusetts and California are reporting.  Their study, the first to examine regional variations in PBDE levels in household dust and blood within the U.S., is scheduled for posting online Oct. 1 by ACS’ semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology.

In the new study, Ami Zota and colleagues note that PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) are widely used as flame retardants in upholstered furniture and electronics.  The materials are released into the environment as dust particles, where they can accumulate in homes as well as human blood and tissue.  Although their exact effects in humans are unclear, studies in animals suggest that PBDEs may cause thyroid, developmental, and reproductive problems.  Since California has among the most stringent furniture flammability standards, the researchers suspected that state residents may have higher levels of PBDE dust exposure than others in the United States.

To find out, the scientists compared data on PBDE concentrations in house dust from 49 California homes with concentrations reported from 120 Massachusetts homes and several other areas.  The researchers also compared data on blood levels of PBDEs in California residents to blood levels in residents of other regions.  They found that PBDE levels in California homes were four to 10 times higher than other U.S. areas.  They also found that blood levels of some PBDEs were significantly higher in California residents than the rest of the country.  “These findings raise concern about pending regulations and performance standards that encourage the widespread use of chemical flame retardants, which are toxic or whose safety is uncharacterized,” the article states.  — MTS and AD

Exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates and flame retardants (PBDEs) are strongly associated with adverse health effects on humans and laboratory animals.  A special section in the October 2008 issue of Environmental Research, “A Plastic World” provides critical new research on environmental contaminants and adverse reproductive and behavioral effects.

Plastic products contain “endocrine disrupting chemicals” that can block the production of the male sex hormone testosterone (phthalates used in PVC plastic), mimic the action of the sex hormone estrogen (bisphenol A or BPA used in polycarbonate plastic), and interfere with thyroid hormone (brominated flame retardants or PBDEs used in many types of plastic).

Two articles report very similar changes in male reproductive organs in rats and humans related to fetal exposure to phthalates.  Two articles show that fetal exposure to BPA or PBDEs disrupts normal development of the brain and behavior in rats and mice.  Two other articles provide data that these chemicals are massively contaminating the oceans and causing harm to aquatic wildlife.

The other studies integrate new laboratory research with a broader view reflecting exposures to a variety of chemicals in plastic.  These ubiquitous chemicals found in many plastics act independently and together to adversely affect human, animal and environmental health.

The articles show amongst others the massive contamination of the Pacific Ocean with plastic, and the amount of contamination has increased dramatically in recent years; animal brain structure, brain chemistry and behavioral effects from exposure to BPA and “phthalate syndrome” in rats’ male offspring.

“For the first time a series of articles will appear together that identify that billions of kilograms of a number of chemicals used in the manufacture of different types of plastic can leach out of plastic products and cause harm to the brain and reproductive system when exposure occurs during fetal life or prior to weaning,” emphasized Dr. Frederick vom Saal, Guest Editor of the “Plastic World”.

“Not only are these studies of scientific importance, they also contribute to the ongoing US congressional hearings involving the Food and Drug Administration,” remarked Gert-Jan Geraeds, Publisher of Environmental Research, “As such, “The Plastic World” has a broader societal impact and raises awareness of increasingly important environmental issues”.

The world’s largest computing grid is ready to tackle mankind’s biggest data challenge from the earth’s most powerful accelerator.  Today, three weeks after the first particle beams were injected into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid combines the power of more than 140 computer centers from 33 countries to analyze and manage more than 15 million gigabytes of LHC data every year.

The United States is a vital partner in the development and operation of the WLCG.  Fifteen universities and three U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories from 11 states contribute their power to the project.

“The U.S. has been an essential partner in the development of the vast distributed computing system that will allow 7,000 scientists around the world to analyze LHC data, complementing its crucial contributions to the construction of the LHC,” said Glen Crawford of the High Energy Physics program in DOE’s Office of Science.  DOE and the National Science Foundation support contributions to the LHC and to the computing and networking infrastructures that are an integral part of the project.

U. S. contributions to the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid are coordinated through the Open Science Grid, a national computing infrastructure for science.  The Open Science Grid not only contributes computing power for LHC data needs, but also for projects in many other scientific fields including biology, nanotechnology, medicine and climate science.

“Particle physics projects such as the LHC have been a driving force for the development of worldwide computing grids,” said Ed Seidel, director of the National Science Foundation’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure.  “The benefits from these grids are now being reaped in areas as diverse as mathematical modeling and drug discovery.”

“Open Science Grid members have put an incredible amount of time and effort in developing a nationwide computing system that is already at work supporting America’s 1,200 LHC physicists and their colleagues from other sciences,” said Open Science Grid Executive Director Ruth Pordes from DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Dedicated optical fiber networks distribute LHC data from CERN in Geneva, Switzerland to eleven major “Tier-1” computer centers in Europe, North America and Asia, including those at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois.  From these, data is dispatched to more than 140 “Tier-2” centers around the world, including twelve in the United States.

“Our ability to manage data at this scale is the product of several years of intense testing,” said Ian Bird, leader of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid project.  “Today’s result demonstrates the excellent and successful collaboration we have enjoyed with countries all over the world.  Without these international partnerships, such an achievement would be impossible.”

“When the LHC starts running at full speed, it will produce enough data to fill about six Cds per second,” said Michael Ernst, director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Tier-1 Computing Center.  “As the first point of contact for LHC data in the United States, the computing centers at Brookhaven and Fermilab are responsible for storing and distributing a great amount of this data for use by scientists around the country.  We’ve spent years ramping up to this point, and now, we’re excited to help uncover some of the numerous secrets nature is still hiding from us.”

Physicists in the U.S. and around the world will sift through the LHC data torrent in search of tiny signals that will lead to discoveries about the nature of the physical universe.  Through their distributed computing infrastructures, these physicists also help other scientific researchers increase their use of computing and storage for broader discovery.

“Grid computing allows university research groups at home and abroad to fully participate in the LHC project while fostering positive collaboration across different scientific departments on many campuses,” said Ken Bloom from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, manager for seven Tier-2 sites in the United States.

In recent years, public discussion of climate change has included concerns that increased levels of carbon dioxide will contribute to global warming, which in turn may change the circulation in the earth’s oceans, with potentially disastrous consequences.

In a paper published today in the journal Science, researchers presented new data from their analysis of ice core samples and ocean deposits dating as far back as 90,000 years ago and suggest that warming, carbon dioxide levels and ocean currents are tightly inter-related.  These findings provide scientists with more data and insights into how these phenomena were connected in the past and may lead to a better understanding of future climate trends.

With support from the National Science Foundation, Jinho Ahn and Edward Brook, both geoscientists at Oregon State University, analyzed 390 ice core samples taken from Antarctic ice at Byrd Station.  The samples offered a snap shot of the Earth’s atmosphere and climate dating back between 20,000 and 90,000 years.  Sections of the samples were carefully crushed, releasing gases from bubbles that were frozen within the ice through the millennia.  These ancient gas samples were then analyzed to measure the levels of carbon dioxide contained in each one.

Ahn and Brook then compared the carbon dioxide levels from the ice samples with climate data from Greenland and Antarctica that reflected the approximate temperatures when the gases were trapped and with ocean sediments in Chile and the Iberian Peninsula.  Data from the sediments provided the scientists with an understanding of how fast or slow the ocean currents were in the North Atlantic and how well the Southern Ocean was stratified during these same time periods.

The researchers discovered that elevations in carbon dioxide levels were related to subsequent increases in the Earth’s temperature as well as reduced circulation of ocean currents in the North Atlantic.  The data also suggests that carbon dioxide levels increased along with the weakening of mixing of waters in the Southern Ocean.  This, the researchers say, may point to potential future scenario where global warming causes changes in ocean currents which in turn causes more carbon dioxide to enter the atmosphere, adding more greenhouse gas to an already warming climate.

Ahn and Brook state that a variety of factors may be at work in the future that alter the relationship between climate change and ocean currents.  One potential factor is that the levels of carbon dioxide in today’s atmosphere are much higher than they were during the period Ahn and Brook studied.  The researchers hope that future studies of the ancient gas from a newly drilled ice core may allow a higher resolution analysis and yield more details about the timing between CO2 levels and the temperature at the earth’s poles.

It’s stronger than steel and nylon, and more extensible than Kevlar. So what is this super-tough material? Spider silk; and learning how to spin it is one of the materials industries’ Holy Grails. John Gosline has been fascinated by spider silks and their remarkable toughness for most of his scientific career. He explains that if we’re to learn how to manufacture spider silk, we have to understand the relationship between the components and the spun fibre’s mechanical properties; which is why he is focusing on major ampullate silk, one of the many silks that spiders spin. According to Gosline, spiders use major ampullate silk for draglines and to build the frame and radial structures in webs, all of which have to deform and absorb enormous amounts of energy without fracturing. Comparing the amino acid sequences of major ampullate silk proteins from Araneus diadematus and Nephila clavipes, Gosline realised that the sequences differed on one count; Araneus silk is relatively rich in the amino acid proline, while proline levels in Nephila silk are very low. Curious to know how the presence of proline affects the silks, Gosline and his student, Ken Savage, set about comparing the silks’ mechanical properties to find out how the amino acid affects spider silk toughness.

However, obtaining consistent spider silk samples is a problem. Gosline explains that spiders adjust the way they manufacture their silks depending on their circumstances, so he and Savage left the spiders roaming free so that the strands of dragline silk that they dropped were as uniform as possible. Having established a reliable silk supply, Savage set about testing the silks’ mechanical properties. Gently stretching the dry silk while measuring the force on it, the team quickly realised that the silks behaved almost identically; the presence of proline had little or no effect on dry silk. However, when Savage began investigating the hydrated silk it was a completely different story. For a start, the wet Araneus silk shrank and swelled much more than the proline deficient Nephila silk. Savage also tested the silk’s stiffness, and found that the Nephila silk was almost ten times stiffer than the Araneus silk. Finally, knowing that regions of the silk proteins stack to form microscopic crystals in a fibre, Savage measured the fibre’s birefringence to see how the two silks compared and if the organisation of the proteins in the silk fibre changed when they were damp. The proteins in the Nephila silk were always more organised than the proteins in the Araneus silk, regardless of whether they were wet or dry. And as Savage stretched the silks, the degree of organisation in the hydrated Nephila silk increased much more than the Araneus silk.

Gosline realised that the different mechanical properties could be accounted for by the silk proteins’ amino acid composition. According to Gosline, proline amino acids are famed for breaking up the organised three-dimensional structures that protein chains fold into, so protein structures with high proline content would be poorly organised in comparison to proteins with little or no proline. Araneus silk contains 16% proline, found mostly in linker regions between the protein’s crystalline structures, which would make the linkers flexible and randomly arranged. Gosline realised that if this was the case, the hydrated silk might behave like an elastic band. Nephila silk, on the other hand, has a very low proline content in the linker regions, allowing the linkers to form a relatively well organised crystalline structure and behave more like a stiff spring. Gosline and Savage decided to investigate both silks’ stretchiness to see if they were more rubber-like or spring-like.

Stretching samples of the hydrated silks, Savage gently raised and lowered the temperature from 30 to 10°C while carefully measuring the minute forces required to maintain the extension. For Nephila silk the force remained essentially constant as the temperature changed, a clear indication of spring-like elasticity. However, for the proline-rich Araneus silk the force varied in direct proportion to the temperature, behaving like a rubber-band. So proline-rich spider silks extend like floppy rubber bands, while spider silks with low proline levels behave more like rigid springs.

Having found that proline amino acids have a dramatic effect on the mechanical behaviour of hydrated spider silks, Gosline and Savage are keen to find out why the behaviour of the dry silks is almost indistinguishable and what the functional significance is of the different proline contents.

Amyloid deposits in tissues and organs are linked to a number of diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, type II diabetes, and prion diseases such as BSE. However, amyloids are not just pathological substances; they have potential as a nanomaterials. “The potential applications of these supramolecular assemblies exceed those of synthetic polymers,” state Ehud Gazit and co-author Izhack Cherny in the journal Angewandte Chemie, “since the building blocks may introduce biological function in addition to mechanical properties.”

© Wiley-VCH

Even in nature, amyloids are not merely abnormal, incorrectly folded proteins; they are physiological components of organisms. For example, they are an important protective material in the egg envelopes of insects and fish. They are also involved in the formation of the biofilms of many bacteria, a coating on the surface of the bacterial cells that protects them from antimicrobial substances and facilitates their attachment to surfaces.

Amyloid fibrils are bundles of highly ordered protein filaments made of ladder-like strands and can be several micrometers long. In cross-section, amyloids appear as hollow cylinders or ribbons. Although amyloid fibrils are proteins, they more closely resemble synthetic polymers (plastics) than the usual globular proteins. Amyloids can display amazing mechanical properties similar to spider silk. Spider silk is, by weight, significantly stronger than steel and can be stretched to many times its original length without tearing— properties that have not been reproducible with synthetic fibers.

“The self-assembly properties of amyloids, together with their observed plasticity, makes them attractive natural building blocks for the design of new nanostructures and nanomaterials,” according to the authors from the University of Tel Aviv (Israel). “These building blocks can be broadly varied by means of simple molecular biological techniques.” Surfaces could be given tailored and biocompatible coatings, for example, in analytical flow devices for medical technology or bioanalysis. Other ideas include amyloid hydrogels for the encapsulation and controlled release of drugs and for scaffolds for three-dimensional cell cultures and tissue engineering. Functional proteins such as enzymes could be bound to amyloid-forming sequences to mimic biological processes.

Amyloid fibrils are also suitable as matrices for nanostructures. For example, it has been possible to produce a conducting nanoscale coaxial cable by filling amyloid nanotubes with sliver and externally coating them with gold.

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have taken some important first steps to creating a synthetic copycat of a living cell, a leading science journal reports.

Dr Cameron Alexander and PhD student George Pasparakis in the University’s School of Pharmacy have used polymers — long-chain molecules — to construct capsule-like structures that have properties mimicking the surfaces of a real cell.

In work published as a ‘VIP paper’ in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, they show how in the laboratory they have been able to encourage the capsules to ‘talk’ to natural bacteria cells and transfer molecular information.

The breakthrough could have a number of potential medical uses. Among them could be the development of new targeted drug delivery systems, where the capsules would be used to carry drug molecules to attack specific diseased cells in the body, while leaving healthy cells intact, thereby reducing the number of side affects that can be associated with treatments for life-threatening illnesses such as cancer.

The technology could also be used as an anti-microbial agent, allowing doctors to destroy harmful bacteria, without attacking other health-promoting bacteria in the body, which could offer a new weapon in the fight against superbugs.

Dr Cameron Alexander said: “These are very primitive steps in the lab, and still a long way from a true synthetic counterpart to a biological cell, but we have demonstrated that we can transfer certain molecules from inside the synthetic capsule to the bacteria when they are in physical contact, which is an exciting development.

“It’s extremely early stages, but it’s a move closer to the big experiment when we can one day ask whether a natural cell can think a synthetic cell is one of its own.”

The work has been funded through the IDEAS Factory programme run by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), which aims to promote blue sky, curiosity-led research. It comes ahead of the launch of one of the UK’s first research networks into synthetic biology, which is led by Nottingham computer scientists and pharmacists with chemists at Oxford and Glasgow universities. The network, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the EPSRC Life Sciences Interface Programme, involves collaboration across six centres and includes scientific and ethics experts in the emerging field of synthetic biology.