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Plasma-treated nano filters help purify world water supply Aug. 21, 2013 — Access to safe drinking water is a step closer to being a reality for those in developing countries, thanks to new research published today in Nature Communications. The study paves the way for the next generation of portable water purification devices, which could provide relief to the 780 million people around the world who face every day without access to a clean water supply. An international team of researchers -- led by Associate Professor Hui Ying Yang from Singapore University of Technology and Design -- showed that water purification membranes enhanced by plasma-treated carbon nanotubes are ideal for removing contaminants and brine from water. The team included Dr Zhaojun Han and Professor Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov from CSIRO's world-leading Plasma Nanoscience Laboratories. The study paves the way for the next generation of portable water purification devices, which could provide relief to the 780 million people around the world who face every day without access to a clean water supply. According to Dr Han, these membranes could be integrated into portable water purification devices the size of a tea pot that would be rechargeable, inexpensive and more effective than many existing filtration methods. Contaminated water would go in one end, and clean drinkable water would come out the other. "Small portable purification devices are increasingly recognised as the best way to meet the needs of clean water and sanitation in developing countries and in remote locations, minimising the risk of many serious diseases," Dr Han says. "The large industrialised purification plants we see in other parts of the world are just not practical -- they consume a large amount of energy and have high labour costs, making them very expensive to run." Dr Han acknowledges that some smaller portable devices do already exist. However, because they rely on reverse osmosis and thermal processes, they are able to remove salt ions but are unable to filter out organic contaminants from the briny water found in some river and lake systems. "For people in remote locations, briny water can sometimes be the only available water source," he says. "That's why it's important to not only be able to remove salts from water, but to also be able to put it through a process of purification." "Our study showed that carbon nanotube membranes were able to filter out ions of vastly different sizes -- meaning they were able to remove salt, along with other impurities," he says. According to Professor Ostrikov, the other downside of existing portable devices is that they require a continuous power supply to operate their thermal processes. "On the other hand, the new membranes could be operated as a rechargeable device." Professor Ostrikov attributes the success of the new membranes to the unique properties of plasma treated carbon nanotubes. "Firstly, ultralong nanotubes have a very large surface area that is ideal for filtration. Secondly, nanotubes are easy to modify, which allows us to tailor their surface properties through localised nanoscale plasma treatment," he says. Now that the researchers have proven the effectiveness of the method, they plan to extend their research to investigate the filtration properties of other nanomaterials. They will begin by looking at graphene, which has similar properties to carbon nanotubes, but could be made considerably denser and stronger. The study 'Carbon nanotube membranes with ultrahigh specific capacity for water desalination and purification' is a collaborative work between Singapore University of Technology and Design, CSIRO, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Sydney, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: 'You Say What You Like, Because They Like What You Say' - http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/731-you-say-what-you-like-because-they-like-what-you-say.html Human foot not as unique as originally thought Aug. 21, 2013 — Research at the University of Liverpool has shown that the mechanisms of the human foot are not as unique as originally thought and have much more in common with the flexible feet of other great apes. Current understanding of the evolution of human walking is based on research from the 1930s, which proposes that human feet function very differently to those of other apes, due to the development of arches in the mid-foot region and the supposed rigidity of that on the outside edge of the foot. In a study of more than 25,000 human steps made on a pressure-sensitive treadmill at the University's Gait Laboratory, scientists at Liverpool have shown that despite having abandoned life in the trees long ago, our feet have retained a surprising amount of flexibility, the type seen in the feet of other great apes, such as orangutans and chimpanzees, that have remained largely tree-dwelling. Professor Robin Crompton, from the University's Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease, explains: "It has long been assumed that because we possess lateral and medial arches in our feet -- the lateral one supposedly being rigid and supported in bone -, that our feet differ markedly to those of our nearest relatives, whose mid-foot is fully flexible and makes regular ground contact. "This supposed 'uniqueness', however, has never been quantitatively tested. We found that the range of pressures exerted under the human mid-foot, and thus the internal mechanisms that drive them, were highly variable, so much so that they actually overlapped with those made by the great apes." It has previously been thought that humans who make contact with the ground with the mid-foot region are primarily those that suffer from diabetes or arthritis, both of which can impact on the structure of the feet. Research showed, however, that two thirds of normal healthy subjects produced some footfalls where the mid-foot touches the ground, with no indication that this is other than an aspect of normal healthy walking. Dr Karl Bates, from the University's Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease, said: "Our ancestors probably first developed flexibility in their feet when they were primarily tree-dwelling, and moving on bendy branches, but as time passed and we became more and more ground-dwelling animals, some new features evolved to enable us to move quickly on the ground. "Our limbs, however, did not adapt to life on the ground anywhere near as much as those of other ground-dwelling animals such as horses, hares and dogs. Our tests showed that our feet are not as stiff as originally thought and actually form part of a continuum of variation with those of other great apes. "We hypothesise that despite becoming nearly exclusively ground dwelling we have retained flexibility in the feet to allow us to cope effectively with the differences in hard and soft ground surfaces which we encounter in long distance walking and running. The next part of our study will be testing this theory, which could offer a reason why humans can outrun a horse, for example, over long distances on irregular terrain." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: 'You Say What You Like, Because They Like What You Say' - http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/731-you-say-what-you-like-because-they-like-what-you-say.html Alcohol abuse, eating disorders share genetic link Aug. 21, 2013 — Part of the risk for alcohol dependence is genetic, and the same is true for eating disorders. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found it's likely some of the same genes are involved in both. In the September issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, the researchers report that people with alcohol dependence may be more genetically susceptible to certain types of eating disorders and vice versa. "In clinical practice, it's been observed that individuals with eating disorders also have high rates of alcohol abuse and dependence," said Melissa A. Munn-Chernoff, PhD, the study's first author. "Other studies have focused on the genetic connections between alcohol dependence and eating disorders, but all of those studies looked only at women. Ours was the first to include men as well." According to Munn-Chernoff, a postdoctoral research scholar in psychiatry, that's important because although eating disorders tend to be thought of as a female problem, they affect men, too. Studying data gathered from nearly 6,000 adult twins in Australia, Munn-Chernoff and her colleagues found that common genetic factors underlie alcoholism and certain eating-disorder symptoms, such as binge eating and purging habits that include self-induced vomiting and the abuse of laxatives. By studying twins, the researchers used statistical methods to determine the odds that certain traits result from the same genes. Those statistical insights are based on the fact that identical twins share 100 percent of their genetic makeup while fraternal twins share about half. "By comparing the findings in identical and fraternal twins, we can develop estimates of how much of the difference in particular traits is due to genes or environment," Munn-Chernoff explained. "We found that some of the genes that influence alcohol dependence also influence binge eating in men and women." Even with the growing awareness and more frequent diagnoses of problems such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, rates of the full-blown forms of these disorders are relatively low, and they're rare in populations of twins. So the researchers surveyed study subjects about whether they suffered from eating-disorder symptoms. "The symptoms can cut across multiple eating disorder diagnoses," said Munn-Chernoff. "And several past studies have suggested that the particular behavior of binge eating, as well as purging and other practices that we call compensatory behaviors, may be closely associated with alcohol dependence, which is why we focused on those symptoms." All of the men and women in the study were surveyed about their alcohol use and binge eating, but because the researchers were analyzing data that had been gathered previously for a different study, not everyone was asked about compensatory behaviors, such as purging or using laxatives and diuretics. Only the female twins were asked about those symptoms. In all, nearly 25 percent of the men and 6 percent of women had been alcohol dependent at some point. Almost 11 percent of these same men and 13 percent of the women had experienced problems with binge eating. In addition, about 14 percent of the women had engaged in purging or abuse of laxatives or diuretics. On a statistical scale that runs from zero (no shared genes) to 1 (all genes shared), the researchers found that the genetic correlation between binge eating and alcohol dependence was statistically significant at .26. Among women in the study, the genetic correlation between compensatory behaviors and alcohol dependence was significant at .32. "Those numbers suggest that there are shared genetic risk factors for these behaviors, such as purging and fasting," said Munn-Chernoff. "It appears that some genes that influence alcohol dependence also influence binge eating in men and women, and compensatory behaviors in women." In the future, Munn-Chernoff would like to expand the scope of the study. Because most of the twins in this dataset were Caucasian, she'd like to study twins of different races to see whether these genetic findings occur in other ethnic groups. She also would like to get beyond statistical relationships and gather blood or saliva samples in an attempt to identify the actual genes that contribute both to alcohol dependence and eating-disorder symptoms. She believes physicians and therapists who treat people for alcohol dependence and eating disorders should be more aware that the problems can occur together. "When you go to an eating disorder treatment center, they don't often ask questions about alcoholism. And when you go for alcoholism treatment, they don't generally ask questions about eating disorder symptoms," she said. "If centers could be aware of that and perhaps treat both problems at the same time, that would be a big help." Funding for this research comes from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). One of the researchers also received funding from ABMRF/Foundation for Alcohol Research. NIH Grant numbers AA11998, AA07728 and AA07580. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: 'You Say What You Like, Because They Like What You Say' - http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/731-you-say-what-you-like-because-they-like-what-you-say.html ©2013 marites |

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