Abingdon, UK -- AMSBIO has announced a new portfolio of rabbit monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies for Immunohistochemistry (IHC) applications.

A rabbit custom antibody service is also available.

Antibodies produced by rabbits are reported to often provide superior antigen recognition, greater specificity, and better consistency than those offered by mice. Rabbit antibodies often can recognise certain antigens and epitopes that are not immunogenic in mice or rats.

These antibodies can sometimes also offer higher working titres and may therefore help to lower laboratory costs.


Read full article: 'Rabbit Monoclonal Antibodies for Immunohistochemistry '

NASA Teams With NIST to Achieve Calibration Breakthroughs on CLARREO


Langley VA, USA -- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have launched a joint effort to gather enhanced climate data from spaceborne climate observation instruments planned for a group of satellites now under development.

NASA’s Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) mission, led by Langley’s Science Directorate, is designed to lay the foundation for a future climate-observing system marked by greatly improved accuracy. Many current satellite missions observe the Earth using sensors designed for weather observation and prediction.

Policymakers require a climate record built on greater accuracy to make the best decisions about climate change mitigation.

The goal of CLARREO is to establish a climate data record against which all future changes will be measured for factors such as the Earth’s infrared radiation lost to space, reflected sunlight and changes in ice, snow and vegetation.


Read full article: 'NIST & NASA Launch Joint Effort to Improve Climate Data'

HANOVER MA, USA -- Xennex, Inc. (Xennex) has announced the release of GeneCards(R), Version 3.0.

GeneCards Version 3.0 was introduced as a trial release in May 2009 and is now the default version, V3, features significantly upgraded infrastructure, including a comprehensive relational biological database, and a novel, sophisticated and speedier search engine.

It provides capabilities for highly effective and well-targeted queries, a user-friendly display and clear data navigation.

Also released is the enhanced GeneDecks Version 3, which makes use of the new GeneCards relational database for complex analyses on sets of genes. With GeneCards Version 3.0, Xennex' customers will be able to integrate GeneCards data into their internal systems, and perform comprehensive data mining.


Read full article: 'GeneCards(R) Version 3.0 Released'

Particle Surface Area Analyzer

Bethlehem PA, USA & St. Helens, UK -- The Acorn^TMArea is a revolutionary instrument designed to measure the surface area of particles or droplets dispersed in any type of liquid.

This new generation (patented) technique is based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and offers many advantages in comparison with conventional first generation surface area instrumentation.

Measurements with the Acorn Area are simple and easy. Suspensions and emulsions can be measured noninvasively, without dilution.

One ml of the dispersion is placed in a glass vial and then inserted into the sample chamber. The test sequence is initiated with a key stroke and within minutes the proprietary AreaQuant^TM software algorithm reports the total measured surface area.


Read full article: 'A New Approach to Particle Surface Area & Particle Size Measurements'

NIST’s Second ‘Quantum Logic Clock’

[NIST postdoctoral researcher James Chin-wen Chou with the world’s most precise clock, based on the vibrations of a single aluminum ion. The ion is trapped inside the metal cylinder (center right). Credit: Burrus/NIST - Click to View hi-resolution image]
Gaithersburg MD, USA -- Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built an enhanced version of an experimental atomic clock based on a single aluminum atom that is now the world’s most precise clock, more than twice as precise as the previous pacesetter based on a mercury atom.

The new aluminum clock would neither gain nor lose a second in about 3.7 billion years, according to measurements to be reported in a forthcoming issue of Physical Review Letters.*

The new clock is the second version of NIST’s “quantum logic clock,” so called because it borrows the logical processing used for atoms storing data in experimental quantum computing, another major focus of the same NIST research group.

The second version of the logic clock offers more than twice the precision of the original.


Read full article: 'World’s Most Precise Clock'

Abingdon, UK -- AMSBIO has announced 2 new histone deacetylase (HDAC) cell-based assay kits that provide an easy tool for studying the activity and inhibition of the full range of HDAC enzymes (1-11).

Inhibition of histone deacetylases has been implicated to modulate transcription and induce apoptosis or differentiation in cancer cells. However, screening compounds for HDAC inhibition has traditionally been difficult due to the lack of convenient tools for analysing HDAC activity.

The new AMSBIO HDAC Cell Based Assay Kits provide a fast and fluorescence-based method that eliminates radioactivity, extractions, or chromatography, as are often used in traditional HDAC assays.

By using a cell-permeable HDAC substrate in the new assay kits, the activity of various protein lysine-specific deacetylases including HDAC-containing complexes can be measured in intact cells in a simple and homogenous manner.


Read full article: 'Assay Kits for Measuring the Complete Range of HDAC Enzyme'

Irvine, CA, USA – Like many throughout the country, you may be asking how the billions poured into science R&D has helped stimulate our economy.

Well, look no further than the nanotechnology instrument manufacture, Nanovea based in Irvine, CA. The year 2009 just ended as their first branded year with new hires, new instruments and more business to send to their local machine shops and parts suppliers.

From their Irvine, CA office Nanovea designs and manufactures 3D Profilometers, Mechanical Testers & Tribometers to combine the most advanced testing capabilities in the industry: Scratch, Adhesion, Hardness, Wear, Friction & 3D Non-Contact Metrology at Nano, Micro & Macro range.

Unlike other manufactures Nanovea also provides Laboratory Services, offering clients availability to the latest technology and optimal results through improvements in material testing standards.

So what does Nanovea have to do with the stimulus given to research in the United States? Well coincidentally, everything and here’s how.


Read full article: 'Nanotechnology Instrument Maker Proves the Success of R&D Stimulus'

Exposure time programmed for 20 nanoseconds

Tring, UK -- Specialised Imaging Ltd. has released a new application note describing how its SIMD8 ultra-high speed framing camera has been used to record the detonation of high explosives.

The purpose of the experiment was a proof of principle to show that the SIMD8 camera could image the extreme brightness of the explosive fireball with no interframe crosstalk and minimal or no phosphor lag.

The application note describes how 8 ounces of high explosive was detonated in a blast containment chamber with the SIMD8 sited 3 metres away looking through a polycarbonate viewing port.


Read full article: 'Ultra High Speed Recording of Extremely Bright Events'

Homogeneous PARP Inhibition Assay - Universal PARP - PARG Assay kits...

Abingdon, UK -- A comprehensive range of application specific, high performance Poly-ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) assay kits, enzymes & antibodies are available from AMSBIO to assist scientists with their DNA damage research.

PARP is well known to catalyze the NAD dependent addition of poly-ADP-ribose to adjacent nuclear proteins.

PARP also plays an important role in DNA repair as well as a leading role in apoptosis by depleting the cellular NAD pool.

PARP inhibition has been shown to prevent tissue damage in animal models of myocardial & neuronal ischemia, diabetes, septic shock, & vascular stroke.

For researchers undertaking high throughput screening for PARP Inhibitors - AMSBIO's Homogeneous PARP Inhibition Assay is the kit of choice.

Where smaller numbers of inhibitors are encountered, such as in cancer research, AMSBIO Universal PARP and PARG Assay kits provide accurate determination of IC50 values.


Read full article: 'Assay Kits, Enzymes & Antibodies for DNA Damage Research'

Light transit time through complex multilayered materials depends on the order in which the layers are stacked not total thickness

{A single photon travels through alternating layers of low (blue) and high (green) refractive index material more slowly (top) or quickly (bottom) depending upon the order of the layers. A strategically placed additional layer (bottom) can dramatically reduce photon transit time. - Credit: JQI
View hi-resolution }
College Park MD, USA -- Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland at College Park, can speed up photons (particles of light) to seemingly faster-than-light speeds through a stack of materials by adding a single, strategically placed layer.

This experimental demonstration confirms intriguing quantum-physics predictions that light’s transit time through complex multilayered materials need not depend on thickness, as it does for simple materials such as glass, but rather on the order in which the layers are stacked. This is the first published study* of this dependence with single photons.


Read full article: 'Single Photons Observed at Seemingly Faster-than-Light Speeds'