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'

New Cell Migration Assay Kit
Abingdon, UK -- AMSBIO has announced the addition of the Oris™ Pro Cell Migration Assay to its range of 96-well cell exclusion zone assays for performing cell migration and cell invasion experiments.

The new assay kit, that complements the popular Oris Cell Migration Assay, now enables researchers to save time and cost by using automated liquid handling equipment for fast set-up of high-throughput assays.

Researchers can now capture and quantify real-time cell migration data using microscopes, High Content Screening (HCS) and High Content Imaging (HCI) instruments.

Typical results are highly reproducible, excellent well-to-well CV's and robust Z factors make the new kit highly suitable for productive compound screening.


Read full article: 'Accelerate Cell Migration Research'

Combining Fluidigm's microfluidic platforms with OncoMed's cancer stem cell sorting technology

Amsterdam, Netherlands & South San Francisco CA, USA -- OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Fluidigm Corporation have announced a new initiative to apply Fluidigm's unique microfluidic tools to the analysis of tumor cell heterogeneity, including cancer stem cells.

The collaboration will combine Fluidigm's advanced microfluidic platforms with OncoMed's proprietary cancer stem cell sorting technology to generate unique tools for analyzing, quantifying and developing treatments directed at this highly tumorigenic cell population.

In the initial application, OncoMed will apply Fluidigm's BioMark™ System along with their proprietary Dynamic Array™ integrated fluidic circuits (IFCs) to perform detailed gene expression analysis of solid tumors at the whole tumor and single-cell level.

Read full article: 'Strategic Collaboration in the analysis of tumor cell heterogeneity'

Energy & Environment Lead the Projects List

Gaithersburg MD, USA -- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) last week awarded $34.12 million in grants for 27 research projects in measurement science and engineering.

The 27 projects will receive one-time funding ranging from $408,996 to $1.5 million to carry out research programs that last three years. The projects will advance the state of knowledge and practice of measurement science in six identified research areas of critical national importance:

* Energy;
* Environment and climate change;
* Information technology and cybersecurity;
* Biosciences/health care;
* Manufacturing; and
* Physical infrastructure.

The NIST Measurement Science and Engineering Research Grants Program, funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, supports research to advance measurement science in six areas of critical national importance, including energy, environment and climate change, information technology and cybersecurity, bioscience and health care, manufacturing and physical infrastructure.


Read full article: 'NIST Awards Over $34 Million for Research in Measurement Science'

Groundbreaking approach could impact fields from cryptography to materials science

CAMBRIDGE MA, USA -- In an important first for a promising new technology, scientists have used a quantum computer to calculate the precise energy of molecular hydrogen.

This groundbreaking approach to molecular simulations could have profound implications not just for quantum chemistry, but also for a range of fields from cryptography to materials science.

"One of the most important problems for many theoretical chemists is how to execute exact simulations of chemical systems," says author Alán Aspuru-Guzik, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University.

"This is the first time that a quantum computer has been built to provide these precise calculations."

The work, described this week in Nature Chemistry, comes from a partnership between Aspuru-Guzik's team of theoretical chemists at Harvard and a group of experimental physicists led by Andrew White at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

Aspuru-Guzik's team coordinated experimental design and performed key calculations, while his partners in Australia assembled the physical "computer" and ran the experiments.


Read full article: 'Quantum computer calculates exact energy of molecular hydrogen'

Carbon Dioxide is not well mixed in the troposphere, but is rather "lumpy."

{Created with data acquired by JPL's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument during July 2009 shows large-scale patterns of carbon dioxide concentrations that are transported around Earth by the general circulation of the atmosphere. Credit: JPL}
WASHINGTON DC, USA – Researchers studying carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas and a key driver of global climate change, now have a new tool at their disposal: daily global measurements of carbon dioxide in a key part of our atmosphere.

The data are courtesy of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft.

Moustafa Chahine, the instrument's science team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., unveiled the new product at a briefing on recent breakthroughs in greenhouse gas, weather and climate research from AIRS at this week's American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

The new data, which span the seven-plus years of the AIRS mission, measure the concentration and distribution of carbon dioxide in the mid-troposphere--the region of Earth's atmosphere that is located between 5 to 12 kilometers, or 3 to 7 miles, above Earth's surface.


Read full article: 'Recent Breakthroughs in Greenhouse Gas by NASA's JPL'

ESA Online -- As elements of the integrated circuits running our computers, phones and electronics, silicon wafers are everywhere. An ESA-led effort is establishing an out-of-this-world use for these commonplace items: when stacked together precisely by the thousand they promise to deliver astronomy’s clearest X-ray view yet of the most violent regions of space.

“ESA has been working with specialist European firms to develop this new optical technique and build up a supporting industry,” said Marcos Bavdaz, Head of ESA’s Advanced Technology Section.

“This ‘silicon pore optics’ effort is part of the Agency’s preparation for the International X-ray Observatory (IXO), a candidate mission with NASA and Japan’s space agency for around 2020.”


Read full article: 'Silicon technology offers extended X-ray vision of high-energy cosmos'

Geneva, Switzerland & Santa Clara CA, USA -- Symyx Technologies, Inc. and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) have announced the launch of a collaborative partnership designed to enhance the usability and accessibility of public scientific databases.

The first joint project links related chemical structures between two information sources, ChemSpider (from RSC) and DiscoveryGate (from Symyx), enabling scientists to quickly retrieve more complete and comprehensive information.

ChemSpider is a free-access chemistry search engine that aggregates and indexes chemical structures and their associated information into a single searchable repository.

DiscoveryGate provides online access to chemical sourcing, organic synthesis and reaction planning, metabolism, toxicity and pharmacological information, integrating information based on the occurrence of common chemical structures.


Read full article: 'Symyx Announces Collaborative Partnership with Royal Society of Chemistry...'