Adapting fish defenses to block human infections: Antimicrobial peptide of fish gills inspire clean surfaces

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2012) ? An undergraduate research team analyzes peptides from fish gills to engineer antimicrobial surfaces for food preparation and medical devices.

Living in an environment teaming with bacteria and fungi, fish have evolved powerful defenses against waterborne pathogens, including antimicrobial peptides located in their gills. Undergraduate researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) are studying the biology and the mechanics of one of those peptides with the hope they can use that knowledge to create engineered surfaces that kill bacteria responsible for foodborne illnesses and hospital-acquired infections.

The research team, led by Terri Camesano, professor of chemical engineering, reports its latest findings in the paper "Creating Antibacterial Surfaces with the Peptide Chrysophsin-1," published online in October by the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

"Fish have a wonderful solution for blocking bacterial and fungal infections," Camesano said. "In this study, we are working to better understand the biochemical mechanics of that process."

As fish filter water through their gills to extract oxygen, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), including Chrysosphin-1, trap and kill pathogens before they can invade the fish's bloodstream. Scientists in many laboratories around the world are actively exploring the potential use of these molecules to prevent human infections. In the current study, the WPI team attached AMPs to silicon and gold surfaces using two different approaches and measured the bound peptides' ability to kill the bacterial pathogen E. coli.

In the first method, the AMPs were absorbed directly onto gold and silicon crystals, forming a single layer of molecules with the AMPs lying flat on the surface. In the second method, the tips of the AMPs were attached to the surfaces with a glue-like substance so that the peptides rose vertically, like blades of grass extending up from the ground. Surfaces with both AMP configurations were cultured with E. coli cells. The results showed that when the AMPs were lying flat they killed 34 percent of the bacteria in the culture, but when they were standing up vertically they killed 82 percent.

"The hypothesis is that when peptides are attached vertically to the surfaces, they are better able to move and bend so they take on a shape that is more effective in binding to and disrupting the E.coli cells," Camesano said.

In addition to gathering data about the antibacterial efficacy of the attached AMPs, the WPI research team developed a technique for monitoring, in real time, the attachment of AMPs to surfaces. Using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D), the team measured the quantity of AMPs that successfully attached to the surfaces in the horizontal and vertical orientations and the density of the AMP layers, along with other properties.

"This was a powerful process, to be able to essentially watch the binding process as it happened," Camesano said. "It is a technique that we will continue to apply in further studies."

Camesano said gold and silicon surfaces were selected for the current study because their chemical properties are well-suited for AMP binding. In ongoing work, Camesano's laboratory will continue to characterize the mechanics of AMP binding for optimal antimicrobial activity and test other materials, including titanium, stainless steel, and plastics, that would have greater utility in food preparation and healthcare.

"What is also notable about this study is that it is the work of undergraduates," Camesano said. "They've done excellent work here that will inform future graduate studies in our lab."

The WPI undergraduates who co-authored the AMP paper are Ivan Ivanov '12 (chemical engineering), Alec Morrison '12 (biochemistry), and Jesse Cobb '12 (chemical engineering). Co-author Catherine Fahey, a student at George Washington University, worked on the study during at a summer project at WPI. Their work was sponsored in large part by a grant from the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Ivan E. Ivanov, Alec E. Morrison, Jesse E. Cobb, Catherine A. Fahey, Terri A. Camesano. Creating Antibacterial Surfaces with the Peptide Chrysophsin-1. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2012; 4 (11): 5891 DOI: 10.1021/am301530a

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/ITvzRKpKZoc/121129143502.htm

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YouTube's 18 Most Epic Sports Meltdowns

1. Handball Player Drops His Shorts and, Uh, Does Other Things Too

This Italian handball player instantly entered the pantheon of all-time sports meltdowns recently when he, shall we say, overreacted to a sarcastic peck from an antagonistic opponent.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 10 Ambitious iPhone Apps, Accessories for Your Workout]

Freak-outs, meltdowns, tantrums, hissy fits -- call 'em what you want, but sports figures losing their cool in public is highly entertaining. From thrown chairs to ejected players, head-butts to grabbed nuts, other people's indignation never fails to draw a laugh.

SEE ALSO: 25 of YouTube?s Funniest Sports Fails

[More from Mashable: Band Constructs Stop-Motion Music Video With Instagram]

Thanks to YouTube, we get to relive classic moments over and over again. That means we'll never be without John McEnroe calling a line judge a jerk, or Mike Gundy being a man who is 40, or Brian Wilson taking a bat to a Gatorade cooler in the San Francisco Giants' dugout. It's the small mercies that make being a sports fan in the digital age so worthwhile.

So, without further ado, here above, and presented in no particular order, are 18 of the funniest sports freak-outs we could find on YouTube. Check them out, then add your favorites in the comments below.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Steve Powell/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/youtubes-18-most-epic-sports-meltdowns-175415460.html

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Damascus fighting cuts off Internet, airport

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels battled forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad just outside Damascus on Thursday, forcing the closure of the main airport road, and the Dubai-based Emirates airline suspended flights to the Syrian capital.

Residents also reported Internet connections in the capital were down and mobile and land telephone lines working only sporadically in what appeared to be the worst disruption to communications in Syria since an uprising began 20 months ago.

The past two weeks have seen rebels overrunning army bases across Syria, exposing Assad's loss of control in northern and eastern regions despite the devastating air power that he has used to bombard opposition strongholds.

Rebels and activists said the fighting along the road to Damascus airport, southeast of the capital, was heavier in that area than at any other time in the conflict.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a opposition monitoring group, said clashes were particularly intense in Babbila, a suburb bordering the insurgent stronghold of Tadamon.

Nabeel al-Ameer, a spokesman for the rebel Military Council in Damascus, said that a large number of army reinforcements had arrived along the road after three days of scattered clashes ending with rebels seizing side streets to the north of it.

"There are no clashes directly around the airport; the fighting is about 3 or 4 kilometers away," he said via Skype, adding that rebels had taken control of many secondary roads and were expected to advance towards the airport.

He said that he hoped the proximity of the rebels to the airport would dissuade authorities from using it to import military equipment, but the priority now was to block the road.

A Syrian security source told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the army had started a "cleansing operation" in the capital to confront rebel advances.

Residents said the Internet in Damascus crashed in the early afternoon and mobile and land telephone lines were functioning only intermittently.

A blog post on Renesys, a U.S. company which tracks Internet traffic worldwide, said that at 12:26 p.m. in Damascus, Syria's international Internet connectivity shut down completely.

Emirates said it was suspending daily flights to Damascus "until further notice", but other airlines continued operations.

Airport sources in Cairo said an Egypt Air flight that left at 1:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) had landed in Damascus as scheduled.

"The Egypt Air plane has arrived ... and passengers are all safe but the pilot was instructed to take off back to Cairo without passengers if he felt that the situation there is not good to stay for longer," an official at Cairo airport said.

Elsewhere in Damascus, warplanes bombed Kafr Souseh and Daraya, two neighborhoods that fringe the center of the city where rebels have managed to hide out and ambush army units, according to opposition activists.

"NOT LAST DAYS YET"

A senior European Union official said that Assad appeared to be preparing for a military showdown around Damascus, possibly by isolating the city with a network of checkpoints.

"The rebels are gaining ground but it is still rather slow. We are not witnessing the last days yet," the official said on condition of anonymity.

"On the outskirts of Damascus, there are mortars and more attacks. The regime is thinking of protecting itself ... with checkpoints in the next few days ... (It) seems the regime is preparing for major battle on Damascus."

In the north of the country, rebel units launched an offensive to seize an army base close to the main north-south highway that would allow them to block troop movements and cut Assad's main supply route to Aleppo, Syria's biggest city.

The Observatory said that rebel units from around Idlib province massed early on Thursday morning to attack Wadi al-Deif, a base east of the rebel-held town of Maarat al-Numan.

Wadi al-Deif has been a thorn in the side of rebel units who first besieged the station in October but met fierce resistance from government forces, backed up by air strikes.

Assad is fighting an insurgency that grew out of peaceful demonstrations for democratic reform but escalated, after a military crackdown on protesters, into a civil war in which 40,000 people have been killed.

Most foreign powers have condemned Assad but stopped short of arming rebel fighters as they fear heavy weapons could make their way into the hands of radical Islamist units, who have grown increasingly prominent in the insurgency.

Rebels decry their supporters for not providing them with surface-to-air missiles that they say they need to counter the air force. But recent looting of anti-aircraft missiles from army bases has allowed them to shoot down helicopters and jets.

"So far, there is no evidence that any of the surface-to-air missiles used to date have come from outside Syria," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.

"The limited number of surface-to-air missiles that have shown up all appear to have come from Syrian military stock captured by the armed opposition."

He said the number of these missiles in rebel hands was probably over 20 but that will rise significantly as rebels are capturing military bases on an almost-daily basis.

The relatively small number of anti-aircraft missiles looted so far means that many rebel-controlled areas of the country remain vulnerable to air strikes. The Observatory said 15 citizens, including children and women, were killed during a bombing in Aleppo's Ansari district on Thursday.

Activist video footage showed the bodies of at least four children, wrapped in red blankets and apparently wearing pyjamas. Another video showed the immediate aftermath of the attack, with the bodies of children in the street and covered in cement dust. Half of one young boy's head was missing.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans and Erika Solomon in Beirut; Yasmine Saleh in Cairo, Praveen Menon in Dubai and Justyna Pawlak in Brussels; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/damascus-clashes-cut-off-airport-emirates-suspends-flights-141313857.html

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How Important Each Day of the Year Is, Visualized

Holidays. Paydays. Your birthday. They're all important in their own special ways. But which day of the year is the most important? This handy calendar visualization from xkcd reveals all. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/oQtEqA4uSxo/how-important-each-day-of-the-year-is-visualized

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Beyond the Pale

Emily Yoffe

Photograph by Teresa Castracane.

Get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week; click here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com. (Questions may be edited.)

Got a burning question for Prudie? She'll be online at Washingtonpost.com to chat with readers each Monday at noon. Submit your questions and comments here before or during the live discussion.

Prudence,
My wife, who is infertile, and I have recently decided to have children?we?d like eventually to have three?using an egg donor. (We decided against adoption because we would have no biological connection to our children.) We have just settled on this option but it has thrown open a whole new dilemma for me. I am white and my wife is East Asian. Her race isn't a problem for me and I would have had no difficulty raising mixed race children, but frankly, now that I have the choice, I?d prefer my kids to be white. We live in a fairly homogeneously white area and at the end of the day I want my kids to look like me, their cousins, and the kids they'll go to school with. I don't think my wife has ever experienced racism, but I think she might understand my point of view. Then I think I maybe I?m just convincing myself about this. I really could use a second opinion before I broach the subject with her.

Dear Want,
Reince Priebus, is that you? I can see how increasing the white population might be a good strategy for raising GOP turnout on election day. However, if you?re not the chairman of the Republican National Committee, and you only want to increase the white population because you don?t want your kids to resemble your Asian wife, then it?s good you ran this by me before proposing it to her. How generous of you not to have a ?problem? with the fact that you married an Asian woman. And how grotesque that now that her eggs are out of the picture, you?ve decided this is a great opportunity to keep your kids from being mixed race. There?s just no way to express to your wife the thoughts you?ve conveyed here without sounding as if you?re a spokesperson for the Council of Conservative Citizens. There are many ways to become parents, as you know. With adoption, sometimes it?s obvious that the children are not the biological offspring of the parents. In the case of sperm or egg donation, the parents may choose to keep private that they used assisted reproduction, which is possible by selecting a donor who resembles the infertile parent. (I still think the child should be told about this, but that?s a separate issue.) Now that you and your wife have decided on egg donation, you first need to just listen to what she?s thinking about the criteria for your donor. It could be she very much wants an Asian woman. It could be she just wants someone healthy and smart to donate and she doesn?t care about race. But your desire for your future kids to look only like you because you have a pre-Brown v. Board of Education view about their social lives means that before you have children, you need to do a serious reassessment of your assumptions about the world they are going to live in.

Dear Prudence: Son With a Plunging Crack Line

Dear Prudence,
I've been dating my girlfriend for a year now. We get along great and moved in together a couple of months ago. One issue has been causing friction. She wants me to perform oral sex on her, which I did when we first started dating. I enjoy doing it but the problem is my girlfriend?s vagina has a strong odor. I've never been with a woman whose smell made me cringe. I don't want to tell her the reason that I don't want to go down on her because I'm sure it would hurt her. Because of my reluctance, she has stopped performing oral sex on me as a kind of standoff. She has been bringing this up so much that I?m going to have to give her an answer as to why I?m holding my nose.

Dear Holding,
You two have certainly reaching a sticking point, or perhaps I should say, stinking point. There?s an exhortation at the end of some toothpaste commercials that their product should be part of a program of oral hygiene and regular professional care. You need to deliver a similar message to your beloved: only in this case, she needs professional attention for her hygiene in order for you to be part of her oral care. The cringe-inducing odor you describe is not normal. It doesn?t mean your girlfriend isn?t clean, but she may have a yeast or bacterial infection, for example, that needs treatment. Clipping a clothespin on your nose in order to discharge your duties might be one of way of alerting her to the problem. But better that you just gin up the courage to tell her that her vaginal odor is unusually strong and you think she should check it out with her gynecologist. Being grown-up enough to do that should end this silly sexual tit for tat. It?s likely that with a doctor?s care your girlfriend will easily lick this problem.

Dear Prudie,
I?m a graduate student and one of the other students here is writing her thesis on an actress in her 70s. This classmate is extremely obsessed with the actress. She has seen all of her movies and shows many times, read all her articles and interviews. She talks about this woman constantly, to the point that if a conversation is not about this actress, she will quote a line from her movies in order to change the subject to her. My classmate recently confessed to me that she used her graduate funding to track this woman in New York City. She has figured out approximately where this lady lives, and knows what restaurants she frequents. She said she spent time sitting in a nearby park hoping to see the actress. She also used property records to find the actress?s summer home. She has tried to get an interview, but has been firmly turned down by the actress?s management. She?s angry that the manager is standing between her and the actress. Other people have brought up to her that her obsession seems unhealthy, but she has rebuffed them. She says everything she does is for research. I think she?s a stalker. Should something be done, and what?

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=5ef69056b50c748538e6a4ae27b1fd87

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Microsoft Not Sitting Still with Win 8, May Intro Surface Phone

Amidst continuing mixed news about Windows 8, Microsoft may be getting ready to become more involved in its mobile destiny. New reports suggest the technology giant is readying a branded phone that will share the Surface name with its recently released tablet .

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced on its Windows blog that it had sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses in the first month of the new operating system's general availability. The figure does not distinguish between upgrades, new sales, or sales of PCs with Windows 8 pre-installed.

1.19 Percent

Microsoft also reported that the Windows App Store, which it said launched with more apps when its doors opened than any other app store at that point, has doubled the number of available apps in this first month.

Previous reports from the field and industry analysts have indicated sluggish sales. Forrester Research, for example, found that only half as many enterprises have expressed interest in Windows 8 as did for Windows 7, over the same period of time.

In addition, Web analytics firm Net Applications has said that its data through Nov. 18, three weeks from the launch, showed Windows 8 penetration at only 1.19 percent -- behind Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, the three most recent versions of Mac OS X, and even Linux. Windows 7, for instance, has 46 percent, while XP, facing the end of its supported lifecycle, still maintains 39 percent market share. Windows 7 had nearly twice 8's market share at this point in its lifespan.

But that good news comes following a steady drumbeat of less-than-good news for the new and dramatically different OS. The sudden departure of Windows chief Stephen Sinofsky, a lukewarm reception to the Windows 8-specific apps in the Windows Store, a scathingly bad review of the new tile-based interface by usability expert Jakob Nielsen, and reports of hesitation among business adopters and confusion among consumer buyers are only the top headlines.

A Surface Phone?

Windows 8 has been built around touch-based computing, which has been slow to come to laptops and desktops but has become common in mobile devices. While Windows 8 has been getting mixed reviews at best, the company's Surface tablet, either using Windows 8 or Windows RT for ARM-based tablets, has been getting a more positive reception. (continued...)

?

Source: http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=85834

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Mortgage Debt at Lowest Level Since 2006, Despite Increase in Originations

Despite a sizeable increase in consumer debt overall household debt fell by $74 billion in the third quarter of 2012, driven largely by a decrease in mortgage and home equity loan balances. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit reported that a drop of $120 billion in mortgage debt and $16 billion in home equity lines of credit were partially offset by a 2.3 percent increase in non-real estate obligations.

The drop in aggregate consumer debt continued a near-four year downward trend.? At of the end of the quarter (September 30) total consumer indebtedness was $11.31 trillion, 0.7 percent lower than in the second quarter and $1.37 trillion less than the peak household debt hit in the third quarter of 2008.

Mortgage debt, the largest component of the aggregate, now stands at $8.03 trillion, down 1.5 percent from the previous quarter and the lowest level since 2006.? The decline has come in spite of the fourth consecutive increase in mortgage originations with $521 billion in new mortgage debt appearing on consumer credit reports.?

The other major components of debt increased.? Student loan debt increased by $42 billion to $956 billion.? The Federal Reserve reports, however, that of the $42 billion only $23 billion is new debt while the remaining $19 billion is attributed to previously defaulted student loans that have been updated on credit reports this quarter, increasing the 90+ day delinquency rate for student loans to 11 percent.

Outstanding balances on auto loans increased by $18 billion to $768 billion, the highest level in nearly four years and the sixth quarter this debt has increased.? Originations increased by 4.4 percent to $85.8 billion, the third consecutive quarterly increase.????????

Credit card balances were up $2 billion while aggregate credit card limits were down 0.3 percent or $9 billion during the quarter.? There are 382 million open credit card accounts, down slightly from the second quarter, while the number of credit inquiries decreased by one million to 167 million over a rolling six month period.

"The increase in mortgage originations, auto loans and credit card balances suggests that consumers are slowly gaining confidence in their financial position," said Donghoon Lee, senior economist at the New York Fed. "As consumers feel more comfortable, they may start to make purchases that were previously delayed."

Overall, delinquency rates improved slightly in the third quarter to 8.9 percent of outstanding debt compared to 9.0 percent in the second quarter.? This equates to about $1.01 trillion of delinquent debt, approximately $740 billion of which is seriously delinquent, i.e. 90+ days past due.

The percentage of auto loan debt that is seriously delinquent was unchanged at 4.2 percent while student loan debt, as noted above, rose to 11 percent.? Delinquency rates for mortgages decreased from 6.3 percent to 5.9 percent and new foreclosures are returning to their pre-crisis levels with new foreclosure notices added to 242,000 consumer credit reports. This was the lowest number in nearly six years.? Home equity lines of credit delinquencies remain high by historical standards at 4.9 percent.

Delinquency transition rates for current mortgage accounts were roughly unchanged, with 1.9% of current mortgage balances transitioning into delinquency. However, the rate of transition from early (30-60 days) into serious (90 days or? more) delinquency increased to 26.3%, up by 2.8 percentage points from the second quarter. ?Furthermore, the cure rate - the share of balances that transitioned from 30-60 days delinquent to current - saw a second consecutive decline to 26.4%.

About 354,000 consumers had a bankruptcy notation added to their credit reports in 2012Q3, a 16.3% drop from the same quarter last year, and the seventh consecutive drop in bankruptcies on a year-over-year basis.

Source: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/11282012_consumer_debt.asp

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