Carbon Nanotubes exhibit Antibacterial properties

Nano Today (October 2007)features a research news that highly purified single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) exhibit strong antibacterial activity [Kang et al., Langmuir (2007) 23, 8670]. The research on biotoxicity of SWNTs on E.Coli K12 was done at Yale University.

Videos on Tissue engineering and immunology protocols

Biotech Weblog mentions about JOVE (Journal of Visual Experiments) that has these videos.

National Punctuation day

Ananda Vikatan (a tamil magazine) made a brief mention about this day in its latest issue.
There is a website dedicated to National Punctuation day (September 24th)
which mentions that

" it is a celebration of lowly commas,correctly used quotes and other proper use of periods,semi-solons and ever mysterious ellipsis"

It gives information on all the punctuations.

Have fun reading about Punctuations and find out why Semicolon is not a surgical procedure.

Hats off to Prof P. N. Rangarajan.

Prof Abinandhan of Indian Institute of Science in his blog Nanopolitan has posted a good news today. It is about winners of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards for the year 2007.

One of the them is Prof Pundi.Narashiman Rangarajan of Department of Biochemistry,IISc. He is well known for his works on DNA vaccines. Earlier he was awarded the Biotech Product and Process Development and Commercialization Award-2005 by DST for transferring recombinant Hepatitis B vaccine technology to Biological E. Ltd., Hyderabad leading to production of BEVAC. Prof PNR and Dr.G.Padmanabhan have developed the first combined DNA-based rabies vaccine for the control of rabies in dogs .


Prof P.N.Rangarajan's article on DNA VACCINES in Resonance is here

I found this intersting communication of Prof PNR on Waiting for the Nobel: Has IISc sacrificed experiment for research? to IISc faculties of Biochemistry,MCBL, MRDGand CES . He expressed that " Individual aspirations and institutional goals have been in conflict atmany of our national research organisations for far too long"

Bridging the Gap between Indian academia and Industry in Biotechnology

BioSpectrum CEOs Summit 2007 held on August 2007, discussed ways of bridging the gap.

"The primary challenge in terms of recruitment has been essentially the challenge of finding highly skilled computer scientists. It is very difficult as essentially we are competing with the Googles and Yahoos (IT majors) of the world. We need to find out the underlying interests potential candidates have in the life sciences and then rope them in. Purely trying to attract them with big salaries would be very hard. Says Vijay Chandru ,Chair man of Strand Lifesciences

.Prof. C Kameswara Rao, executive secretary, Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education (FBAE), said,

The industry does not require students with a very high academic background. It requires people who have competence in thinking, planning a product, a few great managers and the rest of the employees are worker bees. It requires a biotechnologist, a biochemist and so many other people put together.

Take a look at the article here

Health Hazards of Nanoparticles

Here comes a different view on Nanoparticles and their threat to health. It seems Silver nanoparticles are most toxic of all

Improving our prospects for a Nanotech jobs

Science magazine has an article" STARTING SMALL" which gives the current scenario and the skills for Nanotech jobs.

An interactive flash timeline on The History of Human race

Take a look at the timeline here. All through the time line,,overview of the details are provided.

"Mommy "Gene in Women ??

Science daily has an article on Is There Really A 'Mommy' Gene In Women?

“Only in recent times have women acquired significant control over their own fertility, and many are preferring not to be saddled with the burden of raising children.

"The question is whether this is just a result of economic factors and socio-cultural conditioning, as most analysts claim, or whether the choices that women are making about parenthood are influenced by genetic inheritance from maternal ancestors that were dominated by paternal ancestors.”

Take a Look.

The article ends with “The bottom line from a biology viewpoint is: in order to have your genes live on, you’ve got to have kids. If you don’t, then they’re going to disappear,”

Electron micrograph art

Look here for the amazing electron micrograph photos.

Don't miss the " Nano-meter scale toilet" and "Artifical nano Phage"

Thanks to Good Math,Bad Math for the pointer.

Video Lectures of great thinkers of Genetics and Medicine

Over at Science roll.

Enjoy listening .

Making Powerpoint presentations

Guru at Entertaining research recommends a video on How NOT to use powerpoint.

Anandam Anandam Anandame----Everybody's High -Anandamide

Anandam in Tamil language means -- Happiness .. In sanskrit it is BLISS. What it has to do with Anandamide, a brain Molecule.Discovered at Hebrew University,Jerusalem,Israel ,the name is taken from the Sanskrit word "ananda" meaning INTERNAL BLISS.

Anandamide (arachidonylethanolamide ) is an endogenous Cannabinoids (Cannabinoids are Psycoactive compounds /drugs from the plant cannabis sativa that causes euphoria, enhancement of sensory perception,difficulties in concentration and impairment of memory -- a chemical responsible for the narcotic effect of marijuana)

Anandamides are natural cannabinoid present in the brain.Researches point out that they play important roles in the regulation of mood, memory, appetite, and pain perception.

A 1994 Interview with Professor Dr. Raphael Mechoulam,discoveror of this moecule is here.

What do chocolate cravings, forgetful mice, and blissful pigs have in common? The answer is anandamide says this article.

Enjoy reading

Seeing heaven in a grain of sand -Mandalas and Nanotech

Image source :The Metropolitan museum of art.


Nature (13 september 2007)has an intersting article on Science in culture.It mentions the ongoing collaboration between a nanoscientist and tibetian monks to explore Chakrasamvara mandala.The article mentions that these tibetian mandalas are made of colored,tiny loose grains of sand.



The article says



The mandala, called the 'wheel of great bliss', encircles the palatial residence of the deity Heruka Chakrasamvara. It places particular emphasis on the female ideal of wisdom.


Gimzewski has used optical and scanning electron microscopy to delve into progressively smaller features of the sand mandala, right down to the molecular level. Microscopic images across this range were then blended with a sequence of zoomed photographs to produce a continuous visual journey from the whole mandala into ever-finer details of its physical composition. The result is a seamless 15-minute sequence that is projected onto a circular bed of flat, unpatterned sand.(http://nano.arts.ucla.edu/mandala/)

The original sand mandala was two-and-a-half metres in diameter and took four monks working for eight hours a day four weeks to complete in Gimzewski's laboratory. The final computer output comprised 30,000 individual frames containing 900 gigabytes of data. Thirty-six computers were pressed into service to render the images over the course of two days, and nine computers completed the recomposition of the continuous sequence



It is interesting.

Manjal Magimai

Manjal Magimai- The greatness of Turmeric. The Power of yellow is discussed in detail in The colour of Yellow.

Via Desipundit

The first person awarded with a patent for a gene -Dr Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty

Dr.Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty is a distinguished Indian-American Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.

His most notable creation is a biology-based solution for cleaning up toxic oil spills using the generically engineered bacteria-Pseudomonas (today classified as Burkholderia cepacia or B. cepacia).

Listen to his interview about his great work here at BiotechNation.

It is great hearing from a renowned Professor.

Don't miss it.

Thanks to Deepak singh at bbgm for the pointer