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Sep. 9, 2011 — Ultra high precision analyses of some of the oldest rock samples on Earth by researchers at the University of Bristol provides clear evidence that the planet's accessible reserves of precious metals are the result of a bombardment of meteorites more than 200 million years after Earth was formed.
The research is published in Nature.
During the formation of Earth, molten iron sank to its centre to make the core. This took with it the vast majority of the planet's precious metals -- such as gold and platinum. In fact, there are enough precious metals in the core to cover the entire surface of Earth with a four-metre thick layer.
The removal of gold to the core should leave the outer portion of Earth bereft of bling. However, precious metals are tens to thousands of times more abundant in Earth's silicate mantle than anticipated. It has previously been argued that this serendipitous over-abundance results from a cataclysmic meteorite shower that hit Earth after the core formed. The full load of meteorite gold was thus added to the mantle alone and not lost to the deep interior.
Dr Willbold continued: "Our work shows that most of the precious metals on which our economies and many key industrial processes are based have been added to our planet by lucky coincidence when the Earth was hit by about 20 billion billion tonnes of asteroidal material."
Originally posted by purplemer
According to a study published in Nature's Scientific Reports, the universe may be growing in the same way as a giant brain - with the electrical firing between brain cells 'mirrored' by the shape of expanding galaxies.
The results of a computer simulation suggest that "natural growth dynamics" - the way that systems evolve - are the same for different kinds of networks - whether its the internet, the human brain or the universe as a whole.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk...
Kind of a weird thought. The universe being like a giant brain. Funny how the microcosm reflects the macrocosm and we get the same patterns in nature repeating themselves at different levels.
If the universe is a giant brain. I guess that would make us little cells or something. Would that make the laws of physics nothing more than biological habits that can change and evolve. I wonder what such a large brain would be thinking about.
If we take the principle of as above so below aka fractal familiarity across scales and we look at ouselves and then suppose that is the below zone and imagine that we are fractal and embedded inside a far bigger fractal image of ourselves aka the above zone,... then we can look for similarites that exist regardess of scale and that may give us deeper insights into what is occuring and why.
At our macroscopic scale we often deal in the microscopic world and often for medical reasons.
Why should that be any different at the megascopic scales?
We are now able to target individual types of cancers and possibly individual cells with carefully tailored and extremely well aimed radio-bio-chemical-weapons aka nanobots and radiation therapy.
Could FBP, at what to us would appear to be a cosmic scale in magnitude, be treating planet earth and the lifeforms that reside upon it like bacterial/viral/cancerous infection?
The findings are published in the journal ACS Nano [1].
Source: Northwestern University
Reference
1.Dam et al. Direct Observation of Nanoparticle-Cancer Cell Nucleus Interactions. ACS Nano. 2012 Mar 22. [Epub ahead of print]
View abstract
Tags: cancer, electron microscopy, gold, nanostar, nanotechnology, Northwestern University, targeted cancer therapy
Published on Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Topic: Research, Therapy
Nanotechnology, which offers powerful new possibilities for targeted cancer therapies, has been generating a lot of excitement in the cancer research community. Northwestern University scientists recently developed specialized nanoparticle that can deliver a drug directly to a cancer cell’s nucleus — an important feature for effective treatment [1].
Shaped like a star with 5 to 10 points, and made of gold, the “nanostar” has a large surface area that researchers load with drug molecules.
Teri W. Odom, who led the study of human cervical and ovarian cancer cells, said:
Our drug-loaded gold nanostars are tiny hitchhikers. They are attracted to a protein on the cancer cell’s surface that conveniently shuttles the nanostars to the cell’s nucleus. Then, on the nucleus’ doorstep, the nanostars release the drug, which continues into the nucleus to do its work.
Using electron microscopy, researchers found that the drug-loaded nanoparticles were actively transported to the nucleus and dramatically changed the shape of the cancer cell nucleus. The change in shape after drug release was associated with cell death and the cell population becoming less viable.
Citation: Andre G. Skirtach, et al., Laser-Induced Release of Encapsulated Materials inside Living Cells, Angewandte Chemie (July 5, 2006)
Source: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Microcapsules in a cell, (a) before, and (b) after being illuminated with a laser. The arrow indicates the laser beam´s focus. The laser opens the capsules, which release their fluorescent content. Image: MPI of Colloids and Interfaces
Medicines are most helpful when they directly affect the diseased organs or cells - for example, tumour cells. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, and Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich, have come one step closer to that goal: they have intentionally released a substance in a tumour cell.
The scientists placed the substance in a tiny capsule which gets channelled into cancer cells, and is then "unpacked" with a laser impulse. The laser light cracks its polymer shell by heating it up and the capsule'TMs contents are released. (Angewandte Chemie, July 2006).
Treating malignant tumours is difficult. Doctors have to destroy the tumour, but healthy tissue needs to be preserved. Chemotherapy tends to kill diseased cells, at the same time causing great damage to the body in general. So scientists are looking for ways to destroy only the rampant tumour cells. One way to achieve this is to transport substances inside of microcapsules into the tumour cells and release them there. Researchers led by Andre Skirtach and Gleb Sukhorukov at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, along with Wolfgang Parak at Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich, have now used a laser as a means of opening microcapsules inserted into a tumour cell. The capsules subsequently release their contents, a fluorescent test substance, into the cell. The scientists used a light microscope to monitor how the luminous materials distribute themselves within the cell.
The vehicle that the researchers used was a polymer capsule only a few micrometres in diameter. The walls of the capsules were built from a number of layers of charged polymers, alternating positive and negative. In the laboratory, at least, this is an established way of producing transport containers for medicines, cosmetics, or nutrients, which can also pass through cell membranes. Andre Skirtach and his colleagues equipped the capsules with a kind of "open sesame". But it didn't require any magic - just nanoparticles made of gold or silver atoms. The scientists mixed together charged metal nanoparticles along with the polymers composing the walls of the vesicle. The tumour cells absorbed the microcapsules and then the scientists aimed an infrared laser at them. Metal nanoparticles are particularly good at absorbing the laser light and transmitting the heat further into their surroundings, heating up the walls. They became so hot that the bonds broke between the polymers and the shell and the capsules eventually opened.