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Showing posts from November, 2024

Pure Water: The Unsung Hero Of The Lab

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  Pure water plays a pivotal role in almost every life science experiment, diagnostic test or chemical reaction. It’s so important, there’s even a  high impact journal  dedicated to reporting on new water-based research and purification methods. Sadly, lab water still rarely gets the attention it deserves.  Without pure water, very few experiments, tests or reactions would be possible. Thanks to its favorable chemical and physical properties, water is often considered the ‘universal solvent’ as it dissolves more substances than any other liquid. Perhaps even more importantly, many biochemical reactions will only take place within aqueous solutions. One potential limitation of water is that it is a weak eluent and a poor solvent of most organic compounds, due to it being highly polar at ambient temperatures. However, superheated water at 200°C has similar properties to typical organic solvents such as methanol, so it can be used to dissolve many organic compounds. This adds even more c

Scientists identify antibody 'SC27' to counter all Covid-19 variants | sciencefather.com

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  Researchers have discovered an antibody that could counter all known variants of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and also distantly related ones that infect other animals. SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus causing COVID-19,  ScienceFather  uses its spike protein to invade and infect another individual, or the host. Antibodies, produced by the host in response, bind to the spike protein to block its action and prevent infection. The researchers, led by those at The University of Texas in Austin, US, isolated the antibody 'SC27' from the plasma donated by four patients.  ScienceFather  These patients had breakthrough infections, which occur when a vaccinated individual gets infected. The research has been published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine. Over the more than four years since the first case of COVID-19 emerged, SARS-CoV-2 has evolved to acquire certain characteristics which make the virus resistant to vaccines and treatments. ScienceFather The authors said the 'S

Iranian Scientist’s Invention Prevents Water Wastage, Breakage of Containers in Labs.

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  “Due to the lack of control in the electrical measurement of pressure and temperature in the laboratory environment and using laboratory glassware, the laboratory containers are broken sometimes and also a lot of water is used to cool the glasses during the experiment,” Medisa Kamari, a Ph.D. student of Analytical Chemistry at Islamic Azad University’s Ilam Branch, told ANA. “Therefore, we decided to create a system to increase the safety level of tests that are performed at high temperature and pressure, and completely omitted water to cool and control the test until reaching the product. Some features of other devices in the laboratory to this device, which causes simultaneous use, increases the speed of the experiment, and eliminates the need for laboratories to use several devices,” she added. Kamari described full elimination of water for cooling, preventing water wastage, temperature measurement and control, system pressure measurement and control, the possibility for emergency