CAIRO (Reuters) - At least four people were killed in Egypt and nearly 200 wounded on Sunday in clashes between supporters and opponents of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, security and medical sources said.
All four dead were shot in Nile Valley towns south of Cairo, one in Beni Suef and three in Assiut. Across the country, the Health Ministry said, 174 people were given medical treatment as a result of factional fighting in the streets.
In Cairo and Alexandria, more than one million demonstrated.
Hundreds of people throwing petrol bombs and rocks attacked the national headquarters of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood. The building caught fire as guards and protesters exchanged gunfire.
(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla and Maggie Fick; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Paul Taylor)
PRETORIA (Reuters) - South Africans protesting a visit to their country by U.S. President Barack Obama rallied on Friday a few blocks from well-wishers at a hospital in Pretoria where anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is critically ill.
Obama, on a three-nation tour of Africa, was due to arrive in South Africa on Friday with White House officials saying they will defer to Mandela's family on whether the first African-American president of the United States will visit South Africa's first black president.
Mandela, 94, is fighting a lung infection that has left him in a critical condition and in hospital for nearly three weeks.
His fourth hospitalisation in six months has focused attention in South Africa and globally on the faltering health of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who is admired as a symbol of resistance against injustice and of racial reconciliation.
President Jacob Zuma has said Mandela's condition improved over Wednesday night but he remained critical.
About 200 trade unionists, student activists and South African Communist Party members gathered in the capital Pretoria to protest Obama's visit this weekend, calling his foreign policy "arrogant, selfish and oppressive".
"We had expectations of America's first black president. Knowing Africa's history, we expected more," said Khomotso Makola, a 19-year-old law student.
"He has come as a disappointment, I think Mandela too would be disappointed and feel let down," Makola said.
South African critics of Obama have focused in particular on his support for U.S. drone strikes overseas, which they say have killed hundreds of innocent civilians, and his failure to deliver on a pledge to close the U.S. military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba housing terrorism suspects.
"TWO GREAT MEN"
A few blocks away at the Pretoria heart hospital where Mandela is being cared for, well-wishers paying tribute to the legendary retired statesman had words of praise for Obama, who met Mandela in 2005 when he was still a U.S. senator.
Nigerian painter Sanusi Olatunji, 31, had brought portraits of both Mandela and Obama to the wall of the hospital, where flowers, tribute notes and gifts for Madiba, as Mandela is affectionately known, have been piling up.
"These are the two great men of my lifetime," he said.
"To me, Mandela is a prophet who brought peace and opportunity. He made it possible for a black man like me to live in a country that was only for whites."
During his weekend trip to Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, Obama is scheduled to visit Robben Island, the former penal colony where Mandela passed 18 years of the 27 years he spent in apartheid prisons.
Starting off his Africa trip in Senegal on Wednesday, Obama praised Mandela as "a personal hero".
"If and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages," he told reporters in Dakar.
Obama, who has been in office since 2009, is making his first substantial visit to Africa following a short trip to Ghana at the beginning of his first term.
South Africans held prayer meetings and vigils outside the Pretoria hospital and at Mandela's former Soweto home through Thursday night.
But as his health has deteriorated this year, there is a growing realisation among South Africa's 53 million people that the man who forged their multi-racial "Rainbow Nation" from the ashes of apartheid will not be with them forever.
The Supreme Court's rulings this past week on gay marriage signal that social conservatives looking to advance their fight against same-sex unions could be in for a rocky road ahead.?
In its more modest decision this week, the court issued a narrowly tailored ruling that had the effect of reinstating gay marriage in California. But it was the decision on the Defense of Marriage Act that provided the strongest language, and the best indication of where the court's majority stands on the broader issue -- whenever it returns to the nation's most powerful justices for review.?
The majority opinion, authored by swing justice Anthony Kennedy, was unequivocal, at times suggesting efforts to limit gay marriage are morally indefensible. The opinion said the DOMA law, which defined marriage as between a man and woman, "humiliates" the children raised by gay couples.?
"Under DOMA, same-sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways," the majority wrote.?
The court's conservative justices fumed at this language, with Justice Antonin Scalia accusing his colleagues of deeming gay marriage foes "enemies of the human race."?
The opinion, though, was an outright victory for Obama -- who has actually endured a string of defeats before the high court this year. Perhaps the biggest blow came Tuesday when the court stopped the Justice Department from singling out certain states for challenges to their voting laws. One report estimated the administration lost two-thirds of the cases it had before the court this session.?
But on gay marriage, Obama won big. The court effectively backed him up on two controversial moves -- the decision not to defend the Clinton-era marriage law in court, and the president's personal endorsement of gay marriage last year.?
Importantly, on the merits of the gay marriage debate, the ruling put two of the three branches of the federal government on the same page. Going forward, the ruling establishes an Obama-Supreme Court alliance that will loom large over future efforts to restrict same-sex marriage.?
On that point, conservative justices and social conservative activists blasted the high court for the scope of its opinion.?
Scalia, who voiced seething frustration, accused the court of overstepping its bounds in order to "pronounce the law." ??
Further, he said that assertions that DOMA would humiliate children and impose inequality will in effect stack the deck against any state trying to limit gay marriage going forward.?
"By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition," Scalia wrote. "The result will be a judicial distortion of our society's debate over marriage."?
The gay marriage debate at the state level will continue to play out, as the California Proposition 8 decision stopped short of declaring a universal right to same-sex marriage.?
Thomas Reese, a senior analyst for National Catholic Reporter, argued that the bishops in states across the country are now faced with a tough choice, depending on where they are.?
"Bishops in states that have legalized gay marriage may conclude that it is politically impossible to reverse the decision in their states and (therefore) admit defeat and move on," he wrote. "Bishops in red states where gay marriage is not legal may judge the fight worth making because with other allies they have a good chance of maintaining the status quo. The tough call will be for bishops in blue states where polls show growing support for gay marriage. Here they must choose between fighting gay marriage or negotiating exemptions for the church as a price for their silence."?
The court's majority opinion on the issue may be more a sign of the times and the tenor of the national debate -- fueled by Obama's pronouncements -- than a product of the president's appointments.?
The two reliably liberal justices that Obama has appointed, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, indeed sided with the majority. But the balance of the court is the same as it's ever been, as those two replaced two other traditionally liberal justices.?
Social conservatives claimed that, rather, the high court on Wednesday followed the leader of public and political opinion.?
"You have to ask yourself what has changed?" Pastor Robert Jeffress, with the First Baptist Church in Dallas, told Fox News after the ruling. "The Constitution hasn't changed. What has changed is the culture. The Supreme Court caved to political correctness."?
Over the past 10 years, public opinion has gradually shifted to become more accepting of gay marriage -- as has Obama's "evolution" on the issue. A Gallup survey in May showed Americans' acceptance of gay relationships at a record high, with 59 percent calling them morally acceptable.?
Scalia charged that his counterparts were itching to dive into this debate from Washington.?
"The Court is eager -- hungry -- to tell everyone its view of the legal question at the heart of this case," Scalia wrote.?
He argued that the court did not even have to get involved in this case, as the plaintiff had won a lower-court argument. That the Supreme Court heard the case in order to review the underlying law, he said, is "jaw-dropping."?
"It envisions a Supreme Court standing (or rather enthroned) at the apex of government, empowered to decide all constitutional questions," he wrote.?
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said he understands that attitudes toward same-sex marriage are changing. But he accused the court of overreaching on this case, having "second guessed the will of the American people acting through their elected representatives."?
The former president who signed DOMA into law, though, did not feel the same way.?
In a statement, Bill Clinton said: "By overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, the Court recognized that discrimination towards any group holds us all back in our efforts to form a more perfect union."
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Jurors in the trial of accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan will be allowed to hear the dying words of Private First Class Francheska Velez, who was six weeks pregnant when she was shot dead in the rampage, a military judge ruled on Thursday.
Velez, who was 21 and expecting her first child, screamed, "My baby, My baby" when she was shot during the November 2009 attack that killed 13 and wounded 32. Her words may be read to jurors, Colonel Tara Osborn ruled.
Hasan, who faces a possible death sentence if convicted of the killings at Fort Hood, did not object to the introduction of her statement. He was due to enter a plea at his next court appearance on July 2, according to a Fort Hood statement.
Hasan was likely to enter a plea of not guilty. He had expressed a desire at one point to plead guilty if the death penalty were taken off the table. That request was refused and defendants are not allowed to plead guilty to capital offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, has decided to represent himself in the court martial. Osborn has assigned military lawyers to assist him on legal research and to be prepared to step in as Hasan's defense counsel if needed.
The trial has been delayed several times to address numerous issues, including whether Hasan, a U.S.-born Muslim, may wear a beard in court, against Army regulations. He has said he is wearing it for religious reasons.
More recently, the trial was delayed while Osborn determined whether Hasan, who was shot by civilian police during the rampage and is paralyzed from the chest down, was competent and physically capable of representing himself at trial.
Hasan also unsuccessfully sought the right to argue at trial he was protecting the Taliban in Afghanistan from U.S. aggression when he opened fire at Fort Hood.
Fort Hood was a major deployment point for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Hasan himself had been preparing to leave for Afghanistan with a unit assigned to help soldiers deal with mental issues.
The selection of a panel of Army officers who will serve as the jury in the court martial is set to begin July 9. Opening statements are scheduled to begin no earlier than August 6.
"Glee" star Matthew Morrison is engaged to his girlfriend Renee Puente, a fact he confirmed with a simple tweet, saying he was going to "marry my best friend!"
The news initially came out during Elton John's White Tie and Tierra Ball on Thursday, an event the couple often attend. Coldplay singer Chris Martin dedicated John's "Your Song" to the couple, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and then sang the tune with John himself.
The proposal appears to have been done earlier; E! Online reported that the couple arrived at the event with her already wearing a "huge sparkler" in the appropriate left-hand finger.
Morrison tweeted the news Thursday morning.
They reportedly began dating in 2011, and this will be a first marriage for both.
Supporters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi fill a public square outside the Rabia el-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, not far from the presidential palace, during a rally in Cairo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Tens of thousands of backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country's second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi's removal.(AP Photo)
Supporters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi fill a public square outside the Rabia el-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, not far from the presidential palace, during a rally in Cairo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Tens of thousands of backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country's second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi's removal.(AP Photo)
Opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi chant slogans as fire rages at the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Alexandria, Friday, June 28, 2013. Thousands of backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country's second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi's removal.(AP Photo/Heba Khamis)
Opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi chant slogans as fire rages at the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Alexandria, Friday, June 28, 2013. Thousands of backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country's second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi's removal.(AP Photo/Heba Khamis)
Supporters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi hold a rally in Cairo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Thousands of backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country's second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi's removal. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
Opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi wane national flags as they demonstrate in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, June 28, 2013. Thousands of supporters of Egypt's embattled president are rallying in the nation's capital in a show of support ahead of what are expected to be massive opposition-led protests on June 30 to demand Mohammed Morsi's ouster.(AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
CAIRO (AP) ? The health department says one person has died and at least 85 others were injured in clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.
Thousands of anti-Morsi protesters marched toward the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters Friday, where up to a 1,000 supporters of the president's political group were deployed. Fighting erupted when someone on the Islamist side fired birdshots on the marchers, according to an Associated Press cameraman at the scene. Later, opposition protesters broke into the headquarters and torched it.
The health department reported one death in the fighting, without elaborating. It was not immediately known which side the victim belonged to.
Backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies Friday ahead of massive protests planned Sunday demanding Morsi's removal.
People rescue garment workers trapped under rubble at the Rana Plaza building after it collapsed, in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka in this April 24, 2013 file photo. Sources says President Obama will suspend U.S. trade benefits to Bangladesh.
President Barack Obama is expected to announce on Thursday that the United States is suspending trade benefits for Bangladesh after two tragedies in a year in the country's garment sector that killed more than 1,200 workers, a congressional source said.
U.S. trade officials have said they expected Obama to announce a decision on the matter by the end of June. The U.S. Trade Representative's office did not have an immediate comment on whether an announcement would come Thursday.
Suspending Bangladesh from the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences program would increase U.S. duties on an array of products the Asian country exports to the United States, such as tobacco, sporting equipment, porcelain china, plastic products and a small amount of textile products.
But it would not directly affect Bangladesh's main export, clothing, since garments are not eligible for duty cuts under the GSP program, which was created in 1976 to help economic development in the world's poorest countries and to reduce import costs for U.S. companies.
In 2012, Bangladesh was spared about $2 million in U.S. duties on about $35 million worth of goods under GSP, but it paid about $732 million in U.S. duties on $4.9 billion of clothing exports not covered by the program, according to Ed Gresser, a trade analyst with the GlobalWorks Foundation.
Still, Obama's decision would be a repudiation of working conditions in Bangladesh following the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building in April that killed 1,129 people and the Tazreen factory fire in November that killed 112. Clothing for several American and European retailers is made in Bangladesh.
It also could influence the European Union's decision whether to suspend trade benefits for Bangladesh, which would have far more impact since Bangladesh's clothing and textiles exports receive duty-free treatment there.
The EU imported roughly 9.2 billion euros ($12.13 billion) of goods from Bangladesh last year, according to data from the EU's executive, the European Commission.
Clothing and textile products ranging from towels and bedding accounted for almost 93 percent of those goods.
EU officials have threatened to kick Bangladesh out of the program - a process that could take more than a year - unless it improves worker safety conditions.
We have all been there. We set about throwing an amazing BBQ for friends and family. We order some great steaks or chops from the local butcher, prepare our secret BBQ sauce, prepare delicious salads and sides to accompany the feast, pack the cooler with ice cold beer and have every last detail in order. Everything is perfect, that is, until the actual BBQ'ing begins. Whether it's the dreaded empty propane tank, or the distracted chef turning steaks into hockey pucks, a BBQ dinner can go from great to hurry up honey, call for pizza in a heartbeat. Here are a few great tips to help you get through your next BBQ outing unscathed.
? Have a Plan Take the time to sort out your menu, write a detailed grocery list, and, whatever you do, don't forget to check the propane! Remember, when you fail to plan, plan to fail.
? Manage the Heat Just because your BBQ can reach face-melting temperatures doesn't mean you have to cook everything at full blast. Contrary to popular belief, thicker cuts or items you wish to eat more well done require a lower heat to achieve the desired "doneness." Cooking a two inch thick pork chop on high will result in a blackened outside and raw center.
? Respect the Fat Fat provides a great deal of flavor to just about everything, and I would never tell you to avoid it, but we do have to be mindful of how it behaves on an open flame. Steaks with a delicious fat cap and great marbling can taste wonderful, but as the fat renders down, it drips onto the burners and creates flare up, leaving an undesirable taste on your steak. Keep that in mind when cooking chicken with the skin on or marinating anything with an oil-based marinade.
? Watch Out For Sugar Much like fat, sugar can be great, but it can also cause you grief. Now you're probably thinking that you aren't going to coat your steak or chicken in sugar before you cook it, but consider for a moment just how much sugar can be found in your standard BBQ sauce or marinade. I can tell you it's way more than you think. Now I'm not suggesting you avoid BBQ sauce -- it's just about finding the right time to apply it. I prefer to apply it as my steak or chops approach their desired temperature, smearing it on prior to its last flip, allowing the sugars to caramelize, but not burn completely. Remember, caramelized sugars take delicious, but burnt sugar tastes bitter.
? It's More Than Just a Steak Maker Popular opinion might lead you to believe that your BBQ is only good for grilling steaks, chops and burgers. That couldn't be further from the truth. I have made cornbread on the grill, even made flatbread pizzas. The key is in understanding how the heat behaves. With the lid open your BBQ isn't much more than a steak maker, but if you consider that when the lid is closed it can behave just like your oven, then you can begin to understand the options you have. Use the top shelf to cook with less direct heat. Turn one burner off and rely on the oven heat, rather than the direct heat from the bottom. This takes a little practice, but as you gain confidence the possibilities of what you can prepare will grow exponentially.
Follow these simple tips to hone your BBQ'ing skills and you will be a master of the "Q" before you know it!
If you like what you read here and want some delicious recipes to get you started, head to chefpaulshufelt.com to get started!
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Follow Paul Shufelt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/chefpaulshufelt
One of the ways to gauge the popularity of a smartphone, and one that I’ve found quite interesting throughout the history of Android is the availability of quality compatible accessories. I started getting jealous of iPhone owners back in 2011 – I was hunting for a measly screen protector for my HTC Thunderbolt while they were rolling in thousands of cases, docks, speakers and lenses flooding the market. Times have changed and with Samsung’s meteoric rise over the past year, accessory makers have caught on to the fact that Galaxy owners love their add-ons just as much as iPhone owners do.
But that popularity and the booming market it creates brings with it the inherent rise of ridiculously unnecessary products -- enter the Rokdock by Rokform, a $100 paperweight that is the very definition of the frivolous, overpriced accessories a popular smartphone can spawn.
Pacemakers are designed to compensate for a condition known as bradycardia, where the heart beats too slowly to provide sufficient amounts of oxygen to the body. And to allow patients with pacemakers installed to continue healthy pursuits like exercise, a company called Boston Scientific is introducing a new line with a feature called RightRate technology that monitors respiration and adjusts the pacing accordingly.
It's widely assumed that the need for a pacemaker is tied to old age, and while the risk of developing bradycardia does increase as you get older, it doesn't necessarily only turn up in senior citizens. And until now, younger patients with the condition would find themselves tiring when their level of physical activity increased, because the steady pulse of their pacemakers wouldn't pump enough blood to keep up with their added oxygen use.
So the new technology, included in Boston Scientific's Inliven, Vitalio, and Formio pacemakers, will allow younger patients to continue their active lifestyles, without having to constantly stop and wait for their bodies to catch with their increased activity. [Boston Scientific via medGagdet]
Tiny nanocubes help scientists tell left from rightPublic release date: 27-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karen McNulty Walsh kmcnulty@bnl.gov 631-344-8350 DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
New method could improve drug development, optical sensors and more
UPTON, NY-In chemical reactions, left and right can make a big difference. A "left-handed" molecule of a particular chemical composition could be an effective drug, while its mirror-image "right-handed" counterpart could be completely inactive. That's because, in biology, "left" and "right" molecular designs are crucial: Living organisms are made only from left-handed amino acids. So telling the two apart is important-but difficult.
Now, a team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Ohio University has developed a new, simpler way to discern molecular handedness, known as chirality. They used gold-and-silver cubic nanoparticles to amplify the difference in left- and right-handed molecules' response to a particular kind of light. The study, described in the journal Nano Letters, provides the basis for a new way to probe the effects of handedness in molecular interactions with unprecedented sensitivity.
"Our discovery and methods based on this research could be extremely useful for the characterization of biomolecular interactions with drugs, probing protein folding, and in other applications where stereometric properties are important," said Oleg Gang, a researcher at Brookhaven's Center for Functional Nanomaterials and lead author on the paper. "We could use this same approach to monitor conformational changes in biomolecules under varying environmental conditions, such as temperature-and also to fabricate nano-objects that exhibit a chiral response to light, which could then be used as new kinds of nanoscale sensors."
The scientists knew that left- and right-handed chiral molecules would interact differently with "circularly polarized" light-where the direction of the electrical field rotates around the axis of the beam. This idea is similar to the way polarized sunglasses filter out reflected glare unlike ordinary lenses.
Other scientists have detected this difference, called "circular dichroism," in organic molecules' spectroscopic "fingerprints"-detailed maps of the wavelengths of light absorbed or reflected by the sample. But for most chiral biomolecules and many organic molecules, this "CD" signal is in the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the signal is often weak. The tests thus require significant amounts of material at impractically high concentrations.
The team was encouraged they might find a way to enhance the signal by recent experiments showing that coupling certain molecules with metallic nanoparticles could greatly increase their response to light (see: http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=11157). Theoretical work even suggested that these so-called plasmonic particles-which induce a collective oscillation of the material's conductive electrons, leading to stronger absorption of a particular wavelength-could bump the signal into the visible light portion of the spectroscopic fingerprint, where it would be easier to measure.
The group experimented with different shapes and compositions of nanoparticles, and found that cubes with a gold center surrounded by a silver shell are not only able to show a chiral optical signal in the near-visible range, but even more striking, were effective signal amplifiers. For their test biomolecule, they used synthetic strands of DNA-a molecule they were familiar with using as "glue" for sticking nanoparticles together.
When DNA was attached to the silver-coated nanocubes, the signal was approximately 100 times stronger than it was for free DNA in the solution. That is, the cubic nanoparticles allowed the scientists to detect the optical signal from the chiral molecules (making them "visible") at 100 times lower concentrations.
"This is a very large optical amplification relative to what was previously observed," said Fang Lu, the first author on the paper.
The observed amplification of the circular dichroism signal is a consequence of the interaction between the plasmonic particles and the "exciton," or energy absorbing, electrons within the DNA-nanocube complex, the scientists explained.
"This research could serve as a promising platform for ultrasensitive sensing of chiral molecules and their transformations in synthetic, biomedical, and pharmaceutical applications," Lu said.
"In addition," said Gang, "our approach offers a way to fabricate, via self-assembly, discrete plasmonic nano-objects with a chiral optical response from structurally non-chiral nano-components. These chiral plasmonic objects could greatly enhance the design of metamaterials and nano-optics for applications in energy harvesting and optical telecommunications."
###
This research was conducted at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials and funded by the DOE Office of Science and by the National Science Foundation.
The Center for Functional Nanomaterials is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE's Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please click here: http://science.energy.gov/bes/suf/user-facilities/nanoscale-science-research-centers.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.
Related Links
Scientific paper: Discrete Nanocubes as Plasmonic Reporters of Molecular Chirality
Multi-Component Nano-Structures with Tunable Optical Properties
Nanoparticles Increase Intensity of Quantum Dots' Glow
Switchable Nanostructures Made with DNA
DNA-Based Assembly Line for Precision Nano-Cluster Construction
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Tiny nanocubes help scientists tell left from rightPublic release date: 27-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karen McNulty Walsh kmcnulty@bnl.gov 631-344-8350 DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
New method could improve drug development, optical sensors and more
UPTON, NY-In chemical reactions, left and right can make a big difference. A "left-handed" molecule of a particular chemical composition could be an effective drug, while its mirror-image "right-handed" counterpart could be completely inactive. That's because, in biology, "left" and "right" molecular designs are crucial: Living organisms are made only from left-handed amino acids. So telling the two apart is important-but difficult.
Now, a team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Ohio University has developed a new, simpler way to discern molecular handedness, known as chirality. They used gold-and-silver cubic nanoparticles to amplify the difference in left- and right-handed molecules' response to a particular kind of light. The study, described in the journal Nano Letters, provides the basis for a new way to probe the effects of handedness in molecular interactions with unprecedented sensitivity.
"Our discovery and methods based on this research could be extremely useful for the characterization of biomolecular interactions with drugs, probing protein folding, and in other applications where stereometric properties are important," said Oleg Gang, a researcher at Brookhaven's Center for Functional Nanomaterials and lead author on the paper. "We could use this same approach to monitor conformational changes in biomolecules under varying environmental conditions, such as temperature-and also to fabricate nano-objects that exhibit a chiral response to light, which could then be used as new kinds of nanoscale sensors."
The scientists knew that left- and right-handed chiral molecules would interact differently with "circularly polarized" light-where the direction of the electrical field rotates around the axis of the beam. This idea is similar to the way polarized sunglasses filter out reflected glare unlike ordinary lenses.
Other scientists have detected this difference, called "circular dichroism," in organic molecules' spectroscopic "fingerprints"-detailed maps of the wavelengths of light absorbed or reflected by the sample. But for most chiral biomolecules and many organic molecules, this "CD" signal is in the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the signal is often weak. The tests thus require significant amounts of material at impractically high concentrations.
The team was encouraged they might find a way to enhance the signal by recent experiments showing that coupling certain molecules with metallic nanoparticles could greatly increase their response to light (see: http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=11157). Theoretical work even suggested that these so-called plasmonic particles-which induce a collective oscillation of the material's conductive electrons, leading to stronger absorption of a particular wavelength-could bump the signal into the visible light portion of the spectroscopic fingerprint, where it would be easier to measure.
The group experimented with different shapes and compositions of nanoparticles, and found that cubes with a gold center surrounded by a silver shell are not only able to show a chiral optical signal in the near-visible range, but even more striking, were effective signal amplifiers. For their test biomolecule, they used synthetic strands of DNA-a molecule they were familiar with using as "glue" for sticking nanoparticles together.
When DNA was attached to the silver-coated nanocubes, the signal was approximately 100 times stronger than it was for free DNA in the solution. That is, the cubic nanoparticles allowed the scientists to detect the optical signal from the chiral molecules (making them "visible") at 100 times lower concentrations.
"This is a very large optical amplification relative to what was previously observed," said Fang Lu, the first author on the paper.
The observed amplification of the circular dichroism signal is a consequence of the interaction between the plasmonic particles and the "exciton," or energy absorbing, electrons within the DNA-nanocube complex, the scientists explained.
"This research could serve as a promising platform for ultrasensitive sensing of chiral molecules and their transformations in synthetic, biomedical, and pharmaceutical applications," Lu said.
"In addition," said Gang, "our approach offers a way to fabricate, via self-assembly, discrete plasmonic nano-objects with a chiral optical response from structurally non-chiral nano-components. These chiral plasmonic objects could greatly enhance the design of metamaterials and nano-optics for applications in energy harvesting and optical telecommunications."
###
This research was conducted at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials and funded by the DOE Office of Science and by the National Science Foundation.
The Center for Functional Nanomaterials is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE's Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please click here: http://science.energy.gov/bes/suf/user-facilities/nanoscale-science-research-centers.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.
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Multi-Component Nano-Structures with Tunable Optical Properties
Nanoparticles Increase Intensity of Quantum Dots' Glow
Switchable Nanostructures Made with DNA
DNA-Based Assembly Line for Precision Nano-Cluster Construction
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Looking for a new way to dine? Look no further, Reno?s newest addition to Dine the District Food Tour has arrived? Buildings, Bites, and Brews is here Saturday, July 13th from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Over 15 businesses are coming together to excite your taste buds!
Reno?s original Wine Walk has become a very popular monthly event, but for those non-wine drinkers the Dine the District Food Tour provides another occasion for the community to enjoy the area. Dine the District Food Tour is typically known as ?where foodies come to feast,? but this time around the opportunity to try a few options of locally brewed beer from the Brewers Cabinet is presented with a variety of culinary delights from the finest restaurants and taverns in the Reno area.
Throughout the Riverwalk many buildings are strolled by unnoticed and generally people never think to look up at some of the most iconic ones. Every building has a past and the Riverwalk wants to share their stories during Buildings, Bites, and Brews. While patrons are sipping away on their brews donated by the Brewer?s cabinet and enjoying their bites they will be educated about the rich history and vibrant past of the buildings. For an additional $10 you can enjoy a 1-hour tour prior to dining with locally renowned author and historian Alicia Barber, Ph.D from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
Dine the District Food Tour is simple; you will receive a food tour map as your formal admission to the self-guided tour during the day of the event. It?s $20 per person pre-sale and $25 day of. If you have children 10 years of age and under bring them down because it?s free and family friendly.
If after the feast of food you want to learn more about your ?Biggest Little City,? from 4pm to 6pm there will be a free book signing by authors at the Reno/Tahoe Visitor Center, featuring Alicia Barber, Ph.D., who wrote Reno?s Big Gamble, and Chris & Courtney Meredith, authors of Reno?s Riverwalk District Images of America.
Tickets can be purchased online or the day of the event and are limited. Redeem tickets by presenting a receipt at the new Reno Tahoe Visitor Center located in the Reno eNVy store. Proceeds support continued development of the Riverwalk District!
To find out more information about the Riverwalk, how you can help or donate online visit www.renoriver.org email info@renoriver.org, or call 775-825-WALK (825-9255) Ticket sales are at: http://buildingsbitesbrews.eventbrite.com.
We already knew that Windows RT tablets would be getting their very own Outlook app with Windows 8.1, but apparently Microsoft has even more plans up its sleeve. Here at Build, the company is teasing a Metro-style Office suite that will be available through the Windows Store, just like any other non-desktop Windows program. Unfortunately, this is a tease in the truest sense of the word: Redmond won't say when the app will be available, and isn't providing many official screenshots. However, a company spokesperson did tell reporters that PowerPoint will have "all of the same transitions, the same graphic power [and] file format capability" as the desktop version, so presumably the same is true of Word and Excel too. That's all we have to share for now, though you can bet we'll be back with a proper hands-on as soon as Microsoft is ready to show off a more final version of the app.
Update: ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reports that the Metro-style Office applications (codenamed Gemini) will hit the Windows Store in 2014.
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Public release date: 27-Jun-2013
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Reno?s original Wine Walk has become a very popular monthly event, but for those non-wine drinkers the Dine the District Food Tour provides another occasion for the community to enjoy the area. Dine the District Food Tour is typically known as ?where foodies come to feast,? but this time around the opportunity to try a few options of locally brewed beer from the Brewers Cabinet is presented with a variety of culinary delights from the finest restaurants and taverns in the Reno area.
