Prawns with Lemon for Superantioxidants

We all hear news stories and read articles about the benefits of antioxidants -- whether by eating certain foods or taking through dietary supplements. I ran across this article today that describes researchers have come up with a commercially viable means of extracting a powerful antioxidant, astaxanthin, from prawn heads. It claims to be about 10 times stronger than antioxidants in other foods. The article is light on detail, but it sounds like they do a supercritical fluid extraction from the shells of prawn heads.

This is good news for my father-in-law who enjoys the shell on prawns with the heads. He's getting plenty of antioxidants. That's one dish we've had at Pah Ke's Chinese Restaurant and maybe we'll be able to get some in a few weeks. I like it, but can't do the heads. I might have to change my mind.

I also saw this article today that talks about a study that found citrus or vitamin C enhances the absorbtion of antioxidants from green tea or green tea extract by 13 times. Pretty significant. I guess that's why you always get tea with lemon for a sore throat.

So putting these two findings together, I'm guessing that eating prawn heads with the shell on that are covered in lemon juice would give enough antioxidant power to produce a fountain of youth effect. I'm sure someone is already running this research study.

Sky at a Glance

Ever look up in the sky and wonder what planet you're looking at or if there are any special astronomy events coming up? I just know some of the simple constellations, but I'm always intrigued by the evening sky.

The Sky and Telescope site has a nice summary called "This Week's Sky at a Glance." It summarizes the major astronomy things to see -- I guess in the Northern Hemisphere. This coming weekend the Perseid meteor shower will be at its peak and there shouldn't be much light interference from the moon. If you're out late, glance up, catch a falling star, and make a wish.

Body Plastination Exhibit

A few years ago Dianne and I went to Los Angeles to see the Body Worlds exhibit. Here's an old post I had on body plastination. It was a great exhibit to see the various body systems displayed in a unique, artistic way using real cadavers. We planned to see the exhibit there so we could see Michelle and also meet Dianne's parents and niece from Hawaii.

I saw an article in last week's Cincinnati Enquirer that a similar exhibit called "Bodies...the Exhibition" is now on display in Columbus and, starting in January, will be at Cincinnati's Museum Center. That's added to our must do list!

Quick Chill - Chemistry in Action

Ever go to the fridge and discover there isn't any cold soda in there? Or have you ever just bought room temperature soda cans at the grocery store and wish you had a cold one to drink?

You could just put it in the freezer for a few minutes to cool it more quickly. It's faster, but not the best by cooling through mostly convection.

A better, and more geeky way, is to leverage some chemistry and use freezing point depression. Check out this video for a demo.

Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert

Before Beakman and before Bill Nye the science guy, there was Mr. Wizard. Don Herbert, a.k.a. Mr. Wizard, died yesterday after a long fight with multiple myeloma. The LA Times has a nice obituary article for Don Herbert.

I remember watching Mr. Wizard's show when I was a kid. The Mr. Wizard Studios web site has a nice bio/timeline page. I clearly remember watching his first-run shows from 1970. I always thought he was Canadian because of that set of shows. I didn't realize he was also from Minnesota. Those shows and the short spots he did for Saturday morning cartoon interludes in 1972 were always interesting. Who knows, maybe that started my interest in science.

Anyone else remember watching Mr. Wizard or are there more Beakman and Nye folks that are blog readers?

The Electromagnetic Spectrum

I've mentioned some of the comics at the xkcd site before. Many of them are science related. I found the recent comic below about the electromagnetic spectrum hilarious! It covers everything from the stadium wave to the sinister Google projects. I love the absorption spectra. Click here to see a larger version of the comic on the xkcd site. I might keep this link handy for my first year chemistry students.

20 Things

The Discover magazine site has posted a collection of lists of twenty things about a variety of topics: bees, skin, aliens, etc. An interesting read if you're looking to take in some science trivia.

Making of America Collection

Thanks to Make Magazine, I found Cornell University's portion of the Making of America collection. The MOA collection is a digital library of items from the mid to late 1800s. The images provided are scanned from the actual 19th century items. In addition, they have performed optical character recognition to aid searching. The collection is a joint project between Cornell and the University of Michigan, with each library focusing on different types of publications. The Cornell collection is journal based. They have a lot of early Scientific American issues which are interesting to look at. The illustrations, such as the plane at right from 1855, are amazing. Click on the image to go to the source page.

A Needle in the Haystack

I read an interesting article on protein analysis in biological fluids in the latest issue of LC/GC North America magazine. The article itself was about how to separate the wheat from the chaff during analysis. The article made me realize how difficult diagnostic tests are to develop. When trying to diagnose a protein related disease or pathophysiological condition, the issue boils down to how to detect very small amounts of a specific protein needed for diagnosis that is buried among the large number of proteins in the sample.

A specific example is the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test in human serum/plasma. Even when there is a bad prostate problem, the PSA protein that signals a problem is present in a very tiny amount. That alone makes it hard to detect. But compounding the problem is sorting out the PSA protein from many other proteins in the plasma. Albumin, responsible for managing blood volume and transporting substances in the bloodstream, accounts for over half the protein in plasma. Immunoglobulin G, a protein that helps defend the body from attacks (e.g. by toxins), accounts for roughly 15-20% of protein in serum. These two proteins alone make finding and measuring the PSA protein very hard. But how hard?

To put the problem in perspective, finding and measuring PSA in a single blood sample is about the same as trying to find a single, specific nail (the PSA protein) among all the fingers and toes of every human being (all the serum proteins) in the world. Talk about finding a needle in a haystack! And to think PSA analyses are done in several minutes, hundreds of times a day. Amazing.

Body plastination

Last fall we saw the Body World exhibit in Los Angeles. It was an exhibit of cadavers and organs preserved in plastic and prepared or positioned to illustrate various body systems. It was a fascinating exhibit.

Recently, Yahoo news had an article on the artist and his purchase of a factory in Poland where he hopes to increase his plastination output. Here is an updated link for the article.

Here is a movie where people are plastinated while still alive. Hopefully the Plastination factory won't be the site for the sequel.