SAFER THAN SILVER ANTIBACTERIAL MATERIAL MADE WITH ALGAE

Consumers concerned about safety of silver ions in antibacterial and odor-free clothing will soon have a proven safe alternative thanks to ultra-thin thread and a substance found naturally in red algae.

The use of silver ions for antibacterial textiles has been a matter of hot debate worldwide. Sweden's national agency for chemical inspection is one authority which has ruled silver a health risk, citing possible damage to human genetic material, reproduction and embryonic development.

Mikael Hedenqvist, professor of polymer materials at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, says he and his colleagues, assistant professor Richard Olsson and doctoral student Rickard Andersson, have produced new antibacterial fibres that combine bio-compatible plastics with the antimicrobial compound, lanosol, which is commonly found in seaweeds of the family Rhodophyta, or red algae.

"The substance is a good alternative to particle-based antibacterials for clothing, as well as compresses or bandages," Hedenqvist says.

Using a process called electrospinning, they have succeeded in creating an ultra-thin thread, which means fabrics can have more contact between the antibacterial fibre and the surrounding area.

"Electrospinning produces quite thin thread, with a thickness on the order of one-hundreth of a human hair," Hedenqvist says. The result is more effective clean-up of bacteria.

The thread with the integrated antimicrobial compound (lanasol) does not clump up like fibres using silver or other antibacterial particles. It can be used in random network structures, such as in non-woven materials; or in a standardized fashion, where all the strands run in the same direction.

"The active substance is completely soluble and evenly distributed inside the thread," he says. "It forms no lumps or bumps that can occur when, for example, silver-based particles are used.

"That's good because these particles affect the thread's mechanical properties negatively."

Hedenqvist says material could one day be used in air filters or to dress fittings in hospitals, since the active antiseptic substance of red algae has been shown to kill 99.99 percent of bacteria type Staphylococcus aureus -- the most common cause of skin and wound infections in hospital environments.

"Hospitals are constantly striving to have as antiseptic environment as possible. But we're not there yet," he says.

JUDGEMENT DECISIONS MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

People make immediate judgments about images they are shown, which could impact on their decisions, even before their brains have had time to consciously process the information, a study of brainwaves led by The University Of Melbourne has found.

Published in PLOS ONE, the study is the first in the world to show that it is possible to predict abstract judgments from brain waves, even though people were not conscious of making such judgments. The study also increases our understanding of impulsive behaviors and how to regulate it.

It found that researchers could predict from participants' brain activity how exciting they found a particular image to be, and whether a particular image made them think more about the future or the present. This is true even though the brain activity was recorded before participants knew they were going to be asked to make these judgments.

Lead authors Dr Stefan Bode from the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences and Dr Carsten Murawski from the University of Melbourne Department of Finance said these findings illustrated there was more information encoded in brain activity than previously assumed.

"We have found that brain activity when looking at images can encode judgments such as time reference, even when the viewer is not aware of making such judgments. Moreover, our results suggest that certain images can prompt a person to think about the present or the future," they said.

The authors said the results contributed to our understanding of impulsive behaviors, especially where those behaviors were caused by 'prompts' in the world around us.

"For instance, consider someone trying to quit gambling who sees a gambling advertisement on TV. Our results suggest that even if this person is trying to ignore the ad, their brain may be unconsciously processing it and making it more likely that they will relapse," he said.

The researchers used electroencephalography technology (EEG) to measure the electrical activity of people's brains while they looked at different pictures. The pictures displayed images of food, social scenes or status symbols like cars and money.

After the EEG, researchers showed participants the same pictures again and asked questions about each image, such as how exciting they thought the image was or how strongly the image made them think of either the present or the future.

A statistical 'decoding' technique was then used to predict the judgments participants made about each of the pictures from the EEG brain activity that was recorded.

Co-author Daniel Bennett said just as certain prompts might cause impulsive behavior, images could be used to prompt people to be more patient by regulating impulse control.

"Our results suggest that prompting people with images related to the future might cause processing outside awareness that could make it easier to think about the future. In theory, this could make people less impulsive and more likely to make healthy long-term decisions. These are hypotheses we will try to test in the future," he said. The research was done in collaboration with the University of Cologne, Germany.

IMMUNE SYSTEM OF NEW BORN BABIES STRONGER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT

Contrary to what was previously thought, newborn immune T cells may have the ability to trigger an inflammatory response to bacteria, according to a new study led by King's College London. Although their immune system works very differently to that of adults, babies may still be able to mount a strong immune defense, finds the study published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Our immune system is made up of several different types of immune cells, including neutrophils which play an important role in the frontline defense against infection, and lymphocytes: B cells which produce antibodies, and T cells that target cells infected with viruses and microbes.

Up to now, it was generally believed that babies have an immature immune system that doesn't trigger the same inflammatory response normally seen in adults. Although babies need to protect themselves from the harmful pathogens they are exposed to from birth, it was thought that their T cells were suppressed to some extent to prevent inflammatory damage to the developing child. Sceptical of this notion, the King's-led study set out to characterize the properties of T cells, examining very small samples of blood in twenty-eight highly premature babies, as they developed over the first few weeks of life.

The team discovered that whilst T cells in newborn babies are largely different to those in adults, it is not because they are immunosuppressed; rather, they manufacture a potent anti-bacterial molecule known as IL8 that has not previously been considered a major product of T cells, and that activates neutrophils to attack the body's foreign invaders.

Dr Deena GibbonsDeena Gibbons, lead author in the Department of Immunobiology at King's College London, says: "We found that babies have an in-built anti-bacterial defense mechanism that works differently to adults, but nevertheless may be effective in protecting them. This may also be a mechanism by which the baby protects itself in the womb from infections of the mother. The next stage of our work will be to better understand the pathways that result in the immune cells of newborns being so different to those in adults."

This T cell activity could become a target for future treatments aimed at boosting the immune system of neonates in intensive care, where infection is a major risk for morbidity and mortality. Premature babies are also at serious risk of developing inflammatory diseases such as necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), where severe inflammation destroys tissues in the gut. NEC is the most common gastrointestinal surgical emergency in preterm babies, with mortality rates of around 15 to 30 per cent in the UK.