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July 1, 2013 ? Like most other things, you can have too much of a good thing when it comes to wound healing, and new research proves it. According to an article published in the July 2013 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, wound healing can be delayed because the body produces too many mast cells, which normally promote healing. An overabundance of these cells, however, also causes harm by leading to the overproduction of IL-10, which prevents certain white blood cells from reaching the wounded area. The work was conducted in mice with lymphedematous skin, and may one day provide better treatments for elderly individuals with skin ulcers in the lower extremities, for women with upper-extremity wounds following breast cancer surgery, and skin wounds of any type that are not healing as they should.
"Improvement of lymphedema is important for treatment of skin ulcers," said Makoto Sugaya, M.D., Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Dermatology at the University of Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan. "It is not just fluid retention, but inflammatory cells and cytokines that cause delayed wound healing."
To make this discovery, scientists used two groups of mice. The first group showed severe lymphatic dysfunction. The second group was normal. Researchers administered skin wounds and found that the mice with lymphatic dysfunction showed delayed would healing as compared to the normal mice. Analysis showed that the delayed would healing in the lymphedematous skin is the result of too many mast cells and elevated IL-10 expression, both of which can now be therapeutic targets for future drug development.
"Wound healing is something most people take for granted until there's a problem," said John Wherry, Ph.D., Deputy Editor of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. "However, wound healing is a complex process involving immune as well as non-immune cells and problems that arise can be very serious, even if it started as a minor wound. This report provides an immunological explanation for why some wound healing is delayed, and it ultimately may help set a course for therapies that accelerate wound healing."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
T. Kimura, M. Sugaya, A. Blauvelt, H. Okochi, S. Sato. Delayed wound healing due to increased interleukin-10 expression in mice with lymphatic dysfunction. Journal of Leukocyte Biology, 2013; 94 (1): 137 DOI: 10.1189/jlb.0812408
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) ? Higher humidity overnight helped make conditions at a deadly Arizona fire a bit less volatile.
But fire spokeswoman Karen Takai says the Yarnell Hill Fire is still zero percent contained, and thunderstorms that bring little rain and a lot of lightning are a major threat because of the dry vegetation.
She says winds are calm Tuesday morning but thunderstorm cells were already visible.
At last count, about 500 firefighters are on the scene, with more on the way.
The Yarnell fire has burned about 8,400 acres, or about 13 square miles.
It killed 19 firefighters Sunday when they were overtaken by the flames.
VW is hoping to develop an image of environmental leadership with products like the 261 mpg XL1 hybrid.
Few cars do a better job of turning heads than the little Volkswagen XL1, a 2-seater that might look more appropriate on the set of a science fiction movie than today?s highways.
As sleek as the most aerodynamic aircraft and weighing but a fraction of a conventional vehicle, VW?s extreme machine was designed to push the limits of fuel efficiency ? the XL1 delivering a mind-boggling 261 miles per gallon.
Unveiled as a concept vehicle at the Geneva Motor Show last winter, the overwhelming public response convinced VW to put the little car into production. That said, only 250 will be built ? and considering all the advanced technology used in the XL1 ? the maker will likely lose money on every one. But officials say the project will offer a chance to see what it takes to deliver fuel economy numbers only recently believed impossible.
More from The Detroit Bureau: "Lola" Tops 200 mph, Sets EV World Speed Record
?It?s efficient, yes, but it also has to be practical,? emphasizes Steven Volckaert, the program manager for the VW XL1, which he refers to as ?my baby,? and notes has taken a decade to bring to production.
There?s room in the streamlined car for two, though the seats are offset to narrow the body and reduce aerodynamic drag. The exterior panels and the underlying platform are made from super-strong and ultra-light carbon fiber ? material more commonly used in Formula One race cars and high-priced exotic sports cars, such as the $4 million Lamborghini Veneno also unveiled at the Geneva show. All told, the 2-seater weighs in at a mere 1850 pounds.
Under the skin, the Volkswagen XL1 is powered by a pint-sized diesel-plug-in hybrid powertrain. It?s not a muscle car, at just 85 horsepower, but it accelerates at an acceptable clip, topping out at 99 mph.
More from The Detroit Bureau: Ford Slings Mud ? and Rocks ? at Ram With New F-150 Tremor Pickup
The limited-edition can be quite noisy when the diesel engine fires up. And there?s minimal interior space and barely room for a backpack in what passes for a trunk. So, even at 261 mpg, few expect a vehicle like the XL1 would have mass market appeal.
But many of the basic features will show up on production vehicles from VW and other makers racing to reach increasingly stringent global fuel economy mandates, such as the 54.5 mpg Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard phasing in between now and 2025 in the U.S.
Cutting weight is a particularly big industry goal, as a rough rule of thumb suggesting every 100 pounds less mass means one more mile per gallon. VW trimmed 250 pounds off the weight of its latest Golf hatchback and Land Rover sliced 700 pounds from the redesigned Range Rover SUV.
More from The Detroit Bureau: High-Performance, High-Mileage, VW's GTD Diesel Does Both
How much further can manufacturers go without major downsizing? Many makers are switching from traditional steel to lighter aluminum. They?d like to opt for even lower-mass carbon fiber if costs can come down. Expect to see the composite material used on the new BMW i3 electric city car debuting in 2014.
Conventional internal combustion engines, whether gas or electric, aren?t about to go away. And new technologies, such as turbocharging, advanced transmissions, variable valve timing and direct injection ? where fuel is squirted directly into the cylinder ? means a vehicle like the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, despite making 455 hp and launching from 0 to 60 in 3.8 seconds, yields fuel economy that once would have been impressive in a subcompact.
Volkswagen
VW claims the XL1 will be the world's most fuel-efficient car when it goes into production.
But there?s a limit to how much further makers can go on gas or diesel, so battery power is all but certain to play a major role in meeting the 2025 CAFE standard.
Once consigned to a quirky niche, hybrids have gone mainstream, most makers now offering several gas-electric models. And plug-ins are likely the next big push. Vehicles like the Chevrolet Volt allow a vehicle to run in battery-only mode for modest commutes, an onboard gas engine kicking in for longer trips.
That?s a key advantage over pure battery-electric vehicles, such as the Nissan Leaf or Ford Focus EV, due to their limited range and long charging times. But new high-speed chargers, capable of giving an 80% ?refill? in 20 minutes, could soon dot the landscape and increase the battery-car?s appeal.
The VW XL1 also underscores the industry?s interest in reducing wind drag. Today, any good designer ?has aerodynamic solutions in mind? the moment they begin work on a new project, explains veteran GM designer John Cafaro. And the cost is virtually free, he says, as he leads a tour of the automaker?s mammoth wind tunnel at its sprawling technical center in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan.
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VW hasn?t yet said what it will charge for the XL1, though it?s expected to be significantly more expensive than a conventional car of that size. Most makers expect to struggle to bring the cost of high-mileage technologies down to the point where consumers can afford them ? even after working in savings on fuel.
But the industry may have no choice if they hope to both meet government mandates and customer demands. The little XL1 is a first step in what is likely to be a challenging journey for automotive designers and engineers.
WASHINGTON ? The Senate last week advanced the most far-reaching changes to immigration law in more than 25 years, passing a bill that would grant millions of residents in the country illegally the chance to achieve U.S. citizenship.
Senators voted 68-32 for the comprehensive bill that would establish a 13-year path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people living here illegally.
Legalization would be coupled with the authorization of $46 billion to essentially lock down the border with Mexico to stem new arrivals.
The bill that counted more than 1,000 pages also would revamp the U.S. visa system to discourage visitors from overstaying, and to require companies to use an E-Verify electronic system to check the legal status of new hires.
It also would raise the cap on visas for high-skilled workers sought by companies in need of employees with advanced degrees in science, engineering or math earned at a U.S. school.
Supporters said the bill represented the fairest and most humane way to deal with people who have put down roots in the United States and realistically cannot be made to leave.
?This legislation is tough but also fair,? said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. ?And above all else, it is practical. It makes unprecedented investments in border security. It cracks down on crooked employers, who exploit and abuse immigrant workers.?
Critics complained the strategy was a giveaway to people who broke the law when they entered the country, and it did not do enough to enforce deportation laws already on the books. They also said it would lead to lower wages for low-skilled workers facing job competition from immigrants.
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said he doubted the bill would effectively secure the border. ?This to me continues to be the biggest hurdle to reform,? he said.
Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., joined Reid in voting for the bill.
KEY VOTE
Final passage was greased when senators adopted an amendment that would double the number of border agents to 40,000, require the construction of a 700-mile long border fence and install advanced surveillance equipment along the Southwest region.
Senators voted 67-27 for what was dubbed the ?border surge,? likening it to the floods of U.S. troops that were dispatched to Iraq and Afghanistan in bids to win wars in those countries.
The amendment was seen as key to attracting Republican support for the immigration bill, although some GOP senators remained unpersuaded.
?Throwing more money at the problem without results doesn?t make sense,? said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. ?There?s no guarantee the money will be used or the programs implemented.?
Heller and Reid voted for the ?border surge.?
Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760. Follow him on Twitter @STetreaultDC.
Contact: Robert J. Hamers rjhamers@wisc.edu 608-262-6371 University of Wisconsin-Madison
MADISON -- In the world, there are a lot of small molecules people would like to get rid of, or at least convert to something useful, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison chemist Robert J. Hamers.
Think carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most responsible for far-reaching effects on global climate. Nitrogen is another ubiquitous small-molecule gas that can be transformed into the valuable agricultural fertilizer ammonia. Plants perform the chemical reduction of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia as a matter of course, but for humans to do that in an industrial setting, a necessity for modern agriculture, requires subjecting nitrogen to massive amounts of energy under high pressure.
"The current process for reducing nitrogen to ammonia is done under extreme conditions," explains Hamers, a UW-Madison professor of chemistry. "There is an enormous barrier you have to overcome to get your final product."
Breaching that barrier more efficiently and reducing the huge amounts of energy used to convert nitrogen to ammonia by some estimates 2 percent of the world's electrical output has been a grail for the agricultural chemical industry. Now, that goal may be on the horizon, thanks to a technique devised by Hamers and his colleagues and published today (June 30, 2013) in the journal Nature Methods.
Like many chemical reactions, reducing nitrogen to ammonia is a product of catalysis, where the catalytic agent used in the traditional energy-intensive reduction process is iron. The iron, combined with high temperature and high pressure, accelerates the reaction rate for converting nitrogen to ammonia by lowering the activation barrier that otherwise keeps nitrogen, one of the most ubiquitous gases on the planet, intact.
"The nitrogen molecule is one of the happiest molecules around," notes Hamers. "It is incredibly stable. It doesn't do anything."
One of the big obstacles, according to Hamers, is that nitrogen binds poorly to catalytic materials like iron.
Hamers and his team, including Di Zhu, Linghong Zhang and Rose E. Ruther, all of UW-Madison, turned to synthetic industrial diamond a cheap, gritty, versatile material as a potential new catalyst for the reduction process. Diamond, the Wisconsin team found, can facilitate the reduction of nitrogen to ammonia under ambient temperatures and pressures.
Like all chemical reactions, the reduction of nitrogen to ammonia involves moving electrons from one molecule to another. Using hydrogen-coated diamond illuminated by deep ultraviolet light, the Wisconsin team was able to induce a ready stream of electrons into water, which served as a reactant liquid that reduced nitrogen to ammonia under temperature and pressure conditions far more efficient than those required by traditional industrial methods.
"From a chemist's standpoint, nothing is more efficient than electrons in water," says Hamers, whose work is funded by the National Science Foundation. With the diamond catalyst, "the electrons are unconfined. They flow like lemmings to the sea."
While the method was demonstrated in the context of reducing nitrogen to a valuable agricultural product, the new diamond-centric approach is exciting, Hamers argues, because it can potentially fit a wide range of processes that require catalysis. "This is truly a different way of thinking about inducing reactions that may have more efficiency and applicability. We're doing this with diamond grit. It is infinitely reusable."
The technique devised by Hamers and his colleagues, he notes, still has kinks that need to be worked out to make it a viable alternative to traditional methods. The use of deep ultraviolet light, for example, is a limiting factor. Inducing reactions with visible light is a goal that would enhance the promise of the new technique for applications such as antipollution technology.
###
Contact:
Terry Devitt
608-262-8282 trdevitt@wisc.edu
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Robert J. Hamers rjhamers@wisc.edu 608-262-6371 University of Wisconsin-Madison
MADISON -- In the world, there are a lot of small molecules people would like to get rid of, or at least convert to something useful, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison chemist Robert J. Hamers.
Think carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most responsible for far-reaching effects on global climate. Nitrogen is another ubiquitous small-molecule gas that can be transformed into the valuable agricultural fertilizer ammonia. Plants perform the chemical reduction of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia as a matter of course, but for humans to do that in an industrial setting, a necessity for modern agriculture, requires subjecting nitrogen to massive amounts of energy under high pressure.
"The current process for reducing nitrogen to ammonia is done under extreme conditions," explains Hamers, a UW-Madison professor of chemistry. "There is an enormous barrier you have to overcome to get your final product."
Breaching that barrier more efficiently and reducing the huge amounts of energy used to convert nitrogen to ammonia by some estimates 2 percent of the world's electrical output has been a grail for the agricultural chemical industry. Now, that goal may be on the horizon, thanks to a technique devised by Hamers and his colleagues and published today (June 30, 2013) in the journal Nature Methods.
Like many chemical reactions, reducing nitrogen to ammonia is a product of catalysis, where the catalytic agent used in the traditional energy-intensive reduction process is iron. The iron, combined with high temperature and high pressure, accelerates the reaction rate for converting nitrogen to ammonia by lowering the activation barrier that otherwise keeps nitrogen, one of the most ubiquitous gases on the planet, intact.
"The nitrogen molecule is one of the happiest molecules around," notes Hamers. "It is incredibly stable. It doesn't do anything."
One of the big obstacles, according to Hamers, is that nitrogen binds poorly to catalytic materials like iron.
Hamers and his team, including Di Zhu, Linghong Zhang and Rose E. Ruther, all of UW-Madison, turned to synthetic industrial diamond a cheap, gritty, versatile material as a potential new catalyst for the reduction process. Diamond, the Wisconsin team found, can facilitate the reduction of nitrogen to ammonia under ambient temperatures and pressures.
Like all chemical reactions, the reduction of nitrogen to ammonia involves moving electrons from one molecule to another. Using hydrogen-coated diamond illuminated by deep ultraviolet light, the Wisconsin team was able to induce a ready stream of electrons into water, which served as a reactant liquid that reduced nitrogen to ammonia under temperature and pressure conditions far more efficient than those required by traditional industrial methods.
"From a chemist's standpoint, nothing is more efficient than electrons in water," says Hamers, whose work is funded by the National Science Foundation. With the diamond catalyst, "the electrons are unconfined. They flow like lemmings to the sea."
While the method was demonstrated in the context of reducing nitrogen to a valuable agricultural product, the new diamond-centric approach is exciting, Hamers argues, because it can potentially fit a wide range of processes that require catalysis. "This is truly a different way of thinking about inducing reactions that may have more efficiency and applicability. We're doing this with diamond grit. It is infinitely reusable."
The technique devised by Hamers and his colleagues, he notes, still has kinks that need to be worked out to make it a viable alternative to traditional methods. The use of deep ultraviolet light, for example, is a limiting factor. Inducing reactions with visible light is a goal that would enhance the promise of the new technique for applications such as antipollution technology.
###
Contact:
Terry Devitt
608-262-8282 trdevitt@wisc.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 30-Jun-2013
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