295 posts · 164,265 views
I received a PhD in analytical chemistry in Sep 2005, completed postdoctoral research in Jun 2007, and taught chemistry survey and organic chemistry from Sep 2009 - May 2010. I am currently a freelance technical science editor. Phased presents science journalism written for a lay audience. My goal is to discuss technical content (from the technical journals) without sacrificing readability. The topical focus is diverse, but tends to focus on chemistry, technology, and cell biology.
Phased
295 posts
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- June 2, 2010
- 05:55 PM
- 1,850 views
A Flexible Zinc-Carbon Battery: Towards Cheap Intelligent Clothing
by Michael Long in Phased
Pritesh Hiralal (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom) and coworkers have worked towards incorporating cheap batteries directly into clothing. This news feature was written on June 2, 2010.... Read more »
Hiralal, P., Imaizumi, S., Unalan, H. E., Matsumoto, H., Minagawa, M., Rouvala, M., Tanioka, A., & Amaratunga, G. A. J. (2010) Nanomaterial-Enhanced All-Solid Flexible Zinc−Carbon Batteries. ACS Nano, 4(5), 2730-2734. DOI: 10.1021/nn901391q
- May 16, 2011
- 05:10 PM
- 1,130 views
Cheap and Easy Isolation of Single-Chirality Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
by Michael Long in Phased
Gel chromatography is used to purify a valuable nanotechnology material.... Read more »
Liu, H., Nishide, D., Tanaka, T., & Kataura, H. (2011) Large-scale single-chirality separation of single-wall carbon nanotubes by simple gel chromatography. Nature Communications, 309. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1313
- June 29, 2011
- 03:53 PM
- 1,008 views
Towards Implanted Medical Devices Powered by Glucose
by Michael Long in Phased
A device based on glucose oxidase, catalase, laccase, and carbon nanotubes delivers the best performance ever seen for an enzymatic glucose biofuel cell.... Read more »
Zebda, A., Gondran, C., Le Goff, A., Holzinger, M., Cinquin, P., & Cosnier, S. (2011) Mediatorless high-power glucose biofuel cells based on compressed carbon nanotube-enzyme electrodes. Nature Communications, 370. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1365
- May 27, 2011
- 08:45 PM
- 987 views
Filtering Out Propaganda from the Medical Literature
by Michael Long in Phased
A checklist can help scientists who evaluate technical medical manuscripts to recognize medical propaganda, thereby helping to prevent unwarranted hype from becoming mainstream knowledge.... Read more »
Gambrill, E., & Reiman, A. (2011) A Propaganda Index for Reviewing Problem Framing in Articles and Manuscripts: An Exploratory Study. PLoS ONE, 6(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019516
- May 21, 2011
- 06:10 PM
- 967 views
Limitations of Rosetta for Biomacromolecular Structural Modeling
by Michael Long in Phased
Rosetta needs to be optimized for atomic-scale resolution if it is to reach its maximum potential for predicting the three-dimensional shape of proteins and nucleic acids.... Read more »
Das, R. (2011) Four Small Puzzles That Rosetta Doesn't Solve. PLoS ONE, 6(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0020044
- May 28, 2009
- 01:30 PM
- 957 views
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY: Vying for the Future of Bio-Powered Transport
by Michael Long in Phased
Elliott Campbell (University of California, Merced)
and coworkers have found that electricity from biomass is
more ideal for use in battery-powered vehicles than internal
combustion engines, when evaluating the issue solely
from a land-use perspective.
This news feature was written on May 28, 2009.... Read more »
Campbell, J. E., Lobell, D. B., & Field, C. B. (2009) Greater Transportation Energy and GHG Offsets from Bioelectricity Than Ethanol. Science, 324(5930), 1055-1057. DOI: 10.1126/science.1168885
- May 30, 2011
- 09:50 PM
- 957 views
Black Women Perceived as Being More White Receive Judicial Leniency in the United States
by Michael Long in Phased
Skin tone correlates with sentencing and time served for recent black female prison convicts in North Carolina (United States).... Read more »
Viglione, J., Hannon, L., & DeFina, R. (2011) The impact of light skin on prison time for black female offenders. The Social Science Journal, 48(1), 250-258. DOI: 10.1016/j.soscij.2010.08.003
- May 18, 2011
- 03:55 PM
- 952 views
Phytoplankton Resiliency to the Chicxulub Mass Extinction
by Michael Long in Phased
Phytoplankton can rebound after nearly a century of dormancy in the dark, explaining why these microbes were resilient after the most recent global photosynthesis disruption and the accompanying mass extinction.... Read more »
Ribeiro, S., Berge, T., Lundholm, N., Andersen, T. J., Abrantes, F., & Ellegaard, M. (2011) Phytoplankton growth after a century of dormancy illuminates past resilience to catastrophic darkness. Nature Communications, 311. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1314
- April 26, 2011
- 04:30 PM
- 942 views
Producing and Extracting Biofuel Precursors from Cyanobacteria
by Michael Long in Phased
Cyanobacteria were genetically engineered to overproduce fatty acids, which were readily extracted.... Read more »
Liu, X., Sheng, J., & Curtiss III, R. (2011) Fatty acid production in genetically modified cyanobacteria. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1103014108
Liu, X., Fallon, S., Sheng, J., & Curtiss, R. (2011) CO2-limitation-inducible Green Recovery of fatty acids from cyanobacterial biomass. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1103016108
- June 3, 2011
- 03:15 PM
- 931 views
Towards Preventing Detrimental Physiological Changes in Space
by Michael Long in Phased
Short-term spaceflight does not hinder RNA interference efficacy in roundworms, and may be a means of preventing protein muscle degradation in humans during long-term space missions.... Read more »
Timothy Etheridge, Kanako Nemoto, Toko Hashizume, Chihiro Mori, Tomoko Sugimoto, Hiromi Suzuki, Keiji Fukui, Takashi Yamazaki, Akira Higashibata, Nathaniel J. Szewczyk.... (2011) The Effectiveness of RNAi in Caenorhabditis elegans Is Maintained during Spaceflight. PLoS ONE, 6(6). info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0020459
- June 29, 2009
- 10:45 AM
- 927 views
Aqueous Phase Separation in Living Cells
by Michael Long in Phased
Carlos Filipe (McMaster University, Canada) and coworkers have induced protein microcompartmentation, via aqueous phase separation of elastin-like polypeptides, in genetically engineered cells, which may enable scientists to test theories of intracellular organization and assembly in living cells. This news feature was written on June 29, 2009.... Read more »
Ge, X., Conley, A. J., Brandle, J. E., Truant, R., & Filipe, C. D. M. (2009) In Vivo Formation of Protein Based Aqueous Microcompartments . Journal of the American Chemical Society, 131(25), 9094-9099. DOI: 10.1021/ja902890r
- May 29, 2011
- 02:05 PM
- 909 views
Beneficial Biological Effects of Polyhydroxy Fullerenes
by Michael Long in Phased
A nanomaterial commonly presumed to be universally toxic appears to be beneficial to algae, plants, fungi, and invertebrates.... Read more »
Gao, J., Wang, Y., Folta, K. M., Krishna, V., Bai, W., Indeglia, P., Georgieva, A., Nakamura, H., Koopman, B., & Moudgil, B. (2011) Polyhydroxy Fullerenes (Fullerols or Fullerenols): Beneficial Effects on Growth and Lifespan in Diverse Biological Models. PLoS ONE, 6(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019976
- March 11, 2011
- 06:30 PM
- 903 views
Are Species Abundance Distributions Biologically Meaningful?
by Michael Long in Phased
A common ecological assumption is fundamentally challenged.... Read more »
Warren II, R. J., Skelly, D. K., Schmitz, O. J., & Bradford, M. A. (2011) Universal Ecological Patterns in College Basketball Communities. PLoS ONE, 6(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017342
- May 17, 2011
- 11:45 PM
- 901 views
Force-Enhanced, Non-Covalent Cell-Cell Binding
by Michael Long in Phased
A bacterial appendage has evolved to bind to epithelial cells much more strongly with increasing mechanical force.... Read more »
Aprikian, P., Interlandi, G., Kidd, B. A., Le Trong, I., Tchesnokova, V., Yakovenko, O., Whitfield, M. J., Bullitt, E., Stenkamp, R. E., Thomas, W. E.... (2011) The Bacterial Fimbrial Tip Acts as a Mechanical Force Sensor. PLoS Biology, 9(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000617
- May 3, 2011
- 11:07 PM
- 888 views
Electrochemotherapy May Be Hindered by pH Fronts
by Michael Long in Phased
Model studies in agar gels suggest that the pH gradient is substantial, and may hinder treatment.... Read more »
Turjanski, P., Olaiz, N., Maglietti, F., Michinski, S., Suárez, C., Molina, F. V., & Marshall, G. (2011) The Role of pH Fronts in Reversible Electroporation. PLoS ONE, 6(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017303
- June 17, 2011
- 07:40 AM
- 885 views
Why Click Beetles Cannot Control Their Landing Orientation
by Michael Long in Phased
Physics calculations lend support to the idea that click beetles evolved their jumping mechanism for righting themselves after landing on their back, rather than as a predation escape mechanism.... Read more »
Gal Ribak, & Daniel Weihs. (2011) Jumping without Using Legs: The Jump of the Click-Beetles (Elateridae) Is Morphologically Constrained. PLoS ONE, 6(6). info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0020871
- February 14, 2011
- 08:25 PM
- 883 views
Transgenic Switchgrass for Biofuels: Feasible but Irresponsible
by Michael Long in Phased
Switchgrass has been genetically modified into a more useful fuel, but this research should not see the light of day until it's proven to be safe for the environment.... Read more »
Fu, C., Mielenz, J. R., Xiao, X., Ge, Y., Hamilton, C. Y., Rodriguez Jr, M., Chen,F., Foston, M., Ragauskas, A., Bouton, J.... (2011) Genetic manipulation of lignin reduces recalcitrance and improves ethanol production from switchgrass. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. info:/10.1073/pnas.1100310108
- May 9, 2011
- 07:25 PM
- 869 views
Easy Interrogation of Three-Dimensional Cellular Arrays
by Michael Long in Phased
An easy approach is reported for experimentally interrogating living cells in a primitively realistic mimic of their native growth environment.... Read more »
Derda, R., Tang, S. K. Y, Laromaine, A., Mosadegh, B., Hong, E., Mwangi, M., Mammoto, A., Ingber, D. E., & Whitesides, G. M. (2011) Multizone Paper Platform for 3D Cell Cultures. PLoS ONE, 6(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018940
- May 14, 2009
- 07:30 PM
- 867 views
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY: Converting Biomass into a Stable Fuel
by Michael Long in Phased
Yuan Kou (Peking University, China), Johannes Lercher
(Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany), and coworkers
have synthesized stable carbon-based fuels from
renewable resources.
This news feature was written on May 14, 2009.... Read more »
Zhao, C., Kou, Y., Lemonidou, A. A., Li, X., & Lercher, J. A. (2009) Highly Selective Catalytic Conversion of Phenolic Bio-Oil to Alkanes. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 48(22), 3987-3990. DOI: 10.1002/anie.200900404
- May 12, 2009
- 07:30 PM
- 854 views
ASTRONOMY: Towards Detecting Photosynthesis on Other Worlds
by Michael Long in Phased
William Sparks (Space Telescope
Science Institute, Maryland) and coworkers have probed the
feasibility of detecting photosynthesis through
astronomical observations, aiding the long-term search for
extraterrestrial life.
This news feature was written on May 12, 2009.... Read more »
Sparks, W. B., Hough, J., Germer, T. A., Chen, F., DasSarma, S., DasSarma, P., Robb, F. T., Manset, N., Kolokolova, L., Reid, N.... (2009) Detection of circular polarization in light scattered from photosynthetic microbes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(19), 7816-7821. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0810215106
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