Nanotechnologies
Nanotechnology is a relatively new field of science that makes more headlines
every year. It is a field that focuses on the small--the extremely small. In
nanotechnology, people manipulate atoms and molecules to make new things. Those
things can be materials or devices. Throughout history, people have made new things
from altering or combining substances that already exist. But nanotechnology works
the opposite way. In nanotechnology, researchers develop a substance from the small
to the large by manipulating the basic building blocks of matter. The result could be
miniature materials or devices that have completely unique properties.
Science of the small The basic building blocks of nanotechnologies are atoms
and molecules. All substances are made up of molecules. A drop of water, for
example, is made up of millions of water molecules. If you were to keep dividing the
drop into smaller droplets, you would end up with one molecule. That one water
molecule would have the same properties as the drop of water.
Molecules are made of atoms held together by chemical bonds. The water
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molecule consists of two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom. Diamonds are made
up of a molecule of carbon atoms bonded together. Salt is made of the sodium
chloride molecule, which is one sodium atom bonded to one chloride atom. Atoms
and molecules are so small that a new prefix was coined to measure them: nano. The
prefix "nano" comes from the Greek word for dwarf. Nano represents one billionth
and so one nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. That's about the size of one strand
of the width of your hair split into about 50,000 pieces! It's also about the size of ten
hydrogen atoms. Things on the nano scale are generally between 1 and 100
nanometers. Proteins in our bodies, viruses, and some particles in the air are nano
sized.
Nanotechnology is not about simply making devices smaller. The field uses the
fact that nano size materials can have different properties than their larger
counterparts. Color, hardness, melting point, and conductivity are all some of the
properties that can change as the material become nano sized. One physical
characteristic that can lead to these changes is the increased ratio of the surface area
to volume. Surface area is all the area that is on the outside--surface--of the material.
Volume is the amount of three-dimensional space taken up by a material. As a
material shrinks, its surface area increases compared to its volume, In the nano size,
this ratio can increase dramatically, which can lead to different reactions. Gold nano
particles, for example, can appear a reddish color and turn liquid at room
temperature. It is the arrangement of the atoms and molecules that gives materials its
properties. Diamonds and the lead of pencils (graphite) are both made of up carbon
molecules. In diamonds, the arrangement and bonds of the carbon atoms make it hard
and clear. Graphite is dark and relatively soft. If researchers can pluck individual
atoms and decide how to arrange them, they can determine the property of the
material. One nano scale material that was discovered in 1991 is also made of pure
carbon. Carbon nano tubes are threads of carbon and the arrangement of its carbon
makes it light, flexible, and stronger than steel.
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A nano-world of technologies
There are high hopes that research in nanotechnology will translate into many
products and devices that will help people. The technology will affect a wide range of
fields, including transportation, sports, electronics, and medicine. Some of the current
and future possibilities of nanotechnology includes:
- Medicine: Researchers are working to develop nanorobots to help diagnose
and treat health problems. Medical nanorobots, also called nanobots, could someday
be injected into a person bloodstream. In theory, the nanobots would find and destroy
harmful substances, deliver medicines, and repair damage.
- Sports: Nanotechnology has been incorporated in outdoor fabrics to add
insulation from the cold without adding bulk. In sports equipment, nanotech metals in
golf clubs make the clubs stronger yet lighter, allowing for greater speed. Tennis balls
coated with nanoparticles protect the ball from air, allowing it to bounce far longer
than the typical tennis ball.
- Materials Science: Nanotechnology has led to coatings that make fabric stain
proof and paper water resistant. A car bumper developed with nanotechnology is
lighter yet a lot harder to dent than conventional bumpers. And nanoparticles added
to surfaces and paints could someday make them resistant to bacteria or prevent dirt
from sticking.
- Electronics: The field of nano-electronics is working on miniaturizing and
increasing the power of computer parts. If researchers could build wires or computer
processing chips out of molecules, it could dramatically shrink the size of many
electronics.
Biotechnologies
What is Biotechnology?
At its simplest, biotechnology is technology based on biology - biotechnology
harnesses cellular and bimolecular processes to develop technologies and products
that help improve our lives and the health of our planet. We have used the biological
processes of microorganisms for more than 6,000 years to make useful food products,
such as bread and cheese, and to preserve dairy products. Modern biotechnology
provides breakthrough products and technologies to combat debilitating and rare
diseases, reduce our environmental footprint, feed the hungry, and use less and
cleaner energy, and have safer, cleaner and more efficient industrial manufacturing
processes. Currently, there are more than 250 biotechnology health care products and
vaccines available to patients, many for previously untreatable diseases. More than
13.3 million farmers around the world use agricultural biotechnology to increase
yields, prevent damage from insects and pests and reduce farming's impact on the
environment. And more than 50 biorefineries are being built across North America to
test and refine technologies to produce biofuels and chemicals from renewable
biomass, which can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Recent advances in
biotechnology are helping us prepare for and meet society’s most pressing
challenges. Here's how:
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Heal The World
Biotech is helping to heal the world by harnessing nature's own toolbox and
using our own genetic makeup to heal and guide lines of research by:
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Reducing rates of infectious disease;
Saving millions of children's lives;
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Changing the odds of serious, life-threatening conditions affecting millions
around the world;
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Tailoring treatments to individuals to minimize health risks and side effects;
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Creating more precise tools for disease detection; and
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Combating serious illnesses and everyday threats confronting the developing
world.
Fuel The World
Biotech uses biological processes such as fermentation and harnesses
biocatalysts such as enzymes, yeast, and other microbes to become microscopic
manufacturing plants. Biotech is helping to fuel the world by:
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Streamlining the steps in chemical manufacturing processes by 80% or
more;
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Lowering the temperature for cleaning clothes and potentially saving $4.1
billion annually;
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Improving manufacturing process efficiency to save 50% or more on
operating costs;
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Reducing use of and reliance on petrochemicals;
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Using biofuels to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 52% or more;
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Decreasing water usage and waste generation; and
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Tapping into the full potential of traditional biomass waste products.
Feed The World
Biotech improves crop insect resistance, enhances crop herbicide tolerance and
facilitates the use of more environmentally sustainable farming practices. Biotech is
helping to feed the world by:
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Generating higher crop yields with fewer inputs;
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Lowering volumes of agricultural chemicals required by crops-limiting the
run-off of these products into the environment;
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Using biotech crops that need fewer applications of pesticides and that allow
farmers to reduce tilling farmland;
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Developing crops with enhanced nutrition profiles that solve vitamin and
nutrient deficiencies;
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Producing foods free of allergens and toxins such as myco toxin; and
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Improving food and crop oil content to help improve cardiovascular health.
Person and his health
Genetics of the person
Introduction to genetics:
Genetics is probably one of the most exciting lessons in biology.
At the same time, it can be a bit confusing because sometimes it is difficult to
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imagine what the bare eyes cannot see. We will try to make things very simple and
easy for you.
What is genetics?
Genetics is the science of studying how living things pass on characteristics (or
traits) and its variations in their cell make-up from one generation to the other.
Simply, it is the study of how living things inherit features like eye-colour,
nose shape, height and even behavior from their parents.
A scientist who studies genetics is called a geneticist.
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in living
organisms.
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It is generally considered a field of biology, but it intersects frequently
with many of the life sciences and is strongly linked with the study of information
systems.
The father of genetics is Gregory Mendel, a late 19th-century scientist and
Augustinian friar. Mendel studied 'trait inheritance', patterns in the way traits were
handed down from parents to offspring. He observed that organisms (pea plants)
inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still used today, is a
somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene.
Trait inheritance and molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still
primary principles of genetics in the 21st century, but modern genetics has expanded
beyond inheritance to studying the function and behavior of genes. Gene structure
and function, variation, and distribution are studied within the context of the cell, the
organism (e.g. dominance) and within the context of a population. Genetics has given
rise to a number of sub-fields including epigenetic and population genetics.
Organisms studied within the broad field span the domain of life, including bacteria,
plants, animals, and humans.
Genetic processes work in combination with an organism's environment and
experiences to influence development and behavior, often referred to as nature versus
nurture. The intra- or extra-cellular environment of a cell or organism may switch
gene transcription on or off. A classic example is two seeds of genetically identical
corn, one placed in a temperate climate and one in an arid climate. While the average
height of the two corn stalks may be genetically determined to be equal, the one in
the arid climate only grows to half the height of the one in the temperate climate due
to lack of water and nutrients in its environment.
Quality assurance and food safety to human health
The Importance of Quality Assurance and Food Safety in Modern Food
Production Systems
The liberalization of the global trade, and the fact that the consumers in the
industrialized countries are more and more demanding food to be not only
economical, but also healthy, tasty, safe and sound in respect to animal welfare and
the environment, are changing so far quantity-oriented food production, guaranteeing
the nutrient supply for a nation, into an international quality-oriented food market,
where commodities, production areas, production chains and brands compete each
other. The competitiveness of food production will soon be more dependent on the
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reliability of the safety and the quality of the food and acceptability of the production
procedures than on quantity and price. In contrast to the quantity-oriented markets
that are often subsidized and producers can always sell everything they produce,
quality-oriented markets are market-driven. Thus, apart from the steady increase of
the national and international standards for food safety and public health, there is a
growing influence of the consumer's demands (often completely ignorant of
agriculture) on the animal production, its allied industries, advisers, consultants and
food animal veterinarians. All of this means that the agricultural supply of food
production is facing remarkable changes in the years to come, which is both
challenge and opportunity for food animal producers, packing plants and meat
processors as well as for the veterinary profession.
In countries that have implemented a consistent mandatory meat inspection,
this classical harvest food safety procedure and the more and more stringent rules for
post-harvest food safety measures improving the hygiene standards during slaughter,
meat processing, storage and distribution have led to a remarkable decline of meat
related food-borne diseases in man. However, although meat inspection and food
hygiene have been regarded as sufficient to guarantee safe meat over almost 100
years, new approaches to food safety and meat quality are becoming necessary.
The majority of the real and perceived reasons for the increased concerns with
the safety and quality of meat apply to the pre-harvest area of the food production
chain. Furthermore, it is true that the harvest food safety measures (inspection and
removing carcasses unfit for human consumption from the food chain) is assuring the
consumer's protection, but they do not prevent the major safety-related defects in the
slaughter pig, i.e. they are only quality control at the end of the on-farm production
phase. Industries with long experiences in growing competition initially used quality
control to cope with increasing quality standards. The needs to produce and sell high
quality products and increase the efficiency of the production process, however, have
led to the development of quality assurance systems along production chains.
Quality control is the evaluation of a final product prior to its marketing, i.e. it
is based on quality checks at the end of a production chain aiming at assigning the
final product to quality categories such as "high quality", "regular quality", "low
quality" and "non-marketable". Since, at the end of the production chain, there is no
way to correct production failures or upgrade the quality of the final product, the low-
quality products can only be sold at lower prices and the non-marketable products
have to be discarded. Their production costs, however, had been as high as those of
the high and regular quality products. Thus, quality control has only a limited
potential to increase the quality and efficiency of a multi-step production procedure.
Quality Assurance, in contrast to quality control, is the implementation of quality
checks and procedures to immediately correct any failure and mistake that is able to
reduce the quality of the interim products at every production step.
Technique on service of health of the person
Environmental health is targeted towards preventing disease and creating
health-supportive environments. It includes the aspects of human health that are
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determined by physical, chemical, biological and social factors in the environment.
Environmental health also works to assess and control these factors.
For several decades the computer technology made tremendous breakthrough
in the development! And nobody is surprised by house computers. And cell phones
are not luxury, but need. Let's talk about influence of the modern technique on health
of the person, especially on the child's organism. Knowledge will help not only
correctly and efficiently use achievements of science, but also to keep health. And
first of all today we are interested in a question about health of our children.
Avoid harmful influence of inventions of the modern society how to teach
them to be guided in variety appearing progress products. For this purpose it is
necessary to be fully equipped, to know pluses and minuses of the modern technique.
Computer
It is known for all, that the child’s staying at the computer is harmful for
his/her health. However, not all parents know how the computer influences on the
child. There are four major harmful factors: load of vision, the constrained pose, load
of mentality and radiation.
Mobile phones
The invention of the mobile phone became one of the gifts of scientific and
technical progress. Today scientists consider it as the most potent mass irritant since
the invention of the TV. Are mobile phones so dangerous for our health or not? The
British physicians claim that mobile phones accelerate reactions of a brain and if we
abuse conversation by the mobile phone, it is possible to get a brain cancer.
Person and environment
Interaction of the person with the nature
Man's influence on nature. Man is not only a dweller in nature, he also
transforms it. From the very beginning of his existence, and with increasing intensity
human society has adapted environing nature and made all kinds of incursions into it.
An enormous amount of human labour has been spent on transforming nature.
Humanity converts nature's wealth into the means of the cultural, historical life of
society. Man has subdued and disciplined electricity and compelled it to serve the
interests of society. Not only has man transferred various species of plants and
animals to different climatic conditions; he has also changed the shape and climate of
his habitation and transformed plants and animals. If we were to strip the
geographical environment of the properties created by the labour of many
generations, contemporary society would be unable to exist in such primeval
conditions.
Man is constantly aware of the influence of nature in the form of the air he
breathes, the water he drinks, the food he eats, and the flow of energy and
information. And many of his troubles are a response to the natural processes and
changes in the weather, intensified irradiation of cosmic energy, and the magnetic
storms that rage around the earth. In short, we are connected with nature by "blood"
ties and we cannot live outside nature. During their temporary departures from Earth
spacemen take with them a bit of the biosphere. Nowhere does nature affect humanity
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in exactly the same way. Its influence varies. Depending on where human beings
happen to be on the earth's surface, it assigns them varying quantities of light,
warmth, water, precipitation, flora and fauna. Human history offers any number of
examples of how environmental conditions and the relief of our planet have promoted
or retarded human development.
At any given moment a person comes under the influence of both subterranean
processes and the cosmic environment. In a very subtle way he reflects in himself, in
his functions the slightest oscillations occurring in nature. Electromagnetic radiations
alone from the sun and stars may be broken down into a large number of categories,
which are distinguishable from one another by their wavelength, the quantity of
energy they emit, their power of penetration, and the good or harm they may do us.
During the periods of peak solar activity we observe a deterioration in the health of
people suffering from high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis or infarction of the
myocardium. Disturbances occur in the nervous system and the blood vessels are
more liable to suffer from spasms. At such times the number of road accidents
increases, and so on. It has been noted that there is a dependence between any
weakening in the Earth's magnetic field and acceleration of growth, and vice versa,
growth is retarded when the magnetic field becomes stronger. The corpuscular,
radioactive irradiations, cosmic dust, and gas molecules which fill all universal space
are also powerful creators and regulators of human existence in biological life. The
universe is in a state of dynamic balance and is constantly receiving various forms of
energy. Some forms are on the increase or decrease, while others experience periodic
fluctuations. Each of us is a sensitive resonator, a kind of echo of the energy flows of
the universe. So it would be quite wrong to regard only the energy of the sun as the
source of life on earth and humanity as its highest manifestation. The energy of
distant cosmic bodies, such as the stars and the nebulae, have a tremendous influence
on the life of man as an organism. For this reason our organisms adjust their
existence and development to these flows of external energy. The human organism
has developed receptors that utilise this energy or protect themselves from it, if it is
harmful. It may be said, if we think of human beings as a high-grade biological
substance, that they are accumulators of intense energy drives of the whole universe.
We are only a response to the vibrations of the elemental forces of outer space, which
bring us into unity with their oscillations. Every beat of the organic pulse of our
existence is coordinated with the pulse of the cosmic heart. Cosmic rhythms exert a
substantial influence on the energy processes in the human organism, which also has
its own rhythmic beat.
Man and nature interact dialectically in such a way that, as society develops,
man tends to become less dependent on nature directly, while indirectly his
dependence grows. This is understandable. While he is getting to know more and
more about nature, and on this basis transforming it, man's power over nature
progressively increases, but in the same process, man comes into more and more
extensive and profound contact with nature, bringing into the sphere of his activity
growing quantities of matter, energy and information.
Humans interact with their environments in many ways: they may manipulate
natural environments for economic purposes and change their surroundings using
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culture and technology. Human and environmental interaction generally falls into
three categories, which include adaptation, dependability and modification.
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