國際科技信息

國際科技信息

歐盟一項新穎創新的農業種植技術獲得顯著效益

歐盟第七研發框架計劃（FP7）資助支持的，基地設立于法國南錫（Nancy）的一家科技創新型企業，即法國先進植物技術公司PAT（Plant Advanced Technology），作為自行研究開發出的“植物榨取技術”（Plant Milking technology）的開拓者，從植物的根部萃取所需珍貴的有機化合物質成分，獲得巨大的經濟效益。

幾年時間，從開創到快速發展，并形成一定規模，正迅速向歐洲其它國家、特別是歐洲地中海沿岸國家擴張。

自然界中的多年生植物會在其根部或植物本身產生活性物質，以保護自身和抵御外部不利環境條件的入侵，這些活性物質在醫藥保健和化妝品行業往往具有很高的應用價值。公司采用植物無土栽培種植技術，選擇種植的作物主要以稀少的、受到保護的或生長緩慢的，可從根部萃取珍貴有機化合物質成分的植物為目標。

一方面，相對“透明的”植物根部，更容易讓科技人員研究提高植物根系碩壯的方法，通過調整植物營養液的配方，加速植物根部的生長或獲取更高比率的活性物質，從而提高植物的產量和質量。

另一方面，在不影響植物根系的情況下，可有計劃地安排每次采收適量的根部進行萃取，以保持植物繼續健康地成長，不至于傳統的野外采收和土壤栽培往往以植物的死亡為代價。

目前，公司種植效益較高的植物主要包括：一種富含治療和預防婦女骨質疏松特效成分的墨西哥高原植物；兩種抗消炎植物；數十種抗氧化物植物和應用于化妝品的植物；還包括一種食蟲植物，提取的成分可以有效醫治部分癌癥和罕見的遺傳性疾病。

公司獲得的高額收益，在快速擴展市場的同時，持續加大著對企業研發創新投入的力度，不斷向市場推出有效的化合物質成分新產品。

A French company is growing fast as it exploits a technology to ‘milk’ precious products from plants.

“We produce molecules from plants that otherwise would be very difficult to produce, and these molecules are very useful for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals,”says the CEO of Plant Advanced Technologies Jean-Paul Fèvre.

Plant Advanced Technologies, based in near Nancy, is a pioneer of what it calls ‘plant milking technology’.

The plants are grown without soil, and their roots are then ‘milked’of precious molecules.

The fi rm exploits the benefi ts of substances found within rare, protected and slow-growing plants.

“The plants produce active substances in their roots naturally that help them to defend themselves against aggressors in their environment.

We dip the roots into a solvent, which allows the roots to become more permeable, and bring out these high-value molecules,” says PAT’s reserach director Frédéric Bourgaud.

PAT is further refining its know-how as part of an EU-wide research project.

The scientists have identified a range of rare substances for use in medicine.

“This is a Mexican plant that produces a molecule that’s useful in treating osteoperosis in women. There we have two plants that naturally produce an antiinfl ammatory, and there we have a carnivorous plant that should help us to produce molecules that are useful in treating certain cancers and a rare genetic disorder,”explains Bourgaud.Swing open the store room doors and you will fi nd hundreds of litres of natural antioxydants ready for delivery.

Feeding the plants a lean diet of nutrients means they grow bigger roots, and produce more valuable molecules.

“In a relatively limited amount of space we’re able to produce many kilogrammes, many tens of kilogrammes of substances, which is totally in line with what the market demands,” says Bourgaud.

The test greenhouse is stacked with racks of unusual plants being grown and tested to see how they could be ‘milked’ for new medicines.

There is plenty of scope for growth:

“A great many molecules are yet to be discovered from rare and protected plants, or from those that grow slowly, so it’s useful to have a procedure that does not destroy the plant itself,” says Jean-Paul Fèvre.

科學家首次用“人造”卵子產下小鼠

想要一只小老鼠嗎？拿個培養皿就行了。在利用源自干細胞的精子產下了正常幼鼠后，日本京都大學的一個研究小組又通過同樣的方式利用卵子完成了這一壯舉。這項研究最終有望為幫助那些不育夫婦懷孕帶來新的方法。

美國加利福尼亞大學洛杉磯分校的干細胞生物學家Amander Clark認為：“這是一項重要的成就，我相信它將對生殖細胞生物學和遺傳學領域產生深遠而持久的影響。”

上述兩項研究所使用的干細胞都是胚胎干（ES）細胞和誘導多能干（iPS）細胞。前者來自于胚胎，而后者則是成熟組織細胞經再編程后產生了類似于干細胞的作用。從理論上講，兩者都能夠形成所有類型的體細胞，但大多數研究人員一直無法把它們變成生殖細胞，即精子和卵子的前體細胞。由干細胞生物學家Mitinori Saitou率領的研究小組找到了一個可行的方法。與精子一樣，研究人員從ES和iPS細胞入手，并且在一種蛋白質的“雞尾酒”中對其進行培育，從而形成了與原生殖細胞類似的細胞。為了得到卵母細胞或前體卵細胞，研究人員隨后將這些原始細胞與小鼠胎兒的卵巢細胞相混合，從而形成了再造的卵巢，并最終將其移植到活體小鼠的正常卵巢中。4周零4天后，那些與原生殖細胞類似的細胞發育成為卵母細胞。

研究小組去除掉卵巢，得到卵母細胞，并且對其進行體外授精，然后再將得到的胚胎移植進代孕母親體內。大約3周后，正常的小鼠崽誕生了。研究人員在最新一期美國《科學》雜志上報告了這一研究成果。

新加坡醫學生物學研究所的發育生物學家Davor Solter認為：“這是非凡的，源自胚胎干細胞的細胞能夠產生卵母細胞，進而具有持續完成發育的能力。”Clark強調，對生殖細胞形成有關的分子機制的理解將對研究工作產生直接影響。Saitou說，如果對起作用的復雜交互作用的理解進一步加深，研究人員或許就能夠在實驗室的培養皿中誘導細胞完成整個的卵母細胞發育過程。他說，一旦獲得成功，“我們有望繞過移植這一步”。

在更遠的將來，這項技術將成為治療不孕癥的一個新工具。Clark說：“這項研究提供了原理上的關鍵證據，表明誘導多能干細胞能夠產生卵母細胞。”如果應用于人體，它可能會導致從采自不孕女性的iPS細胞形成卵母細胞的能力。但是Saitou警告說，向人類研究的轉移需要解決令人苦惱的倫理問題和技術難題。

Solter表示，在極端情況下，新的方法將導致來自細胞系和組織樣本的人類胚胎的形成。他強調，盡管如此，“這種‘無父母’的人類胚胎的定義狀態，以及它們所引發的生物學、倫理學和法律問題將挑戰你的想象力”。

該研究小組去年8月曾成功“人造”實驗鼠精子，因此理論上利用iPS細胞培養的精子和卵子“人造”受精卵，進而“人造生命”成為可能。京都大學名譽教授森崇英說，這對不能生成卵子的不育女性是一個好消息。不過，相關研究尚處在動物實驗階段，還將面臨安全性和倫理等諸多挑戰。

Want baby mice? Grab a petri dish. After producing normal mouse pups last year using sperm derived from stem cells, a Kyoto University team of researchers has now accomplished the same feat using eggs created the same way. The study may eventually lead to new ways of helping infertile couples conceive.

“This is a significant achievement that I believe will have a sustained and long-lasting impact on the fi eld of reproductive cell biology and genetics,” says Amander Clark, a stem cell biologist at University of California, Los Angeles.

The stem cells in both cases are embryonic stem (ES) cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The former are taken from embryos and the latter are adultissue cells that are reprogrammed to act like stem cells. In theory, both can produce all of the body’s cell types, yet most researchers have been unable to turn them into germ cells, precursors of sperm and eggs.

The Kyoto group, led by stem cell biologist Mitinori Saitou, found a process that works. As with the sperm, the group started with ES and iPS cells and cultured them in a cocktail of proteins to produce primordial germ cell-like cells. To get oocytes, or precursor egg cells, they then mixed the primordial cells with fetal ovarian cells, forming reconstituted ovaries that they then gratied onto natural ovaries in living mice. Four weeks and 4 days later, the primordial germ cell-like cells had developed into oocytes. The team removed the ovaries, harvested the oocytes, fertilized them in vitro, and implanted the resulting embryos into surrogate mothers. About 3 weeks later, normal mouse pups were born, the researchers report online today in Science.

“It is remarkable that one can produce oocytes capable of sustaining complete development starting with embryonic stem cells,”says Davor Solter, a developmental biologist at Singapore’s Institute of Medical Biology. Clark adds that the immediate impact of the work will be on understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in forming germ cells. Saitou says that with a bit more progress in understanding the complex interactions at work, they may be able to coax the cells through the entire oocyte development process in a lab dish. If successful, “we may be able to skip the gratiing,” he says.

Further in the future, the technique could lead to a new tool for treating infertility. “This study has provided the critical proof of principle that oocytes can be generated from induced pluripotent stem cells,” Clark says. If applied to humans, it could lead to the ability to create oocytes from iPS cells taken from infertile women. But Saitou cautions that moving on to human research will require resolving thorny ethical issues and technical difficulties. Solter says that at the extreme, the new approach could lead to the production of human embryos from cell lines and tissue samples. Still, he notes, “defining the status of such ‘parentless’ human embryos and the biological, ethical, and legal issues they will raise defi es the imagination.”

英國研發空氣生成汽油方法解決能源危機

據英國《獨立報》報道，一家英國小公司的技術人員已經借助一項革命性技術第一次“用空氣中的二氧化碳生成汽油”，這項技術有望解決能源危機問題，并通過清除大氣里的二氧化碳，幫助對抗全球變暖。

蒂斯河畔斯托克的這家名叫空氣燃料合成(Air Fuel Synthesis)的公司從8月開啟一個小型提煉廠，利用二氧化碳和水蒸氣進行生產至今，已經生產5升汽油。該公司希望能在2年內建一座能夠大規模生產的更大廠房，日產1噸汽油。它還計劃生產綠色航空燃料，讓航空旅行變得更低碳環保。英國倫敦機械工程師學會能源及環境部門負責人提姆-福克斯說：“這聽起來實在太好了，感覺不像是真的，但其實這就是真的。他們生產汽油時，我就在跟前，我親眼見證了一切。他們的創新之處，是他們已經讓這種方法變成現實。這是一個小型試驗工廠，它捕獲空氣，通過已知原理從中提取二氧化碳。它利用我們早就熟知，而且早已確定的成分進行生產，但令人興奮的是他們把一切結合在一起，并向我們展示它是如何產生作用的。”

雖然這一方法目前仍處于早期開發階段，需要借助國家輸電網提供電流才能進行生產，但是該公司認為，最終它將能利用風電站或者擋潮閘等可再生能源提供動力。該公司首席執行官彼得-哈里森在倫敦舉行的機械工程師學會會議上公布了這一突破性成果。他說：“我們已經從空氣里提取出二氧化碳，從水里提取出氫，并把這些元素轉變成汽油。據我所知，迄今英國和其他國家還沒有人做這樣的事情。它看起來，聞起來都像汽油，但是它比常規汽油更清潔，比用石油生產的汽油更清潔。傳統汽油里含有的添加劑和不好的東西，我們這里面一樣都沒有，我們的汽油能夠用于現有發動機。這意味著人們可以到車庫前院，把我們的產品注入到他們的汽車里，不用安裝電池或者適合該車的燃料電池，抑或是氫氣發生器專用液罐。也就是說現有運輸基礎設施都能用。”

能夠捕獲空氣里的二氧化碳，有效清除燃燒石油和煤等化石燃料產生的主要工業溫室氣體，是正在形成的綠色經濟的“圣杯”。利用從空氣里提取的二氧化碳生產可以儲存、運輸和適用于現有發動機的汽油，使這一想法向成功更邁進一步。哈里森解釋說，這將改變英國的環境和經濟前景。他說：“我們正在把可再生電能轉變成用途更廣、更方便使用和儲存的能源形式，也就是液體運輸用燃料。我們認為，倘若我們的資金夠用，到2014年底我們將開始利用再生能源生產汽油，并開始大規模生產。我們打算在未來15年內達到煉油廠級別的生產規模。現在的問題是證實英國是一個能夠安設該技術所需的所有制造設備的好地方。如果你能自己生產能源，你就有可能改變一個國家的經濟狀況。”

該公司最初的計劃是生產能與常規燃料混合使用的汽油，它必須適合摩托車運動所需的高性能燃料。該技術還是偏遠地區的理想之選，這些地方的可再生能源豐富，例如太陽能、風輪機或者波能，但是卻沒有儲存它們的方法。哈里森說：“我們正在與很多孤島地區和其他縫隙市場進行談判，希望幫助它們解決能源問題。這些市場的問題是石油的價格太高，從某些方面來說，這些市場將會促使我們的燃料變得更便宜。”這個圓形系統的設計目的，是為了從空氣中提取二氧化碳，現在該方法的這個部分的效率還太低，根本無法進行工業規模的生產。

Petrol from air at fi rst glance from this week's headlines, claiming scientists have turned fresh air into petrol, looked as if this was yet another over the top claim about a killer solution to solve the environmental crisis and specter of global warming. Still, engineers in the UK believe a small UK company may be on to something real, a synthetic replacement for fossil fuel. A small company in the north of England, Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS), has developed air capture technology to create synthetic petrol. The company has been running a demonstration plant in Stockton-on-Tees where it has produced fi ve liters of petrol since August, manufacturing gasoline from carbon dioxide and water vapor.

"We've taken carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water and turned these elements into petrol," said Peter Harrison, the company's chief executive. "The unit we have here is a demo facility to show the processes can work," he said. AFS expects to be in production by 2015.

Tim Fox, the head of energy and the environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London, underlined the significance of what he has seen of the AFS solution so far. "The innovation is that they have made it happen as a process. It's a small pilot plant capturing air and extracting CO2 from it based on well-known principles."

Its product looks and smells like petrol but it's cleaner and clearer, without additives. The fuel can be used in any regular petrol tank. The results so far are said to be promising but there are more development stages to go. The company said power could be used from renewable sources such as wind farms or tidal barrages. The company has used carbon dioxide extracted from air to make petrol, but it is also using industrial sources of carbon dioxide until it can improve on carbon capture.

Still, the company has its own vision. The company hopes that in two years it will build a larger, commercial-scale plant capable of producing a ton of petrol a day. "We think that by the end of 2014, provided we can get the funding going, we can be producing petrol using renewable energy and doing it on a commercial basis," Harrison said.

The vision is also that people could go on to a garage and put the new product into their cars without having to install batieries or adapt the vehicle for fuel cells or having hydrogen tanks fitted. AFS also plans to produce "green" aviation fuel to make air travel more carbonneutral.

歐盟科研人員利用綠茶萃取物醫治皮膚癌療效顯著

歐盟第七研發框架計劃（FP7）資助的，由蘇格蘭斯特拉斯克萊德大學（Strathclyde）和格拉斯格大學（Glasgow）教授領導的一個歐洲科研團隊，利用從綠茶中提取的表沒食子兒茶素沒食子酸酯化合萃取物（Eplgallocatechin Gallate, EGCG），直接作用于兩種皮膚腫瘤，對兩種皮膚癌的醫治獲得顯著療效。研究結果在最新一期的納米醫學雜志上發表。

綠茶萃取物已長期應用于癌癥的治療，但傳統的靜脈注射法往往效率不高，主要原因是腫瘤獲取的萃取物不足。

科研團隊的研究人員，采用先進的定向投遞系統技術（Targeted Delivery System），可以讓腫瘤有效地吸收萃取物，限制和降低腫瘤的生長速度。

其工作機理是，將萃取物與攜帶鐵原子的蛋白融合，可以更容易地被腫瘤依次吸收消化，從而促使腫瘤出現萎縮，甚至消失。

科研團隊在實驗室和臨床上所進行的試驗，已取得意想不到的成功。

采取該方法醫治的兩種不同類型皮膚癌癥患者，一個月后，接近三分之二的病患腫瘤得到有效控制。

其中：30%的患者腫瘤完全消失，20%出現萎縮，另有10%得到穩定控制。進一步的研究證實，該醫治方法對正常的人體組織細胞不產生任何副作用，即使對腫瘤繼續生長的病患。

根據世界衛生組織（WHO）的統計報告，兩種不同類型的皮膚癌癥患者，非黑色素（Non-Melanoma）和黑色素（Melanoma），在世界范圍的持續地增長，每年新產生的非黑色素皮膚癌癥患者達到200～300萬之間，而黑色素皮膚癌癥患者也達到了15萬左右。科研團隊研究開發出的治療上述兩種不同皮膚癌癥的創新型技術，必將成為皮膚癌的殺手和患者的福音。

A team of Scottish researchers has successfully used a chemical compound found in green tea to treat two types of skin cancer.

The researchers, from the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, developed a specific method for applying the extract, known as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), directly to tumours.

Writing in the journal Nanomedicine, the team explains the connection between green tea and cancer.

Despite green tea long being associated with combating cancer, delivering tea compounds to the tumour by conventional intravenous administration is not very eff ective, as not enough of the extract gets to the tumour.

Now the team have managed to make the extract effective at shrinking tumours by devising a targeted delivery system, which works by fusing the extract to proteins that carry iron molecules, which are in turn absorbed by the tumour.

In a laboratory study on two diff erent types of skin cancer, nearly two-thirds of the tumours it was delivered to either shrank or disappeared within one month. To boot, no side eff ects for normal tissues were associated with the treatment.

A total of 40 % of both types of tumour vanished, while 30 % of one and 20 % of another type shrank. A further 10 % of one of the types were stabilised. It is thought that these are the fi rst tests where that this type of treatment has made cancerous tumours shrink or vanish.

Lead study author Dr Christine Dufès from the University of Strathclyde comments on this promising research: 'These are very encouraging results which we hope could pave the way for new and eff ective cancer treatments. When we used our method, the green tea extract reduced the size of many of the tumours every day, in some cases removing them altogether. By contrast, the extract had no eff ect at all when it was delivered by other means, as every one of these tumours continued to grow. This research could open doors to new treatments for what is still one of the biggest killer diseases in many countries.'

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that the number of cases of both nonmelanoma and melanoma skin cancers continues to rise; currently, between 2 million and 3 million non-melanoma skin cancers, and 132 000 melanoma skin cancers occur each year worldwide.

英報告稱全球已停止變暖16年

現在幾乎所有人都認為全球正在變暖，然而英國氣象局近日發布的報告表明，早在16年前全球變暖的趨勢便已經停止。

據英國《每日郵報》網站10月14日報道，這份報告是由英國氣象局和東安格利亞大學氣候研究中心共同編寫并發表的，他們對分布在陸地和海洋里的3000多個測量站點進行了數據統計與分析。

報告顯示，從1980年至1996年間，全球溫度的確在上升。然而自1997年初至2012年8月，全球氣溫并沒有明顯升高，也就是說變暖的趨勢16年前已經停止。報告還顯示，在1980年之前的40年期間，全球氣溫一直處于基本穩定狀態，甚至稍有下降。

不過，這一最新結論引發了環境科學家之間的激烈討論。很多科學家不贊同報告的說法，就連東安格利亞氣候研究中心負責人菲爾·瓊斯教授也表示，僅憑15年或16年內的情況就下結論，未免太過倉促。美國喬治亞科技大學的氣候科學系主任朱迪絲·柯里教授在接受媒體采訪時指出：“很明顯，被用于預測未來變暖的計算機模式存在嚴重問題。”

當然，也有人認同這一報告。英國政府相關部門正計劃根據報告里的數據，更改英國二氧化碳排放規定，新建設一些發電站，以應對電力供應短缺的狀況。

對此，一些科學家宣稱，如果不大幅削減全球二氧化碳排放量的話，那么全球變暖的速度肯定要增加。也有預測說，到本世紀末，全球溫度將再上升5攝氏度。

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the sametime as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.

This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous fi gures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.

Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.

Some climate scientists, such as Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, last week dismissed the significance of the plateau, saying that 15 or 16 years is too short a period from which to draw conclusions.

Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply fl awed’.

Even Prof Jones admitted that he and his colleagues did not understand the impact of ‘natural variability’ – factors such as longterm ocean temperature cycles and changes in the output of the sun. However, he said he was still convinced that the current decade would end up signifi cantly warmer than the previous two.

The regular data collected on global temperature is called Hadcrut 4, as it is jointly issued by the Met Off i ce’s Hadley Centre and Prof Jones’s Climatic Research Unit.

Since 1880, when worldwide industrialisation began to gather pace and reliable statistics were fi rst collected on a global scale, the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius.

Some scientists have claimed that this rate of warming is set to increase hugely without drastic cuts to carbon-dioxide emissions, predicting a catastrophic increase of up to a further five degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

The new figures were released as the Government made clear that it would ‘bend’ its own carbon-dioxide rules and build new power stations to try to combat the threat of blackouts.

At last week’s Conservative Party Conference, the new Energy Minister, John Hayes, promised that ‘the high-flown theories of bourgeois Left-wing academics will not override the interests of ordinary people who need fuel for heat, light and transport –energy policies, you might say, for the many, not the few’ – a pledge that has triggered fury from green activists, who fear reductions in the huge subsidies given to windturbine fi rms.

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Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it