News

March 14, 2018

Wasting food may be safe, reasonable decision for some, study says

About 21 percent of the American food supply goes to waste, with much at the consumer level in restaurants and homes. But the choice to throw out leftovers may often be a rational one based on time and food safety, according to research from Purdue University economist Jayson Lusk.

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March 12, 2018

Mutating Ebola’s key protein may stop replication

Researchers may be able to stop the replication of Ebola virus by mutating its most important protein, according to a paper published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Researchers were able to mutate Viral Protein 40 (VP40) in a way that changed the residues of the protein, blocking the budding and replication of Ebola virus in a model system.

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February 22, 2018

Researchers validate several fluctuation theorems for first time

Researchers at Purdue University have performed the first experimental tests of several fundamental theorems in thermodynamics, verifying the relationship between them and providing a better understanding of how nanoparticles behave under fluctuation.

As a system gets smaller, fluctuations away from equilibrium begin to dominate its behavior. This makes the data from experiments in small systems, such as biological molecular motors and nanoscale magnets, messy and difficult to make sense of. Fluctuation theorems help researchers make sense of the fluctuations in these systems.

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February 22, 2018

Atomically thin building blocks could make optoelectrical devices more efficient

Researchers at Purdue University have developed new heterostructures that could make optoelectrical devices, such as solar panels and sensors, more efficient.

Heterostructures are made by stacking layers of two-dimensional materials. The researchers stacked two very thin materials, tungsten disulfide and graphene, to see if they would work together to create electricity.

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February 22, 2018

Purdue researchers show concrete infused with wood nanocrystals is stronger, plan to use it in California bridge

Purdue University researchers studying whether concrete is made stronger by infusing it with microscopic-sized nanocrystals from wood are moving from the laboratory to the real world with a bridge that will be built in California this spring.

The researchers have been working with cellulose nanocrystals, byproducts generated by the paper, bioenergy, agriculture and pulp industries, to find the best mixture to strengthen concrete, the most common man-made material in the world.

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February 20, 2018

Chinese space lab to fall back to Earth in April

Chinese space laboratory Tiangong-1 is predicted to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere in late April, but where or when it will reach the surface is hard to say.

“Debris comes into Earth’s atmosphere all the time,” said Jay Melosh, a professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at Purdue University. “With a spacecraft like this, most of the material burns up high in the atmosphere, but a few denser things might come down.”

Tiangong-1 was the first operational component of the Tiangong program, a larger, modular space station intended to be in space by 2023. It was originally planned to be deorbited in 2013, but never came down. In March 2016, the China National Space Administration announced it had lost contact with the lab.

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February 20, 2018

Purdue targeted drug combination could expedite bone fracture healing, be used as injection

Purdue researchers are developing and commercializing a targeted drug combination that once injected into a patient could speed up and improve bone fracture healing, and significantly cut recovery costs.

Novosteo Inc., a startup developing the technology, was co-founded by father and son team Philip Low, the Purdue Presidential Scholar for Drug Discovery and the Ralph C. Corley Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Stewart Low, a postdoctoral staff member in Purdue’s Department of Chemistry.

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February 20, 2018

EVPRP establishes Stacy L. Brown Outstanding Performance Award

Amy Wright, assistant director of financial affairs for the Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships (EVPRP) Office, and Donna Brown, assistant director of financial affairs for Discovery Park, are the inaugural recipients of the Stacy L. Brown Outstanding Performance Award.

The award was established last year by the EVPRP in memory of Brown, who served as the office’s director of financial affairs until her death in 2017.

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