国际科技信息

国际科技信息

欧盟一项新颖创新的农业种植技术获得显著效益

欧盟第七研发框架计划（FP7）资助支持的，基地设立于法国南锡（Nancy）的一家科技创新型企业，即法国先进植物技术公司PAT（Plant Advanced Technology），作为自行研究开发出的“植物榨取技术”（Plant Milking technology）的开拓者，从植物的根部萃取所需珍贵的有机化合物质成分，获得巨大的经济效益。

几年时间，从开创到快速发展，并形成一定规模，正迅速向欧洲其它国家、特别是欧洲地中海沿岸国家扩张。

自然界中的多年生植物会在其根部或植物本身产生活性物质，以保护自身和抵御外部不利环境条件的入侵，这些活性物质在医药保健和化妆品行业往往具有很高的应用价值。公司采用植物无土栽培种植技术，选择种植的作物主要以稀少的、受到保护的或生长缓慢的，可从根部萃取珍贵有机化合物质成分的植物为目标。

一方面，相对“透明的”植物根部，更容易让科技人员研究提高植物根系硕壮的方法，通过调整植物营养液的配方，加速植物根部的生长或获取更高比率的活性物质，从而提高植物的产量和质量。

另一方面，在不影响植物根系的情况下，可有计划地安排每次采收适量的根部进行萃取，以保持植物继续健康地成长，不至于传统的野外采收和土壤栽培往往以植物的死亡为代价。

目前，公司种植效益较高的植物主要包括：一种富含治疗和预防妇女骨质疏松特效成分的墨西哥高原植物；两种抗消炎植物；数十种抗氧化物植物和应用于化妆品的植物；还包括一种食虫植物，提取的成分可以有效医治部分癌症和罕见的遗传性疾病。

公司获得的高额收益，在快速扩展市场的同时，持续加大着对企业研发创新投入的力度，不断向市场推出有效的化合物质成分新产品。

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.

科学家首次用“人造”卵子产下小鼠

想要一只小老鼠吗？拿个培养皿就行了。在利用源自干细胞的精子产下了正常幼鼠后，日本京都大学的一个研究小组又通过同样的方式利用卵子完成了这一壮举。这项研究最终有望为帮助那些不育夫妇怀孕带来新的方法。

美国加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校的干细胞生物学家Amander Clark认为：“这是一项重要的成就，我相信它将对生殖细胞生物学和遗传学领域产生深远而持久的影响。”

上述两项研究所使用的干细胞都是胚胎干（ES）细胞和诱导多能干（iPS）细胞。前者来自于胚胎，而后者则是成熟组织细胞经再编程后产生了类似于干细胞的作用。从理论上讲，两者都能够形成所有类型的体细胞，但大多数研究人员一直无法把它们变成生殖细胞，即精子和卵子的前体细胞。由干细胞生物学家Mitinori Saitou率领的研究小组找到了一个可行的方法。与精子一样，研究人员从ES和iPS细胞入手，并且在一种蛋白质的“鸡尾酒”中对其进行培育，从而形成了与原生殖细胞类似的细胞。为了得到卵母细胞或前体卵细胞，研究人员随后将这些原始细胞与小鼠胎儿的卵巢细胞相混合，从而形成了再造的卵巢，并最终将其移植到活体小鼠的正常卵巢中。4周零4天后，那些与原生殖细胞类似的细胞发育成为卵母细胞。

研究小组去除掉卵巢，得到卵母细胞，并且对其进行体外授精，然后再将得到的胚胎移植进代孕母亲体内。大约3周后，正常的小鼠崽诞生了。研究人员在最新一期美国《科学》杂志上报告了这一研究成果。

新加坡医学生物学研究所的发育生物学家Davor Solter认为：“这是非凡的，源自胚胎干细胞的细胞能够产生卵母细胞，进而具有持续完成发育的能力。”Clark强调，对生殖细胞形成有关的分子机制的理解将对研究工作产生直接影响。Saitou说，如果对起作用的复杂交互作用的理解进一步加深，研究人员或许就能够在实验室的培养皿中诱导细胞完成整个的卵母细胞发育过程。他说，一旦获得成功，“我们有望绕过移植这一步”。

在更远的将来，这项技术将成为治疗不孕症的一个新工具。Clark说：“这项研究提供了原理上的关键证据，表明诱导多能干细胞能够产生卵母细胞。”如果应用于人体，它可能会导致从采自不孕女性的iPS细胞形成卵母细胞的能力。但是Saitou警告说，向人类研究的转移需要解决令人苦恼的伦理问题和技术难题。

Solter表示，在极端情况下，新的方法将导致来自细胞系和组织样本的人类胚胎的形成。他强调，尽管如此，“这种‘无父母’的人类胚胎的定义状态，以及它们所引发的生物学、伦理学和法律问题将挑战你的想象力”。

该研究小组去年8月曾成功“人造”实验鼠精子，因此理论上利用iPS细胞培养的精子和卵子“人造”受精卵，进而“人造生命”成为可能。京都大学名誉教授森崇英说，这对不能生成卵子的不育女性是一个好消息。不过，相关研究尚处在动物实验阶段，还将面临安全性和伦理等诸多挑战。

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.”

英国研发空气生成汽油方法解决能源危机

据英国《独立报》报道，一家英国小公司的技术人员已经借助一项革命性技术第一次“用空气中的二氧化碳生成汽油”，这项技术有望解决能源危机问题，并通过清除大气里的二氧化碳，帮助对抗全球变暖。

蒂斯河畔斯托克的这家名叫空气燃料合成(Air Fuel Synthesis)的公司从8月开启一个小型提炼厂，利用二氧化碳和水蒸气进行生产至今，已经生产5升汽油。该公司希望能在2年内建一座能够大规模生产的更大厂房，日产1吨汽油。它还计划生产绿色航空燃料，让航空旅行变得更低碳环保。英国伦敦机械工程师学会能源及环境部门负责人提姆-福克斯说：“这听起来实在太好了，感觉不像是真的，但其实这就是真的。他们生产汽油时，我就在跟前，我亲眼见证了一切。他们的创新之处，是他们已经让这种方法变成现实。这是一个小型试验工厂，它捕获空气，通过已知原理从中提取二氧化碳。它利用我们早就熟知，而且早已确定的成分进行生产，但令人兴奋的是他们把一切结合在一起，并向我们展示它是如何产生作用的。”

虽然这一方法目前仍处于早期开发阶段，需要借助国家输电网提供电流才能进行生产，但是该公司认为，最终它将能利用风电站或者挡潮闸等可再生能源提供动力。该公司首席执行官彼得-哈里森在伦敦举行的机械工程师学会会议上公布了这一突破性成果。他说：“我们已经从空气里提取出二氧化碳，从水里提取出氢，并把这些元素转变成汽油。据我所知，迄今英国和其他国家还没有人做这样的事情。它看起来，闻起来都像汽油，但是它比常规汽油更清洁，比用石油生产的汽油更清洁。传统汽油里含有的添加剂和不好的东西，我们这里面一样都没有，我们的汽油能够用于现有发动机。这意味着人们可以到车库前院，把我们的产品注入到他们的汽车里，不用安装电池或者适合该车的燃料电池，抑或是氢气发生器专用液罐。也就是说现有运输基础设施都能用。”

能够捕获空气里的二氧化碳，有效清除燃烧石油和煤等化石燃料产生的主要工业温室气体，是正在形成的绿色经济的“圣杯”。利用从空气里提取的二氧化碳生产可以储存、运输和适用于现有发动机的汽油，使这一想法向成功更迈进一步。哈里森解释说，这将改变英国的环境和经济前景。他说：“我们正在把可再生电能转变成用途更广、更方便使用和储存的能源形式，也就是液体运输用燃料。我们认为，倘若我们的资金够用，到2014年底我们将开始利用再生能源生产汽油，并开始大规模生产。我们打算在未来15年内达到炼油厂级别的生产规模。现在的问题是证实英国是一个能够安设该技术所需的所有制造设备的好地方。如果你能自己生产能源，你就有可能改变一个国家的经济状况。”

该公司最初的计划是生产能与常规燃料混合使用的汽油，它必须适合摩托车运动所需的高性能燃料。该技术还是偏远地区的理想之选，这些地方的可再生能源丰富，例如太阳能、风轮机或者波能，但是却没有储存它们的方法。哈里森说：“我们正在与很多孤岛地区和其他缝隙市场进行谈判，希望帮助它们解决能源问题。这些市场的问题是石油的价格太高，从某些方面来说，这些市场将会促使我们的燃料变得更便宜。”这个圆形系统的设计目的，是为了从空气中提取二氧化碳，现在该方法的这个部分的效率还太低，根本无法进行工业规模的生产。

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.

欧盟科研人员利用绿茶萃取物医治皮肤癌疗效显著

欧盟第七研发框架计划（FP7）资助的，由苏格兰斯特拉斯克莱德大学（Strathclyde）和格拉斯格大学（Glasgow）教授领导的一个欧洲科研团队，利用从绿茶中提取的表没食子儿茶素没食子酸酯化合萃取物（Eplgallocatechin Gallate, EGCG），直接作用于两种皮肤肿瘤，对两种皮肤癌的医治获得显著疗效。研究结果在最新一期的纳米医学杂志上发表。

绿茶萃取物已长期应用于癌症的治疗，但传统的静脉注射法往往效率不高，主要原因是肿瘤获取的萃取物不足。

科研团队的研究人员，采用先进的定向投递系统技术（Targeted Delivery System），可以让肿瘤有效地吸收萃取物，限制和降低肿瘤的生长速度。

其工作机理是，将萃取物与携带铁原子的蛋白融合，可以更容易地被肿瘤依次吸收消化，从而促使肿瘤出现萎缩，甚至消失。

科研团队在实验室和临床上所进行的试验，已取得意想不到的成功。

采取该方法医治的两种不同类型皮肤癌症患者，一个月后，接近三分之二的病患肿瘤得到有效控制。

其中：30%的患者肿瘤完全消失，20%出现萎缩，另有10%得到稳定控制。进一步的研究证实，该医治方法对正常的人体组织细胞不产生任何副作用，即使对肿瘤继续生长的病患。

根据世界卫生组织（WHO）的统计报告，两种不同类型的皮肤癌症患者，非黑色素（Non-Melanoma）和黑色素（Melanoma），在世界范围的持续地增长，每年新产生的非黑色素皮肤癌症患者达到200～300万之间，而黑色素皮肤癌症患者也达到了15万左右。科研团队研究开发出的治疗上述两种不同皮肤癌症的创新型技术，必将成为皮肤癌的杀手和患者的福音。

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.

英报告称全球已停止变暖16年

现在几乎所有人都认为全球正在变暖，然而英国气象局近日发布的报告表明，早在16年前全球变暖的趋势便已经停止。

据英国《每日邮报》网站10月14日报道，这份报告是由英国气象局和东安格利亚大学气候研究中心共同编写并发表的，他们对分布在陆地和海洋里的3000多个测量站点进行了数据统计与分析。

报告显示，从1980年至1996年间，全球温度的确在上升。然而自1997年初至2012年8月，全球气温并没有明显升高，也就是说变暖的趋势16年前已经停止。报告还显示，在1980年之前的40年期间，全球气温一直处于基本稳定状态，甚至稍有下降。

不过，这一最新结论引发了环境科学家之间的激烈讨论。很多科学家不赞同报告的说法，就连东安格利亚气候研究中心负责人菲尔·琼斯教授也表示，仅凭15年或16年内的情况就下结论，未免太过仓促。美国乔治亚科技大学的气候科学系主任朱迪丝·柯里教授在接受媒体采访时指出：“很明显，被用于预测未来变暖的计算机模式存在严重问题。”

当然，也有人认同这一报告。英国政府相关部门正计划根据报告里的数据，更改英国二氧化碳排放规定，新建设一些发电站，以应对电力供应短缺的状况。

对此，一些科学家宣称，如果不大幅削减全球二氧化碳排放量的话，那么全球变暖的速度肯定要增加。也有预测说，到本世纪末，全球温度将再上升5摄氏度。

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