As this month\u2019s blog is being written, the US has a \u201cshelter-in-place\u201d\ndirective that has been extended through the end of April. There are many reports of possible medical\ntreatments that may mitigate the current Covid-19 virus. Most of the results are anecdotal and have\nnot been vigorously tested. The\nscientific\/medical process is long and involved requiring multiple trials to\nprove something works. I mention this\nbecause, the information that I write about are usually one of a kind\nreports. That is why references are\nprovided for the reader to investigate further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While not strictly \u201cnano\u201d, phytomining is a very interesting\nconcept that works with small metal particles. \nPhytomining is the process of employing \u201chyper-accumulating\u201d plants to\nextract metals from the ground. [Ref. 1] There are a number of plants, with over 700\nknown, that have roots that extract metal from the ground. There is a story that people, who understand the\nspecific plants that grow locally, can determine areas that have gold in the\nsoil. The referenced article describes\nan experiment on a plot of land in a rural village on the island of\nBorneo. Every six month, the farmer cuts\noff about a foot on new growth. The plant\ncutting can be either squeezed to release the metal or burned to obtain the\nmetal. After purification the resultant\nmaterial is nickel citrate. This leads\nto the term phytomining or agromining. \nIs this a possible means of obtaining metals that are in short supply\nbur needed for modern society?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nanoparticles may be successful in targeting the most\ndangerous of prostate tumors. [Ref. 2] Some observations have suggested that\ntumors with high nerve densities might grow significantly faster and spread\nmore rapidly than tumors with low nerve densities. Current research has challenges in\nidentifying the different densities. The\nability to identify nerve density would provide the ability to locate the more\naggressive tumors. That is currently\ndifficult with existing MRI techniques since tumors with dense networks can\nclosely resemble the tumors with an undeveloped nervous system. Researchers in China have employed combining\niron oxide with a nerve binding peptide NP41. \n24 hours after injection of the contrast agent material with the iron oxide\nparticles, the high density tumors are identifiable with an MRI scan. This work has not been advanced to the stage\nwhere it can be tested on humans. It\nseems to be promising for more than prostate tumors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do not normally cover specific products, however, when\nsomething seems intriguing, I will provide some thoughts. These are initial thoughts and not any\nrecommendations for or against a product. \nThere is a product in the early stages of marketing that employs 60nm\nparticles that act a capacitors (nanocapacitors). [Ref. 3] \nThe explanation is that this concept was developed as part of a\nleading-edge antenna investigation. \nBuilt as an appliable, bandage type device, it contains a substrate, a\nlayer of nanocapacitors, and a carrier layer. \nThe carrier layer contacts the skin where there is pain. The contention is that the nanocapacitors interfere\n(?) or mitigate the electrical signals the body is transmitting from the area\nof pain. Does it work? I have not tired it, so I can not issue a judgment. The concept seems plausible. Are there potential issues? There could be. It depends on what the nanomaterials\nare. At the 60nm size, the properties should\nbe very similar to the bulk material properties. The size of the particles probably has a\nspecific relationship to the frequency of the signal being mitigated. The only issue that might be possible is that\nif the wearer employed the device to mitigate pain and performed an action that\nincreased the severity of the source of pain. \nTime will tell on this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are interesting times we live in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
References<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As this month\u2019s blog is being written, the US has a \u201cshelter-in-place\u201d directive that has been extended through the end of April. There are many reports of possible [..]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc-ramblings","category-nanotechnology-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":368,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions\/368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}