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Antimicrobial steel

17.12.2017

Electrochemical etching of ordinary stainless steel allowed scientists to create complex nanostructures on its surface, unable to damage large mammalian cells, but deadly to bacteria.

In the future, this will make it possible to make metal tools and surfaces with antibacterial properties. Such steel was developed by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

A sample of steel 316L was taken as a basis, which was immersed in an electrolyte and a voltage was applied. By varying the parameters and current density, scientists sought to create different surface structures. One option demonstrated good hydrophobic properties - and, unexpectedly for the authors themselves, strong antibacterial properties. The exact mechanism of this action remains to be elucidated. In the meantime, scientists suggest that the whole thing is in the numerous bumps and sharp needles 20-25 nm high, which are formed on the steel surface during processing.

As experiments have shown, they successfully cope with both gram-positive (S. aureus) and gram-negative (E. coli) bacteria, although they are completely harmless to mouse cells. And since the impact is purely mechanical - most likely, steel nanoneedles simply pierce the membranes of bacterial cells - it is difficult to imagine that microbes will somehow develop resistance against it.

The authors note that a similar technological process is widely used to give stainless steel a polished sheen, so obtaining "antimicrobial" steel should not be a difficult task for the industry. Moreover, such texturing increases the concentration of chromium and molybdenum at the surface of the material, which increases its corrosion resistance.

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The influence of temperature on physical processes 01.08.2022

Biologists led by José Ignacio Arroyo, a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, have presented a diagram that demonstrates how temperature affects living organisms.

"The theory is fundamental," says SFI professor Pablo Marche, an ecologist at the Pontifical Catholic University, Santiago. "It can be applied to almost any process that is affected by temperature."

Previous attempts to generalize the effects of temperature on biology lacked the "big" implications of the new model, Marquet says.

Biologists and environmentalists often use the Arrhenius equation, for example, to describe the effect of temperature on the rate of chemical reactions. This approach explains a number of biological processes, but it does not take into account metabolism and growth rate.

Initially, Arroyo wanted to develop a general mathematical model to predict the behavior of an initial variable in a conventional biological system. However, he quickly realized that temperature was a kind of universal predictor and could guide the development of a new model.

He started with a chemical theory describing the kinetics of enzymes, but with a few additions and assumptions, he extended the model from the quantum molecular level to larger, macroscopic scales.

It is important that the model combines three elements that were absent in the previous theoretical experience.

First, like its counterpart in chemistry, it is based on first principles. Secondly, the model is based on one simple equation with a small number of parameters. (Most existing models require many assumptions and parameters). Thirdly, "it is universal in the sense that it can explain the patterns and behavior of any microorganism or any taxa in any environment," explains the scientist.

All temperature responses for various processes, taxa, and scales are reduced to the same functional.

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