Is it possible to unboil an egg?

Scientists from the University of California, Irvine said they found a way to unboil an egg. This process is considered important as it can help reduce the cost of any biotechnology process which requires the folding of proteins.

The scientists said they were able to unboil an egg by untangling its proteins.

Gregory Weiss, a biochemistry professor at UCI and one of the scientists involved in the study said, “Yes, we have invented a way to unboil a hen egg […] in our paper, we describe a device for pulling apart tangled proteins and allowing them to refold. We start with egg whites boiled for 20 minutes at 90 degrees Celsius and return a key protein in the egg to working order.”

“It’s not so much that we’re interested in processing the eggs; that’s just demonstrating how powerful this process is […] The real problem is there are lots of cases of gummy proteins that you spend way too much time scraping off your test tubes, and you want some means of recovering that material,” he added.

Weiss also explained that the traditional method of untangling proteins (this is the equivalent process of dialysis) takes four days at the most but with the new technique, they said it can be done in minutes.

This new technique is expected to reduce cost of food protection, cancer treatments and other segments of what is a $160 billion global biotechnology industry.

How did Mr. Weiss and his team managed to unboil an egg and untangle its proteins?

Mr. Weiss and his colleagues worked on recreating a clear protein known as lysozyme once an egg has been boiled by adding a urea substance which chews away at the whites. In return, the solid material was liquefied. Since the proteins were still balled up (it happens after it is boiled), the scientists used a vortex fluid device developed by Professor Colin Raston’s laboratory in South Australia’s Flinders University to force the tiny pieces back into their proper, untangled form.

The University of California Irvine patented the new technology and are now partnering with other groups to make the technology a commercial one.

How to Stop Snoring and Improve Your Health

Suffer From Snoring? This New Doctor Trusted Solution Stops Snoring and Lets You Sleep

If you constantly feel exhausted, experience headaches for no obvious reason or have high blood pressure, it could be the result of snoring.

More than a simple annoyance, snoring is also the most common symptom of a potentially serious health problem—obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Over 18 million Americans snore, and it’s related to OSA. People who suffer from OSA repeatedly and unknowingly stop breathing during the night due to a complete or partial obstruction of their airway.  It occurs when the jaw, throat, and tongue muscles relax, blocking the airway used to breathe.  The resulting lack of oxygen can last for a minute or longer, and occur hundreds of times each night.

OSA has been linked to:

• Acid reflux
• Frequent nighttime urination
• Memory loss
• Stroke
• Depression
• Diabetes
• Heart attack

People over 35 are at higher risk.
OSA can be expensive to diagnosis and treat — up to $5,000 — and those treatments can sometimes be quite painful. Plus, they're not always covered by insurance.

However, a recent study published by Eastern Virginia Medical School's Division of Sleep Medicine concluded that wearing a simple chinstrap while sleeping can be an effective treatment for OSA.

The chin strap, which is now available from a company called MySnoringSolution, works by supporting the lower jaw and tongue, preventing obstruction of the airway.  It’s made from a high-tech, lightweight, and super-comfortable material.  Thousands of people have used the MySnoringSolution chinstrap and reported better sleeping, and better health overall because of it.

An effective "DoctorTrusted" snoring solution for just $119

The chinstrap was recently evaluated by Dr. Daniel L. W. Hanley, an independent medical doctor, on the DoctorTrusted website. He reviewed the chinstrap, the product's medical information and more, and found that it met the site's strict requirements and ethical code of conduct. Indeed, DoctorTrusted deemed MySnoringSolution's website "to be trustworthy and safe for purchases as of the time of the review."

The “My Snoring Solution” chinstrap is available exclusively from the company’s website, which is currently offering a limited time “2 for 1” offer.  The product also comes with an unconditional 90-day, money-back guarantee!

If you want to stop snoring once and for all, without expensive CPAPs or other intrusive devices, this may be the solution you’ve been waiting for.

New study finds correlation between long term birth control use and rare brain tumor

A new study has found that certain types of birth control may be linked to an increased risk of developing glioma, a rare type of brain cancer.

The Danish research project found that women under the age of 50 with glioma were “90 percent more likely to have been using hormonal contraceptives for five years of more, compared with women from the general population with no history of brain tumor,” said Dr. David Gaist, lead author of the study, according to CBS News.


The researchers reported that use of hormonal contraceptives did increase the risk of developing glioma, with a sharper increase the longer the duration of use.The study also noted that the risk seemed to increase for women using pills with the hormone progestogen rather than estrogen.

It is important to point out that the researchers found only a correlation. The researchers could not isolate a cause and effect relationship and Gaist stresses that the results “need to be put into context.” The most important context is the rarity of glioma.

Only five of every 100,000 Danish women between the ages of 15 and 49 develop glioma each year. This figure includes women who use oral contraceptives.

“An overall risk-benefit evaluation favors continued use of hormonal contraceptives,” said Gaist.
The study looked at 317 cases of glioma in women ages 15-49 from 2000 to 2009. Among them, 60 percent had used oral contraceptives. This group was then compared to 2,100 women without glioma, about 50 percent of whom used oral contraceptives.

Dr. Evan Myers is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University Medical Center. Myers told CBS the study was “really well-done.”

However, Myers also points out that the lack of a cause and effect relationship means further research is required. He encouraged future research to focus on other indirect factors that may play a role in the increased risk for glioma.

“Even if hormonal contraception does increase the relative risk of glioma, the absolute risk — the actual increase in chances of having a glioma diagnosed — is quite small,” said Myers.
“Without going through the math, it’s about 8.5 [cases] per million.”


The study is published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

Twitter predicts rates of heart disease

Smoking, obesity and income levels are standard measures of heart disease rates, but what about Twitter? Yes, those 140-character social media blasts are actually incredibly accurate at predicting whether people get sick or not.

A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania discovered this surprising correlation between county-by-county rates of heart disease and language used on Twitter.


As noted by Psychological Science, tweets that express negative emotions – anger, stress, fatigue, etc.  – were linked with higher risk of heart disease in any given county. The opposite was also true; the more positive tweets a county had, the lower its risk of heart disease.

Tweets, it turns out, offer unprecedented insight into the psychological well-being of a community, and therefore whether its citizens stand a greater risk of dying from heart disease.

Researchers were perplexed why Twitter and its typically youthful users could so accurately predict rates of heart disease mortality.


“The relationship between language and mortality is particularly surprising since the people tweeting angry words and topics are in general not the ones dying of heart disease,” said study co-author H. Andrew Schwartz. “But that means if many of your neighbors are angry, you are more likely to die of heart disease.”

The team analyzed 148 million tweets from 1,347 US counties between June 2009 and March 2010, according to Pacific Standard, enough to account for 88 percent of the US population.


Looking at common emotional terms and word clusters reflecting attitudes and topics like hostility, boredom, and fatigue, researchers compared tweets to county-level rates of heart disease mortality. The results were undeniable; even after accounting for factors like education and income levels, negative tweets remained strongly linked to heart disease deaths.Positive tweets were associated with lower rates of heart disease deaths, so perhaps think twice before engaging in your next Twitter rant.