Researchers have made a cheap and rapid new test to diagnose type 1 diabetes using a gold-studded glass chip.
Each day, around 280 Australians are diagnosed with diabetes. There are many different types of diabetes, and they are all connected by insulin. Insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas, an organ located behind your stomach. It controls how much sugar gets from your blood into the muscles and other cells of the body. Both insulin and sugar are needed to give your cells energy, so diabetes can be very dangerous.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, which means the body is attacking itself. The immune system creates antibodies that target cells in the pancreas, causing damage that stops it making insulin. On the other hand, in type 2 diabetes the body does not attack itself with antibodies, but either the pancreas is damaged by another way, or the muscles and other cells have stopped responding to insulin.
When someone has diabetes, it is not always easy for doctors to know whether it is type 1 or type 2. The test is to look at their blood for the pancreas-targeting antibodies found in type 1 diabetes. This test is quite slow and expensive. Faster and cheaper tests just weren’t sensitive enough to detect antibodies. To overcome this problem, a team from Stanford University in the USA used nanotechnology.
By placing tiny islands of gold on a glass surface, the team made an amplifier. The fast, cheap tests were now 100 times more sensitive, good enough to detect the antibodies found in type 1 diabetes. Placing just a drop of blood on the gold-studded glass chip would allow a doctor to quickly see if antibodies are there. After trying it out, they found the new nanotech-amplified test was as sensitive as the slower test currently used.
This week is National Diabetes Week in Australia. Though we don’t know any way to prevent type 1 diabetes, you can reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes by eating plenty of fruit and veg and exercising regularly.
Watch a video on how lifestyle can change your risk to type 2 diabetes, produced by the CSIRO, Garvan Institute and WEHI.
Quiz questions
What does the word ‘ungulate’ mean?
Ruby is the red variety of the mineral corundum. What is the blue variety called?
Draculin is an anticoagulant (something that stops blood clotting). In which animal would you find it?
What is the name of Australia’s largest Aboriginal ochre mine?
If a unicycle is travelling at a speed of 10 kilometres per hour, what is the speed (relative to the ground) of the top of the wheel? What about the bottom of the wheel?
Try this: Pour out the candle
You'll need these things.
Light the candle.
Put two tablespoons of bicarb soda into the jug. Add a cup of vinegar to the jug. The vinegar and bicarb soda will fizz and produce a gas. Straight away, pour the gas over the candle. Don't pour any vinegar out with it!
You will need
Candle
Matches
Bicarb soda
Tablespoon
Jug
Vinegar
Measuring cup
What to do
Light the candle with the matches.
Put two tablespoons of bicarb soda into the jug.
Measure a quarter of a cup of vinegar.
Add the vinegar to the bicarb soda in the jug.
The bicarb soda and vinegar will fizz and produce a gas. Straight away, lift the jug and pour the gas over the candle, taking care not to pour any of the vinegar out with it.
What happens to the flame?
What’s happening?
If you work quickly to pour the gas over the candle, and aim well, the candle should go out!
Bicarb soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, and vinegar react together to produce a gas called carbon dioxide. This is the gas that fizzes and bubbles when you add vinegar to bicarb soda. We can write down the chemical reaction like this:
Sodium bicarbonate and vinegar → sodium acetate and water and carbon dioxide gas
NaHCO3 + CH3COOH → CH3COONa + H2O + CO2
Carbon dioxide is heavier than other gases in the air, like oxygen and nitrogen. When you tip the jug, the carbon dioxide gas pours downwards onto the candle.
Fire needs oxygen to burn fuel. By pouring carbon dioxide gas over the candle, the flame can’t receive the oxygen it needs to keep burning. Hey presto, the flame goes out.
Applications
Carbon dioxide gas is used in some fire extinguishers. They put out fires the same way you can put out a candle in this activity – by replacing the oxygen around the fire. Without oxygen, the fire cannot burn fuel.
Play Shreddin’ Diabetes, where you can snowboard while you pick up food and insulin to keep your blood sugar in balance.
See it!
Sun, Moon and the deep sky are on show among the finalists for the Central West Astronomical Society Astrophotography Awards. Winners announced on Saturday.
Watch it! The unexpected effects of knitting, by BrainCraft.
Quiz answers
Ungulate means ‘hoofed mammal’.
The blue variety of corundum is called sapphire.
Draculin is found in the saliva of vampire bats.
Australia’s largest Aboriginal ochre mine is Wilgie Mia.
The speed (relative to the ground) of the top of the wheel is 20 kilometres per hour, and the bottom of the wheel is zero kilometres per hour.
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