Tuesday 16 November 2010

PREBIOTIC or PROBIOTIC?

Reading the news prompted me to delve a little on this topic ...
The first thing that came up is what is the difference?
The first answer, the fastest one, comes from wikipedia ...
Prebiotic foods are generally composed of non-digestible carbohydrates while probiotics contains living organisms.
In both cases beneficial health properties are attributed to the products, but the EFSA (European Food Safety Agency) is there to protect the consumer.

Monday 1 November 2010

supercritical fluid transition...

I've found this article in the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility web page.
and it looks interesting.

New phases in supercritical fluids: the Widom line as crossover between liquid-like and gas-like behaviour

 
According to textbooks, there is no observable physical characteristic beyond the critical point allowing a liquid to be distinguished from a gas, hence only a single fluid phase is defined. Using inelastic X-ray scattering and molecular dynamics simulations, a team lead by Italian researchers from the Universities of Rome and Florence, identified two distinct dynamical regimes (liquid-like and gas-like) in dense hot supercritical fluid argon, contradicting the notion of a homogeneous supercritical fluid phase.