Researchers led by James Tabor of the University of North Carolina

Regulators are proposing that food companies that want to use tiny engineered particles in their packaging may have to provide extra testing data to show the products beats by dr dre are safe. The Food and Drug Administration issued tentative guidelines Friday for food and cosmetic companies interested in using nanoparticles, which are measured in billionths of a meter. Nanoscale materials are generally less than 100 nanometers in diameter. A sheet of paper, in comparison, is 100,000 nanometers thick. A human hair is 80,000 nanometers thick. The submicroscopic particles are increasingly showing up in FDA-regulated products like sunscreens, skin lotions and glare-reducing eyeglass coatings. Some scientists believe the technology will one day be used in medicine, but the FDA's announcement did not address that use. The draft guidance suggests the FDA may require food companies to provide data establishing the safety of any packaging using nanotechnology. Under longstanding regulations, companies aren't required to seek regulatory approval before launching products containing established ingredients and materials, such as caffeine, spices and various preservatives. But FDA officials said Friday that foods and packaging Monster Beats Studio NFL New Orleans Saints containing nanoparticles may require more scrutiny. "At this point, in terms of the science, we think it's likely the exemption does not apply and we would encourage folks to come in and talk to us," said Dennis Keefe, director of FDA's office of food additive safety. Keefe said companies are studying whether nanoparticles can reduce the risk of bacterial contamination in certain foods. He said the agency is aware of just one food louis vuitton sunglasses package currently on the market that uses nanoparticles but did not identify it. He said more are expected in coming years. The FDA has previously stated its position that nanotechnology is not inherently unsafe; however, materials at the nano scale can pose different safety issues than do things that are far larger. "This is an emerging, evolving technology and we're trying to get ahead of the curb to ensure the ingredients and substances are safe," Keefe said. In a separate guidance, the FDA laid out suggestions for the use of nanotechnology in cosmetics, a practice which has been in use since the 1990s. Nanoparticles are used in skin moisturizer, mineral make up and other cosmetics. The FDA has less authority over cosmetics than food additives. Generally, the FDA does not review cosmetics before they launch, and companies are responsible for assuring the safety of their products. The FDA will take comments on both proposals for 90 days. There Ray ban sunglasses is no deadline for finalizing the documents. Long-unrecognized lettering confirms that first-century artifacts found within an ancient Jerusalem tomb are the earliest representations of Christianity ever found, researchers say. Two Hebrew scholars who examined photographs showing the inside of the tomb agree that markings on an ossuary — a box made to hold human remains — are stylized letters that spell out the name of Jonah, the researchers said Thursday (April 19). Jonah was the Old Testament prophet whose story of being swallowed by a great fish was embraced by the early followers of Jesus. The tomb, located 6.5 feet (2 meters) below burberry handbags an apartment building in the East Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem, was discovered in 1981 but resealed after Orthodox Jewish groups opposed its excavation. Two decades later, the group got license to enter the tomb, which has been dated to before A.D. 70. Researchers led by James Tabor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte did not enter the tomb themselves but instead used a remote camera to explore it. Their analysis of the images was reported Feb. 28 in the journal The Bible and Interpretation. The Hebrew scholars' translation of the stylized burberry ties letters on the ossuary have yet to be published. On one of the ossuaries was an inscription depicting "divine Jehovah," and a second had a picture that appeared to be a fish with a stick figure in its mouth, said to represent Jonah. If they fully understand these drawings, the researchers said, then they have found the oldest Christian artifacts, the earliest Christian art and the first evidence of faith in Jesus' resurrection. Similar depictions of Jonah were used by later Christian groups and became an important expression of the faith in later centuries. When the tomb and its contents were first disclosed, many biblical scholars offered alternate interpretations of the iconography and disputed the tomb's connections to Christianity. They said the image is more likely a funerary monument and not a fish at all. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus] After the initial announcement, the team continued to examine the images from their robot scout. Strange markings inside the fish head stood out to the researchers, louis vuitton handbags and they called upon James Charlesworth, a Hebrew script scholar from the Princeton Theological Seminary. The researchers said Charlesworth confirmed their interpretation of the marks: The lines that make up what they thought was a stick figure could also be viewed as four Hebrew letters. The script is similar to that from the Dead Sea Scrolls and seems to spell out "YONAH," the Hebrew name of Jonah. "This discovery by Professor oakley sunglasses Charlesworth is quite remarkable and had been overlooked in our initial analysis," Tabor said in a statement. "The engraver has apparently rather ingeniously combined what we took to be the stick figure of Jonah with the four Hebrew letters spelling out his name." Tabor also asked other Hebrew researchers for their opinion on the interpretation. Robert Deutsch of Haifa University confirmed Charlesworth's reading of YONAH, and Discount louis vuitton bracelets for women classic best outlet silvery Haggai Misgav of Hebrew University agreed there were definitely letters, but Misgav read them as "ZOLAH," Tabor said.