Jul 30, 2008
Over on ChemWeb and wearing my Alchemist hat I hear of a discovery that could lead to a new therapeutic target for a whole range of diseases in which the inflammatory response is involved, almost a medical Panacea. An out of this world approach to liquid telescopes could overcome the big obstacle in making such a device useful for astronomy. The protein spike on the surface of the Ebola virus is laid bare by X-ray …
Jul 28, 2008
There are two main schools of thought when it comes to oil supply. There are those who believe that oil supplies are strictly limited and that we have passed the peak and will soon (40 to 60 years) run out of oil with which to power our vehicles. Then are those who believe supplies could last much longer than current predictions suggest. The latter …
Jul 25, 2008
The idea of using carbon sequestration to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels has been bandied about for years, I vaguely recall writing about it when I first freelanced for New Scientist in 1990. It struck me then as a ludicrous approach to tackling climate change akin to sweeping the problem under the carpet. Now, a press release from another journal for which I once wrote on a regular basis, Chemistry & Industry …
Jul 23, 2008
My recent article on the subject of an unnatural approach to diabetes led to some quite intriguing comments from readers especially as I suggested that it would make sense from a safety perspective to bring herbal remedies under the same regulatory umbrella as regular pharmaceutical products.
Eric W a chemistry teacher from Minnesota who goes by the online monicker of “Chemgeek” pointed out that the US Food …
Jul 21, 2008
Remote arsenic assessment - A topic I’ve come back to again and again since I first covered for The Guardian the breaking news of arsenic contaminated tubewells on the Indian sub-continent in 1995. Now, an informatics approach to surface data could allow geologists and environmental scientists to identify regions of the world where people are at risk of exposure to arsenic in their drinking water without the need for widespread …
Jul 18, 2008
Intellectual property, copyright, creative commons, copyleft, open access… These are all terms high on the science and other agenda these days. For example, public-funded scientists the world over are calling for research results to be available free to them and their peers for the public good and for the good of scientific advancement itself. Librarians likewise are also interested in the fullest dissemination …
Jul 16, 2008
As regular readers will be aware, I’m very skeptical of crank claims. Usually, these will claim to cure everything from premenstrual cramps to cancer by way of motor neurone disease and ingrowing toenails, all of them, with one pill. Forgive my flippancy, but the claims of many of those touting such panaceas usually beggars belief.
But some offer quite convincing claims for treating, but not necessarily curing, a specific illness …
Jul 14, 2008
Children are so bright these days. Allegedly. It seems that not a week goes by without some juvenile prodigy whizzkid, or child genius solving an engineering problem, revising some scientific data or inventing some world-saving gadget.
You probably saw the recent news about a 13-year old boy from Germany, taking part in a science festival, who corrected NASA calculations on the likely impact of asteroid Apophis, shortening the odds of a …
Jul 11, 2008
We live in an age of chemophobia, an insidious disease that threatens our way of life, precludes R & D that might solve many of the environmental issues we face and prevents disease-stopping compounds being deployed where they are most needed in the developing world. Chemophobia is an irrational fear of all things chemical and is usually contracted by those already with naturophilia, the irrational love of all things …
Jul 9, 2008
I’ve got some wide-ranging research to report in this week’s SpectroscopyNOW, including mineral tests, colour MRI, the Agent Smith of prions, and a new approach to spotting doped athletes.
New insights offered by near infrared spectroscopy into the mineralogy of carbonate rocks could help improve the outlook for carbon capture and storage in efforts to reduce the effect of carbon dioxide emissions on the global climate. Although, …
The UK’s Health Research Forum, a pressure group opposing the blanket ban on sunbathing that other organisations are attempting to implement, has just published its second report - Sunlight, Vitamin D, & Health (Edited by Oliver Gillie). The report covers a conference held at the House of Commons in November 2005 and endeavours to devour some of the claims made by sunscreen manufacturers and cancer charities about the …
Jul 7, 2008
Sciencebase readers will likely be aware that when I cite a research paper, I usually use the DOI system, the Digital Object Identifier. This acts like a redirect service taking a unique number, which might look like this assigned to each research paper by its publisher and passing it to a server that works out where the actual paper is on the web.
The DOI system has several handlers, and …
Jul 4, 2008
I wrote about the effect of salt on the boiling point of water recently and Sciencebase reader Derek Burney asked why cooks use salt when boiling vegetables, for instance, if the effect on boiling point and so cooking times is so minimal, as I explained.
Well, the small amount of salt (sodium chloride) added to food has very, very little effect on the boiling point …
Jul 2, 2008
Several years ago, I was called on by a multinational producer of hygiene, food, and cleaning products to pay a visit to their research and information centre. My role was to play editorial consultant for content for their new Intranet.
You see, the company had lots of researchers in one building who were working hard on non-stick ice cream and insect-deterring shaving gel, while the information team were in a separate building …
Yet another health supplement hits the streets, this time in the form of indium sulfate. Never heard of it? Apparently, it “is a rare trace mineral that supports several hormonal systems in the body. Indium may strongly elevate immune activity and reduce the severity and duration of a myriad of human conditions.” That’s according to the NaturalHealthConsult.com website, which goes on to claim that the element will “normalize the hypothalamus …
David Bradley
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