Feb 27, 2009
A quite gratifying email from Professor James E. Hanson of Seton Hall University made me realise that I’d gone all poly with The Alchemist column this week:
As a polymer chemist myself, I really liked this issue of The Alchemist – or rather in this case the “polyalchemist” newsletter. Except for the beaver pheromones, each of the scientific breakthroughs/hot topics had to do with polymers! Anti-graffiti polymers, perfect …
Feb 25, 2009
Compulsory licensing is one of those euphemisms that hide a whole raft of issues. By definition – it is “authorisation to a government or company to make and sell a pharmaceutical drug without the permission of the patent holder”, which makes the intent clear.
In its most obvious form, compulsory licensing is what occurs when a government allows a third party to produce a patented product or process without the consent of …
Feb 23, 2009
A week or two ago the British media was full of the story of scientists hoping to discover why the indigenous people of Tyneside are wont to few clothes even in the briskest of breezes and the worst of winter cold snaps. If you’ve been out on the town in Newcastle any time of year, you will likely have spotted lads and lasses strolling between pubs and clubs …
Feb 20, 2009
In 2004, I did some reportage for the Royal Society from their meeting on emerging viral infections. The meeting was held just after the worldwide SARS outbreak that threw nations into chaos and had the more susceptible parts of the media hyping the end of the world. Of course, SARS, an emerging pathogen, was lethal and had devastating effects on thousands of people.
Ultimately, the first SARS outbreak …
Feb 18, 2009
In the latest ezines from SpectroscopyNOW:
Magnetic drug delivery for Alzheimer’s disease – Tiny pieces of magnetite incorporated into chitosan microparticles could act as efficient drug-delivery agents for the Alzheimer’s drug tacrine. Tacrine has notoriously low oral bioavailability and unclear efficacy but this delivery approach boosts uptake.
Contrasting tumours – US scientists have successfully predicted the outcome on breast tumours in a pre-clinical study of a …
Feb 16, 2009
Earlier this year Laura Haddad of Haddad|Drugan emailed me with an unusual request regarding crystal structures. But, before I tell you about that, here’s a little background. Laura is working on an artistic installation called “Undercurrents”, that will be the basis of the public art component of a stormwater treatment facility on Seattle’s Elliott Bay.
The first phase has been in place since 2003 and includes a plaza and …
Feb 13, 2009
In the long-gone days of my Catalyst column on the original ChemWeb.com, I wrote about how R&D was becoming a distributed endeavour. It was going the way of large-scale data problems that are best solved using a distributed computing environment, or Grid. Now, roughly a decade later, it seems the management of globally dispersed R&D teams is coming of age.
According to Hans Thamhain of Bentley University in Massachusetts, USA, it is …
Feb 12, 2009
Life on earth began several billion years ago when the small chunk of rock that orbits the fast fusion reaction that is our sun cooled sufficiently to allow it to emerge. It will last until the sun begins to die and its atmosphere vaporises the inner planets. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, indeed. But, look on the bright side, we’re in roughly only half way through the story. On this …
Feb 9, 2009
I’m trying to work out whether I’m a bad science journalist or not…scary thought. If I am, then I’ve wasted the last 20 years of my life.
I started out specializing in chemistry, that was my field. But these days, I cover science much more broadly, although I do still tend to do more chemistry than anything else. It’s all science after all, I’m still a specialist to my arts, humanities, finance, politics colleagues ;-) …
Feb 6, 2009
Following on from Monday’s post about health information on twitter, it seemed a nice coincidence that I came across a research paper focusing on healthcare information available in the developing world.
The web is still relatively young and yet many people can barely remember a time when they could not simply click a mouse and gain access to health and medical information. Apparently, hundreds of millions of people regularly access …
Feb 4, 2009
My good friend Jo Brodie who works at DiabetesUK and twitters as @JoBrodie was crucial in helping publicise my recent scientists on twitter page. She recently gave the list a shout out on the PSCI-COM science communicators discussion group and added a few science tweeps of her own and a few in the health and medical communications area. So, here, with permission is Jo’s list:
Feb 2, 2009
My latest science news updates are now available on SpectroscopyNOW.com and ChemWeb.com, covering a wide range topics from date rape drug analysis to DNA that behaves parasitically and could underpin speciation and evolution:
Date rape analysis – Raman spectroscopy can be used to identify the date rape drug GHB and its precursor GBL in spiked drinks even if they’re in different types of drink or containers included coloured glass, plastic beakers, …
This morning, my kids are listening eagerly to the local radio to hear if their school will be closed? Why? Because we’re in England, a few millimetres of snow has fallen, it’s a little chilly, and the nation is in chaos. Airports are shut, driving conditions are almost impossible, and schools are closing across the country. The radio meteorologists are telling us it’s the worst snow “event” since …
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