Jul 15, 2009

Stinging Heavy Metal Resistance

Posted in Science at 1:00 pm by David Bradley -- 2 Comments; add your comment

Head-banging science news with a spectroscopic bent from my latest posts on the SpectroscopyNOW ezines, live June 15.

A medical tale in the sting – The venom of the eusocial bee contains three novel antimicrobial compounds known as lasioglossins, which have been structurally characterised by NMR spectroscopy. The compounds offer a new avenue for developing new antibiotics that might defeat drug-resistant bacteria.

Marine surfactant soaks up heavy metal – Atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) and other techniques have been used to demonstrate the effectiveness of a natural surfactant molecule in removing heavy metals from solutions for potential bioremediation applications.

Topical resistance – Crystallography by UK scientists may have uncovered the mechanism by which quinolone drugs interact with DNA and bacterial topoisomerase and so point to a better understanding of how resistance to this class of drugs emerges in meningitis and pneumonia.

Exhausted grapes fit only for compost – Multivariate analysis of the physicochemical, chemical and biological parameters of winery and distillery composts could point the way to improving the use of these generally intractable waste materials.