Reactive Reports


 

Reactive Reports won a Scientific American 2003 Sci/Tech Web Award!

"A chemistry webzine that is attractively put together and takes a pride in being cutting edge,"
Steve Marshall, New Scientist.

Issue 33 - August 2003

 
  Two-faced Liquid Crystals  A new class of programmable liquid crystals could be used to make variable optical filters for laboratory instrumentation and digital cameras; they might even be used to treat dyslexia.
 
  The Miniature Rotarians  Tiny interlocking wheels are the components of a miniscule molecular rotor designed and built by UK chemists.
 
  Catalytic Gel  Gels are commonplace from lime Jell-o to invigorating minty shower gels. Now, a German-Dutch team has developed an organometallic complex that acts as a novel gelling agent for organic solvents.
 
  Liquorice versus SARS  An extract of liquorice root already used to treat HIV could become the first line of defence against a future outbreak of SARS, according to German researchers.
 
  Climatic models  A fundamental flaw in our models of global climate change has been exposed by Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
 
  Odor sniffers  Tracking down smells that even the most sensitive human nose cannot pick up is now possible, thanks to an inexpensive sensor devised by scientists at the University of Bonn.
 
  Combined effort for cholesterol  New drugs for lipid disorders might be on the horizon thanks to new work on the transcriptional sensor FXR (farnesoid X receptor). Please vote on this page and leave your thoughts here.