35 years in science communication
The second July issue of The Alchemist is now online. In it I report on the latest on the origins of life as well as the heady subject of the European ban on chemicals used in hair dyes. Also, discussed this week, US researchers have made “ice cubes full of crumpled paper” on the microscopic scale while others have built an organic transistor that has environmental potential. Finally, for chemists under pressure, cellulose is really cooking.
Get the chemical low down here
Dumb materials succumb to rust, but smart materials might be able to heal themselves.
Researchers in Europe have devised a novel nano coating for metals and alloys that forms a very thin gel-like layer on the material. If this coating is damaged, the metal would normally be exposed to the elements. However, the nano particles contain a preservative that instead spreads to fill any microscopic cracks and holes that appear and quickly blocks them; preventing further attack from whatever corrosive agent was eating at the metal.
The current materials can heal cracks of up to 100 micrometres in size in water and in salt solutions. “The next stage is to develop the self-healing coatings to adapt them for other metals, such as steel,” Shchukin adds, “and to provide faster release of the inhibitor from the nanoreservoirs resulting in faster healing of the defects.”
The first of a swathe of broadcast science news items from the desk of David Bradley Science Writer aired today on the Loh Down on Science radio show, broadcast out of Caltch and available on the net here. The item in question discusses the Japanese peptide nanotubes I reported on recently for SpectroscopyNOW but with Sandra’s unique voice and style adding a new twist to this fascinating scientific research thread.
Check out the current podcast and the archive of daily Loh Downs. Oh, and click the speak button in this post to listen inline.
In 2005, Andrew Lemon cofounded The Edge Software Consultancy, a multidisciplinary consulting company helping pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to meet the challenges of modern drug discovery informatics. I interviewed him for the summer issue of the chemistry webzine Reactive Reports. “The complexity and diversity of experimentation during drug discovery and development only increases with time,” he told me, “Many areas are still not served with good software tools that help scientists to meet the challenges of changing dimensionality and uncertainty during the course of an experiment.” You can read the full interview, which is now live on the Reactive Reports site where you’ll find out how Lemon’s company can provide a solution for data management to make it accessible. “Learning from every piece of data collected and then applying that knowledge across the whole process is going to be the key challenge,” he added.
Read on…
Plastic waste is a mess. Disposal in landfill is the worst option but recycling post-consumer plastic waste presents a technological nightmare given the huge range of polymers used in packaging and products. A rapid, online method of identifying the different plastics in a recycling stream would provide a way to sort them and allow recycling plants to operate far more efficiently and perhaps make plastic recycling commercially viable.
A technique being investigated by Spanish researchers to this end is laser-induced plasma spectroscopy (LIPS). Jesús Anzano, MarÃa-Esther Casanova, MarÃa-Soledad Bermúdez, and Roberto-Jesús Lasheras of the Laser Analytical Spectroscopy Lab at the University of Zaragoza, in Spain, have now demonstrated that LIPS used in conjunction with a simple statistical correlation method can indeed differentiate between plastics prior to recycling.
Recycle the full story here
Are you deaf to the risks of hearing loss from mp3 player aural satisfaction?
According to a survey published today by Deafness Research UK, more than half of 16-24 year olds listen to their MP3 player for more than an hour a day, with almost 20% using for 21 hours a week. Trouble is, 68% of them don’t realise that listening to their MP3 player at loud volume can permanently damage their hearing.
It’s not exactly a new message, as a teenager, I heard the same calls for quiet when the first wave of Walkman cassette players were around and I’m sure generations of wind-up 78 gramophone flappers were told not to put the needle on the record too often or stick their ear too close to that brass cone. It’s a sensible message though, as I am sure many a deaf middle-aged rocker will testify.
Deafness could strike mp3 users 30 years earlier than their parents, the survey says. At least compared with those parents who didn’t overdo it with their Walkmans, one must assume. The survey results are published to mark the launch of a partnership between Specsavers Hearcare and Deafness Research UK to help fund deafness research.
Apparently, 14% of people spend up to “a staggering” 28 hours a week listening to their personal music player. I’m pretty sure some people watch more TV than that and if you go clubbing for five hours three times a week and listen to music on the other days that would quickly add up to far more than any “staggering” 28 hours. More than a third of people who have experienced ringing in their ears after listening to loud music, listen to their MP3 player every day. The news release doesn’t say whether these two facts are actually connected. Every youngster has experience temporary tinnitus after a music gig that usually lasts a day and I suspect that most gig goers listen to their mp3 players fairly frequently too. It would be hard to separate the two issues. Gig tinnitus or mp3 loudness…
Vivienne Michael, Chief Executive of Deafness Research UK, says: ‘Many young people are regularly using MP3 players for long periods of time and are frighteningly unaware of the fact that loud noise can permanently damage your hearing.
‘More than three quarters of people own a personal music player and sophisticated sound systems in their car and homes, which allow them to blast out music day and night. We also spend more time today in bars and clubs where the noise is so loud we can barely hear the person opposite us and few people — particularly the 16-34 year old age group – are aware of the damaging effect all this can have on their hearing.’
This kind of quote appears to be so out of touch that it’s simply unbelievable, “we also spend more time in bars and clubs…”? Really, when I were a lad, we used to spend at least three nights a week clubbing or at gigs where “we could barely hear each other drink”. And, yes maybe it is having an effect on my hearing, but it really is nothing new and yes we used to “blast out” music from our stereos (unsophisticated or otherwise) and play electric guitars too loud and all the rest. Nothing new under the sun, madam I’m afraid.
Meanwhile, there is a serious message underpinning this Deafness press release hidden among the fogeyness: Vivienne Michael continues: ‘Hearing loss can make life unbearable. It cuts people off from their family and friends and makes everyday communication extremely difficult. We want people to realise that their hearing is as important as their sight and protect their ears against any potential damage.’
Fair enough. Stop playing it at “11” and you might just be okay. Oh, and don’t stay out too late, and remember to say please and thank you and look both ways before you cross the road…
As I write, an enormous black cloud of smoke and smutt has engulfed fields surrounding the Camridgeshire village of Cottenham. The fire allegedly started by a spark from working farm equipment quickly fed on the tinder-dry fields backing on to the yard and smoke has reached as far as the village High Street.
The emergency services were called with no fewer than ten engines in attendance in the last hour or two and dozens of firefighters attempting to get the flames under control in baking heat on a record-breakingly hot day in this part of the English countryside.
With many villagers living in outlying properties close to the burning fields there were serious concerns of smoke damage and even the risk of thatched residences suffering. A police helicopter continues to buzz the area presumably giving ground crews an aerial commentary of the path of the blaze.
Thankfully so far, there have been no serious casualties* and with the smoke being damped down it looks like the worst is over. For a quiet country village, there is still an awful lot of noise from police vehicles and firefighting units whailing in and out.
I am sure the local press will latch on to this fire and the souring temperatures much of England is experience of late as yet more evidence of global warming and climate change.
*Cambridge Evening News is now reporting that five firefighters were treated for heat exhausting after fighting the blaze, which engulfed 150 acres of standing crops and stubble. The paper lays the blame at the wheels of a combine harvester which generated a spark from a stone caught in its path. However, locals had reported that the fire allegedly started in the neighbouring breakdown recovery yard.
The last fire crew did not leave Cottenham until 10pm.
Will Davis emailed me from France to ask if the molecular structures on the site are photos:
“I have read a book written about five years ago by a research biologist who wrote that …no one has seen a molecule. Now I see on your website photos of molecules. Are these real photos or a representation. Is this biologist either wrong or out of date?”
Well, he’s right and he’s wrong. You cannot take a photograph of a molecule. For a photograph you need light and the wavelength of visible light is just toooo long to resolve the features of a molecule. So, no, those aren’t photos of molecules you see littered around Sciencebase, I draw them using software such as ACD/Labs’ ChemSketch and then render them in Diamond, which can produce photorealistic renditions of a chemical structure. An additional step to add shadowing and make them even more 3D realistic is possible using Pov-Ray.
However, that said, molecular imaging has moved on during the last few years and it is possible to detect the presence of a molecule using the tip of something like an atomic force microscope (AFM) and to then use the perturbations of the tip to generate a three-dimensional image of the surface of said molecule.
Belgian scientists today reiterated a warning that certain cases of asthma could be linked to swimming in stuffy “chlorinated” indoor pools but chemistry may have the answer, according to charity Allergy UK, which has awarded its ‘Seal of Approval’ to a novel alternative of which hot-tubbing ancient Greek philosopher Archimedes would be proud.
The novel solution involves using copper sulfate at levels permitted for drinking water to temper bacterial blooms in a swimming pool rather than to attempt to destroy them completely. The idea was discovered by the Greeks way back when but is used today by NASA to keep drinking water clean in space.
The product, which goes by the name Pristine Blue, is approved for use in the US, and allows the 1 in 3 kids who suffer an allergic reaction to pool “chlorine” to get in the swim without having to worry about the reaction. It also means an end to stinging eyes, which are caused by pool “chlorine” reacting with nitrogen compounds in sweat and urea that mysteriously make their way into most pools.
The copper sulfate approach also avoids damage to hair, swimming costumes, and pool liners, which normally suffer from the bleaching effects of chlorine.
Allergy UK’s Business Development Director, Jules Payne, said Pristine Blue could transform the lives of millions of families across the UK. ‘We are very excited to present this award to such a groundbreaking and innovative product,” she said, “The benefits to allergy suffers are immense, and as families prepare for their summer holidays the demand for a chlorine alternative is at its highest.”
An ideal solution for accurately and rapidly monitoring red, red wine during the fermentation process without the need for direct sampling for chemical analysis has been developed by Australian researchers led by Daniel Cozzolino of the Australian Wine Research Institute, in Adelaide.
The team recognised the need of the modern wine industry for tools that can assist in process control and quality assessment during fermentation and bottling but that can be carried out without complex sampling, preparation by an external lab. they have used chemometrics and Visible-near infrared spectroscopy to monitor concentrations of sugars and phenolic compounds, in red wine and so offer the industry a new approach to quality control.
Uncork vintage news here.