July 2007 – Page 4 – David Bradley

Fire-extinguishing Grenades and Laser Remotes

Fire fighting grenade A fire-extinguishing “grenade”, a “laser finger” remote control for quadriplegic individuals, and a pocket-sized water purifier. A stack of cutting-edge innovations that have not come from a hi-tech thinktank but from teams of high school students in the US.

Twenty InvenTeams recently showcased these and other inventions at the 2007 Odyssey event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The teams are set to receive grants of up to $10,000 in October to help them develop an invention prototype.

Among the other amazing creations are:

Solar-powered biodiesel processor
Driver Awake dozing driver waking system
Underground locator and communicator

Organising spokesperson Sarah Piperato told me that, “These high schoolers’ inventions show great innovation. This is what ambitious American teens are accomplishing with science and technology.” Now, these truly are winning science projects that put things like squeezing a boiled egg into a bottle to shame. That said, not everyone can be a Faraday, Edison, or a Lovelace.

Pirouetting DIABN

It seems to be no coincidence that tens of thousands of molecules line up to pirouette around a photochemical reaction centre, according to German researchers, given the superficial resemblance of the molecule, 4-(diisopropylamino)benzonitrile (DIABN), to a ballet dancer en pointe. They have shown, for the first time, that the ultrafast intramolecular electronic charge separation that takes place during a photochemical reaction leads to light-induced reorientation in an organic molecular crystal.

Whether or not the same will apply to other molecular crystals remains to be seen. The results appear in Phys Rev Lett and you can read David Bradley’s write-up in the latest issue of the SpectroscopyNOW X-ray ezine. This and related studies could pave the way for investigations of more complex systems including crystalline biological macromolecules.

InChI=1/C13H18N2/c1-10(2)15(11(3)4)13-7-5-12(9-14)6-8-13/h5-8,10-11H,1-4H3

Yoga Stretches Brain Chemical

GABA yoga posture US researchers have used a specialist brain scanning technique, magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging, which is effectively an MRI scan carried out at the molecular level to reveal the effects of yoga practice on the brain. Specifically, they have investigated how concentrations of the feel-good compound gamma-aminobutyric (GABA), an inhibitory neurotransmitter, change after regular practice of yoga postures.

Eric Jensen and colleagues at Harvard Medical School looked at eight subjects prior to and after one hour of yoga as well as eleven control subjects who read a book rather than undertaking the yoga exercises. Although the samples are very small, they saw a marked difference in GABA levels in the yoga practitioners compared to the readers. Their findings suggest that yoga, and perhaps other forms of exercise, should be investigated as a complementary treatment for depression and anxiety disorders, which are commonly associated with low levels of GABA.

You can read more on this in my write-up over on SpectroscopyNOW.com. Click here for the Sciencebase complementary medicine roundup

Alchemy and Infamy

This week, I filled my regular fortnightly slot on ChemWeb with some applied chemistry, chemical engineering, and more:

volunteer work gets rewarded right from the top at the American Chemical Society, a novel approach to coupling unreactive arenes solves a century-old problem, sidesteps several synthetic steps and cuts down on waste, while a Stanford chemist reveals a PUG that can hack the PubChem database. Also, this week The Alchemist discovers that forests of nanotubes can be bundled together like so many logs in a molecular scale timberyard and new European regulations on chemicals came into force at the beginning of June, but may not reach consumers for years. Finally, yet another answer to the problem of binge-eating and obesity, a synthetic version of the hormone amylin gives positive rewards in the latest clinical tests.