Category: Science

The Sciencebase science category, updates on scientific happenings from around the world. Check out the Sciencebase Twitter and Facebook pages for even more.

Vioxx Drugs Okay?

Researchers at Imperial College London and Queen Mary, London, are suggesting that drugs related to the withdrawn Vioxx may still be the best drugs for treating arthritis.

They argue that although Vioxx and related drugs have been associated with an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, the same might also be true for the more conventional non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

Jane Mitchell and her colleagues have reviewed the medical literature on the use of NSAIDs and Vioxx-like drugs and are convinced that despite the cardiovascular side-effects of certain COX-2 drugs they could still be the drug of choice for certain patients without cardiovascular risk factors, especially if they cannot tolerate NSAIDs because of the gastric side effects of those drugs.

It’s all about benefit-risk management (BRM) which sounds a little like marketing jargon, but underpins a much more effective attitude to medicine than holistically abandoning effective drugs.

Regardless of the status of Vioxx and its analogues there is much imminent movement in the pharmaceutical industry as the likes of GlaxoSmithkline vie for pole position in the market for the successor to COX-2 inhibitors. Of course, if Mitchell and her colleagues are right, then, the generic NSAID manufacturers could take another nice chunk of that market before it’s even opened up.

Primary Elements

Primary age school kids will be exposed to chemistry for the first time, thanks to an initiative instigated by scientists at Queen’s University Belfast.

Chris Hardacre and Marie Migaud of QUB hope to catch students at a young age through their new science programme, which will be tested on final year primary children (age 10-11 years).

Universities in Ireland and the UK are struggling to attract new students, doors have closed at several departments in the last year or two and straight chemistry has been subsumed by new ChemBioChemPhysBiolChem centres and the like. In stark contrast to the many, QUB has actually seen an increase in chemistry enrolment because of targeted approaches to students from primary school to A-level (17-18y) with departmental visits, open days, and demonstration lectures.

This latest initiative could plant the seed (sorry, that’s sounds a bit Bio) in the next generation of chemists through a five-month test period starting this month.

The program will include interactive demonstration lectures, support materials, and student science projects with a prize at the end.

If that doesn’t get them reaching for their labcoats, I don’t know what will!

H2O and All That

Chemical philosopher Eric Scerri recently mentioned a humorous book by Martyn Berry about which I’d entirely forgotten: H2O and All That. Berry was/is a chemistry teacher and created this hilarious compilation of the wit and wisdom of years of student chemists as revealed in their exam papers.

I remember receiving a copy for review when I worked at the Royal Society of Chemistry, some fifteen years ago, and thinking it was the text to bring the wonder of chemistry to the masses. As Scerri points out, it’s still available on amazon for about 8 quid (12 bucks). If you fancy a laugh, I can highly recommend it, it’s timeless humor.

Stardust Falls to Earth

The BBC reports that the US Stardust probe has returned to earth after its 3billion mile round trip to the comet Wild 2. It returns with a payload of dust trapped in an aerogel. The pristine dust from the very early solar system should tell scientists a great deal about the evolution of our planetary neighbourhood. Watch this space.

Oh, one thing (that should really be reserved for my Sig Fig blog) BBC reporter Helen Briggs refers to the probe’s speed – 46,660kph (29,000mph) and it’s altitude when its parachute was deployed – 32km (or 105,000 feet)

I’ll leave regular SigFig readers to draw their own conclusions about how I would normally comment on such units!

Frozen Chicken Tenders

Sciencebase visitor Enrico Dematt emailed to ask me how long one can store chicken tenders in the freezer. Well, as this is one of the most off-topic questions I’ve ever received, I thought I’d better answer it. According to various foody websites poultry will keep for up to 12 months in a freezer held at a constant -18 Celsius. So, there you go Enrico. Just watch out if you have a long power outage!

Hydroseeding

Some time ago I created a website for the UK’s leading and first (I believe) hydroseeding company CDTS Ltd. Hydroseeding basically amounts to spraying a specially selected mixture of seeds suspended in a nutrient-rich solution on to any tract of brownfield land that you wish to convert into green fields with flowers and grasses. CDTS have used it to great effect all over the UK, specifically beautifying motorway cuttings, brownfield sites and the entrance/exit to the Channel Tunnel. Take a look at their site to find out more about the whole process of hydroseeding (sometimes called hydraseeding).

Accelerated Aging

Chemical analysis spots malfunctioning protein.

Jin-Shan Hu and colleagues at the University of Maryland, National Cancer Institute, the National Centre for Scientific Research, France, have used NMR to determine the structure of the protein thought to malfunction in premature aging conditions, such as Werner syndrome. The structure might one day lead to a better understanding of this rare genetic disorder as well as other aging-related diseases.

Wedding Anniversary

Wedding AnniversaryWell…it’s our fourteenth wedding anniversary this year, today, so a good time to remind sciencebase readers of our alternative chymical wedding anniversary list where you will discover that the fourteenth is “pyrolytic carbon“, which is used to make heart valves.

If you favour the traditional list, then it’s ivory, so we won’t expect gifts, for obvious reasons.

King Kong’s Monkey Love

Sex smells, according to Joshuah Bearman of the LAWeekly who wrote to sciencebase today to alert us to his article on King Kong’s Monkey Love (obviously, he’s well aware that Kong is an ape not a monkey, but allow him some artistic licence, he is after all telling us about the birds and the bees, well beast, actually).

Anyway, his essay meanders from Gigantopithecus blacki, the 12-foot prehistoric ape that died out 100,000 years ago to the recent re-classification of chimpanzees into the hominidae family and even discusses the biological potential for a consummated love between man and ape.

All that aside, his essay concludes with a quote from Peter Singer who, along with many other people, suggests that the great apes should be endowed with “human” rights. It raises the ancient morality conflicts of how we treat all animals, of course, and whether we should use them for biomedical experimentation or not…