David Bradley – Page 311

The Internet is a series of tubes…

…no, sorry…wrong story. Tubes, carbon nanotubes are the new material of choice for a wide range of experimental technological applications. Now, US researchers hope that they will be used to make implantable biomedical devices that could act as artificial nerve cells, control severe pain, or maybe one day move paralyzed muscles.

Nicholas Kotov of the University of Michigan and colleagues at Oklahoma State University and the University of Texas Medical Branch have used carbon nanotubes to connect an integrated electronic circuit to living nerve cells. The new technology offers the possibility of building cyborg type interfaces between biology and electronics only dreamed of in science fiction stories until now.

Read on…

Ayurvedic analysis

I, like many with a chemistry training, have on occasion dismissed the more mystical-seeming strands of non-western medicine. The origins of homeopathy, for instance, relied on literal Bible bashing of glass phials to ensure the infinitely dilute remedies would work. Which of course western medicine says is ludicrous. Herbal medicine on the other hand needed the industrial age to extract its active ingredients and bring us the likes of aspirin from the sap of the cricket bat willow and asthma inhalers from ephedra plants.

One area of non-western science that many western medics and scientists say is nothing more than pseudoscientific claptrap is Ayurvedic medicine. This is a holistic healing system that emerged in ancient India. It talks of the mind-body balance and the kind of “energy” and humours that modern science claims not to exist, yet there may be a grain of truth in some aspects of this system for which modern science has not given due credit.

Consider the western approach to the common problem of anaemia in pregnancy. The treatment of choice, according to western medicine, is simply to ingest iron sulfate. In this form, iron can be readily absorbed by the body, assimilated into new red blood cells, and anaemia solved.

Unfortunately, many pregnant women cannot tolerate iron sulfate and regurgitate it so they don’t get to ingest the iron and the anaemia remains.

Now consider the Ayurvedic approach. The sage assesses the pregnant woman, finds she has an imbalance in her energies, humours, whatever, and prepares a herbal infusion aimed at shifting the balance towards a more healthy state. It works, there’s no vomiting, the morning sickness subsides, and that anaemic look is replaced by the flush of pregnancy once more.

So, what is going on? How can a bunch of herbs cure anaemia so readily?

AP de Silva of the Queen’s University Belfast, whom I recently interviewed for Reactive Reports, was once equally as sceptical of the possibilities of Ayurvedic medicin. He told me that, as a fledgling chemist, he challenged an Ayurvedic practitioner to answer the question of validity. The practitioner, however, was entirely confident of his position and turned the tables on AP suggesting that he take away the herbal infusion and analyse it in his lab, which he did.

The result? A standard elemental analysis revealed the infusion to contain a stabilised concentration of iron(II) ions. Natural chelating agents in one of the herbs provide a suitable chemical environment to maintain iron in the II state, as opposed to its more common (III) state. This allows it to be ingested, absorbed, and to cure the anaemia without the sickness of raw iron sulfate.

This is, of course, circumstantial evidence, and does not provide the support of full double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials. However, the chemical analysis provides one possible rational explanation of the efficacy of this remedy beyond a placebo effect.

Perhaps it is time modern science took a closer look at the multitude of alternative remedies that sit under the Ayurvedic umbrella. Ancient herbal remedies evolved from folk knowledge and a huge proportion of modern drugs are based on such remedies, 40% of them, or thereabouts. Instead of instantly assuming isolation of an active ingredient is the optimal approach, perhaps science should consider the holistic approach to drug discovery with a view to coping with the side effects and improving efficacy overall.

Science journalist in the news

UPDATE: October 2023 I heard from UCL chemist Andrea Sella, who had attended a Poliakoff lecture, that Martyn still gives me a shoutout when discussing SCFs, which is great to hear!

It’s not often that I’m on the receiving end of journalism, but today Jenny Gristock gave me a taste of celebrity in a Guardian media article about the role played by science journalism in science.

I’d tipped her off about one of the biggest success stories, from the perspective of academic research becoming an industrial commercial reality, that had emerged from the pages of New Scientist in recent years. This is how she put it:

“In 1994 freelance science journalist, David Bradley, wrote an article about the work of the Nottingham University chemist, Professor Martyn Poliakoff (Yes, brother of…). Poliakoff was conducting experiments with supercritical carbon dioxide, a highly compressed gas that can dissolve all manner of chemicals. “It acts like a solvent, but has none of the environmental problems of traditional ones,” says Poliakoff.

Bradley’s article captured Poliakoff’s vision of his research. After it appeared in New Scientist, Poliakoff’s world changed completely. “I was happily working away as an academic, and then the article was published,” says Poliakoff. “Thomas Swan, an industrialist, read it and phoned me. He said we ought to collaborate.”

The result, says Poliakoff, is one of New Scientist’s greatest success stories. In 2002, Poliakoff and Thomas Swan & Co built the world’s first full-scale, multi-reaction supercritical carbon dioxide plant.”

You can read Gristock’s full article here, although you’ll need to register with the Grauniad site to do so. Alternatively, Gristock has posted the full text on her blog.

I’m just waiting for the paparazzi to arrive, and the full profile in Hello magazine, and maybe even a chance to jump up and down on Oprah’s sofa!

Synthesizing a new breed of chemist

From the age of 13, Mark Leach has had a subscription to the popular-science magazine Scientific American, and more recently the journal Nature. His scientific interests include cosmology, high energy and nuclear physics, materials science (particularly carbon nanotubes), geophysics, molecular biology, evolution, information technology, the brain, defense technology, and scientific ethics. Professionally, Mark is a chemist interested in ‘chemistry, the-whole-thing’. I interviewed for my Reactive Profile column this month, find out about the origins of meta-synthesis.com, Dr Leach’s aspirations for his various sites, and how he believes chemistry education could be radically improved through a re-think of some fundamental principles.

The latest Reactive Profile is in Issue 60 of our chemistry magazine.

Geekish girls

The Cnet newsite has a rather politically incorrect item this week listing the Top Ten girl geeks. I’m not entirely sure how they’re defining geek but among those listed are Marie Curie, Ada Byron (Lovelace), Rosalind Franklin (after whom my wife wanted to name our daughter), and…Paris Hilton (don’t ask).

So, where’s crystallography pioneer Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin? And, what about Judith Howard, first female Professor of Chemistry in the UK? Then there’s Helen Sharman first British woman in space (also a chemist), finally what about Margaret Thatcher (she trained as a chemist too and then spent her time in office effectively dismantling UK science, can’t get more geekish than that!

Alexander Litvinenko Dead

Former Russian spy, defector, and activist-writer Alexander Litvinenko has died in a London hospital of suspected poisoning with radioactive thallium. [Subsequently, found to have been polonium]

Litvinenko’s friend Alexander Goldfarb read a statement prepared by the former spy on his deathbed just two days before he passed away. In that statement, Litvinenko lays the blame for his poisoning firmly at the feet of Russian President Vladimir Putin and says: “You may succeed in silencing me, but that silence comes at a price,” according to news reports, “You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics claim.

The Russian government has declared the claims as preposterous and suggests that infighting among Russians living in London is more likely to have led to Litvinenko’s death.

Preliminary post-mortem results suggest that a radioactive material – possibly a large dose of radioactive polonium-210 – may have been associated with his death. In our earlier report, it was suggested that thallium, then radioactive thallium, may have been implicated. Whether or not Litvinenko ingested this material was exposed to it in the environment is not yet known raising serious public safety concerns.

A UK press conference held this afternoon provided more information.

Science Experiments More Test-tube than Youtube

Science experiments video Ever wanted to observe the dissection of fruitfly ovaries but were too squeamish? What about monitoring actin disassembly with time-lapse microscopy, not sure how it’s done? Maybe you have been wondering how to freeze human embryonic stem cells but were afraid to ask…

Don’t worry the online Journal of Visualized Experiments has come to the rescue of cash-strapped demonstrators with little spare time who can now call on a video of a growing number of biological experiments that can show how a particular procedure should best be carried out.

The journal’s site, MyJove.com, has a rather different modus operandi to Youtube, but nevertheless provides almost instant access to a searchable database of scientific “how-to” videos as well as allowing research assistants and others to submit their own (No Brainiacs please!). In truth, that’s where the similarity with Youtube ends, JOVE has a fully fledged editorial board and presumably reviewers to carry out the peer review process required of almost every academic journal, online or not.

The site’s raison d’etre is spelled out in its About page – “As every practicing biology researcher knows, it takes days, weeks or sometimes months and years to learn and apply new experimental techniques. It is especially difficult to reproduce newly published studies describing the most advanced state-of-the-art techniques. Thus, a major part of the PhD and post-doctoral training in life sciences is devoted to learning laboratory techniques and procedures.”

“Video-based visualization of biological techniques and procedures provide an effective solution to the problem described.”

And, for those of us not training in a biological research lab, we get to see what these guys spend their time on. Embed code, allows other sites to more effectively link to specific videos.

Be warned, though some of these videos are long and will buffer only slowly on a narrow bandwidth internet connection.

As part of the Learn with Sciencebase project, I’ve added a Top Ten Science Videos page to the site.

Genetic Variation on a Theme

What does it mean to be human? We thought that the Human Genome Project had set the limites on the genetic make-up of our species. But, according to Steve Connor, writing in the Independent today, much of the genetic variation between individuals can best be explained by the presence of multiple copies of certain key genes rather than variations in the genome sequence.

The research suggests that whereas previously we thought all people shared 99.9% of their DNA, it could be that two individuals can differ by ten times that. The research has important implications for our understanding of inherited traits and genetic disease.

The findings appear in three simultaneous papers in three leading science journals, including Nature and were reported by teams from thirteen different research centres in the UK and the US.

Alchemists, crucibles and chemistry

What alchemist’s den would be complete without a crucible? The tough little vessels used for mixing all those odd ingredients, goat urine, cow’s blood, sweat, philosopher’s wool, saltpeter etc etc…

Now, the 500-year old mystery of how crucibles could survive all that chemical punishment and high temperatures has been revealed by archaeologists at University College London and Cardiff University.

Earlier research had demonstrated that the crucibles are found in archaeological sites across the world, including Scandinavia, Central Europe, Spain, Portugal, the UK, and even colonial America. Many researchers have tried to reproduce these vessels but have always failed.

Now, writing in Nature, the researchers reveal using petrographic, chemical and X-ray diffraction analysis that Hessian crucible makers made use of an advanced material only properly identified and named in the 20th century.

Marcos MartinÃ³n-Torres explains, “Our analysis of 50 Hessian and non-Hessian crucibles revealed that the secret component in their manufacture is an aluminium silicate known as mullite (Al₆Si₂O₁₃). Today mullite (not to be confused with mullet) is used in a wide range of modern conventional and advanced ceramics, such as building materials, electronic packaging devices, optical materials and catalytic converters, as well as in ceramic matrix composites such as thermal protection systems and liners for aircraft and stationary gas turbine engines.

Mullite was only described in the 20th century although the makers of crucibles were exploiting its properties almost half a millennium ago. It was produced by firing a crucible made from kaolinitic clay to above 1100 degrees.

Mullite is extremely resistant to heat, chemical and mechanical stresses, making it perfect for the Alchemist’s den. It is thanks to the availability of Hessian crucibles that the discoveries of several chemical elements and their thermochemical behaviour took place.

‘Crucible makers were not aware of mullite, but they mastered a very successful recipe, and that’s why they kept it constant, and secret, for centuries.’

Technological whirlwind

Best of Technology Writing Fancy a whirlwind tour of some of the best technology writing of the year? As part of the digitalculturebooks series from the University of Michigan Press, Brendan Koerner has compiled some of the most stimulating and fascinating feature articles from the web and print media by the likes of the NYT’s David Bernstein, New Republic’s David Bell, Mike Daisy on Slate, Dan Ferber in Popular Science magazine, and many more.

The subjects covered are incredibly diverse, covering search engines, wikis and online social networking to the quest for a personal jet pack and the invention of the karaoke machine (which has apparently made it’s inventor not one Yen).

This neat little tome offers a grand over view (as well as a whirlwind tour!) of most technological niches you care to mention and highlights just how amazing human tool-making has become. Even for the tech-savvy reader it springs quite a few surprises.

Koerner is a contributing editor for Wired (which means he writes for the magazine and has his name on the masthead, I presume), a columnist for the NYT and Slate.

In the world of technology the pace is fast and the stakes are high. Jump into that whirlwind and prepare to be inspired.

Best of Technology Writing 2006 is available from Amazon.com, of course.