Author: David Bradley

Forget H5N1, H3N0 is a killer too

According to the People’s Daily Online, the first Vietnamese have died of H3N0 another strain of the influenza A virus, related to but different from the increasingly familiar H5N1. From the scaremongering point of view, there’s no need to hold the frontpage (at least outside Vietnam) as this strain is far less virulent than H5N1.

However, it does bring to light an aspect of flu viruses that gets little mention in the media – avian influenza has killed very few people, especially compared with the number of annual deaths from human influenza, but should any of these avian strains jump between species they are likely to lose their virulence to a great degree. One flu expert told us that, “H5N1 will surely decrease in lethality as it becomes more infectious between humans…no doubt about it.” More on that next week…

Elemental Discoveries on the Radio

Sheffield University’s WebElements guru Mark Winter alerted us to a recent BBC Radio 4 [link dead] series touching on Periodic Tales told by members of the cast of long-lived rural radio soap The Archers…

  • Krypton: Hedli Nicklaus on the Superman element, krypton
  • Helium: Brian Perkins dramatises the effects of Helium
  • Silver: Trevor Harrison finds some unusual properties of Silver
  • Cobalt: Nicklaus takes on the goblin element of cobalt
  • Selenium: Carole Boyd unearths selenium
  • Oxygen: Perkins bravely dramatises the effects of oxygen
  • Arsenic: Charlotte Green takes on the deadly history of arsenic
  • Mercury: Boyd reflects on mercury, the poisonous liquid metal
  • Iodine: Green on the discovery of iodine’s essential place in brain development
  • Nickel: Harrison reveals that the space station Mir is largely made of nickel.

It seems a little more worthy than recent efforts to connect and elements and celebrities, which I mentioned recently, despite the fact that they got radio soap stars to do the task, but presumably has the same conceptual origins of getting chemistry a better name, which can only be a good thing.

Molecular Model of Oseltamivir (Tamiflu)

tamiflu molecular structurePremier molecular modeller Stephan Logan has produced for us a timely reminder of the chemical structure of Tamiflu, the antiviral flu drug. You can order the necessary components to build the Molecular Model of Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and other molecules from Stephan’s site. Perfect for that avian flu lecture!

In case you missed my how to avoid colds and flu article, it’s once again taking pride of place on the sciencebase site.

Synthesis of Propecia

structure of propecia
Regular SciObs readers will know that one of my favourite web hobbies is spotting the odd and the weird among the keywords that bring visitors to the sciencebase site. This week, I have been mostly seeing “synthesis of propecia” and wondered whether the visitor demographic had changed from hirsute to those with cranial follicular challenge…hence the interest in Propecia (finasteride)

Anyway, for those who’d like to see the molecular structure of Propecia here it is. The synthesis of Propecia is available elsewhere on the web.

Bacterial Viruses

In his otherwise intriguing book, Digital Fortress ($7.99 in paperback from Amazon US), author Dan Brown makes several schoolboy errors. For instance, top of page 69 he says that, “Computer viruses were as varied as bacterial viruses…”

I doubt he is referring to bacteriophages here and is simply making the mistake that bacteria and viruses are essentially one and the same, i.e. germs! That aside, computer viruses are by no real measure as varied as biological viruses. There are, of course literally tens of thousands of computer viruses and worms, but essentially they are all variants of a few hundred that exist “in the wild”. In contrast, there is at least one virus for every species on earth…and that’s almost beyond counting.

Elemental Celebrities

I just wonder how many British tabloid readers are going to be turned on to chemistry with the news this week that the Royal Society of Chemistry has decided to associate various celebrities with an appropriate element from the periodic table. They kick off by labelling Rebekah Wade Editor of infamous red-top The Sun with bromine and her partner soap star Ross Kemp with caesium. An RSC “scientist” is reported as saying that life is all about chemistry and recent violent reactions between Wade and Kemp could be down to the explosive chemistry between them.

Other “stars” elementalised by the RSC press office at the beginning of Chemistry Week include:

Jordan � Silicon, Mick Jagger� Neon, Wayne Rooney � Sulfur, Tim Henman � Boron, Anne Robinson � Chlorine, George Galloway � Mercury, Colin Montgomery � Beryllium, Steve Redgrave � Gold, Bruce Forsyth � Helium, Ken Livingston � Palladium, Russell Crowe- Iron, Jose Mourinho � Arsenic, Jane Goody � Lead, Thierry Henry � Silver, Anne Robinson – Promethium, Andrew Flintoff � Iridium, Roy Keane � Krypton

For some reason quizmistress Anne Robinson gets two mentions and they spell sulfur incorrectly using the old “ph” version despite a ten-year RSC/IUPAC ruling that it should be spelled with an “f” these days.

Drop me a line or leave a comment, if you cannot work out why a particular celeb gets assigned a certain element, although most are “obvious” (to tabloid readers, at least).

Arsenic Problem

On the day I publish an item on a new arsenic assay , I received an email from an old contact of mine Dipankar Chakraborti of Jadavpur University who is at the forefront of As science and finding a solution to this insidious problem facing the Indian subcontinent and beyond.

Here’s what he had to say:

“To understand the exact magnitude of groundwater arsenic contamination and its health effect in West Bengal, India we have studied one of the arsenic affected district Murshidabad out of nine affected districts in West Bengal in details for last seven years with twenty people in our group including a dermatologist, neurologist, gynaecologist, pathologist, analytical chemist, biochemist, geologist, civil engineer, etc.

We have analyzed about 30,000 water samples from this district alone and screened 25,274 people with our medical group for arsenical skin lesions and other related arsenic toxicity. We have also analyzed 3843 biological samples (hair, nail urine and skin scales).

We have studied in details the district Murshidabad as a whole and semi micro and micro level studies in one block, one Gram Panchayet (cluster of villages), one village and published five papers in peer-reviewed international journals.”

Email me if you’d like to receive a PDF file carrying the complete citations from Dipankar.

For more information on the arsenic problem, read my Guardian article on the subject.

Atomic Arsenic Assessment

Researchers in Vietnam and Switzerland have developed the first large-scale method for validating the microbial reporter-based test for measuring arsenic concentrations in natural water resources. Their test is based on a modified bacterium (Escherichia coli), engineered to bioluminesce on induction by arsenic ions. The team has developed specific protocols for overcoming interference from iron and has now confirmed the viability of the test against results obtained using atomic absorption spectroscopy.

Buckyball co-discoverer dead at 62

It is with sadness that we report the death of nanotech pioneer, Richard Smalley at 62. Smalley, along with Harry Kroto and colleagues discovered the all-carbon fullerene molecule in the early 1990s at a time when I was just beginning my career as a science writer. Their fascinating research into the soccerball shaped molecules, which were nicknamed buckyballs by the popular science press, provided many of us with some of the greatest punning opportunities ever in science. More seriously, they and their tubular offspring are after many years of detailed and fundamental research beginning to reach new goals in the field of nanotechnology.

Smalley undertook pathbreaking research, showed an incredible commitment to teaching, and was dedicated to the idea of betterment of our world.

He died in Houston on 28th October after a long battle with cancer.