Chemistry – Page 11 – David Bradley

Spectroscopy now!

These are the latest science news links and snippets from Sciencebase:

Diabetics drop the needle – A new device based on Raman spectroscopy has been developed by scientists at MIT to help patients with diabetes monitor their blood glucose levels without needing to prick their fingers to take a blood sample.
Pocket spotted – Researchers have identified a new class of chemicals that bind to a previously unknown allosteric pocket-a pocket outside the enzyme active site-and inhibit the enzyme FPPS. The work could have implications for new treatments of bone diseases, Paget's disease and tumour-induced bone degradation.
Infrared watermarks – Water molecules continuously form short-lived clusters that can be rapidly protonated in the liquid state. Now, computer simulations revealed how protonated water clusters interact with nearby messenger molecules, which are required to measure their geometrical structures and the chemical properties by IR spectroscopy.
Dollar signs and the brain – Functional magnetic resonance imaging has revealed a region of the brain about two inches above the left eyebrow that lights up whenever a person anticipating a reward for a task performed successfully is shown a dollar sign. The response is linked to dopamine release in response to pre-determined cues of which a symbol for money is one.
Top ten writing tips for scientists – If you’re more at home with numbers than words, writing can be a difficult prospect. Learning a few simple techniques can make all the difference, according to Sciencebase guest contributor Rob Ashton.
Dental care without toothpaste – Hmmm…they're apparently still testing this toothpaste-free toothbrush, but the blurb says: "The Soladey-J3DX toothbrush is powered by natural sunlight and brings teeth brushing to a new technological plateau. It does away with toothpaste because the embedded solar panel in the centre of the toothbrush can transmit electrons which react with the acid in the saliva to fight plague and bacteria." Like I said. Hmmm…

Chemweb, A-levels, vuvuzelas again

These are the latest science news links and snippets from Sciencebase:

Chemical news – Two years on, a simple color change test emerges from China for melamine in milk, The Alchemist learns. Also, with a Chinese connection, new insights into the mode of action of a former herbal remedy for fever could improve the outlook for malaria drugs. Materials news sees a thin film being stretched to double up its functionality, while applying pressure to another makes it a superconductor. Meanwhile, edible chemistry looks set to open up new applications for the pharma and food industries. Finally, a new way to chemicalize the world-wide web makes its debut online.
Questions for enquiring minds – Sample questions from a 18+ exam paper from the year 2110. E.g. "By means of diagrams or otherwise, explain the operation of the Solar Sea Evaporator built by the Chinese, that simultaneously reduced global warming from 2050 onward, and solved the problem of fresh water for drinking and agriculture. [10 marks]"
Climate change and vuvuzelas change Oxford Dictionary of English – OED gets a few new terms thanks to climate change and the World Cup 2010
100% test for ovarian cancer test – GATech team claims 100 percent accuracy for metabolomic ovarian cancer test
Penn and Teller on vaccinations (NSFW) – Why you should have your kids vaccinated
Does peer review need fixing – Contrary to popular misconceptions about science, it doesn’t progress steadily and inevitably.

Spectroscopic science news

These are my links for July 30th from 18:21 to 18:27:

Space balls redux – I've reported on this briefly elsewhere, but here are more details of the research involving infrared spectroscopic data from the planetary nebula Tc 1 in the southern constellation Ara that revealed convincing evidence that the fullerenes, C60 and C70, are present in large quantities in cosmic dust.
Crystallography squared organically – Cyclobutadiene, the smallest cyclic hydrocarbon having alternating double bonds has finally succumbed to X-ray crystallography at least in terms of the determination of an immobilized derivative of the compound.
Aqueous asymmetric acid – Despite nature's abundance of reactions that work in water, chemists have generally had to work with noxious organic solvents. Until now. The first example of asymmetric catalysis with a Brønsted acid in aqueous solution has been reported by German chemists.
MRI monitors anticancer nanotubes – Magnetic resonance imaging can now be used to monitor carbon nanotubes aimed at destroying tumour cells by near-infra-red laser induced heating, according to US researchers.
Smooth support for SERS – The judicious use of SERS-active nanoparticles directly or indirectly can surmount the inherent obstacle in the way of the more widespread adoption of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) studies. Proof of principle in the current work involves activating an organic monolayer by attaching silver nanoparticles.
Nasal spray for diabetes – Could a novel drug delivery agent based on nanotechnology lead to an insulin nasal spray for diabetes sufferers?

Nothing new under the sun, as the bard said, and how true it is sometimes. No sooner had I posted a news article on spectroscopynow.com entitled “Sweet sense of GOD” than Santhosh Challa, a Senior Scientist at Merck & Co in New Jersey, USA, got in touch
to tell me that his team had also recently published work on a similar technique using ionic liquids in glucose sensing. In the “GOD” work, researchers had developed a glucose sensor based on a room-temperature ionic liquid rather than a conventional solvent to give it much better acid-resistance than other sensors used in diabetes and blood sugar monitoring.

Challa and his team seem to have extended the concept somewhat. “In this particular work, we applied an amino acid based fluorescent ionic liquid, that shows not only the capability of differentiating between enantiomeric forms of glucose, but also show the capability of differentiating between different kinds sugars like glucose and mannose,” explained Challa. “This particular ionic liquid is also fluorescent, so its reporting nature is highly useful in sensing fluorescent and as well as non-fluorescent enantiomeric forms of drugs.”

The team also applied multi-dimensional fluorescent studies and statistical analysis to demonstrate that their approach can show these capabilities in the millimolar range. They also explain in detail the studies needed to explain the fluorescence phenomenon and to use the complex spectral properties to their advantage in chiral sugar sensing.

Bwambok, D., Challa, S., Lowry, M., & Warner, I. (2010). Amino Acid-Based Fluorescent Chiral Ionic Liquid for Enantiomeric Recognition Analytical Chemistry, 82 (12), 5028-5037 DOI: 10.1021/ac9027774

Spectral science news

These are my links for July 15th from 12:27 to 12:32:

Herpes invasion – There are eight herpes viruses that cause human diseases. Depending on how they affect us, they result in oral and genital herpes, the latter of which is present in almost a third of the US population. Currently, there is no cure for herpes viruses. Upon infection, the viruses remain in the body for life and can stay inactive for long periods of time. Herpes is also a leading cause of viral blindness and viral encephalitis. An X-ray study has now revealed the unusual structure of a key protein complex that allows a herpes virus to invade cells.
Sweet sense of GOD – A glucose sensor based on a room-temperature ionic liquid rather than conventional solvents has much better acid-resistance than other sensors and so could be developed into a much more robust sensor device for diabetes monitoring.
The banana blues – An intriguing compound found in ripening or senescent parts of the banana plant is a breakdown product of chlorophyll that makes the leaves glow blue under ultraviolet light. New insights into this and related compounds suggest that they are present to attract fruit-eating animals that then spread the plant's seeds.
Iodine analysis – Iodine is an essential part of a healthy diet as it is needed by the thyroid gland for the biosynthesis of thyroid hormones; an excessive intake iodine can lead to thyroid disorders, however. "Seafood, iodized table salt, milk and dairy products are common sources of iodine. Now, a new approach to spectroscopic analysis of foods could improve baby formula milk and other products by allowing total iodine content to be determined more precisely.

DNA search, iPhone chemistry, electronic waste

Latest bookmarked science news, including my current Alchemist column on ChemWeb.com:

How to build a better DNA search engine – The techniques for indexing Chinese language websites could dramatically improve the speed of bioinformatic searches, according to research by SOSO, the third largest Chinese search engine
The chemistry of an iPhone – Steve Jobs responds to conflict minerals accusations, but might not mass spectrometry reveal the truth?
Two angles in that PNAS report that says climate-is-changing crowd bigger, better than nay-sayers – On which side of the climate cred camp do you sit?
Chemistry news on ChemWeb.com – in this week's issue of The Alchemist, resurrecting an old clotting drug could save tens of thousands of lives across the globe, a new strain of yeast can brew up second generation biofuel from agricultural and forestry waste-streams, while bringing order to polymers using metal templates might bring us organic graphite for nano-electronics applications. In bottom-up research, supramolecular chemistry proves itself under the tunneling microscope, while palm-sized magnets could give a boost to spectroscopy in the field. Finally, a Nobel chemist receives the ACS's most prestigious award.
Dell takes steps to tackle electronic waste in India – Dell says it is working with Indian trade association MAIT to start dealing properly with toxic technology waste in India.

Enzymes, chemicals, and metal vapours

Latest science news from yours truly on SpectroscopyNOW.com

Don’t get your kinases in a twist – New drugs that block kinase enzymes irreversibly could be used in cancer therapy as well as in studying how this class of enzymes functions. An informatics analysied has allowed molecular editing to produce novel leads.
X-rays spot left and right handed chemicals – US scientists have made a catalyst that triggers the creation of chemical structures exhibiting a difficult-to-make form of chirality, or handedness, known as atropisomerism, they report in the journal Science. Single-crystal, heavy-atom X-ray analysis of the major product allowed the team to assign an absolute configuration and so demonstrate efficacy.
Palm-sized magnet – German researchers have developed a light, permanent magnet that is suitable for NMR and fits in the palm of your hand. They say it could be used for portable, high-resolution NMR instruments for field studies of important chemicals.
Nano cell for laser science – An international team of scientists have developed a new nano-cell for laser spectroscopy that opens up new ways to study absorption and fluorescence of metal vapours
Six new planets discovered – A veritable menagerie of new planets discovered from ‘shrunken-Saturns’ to ‘bloated hot Jupiters’, as well a rare brown dwarf with 60 times the mass of Jupiter.
First flaming June Alchemist – An old marine alkaloid may find new use in metastatic pancreatic cancer, bitter blockers could be just the thing for nasty-tasting Brussels sprouts, and lotus seed skins offer hope for a food waste product. Also in this week's Alchemist, screening crops for cyanide, gas reactions in crystal lattices, and an award for cellular insights.

My latest SpectroscopyNOW science news

These are my links for June 1st from 19:03 to 19:09:

Therapeutic science – X-ray crystallography has been used to determine the structure of a new, improved protein that could be employed in the purification of therapeutic antibodies and to reveal details of its complexes with antibodies. The work represents an improved molecular design based on greater stability and higher affinity of the protein for its antibody target and could cut costs in therapeutic antibody manufacture.
New species found – Like a previously unknown species emerging into the glare of camera flashlights from the tropical undergrowth or crawling out from under a deep ocean rock, a seemingly simple small molecule, an organosulfur compound called oxathiirane, has been synthesised at long last and reveals itself under infrared and ultraviolet spectroscopic inspection.
Vesuvian revelations – Italian researchers have used a salver of techniques, including microscopic Raman and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopies, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray to study powdered pigments found in bowls from the Pompeii archaeological site as well as wall-painting fragments from the Vesuvian region.
Making lithium batteries safer and more powerful – A simple and precise method for “seeing” the chemistry taking place in a rechargeable lithium-ion battery using lithium-7 NMR spectroscopy has been developed by UK scientists. The work might help improve battery design to remedy flaws in this kind of power supply, such as rapid discharge, loss of charge capacity, and their rare tendency to combust spontaneously, potentially a very serious problem for laptop users especially.sc
A good night’s sleep – Even a single night where a person suffers partial sleep deprivation (PSD) is enough to have a negative impact on thinking. A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study suggests that as cognition and affective processing are disrupted, sleep pressure must represent a basic physiological constraint of brain function.
Rice recipe – Heat rice flour to 600 Celsius under a nitrogen atmosphere and then dousing it in concentrated nitric acid is not the usual way to cook it, but researchers in India have done just that. The product, rather than a bowl of light and fluffy grains is a plethora of nanoscopic carbon cubes and bricks, the team says.

ChemistryViews, Alchemist, espresso

ChemistryViews just launched, so here’s my first link to my stuff on there together with the regular Alchemist round-up and a surprising finding about espresso.

Small molecules for fighting cancer – My first short feature article in the all-new ChemistryViews magazine from Wiley covers research into tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha)
Alchemist news – This week, The Alchemist hears how chemists are helping deal with the major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, that mosquitoes could be evolving a way to ignore strong formula insect repellent, and what actually killed legendary racehorse Phar Lap. In electrochemistry, flexible plastic electrodes can be printed and a remedy for stressed out poplar trees may emerge from molecular biology. Finally, a major funding award could pave the way for thermopower devices that bring us powerful, but miniaturized batteries.
Chemistry is key to perfect espresso coffee – There are just three steps in the preparation of an espresso, and millions are made every day across the globe, but only chemistry can provide the answers to optimising the process.

Chemical structure drawing poll

Yesterday’s blog feature quoted my various contacts on Twitter, LinkedIn and elsewhere on what program they use to draw chemical structures. There were some interesting answers, including mentions of sites like ChemSpider and PubChem that are not drawing packages per se but do allow you to retrieve a vast array of molecular structures.

Today, I thought it would be interesting to run a more formal poll on the question. You can choose up to 2 programs. If you check “other”, please let us know which program you’re using in the comments. If I’ve missed any popular ones off the list, someone please let me know.

Interesting to see new-kid-on-the-block ChemDoodle riding high in the poll.

Category: Chemistry