Chemistry – Page 5 – David Bradley

Abbreviated copper nanotubes

Back in the 1990s, during the height of my prolific writing about chemistry for the likes of New Scientist, Science, Chemistry in Britain, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph etc, I covered a lot of the emerging chemical science, obviously. At the time, we had chemists lighting up conducting organic polymers, which eventually became the ubiquitous OLEDs in so many displays and screens we use today. We had others kicking around buckyballs (fullerenes) and other chemists rolling up carbon nanotubes…quickly abbreviated as CNTs.

One recent paper is something of a gift for juvenile Brits, crude headline writers, but perhaps not sub-editors. This paper was about copper nanotubes. It has been published in a rather niche scientific journal. The paper was all about the production and properties of a metallic analogue of the carbon nanotubes.

Copper, of course, is Cu, from cuprum. So, we must assume that the authors, reviewers, editors, and proofreaders of this journal, all of whom we might also assume did not have vernacular English as a first language, were wholly innocent in writing and reporting copper nanotubes and using the abbreviation CuNTs…

You can bet that once word gets around puerile chemists and science writers with a chemical bent will slyly mention it at conference bars and sneakily reference it in their own papers and online. I should point out, that even before the copper paper when we first wrote about carbon nanotubes, some of us imagined copper analogues and how we might avoid embarrassment in using the obvious abbreviation.

Structural and electronic properties of single-wall copper nanotubes, Science China Physics, Mechanics and Astronomy, 2014, 10.1007/s11433-013-5387-8

UPDATE July 2024: As this paper has now caught the attention of the wider public, a decade later, thanks to the brilliant Hannah Fry (FryRSquared) I would add that there have been several papers since the first that allowed this awkward abbreviation through. Why didn’t anyone tell the authors or the editors? It must get flagged and filtered endlessly in online literature searches! Why?

For those who still don’t understand the issue, the abbreviation is suggestive of a crude word for the female external genitalia. Of course, there’s a whole journal the abbreviation for which is often pronounced crudely with a schoolyard giggle to sound like the male reproductive organ, PNAS, so maybe it is par for the course.

I must admit that I’ve occasionally used the phrase abbreviated copper nanotube as an insult to avoid being censored when expressing my dislike of various ne’er-do-wells online, usually bigots, right-wing politicians and pedlars of pseudoscientific nonsense.

This year’s bright young thing

You will have seen the news recently that a new supernova has appeared in the sky. This one is quite close, a mere 12- million light years (more than 10²⁰ kilometres from Earth. I reported on it at the time for SpectroscopyNOW

“Astronomers have planned observations using the Hubble Space Telescope operated by NASA and the European Space Agency as well as NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and Swift missions in order to glean as much information about the recent supernova flare-up SN 2014J, in galaxy M82 as possible.”

I now have some additional thoughts from team leader Steve Fossey of the UCL group that first spotted this object in the night sky while simply doing a telescope student workshop because it was a cloudy night. I asked him what’s next:

“Results from the AAVSO website indicate it has peaked and is starting to fade. Typical fade rates for these objects are about a factor 2.5 every fortnight. While this requires urgent observations now, this actually means that we will be studying this object for a long time to come, and it will remain visible in amateur and small-telescope imaging for many weeks for sure. Professional facilities will follow it for months (and it is well placed in the sky to do so),” he told me.

He points out that there is an urgent need to observe the development and evolution of the SN as the shock wave and radiation field interact with the surrounding circumstellar medium. “One critical matter is the question of when ‘first light’ occurred, as this helps to constrain the size of the supernova progenitor – we expect a degenerate star such as a white dwarf, but of course this can never be directly observed (unless it were so close that this would be apparent in pre-SN imaging – but not in this case). The early light-curve shape also helps to investigate the nature of the expanding fireball – there is a paper just out on arxiv (Zheng et al., 2014, http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.7968) in which so-called “prediscovery” data have been used to pin down the time of first light – and it implies a very rapid early rise in brightness, much faster than simple scaling arguments for the brightness of the expanding fireball imply. This is not well understood (see Zheng et al.)”

Fossey suggests that searches for evidence for the putative companion will be sought through pre-explosion imaging data, such as in archival Hubble Space Telescope images. He adds that, “The Swift UV and X-ray observations are crucial also for detecting the impact of the explosion on the putative companion star, and on the surrounding interstellar and circumstellar medium (CSM); the CSM is especially important, since an X-ray detection or limit can be related to the nature of the putative companion – whether a giant star, solar-type star, etc. – since those objects can be expected to have blown material into the CSM over their lifetimes. If no detections are made (and as your piece notes, there has never been an X-ray detection for any previous type Ia SNe), the detection limits may provide evidence for a double-degenerate scenario where two white dwarfs have merged. It all depends on how tight those limits (or detections) are.”

“UV spectroscopy from Hubble will also help to prove the elemental composition of the fireball as it expands and becomes more transparent, allowing us to see `deeper’ and understand something of the fusion processes which took place when the progenitor detonated,” he told me. “And gamma-ray observations will help constrain the amount and distribution of nickel-56 in the ejecta, which will help us understand the nature of the WD structure and detonation mechanisms. It’s all very exciting!”

Zinc, the only supplement

SECOND UPDATE: From Sciencebased Medicine [no relation]: “While zinc has the ability to inhibit rhinovirus replication in the test tube, clinical trials for the treatment of colds have been disappointing. While there was a very modest improvement in symptom score in one study of adults, the benefit was seen only when zinc was taken in large doses 5-6 times per day. At these doses, GI side effects were significant and patients complained of a bad taste in their mouth. Needless to say, 5-6 times per day dosing with these side effects would preclude this as a viable option in children. Additionally, a well-designed, randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled study demonstrated no effectiveness of zinc on cold symptoms in children and adolescents.”

UPDATE: I just took a look at the packet of Zn tabs I have, 15mg per tab. The Cochrane Review says effective dose seen at 75mg. So…who’ve I been kidding? Anecdote is not evidence.

Zinc is the only supplement I take if I feel a cold coming on. Vitamin C, echinacea, cod liver oil etc have no proven effect. But, recent Cochrane analysis vindicates earlier research on which I based my choice.

Zinc – The promise: Laboratory studies have found it can inhibit replication of the rhinovirus, the most frequent cause of cold symptoms.

The research: A Cochrane review of 18 good quality studies last month found that zinc lozenges or syrup significantly reduced the average duration of the common cold in healthy people when taken within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms.

Dr Mullen says: ‘Zinc influences the immune system in a number of ways: it is involved in immune cell recruitment and function, systemic inflammation, is an antioxidant, and may have antiviral properties with respect to the common cold.’

The verdict: A proven treatment for colds, although side effects include a bad taste and nausea. The review advises taking zinc lozenges of 75mg or more until there is more research.

There is one caveat, I remember my old GP telling me he was involved in a Cambridge U study on cadmium content of zinc supplements. Cadmium is toxic, don’t know what the conclusion of his research was, never been able to find it on PubMed. But, either way, it’s a risk-benefit equation you have to balance yourself. Just don’t waste your money on the remedies that are really nothing more than expensive placebos (homeopathy and Reiki therapy for instance), they will do nothing to tackle a viral or any other infection.

Do supplements really help us keep healthy in the winter? – Telegraph.

Work in 2001 suggested that cadmium can indeed be present in zinc supplements – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11474903, other work highlighted the fact that zinc is protective acute exposure to cadmiu – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23726800

Satisfying your curiosity

SN94_M_infection Latest science news in my fortnightly column for Spectroscopynow.com, now online:

Steroid infection: Steroids are often injected into sites along the spinal column in treating back pain, but if a batch is contaminated serious infection can arise. Researchers have demonstrated that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at the site of injection could be used to identify fungal spinal or paraspinal infection, allowing early pharmacological or surgical intervention to reduce the risk of serious complications.Â via Back to basics.

Mars – The bigger picture: Images recorded by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover and sent back to Earth have been composited into what is the equivalent of a 1000 megapixel photograph of the surface of the Red Planet. The image offers armchair astronomers and others an opportunity to examine the Martian landscape in much greater detail than ever before.Â via The bigger picture.

Liquid colour: Researchers in Japan have used NMR spectroscopy to study liquid materials with excellent light stability based on the skeleton of the organic fluorescent dye anthracene that could be used for full-colour tuneable luminescent systems.Â via Tuneable colours.

Portable detection: The optical technique of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has been used to detect signs of infection in tissue samples before patients even show symptoms of viral disease. The system could be further developed into a portable lab-on-a-chip (LoC) devices for use in the clinic with potential for applications in the developing world.Â via Portable infection: SERS detection.

Lip up: Fatty lipid molecules in the human body act not only as energy storage molecules and structural elements but are also important signalling compounds. Lipids with their head in a molecular cage have now been used to study such molecules and their roles in diseases such as atherosclerosis and diabetes.Â via Lip up: Fatty molecules investigated.

Fuel matters: Altering the crystalline structure of cellulose from its native form to another can lower its binding partition coefficient for fungal cellulose enzymes by 40-50% but surprisingly boost hydrolytic activity. This new finding could thus help open the road to more efficient enzymatic production of biofuels from biomass rather than petroleum.Â via Insights into enzymatic conversion.

Spectral lines

Dicarbonyl didact – NMR spectroscopy has been used to investigate dicarbonyl sugars formed inside the human body from the natural breakdown of the simple sugar, glucose. The implications for understanding the link with diabetes are discussed.

Biochemist Anthony Serianni and postdoctoral research associate, Wenhui Zhang,of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, USA, are providing important new clues as to the nature of diabetes that one day might lead to novel treatments. Serianni explains that the biological compounds known as dicarbonyl sugars are produced inside the human body from the natural breakdown of the basic sugar compound, glucose. The formation of these sugars occurs to a greater extent in people with diabetes because glucose concentrations in the blood and plasma can be much higher than normal.Â More on Sweet complexity….

Brainy structure – Structural changes in the brain revealed by magnetic resonance imaging are tied to common gene variants linked to disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and autism and can be observed in brain scans of newborn infants.

In research that was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, Rebecca Knickmeyer of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and colleagues John Gilmore, Jiaping Wang, Hongtu Zhu, Xiujuan Geng, Sandra Woolson, Robert Hamer, Thomas Konneker, Weili Lin and Martin Styner, show how certain changes in the brain found in adults are associated with common gene variants present at birth.Â More on brain scanning and genetics….

Wall to wall antioxidants – Amino acid functionalised nanotubes scavenge free radicals faster than conventional synthetic antioxidants. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes functionalized by sonication with various amino acids can act as synthetic antioxidants. IR spectroscopy and other techniques have been used to study their effects and reveal these entities to be more potent than other synthetic agents in scavenging free radicals.

Ahm Amiri of the Department of Engineering at the Islamic Azad University, in Marvdasht, Iran, and colleagues Mina Memarpoor-Yazdi, Mehdi Shanbedi, Hossein Eshghi, writing in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research A explain how they are keen to develop potent antioxidants able to scavenge free radicals. Free radicals are implicated in oxidative reactions involved in diabetes mellitus, certain forms of cancer and cardiovascular disease.Â More on antioxidant nanotubes.

Skunk pharma

A case study of six leading pharmaceutical companies – Amgen, Elan, Lundbeck, Merck, UCB and Wyeth – by Annabeth Aagaard of the University of Southern Denmark points to how the industry might adapt to ongoing pressures from rising R&D costs, depreciating patent value and public authority desire to cut healthcare costs.

“These challenges have increased the focus on shortening development times and the efficiency of Front-End of Innovation (FEI),” explains Aagaard. Writing in the journal IJTPM, she explores how idea management may be applied as a tool to promote pharmaceutical FEI her findings have implications not only for the companies themselves but for policy-makers and how FEI might best be supported and so allow companies to develop strong drug candidates and bring them to market quickly.

Aagaard found that the six companies employ very similar approaches to idea management in FEI, which might suggest that innovation would be stifled and the competitive edge lost. She explains that her contacts at the companies studied pointed out that the similarities in approach are inevitable: “We pretty much all use the same discovery process model, as we have to answer to the same regulations (i.e., FDA) and live up to the same requirements,” one company said. Another stated: “You have to remember, that we (i.e., the pharmaceutical scientists) all go to the same conferences, are more or less educated in the same places and are moving to and between the same companies, so we share a number of similarities and probably think very much alike when it comes to innovation and how to develop a new drug.”

Apparently, skunk work – rule-breaking work by a splinter group within the company – is perhaps the way companies might break the mould in their pharma discovery and development efforts. However, the current regulatory system still leads to low-risk, low-cost approaches to R&D and “me-too” products. Aagaard points out that skunks aside, it might be that a radical shake-up of patent law would be the way forward to new innovation in an industry stifled by expiring patents and desiccating pipelines.

Aagaard A. (2012). Idea management in support of pharmaceutical front end of innovation, International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, 12 (4) 373. DOI: 10.1504/IJTPM.2012.050138

Seeding growth for Indian pharma

During the last two decades, India has emerged as a leading player in clinical trials, manufacturing and R&D of pharmaceuticals. Today, the Indian pharmaceutical industry is growing rapidly and ranks third in the world by volume sales (14th by value) amounting to US $20 billion with forecasters suggesting this will double well before the end of this decade. Unfortunately, one aspect of the industry continues to fail – logistics.

According to a report published in the International Journal of Logistics Economics and Globalisation, poor infrastructure, long lead times, multi-layered routes to market because of different state tax systems, and bureaucracy are a blight on this growing industry.

Sandeep Puri and Jayanthi Ranjan of the Institute of Management Technology, in Raj Nagar, India, have looked at emerging business and technological trends in this sector and suggest that there are innovative logistics solutions to many of the infrastructure and other problems India faces. It is increasingly important that such issues are addressed as the nation develops and demand for pharmaceuticals rises particularly given the issues of product degradation when stored and transported in unsuitable – commonly high temperature – conditions. The researchers point out that pharmaceutical products are commonly handled as if they were inert materials not destined for medicine cabinets and patients.

The team also points out that product adulteration, supply-chain corruption and document falsification are rife. Fundamentally, such issues are made easier because of the intrinsic problems of inadequate infrastructure. “Coping with the challenges of streamlining the logistics in India will ultimately benefit the patient and the healthcare industry,” the team says.

Puri S. (2012). Study of logistics issues in the Indian pharmaceutical industry, Int. J. Logistics Economics and Globalisation, 4 (3) 150-161. DOI:

Like Scrabble for chemists

Elemensus is a new board game with a geeky twist. It’s an elemental update to Scrabble one might say and you can play it periodically…chemist and non-chemist alike.

Don’t like that “NeBULaS” though…plural is NeBULaE but there is no E element…

Nevertheless, “Thorium-Iodine-Sulfur Iodine-Sulfur Oxygen-Fluorine-Fluorine-Beryllium-Astastine Tungsten-Oxygen-Tungsten!”

Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2012

UPDATE: And the Prize goes to… The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2012 to Robert J. Lefkowitz Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA and Brian K. Kobilka Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA “for studies of G-protein—coupled receptors”. It’s bio but with huge pharma implications.

I’m pleased to note that I wrote about Kobilka’s work back in 2010 although when I pressed him to hint at implications of that particular study he was reluctant to give me such a hint. Unfortunately, I don’t remember writing about Lefkowitz in the last few years.

The press release is here.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2012 was announced today. I hadn’t noticed until now that the prize money for this year’s Nobels is down 20% on that given last year. According to CNN this is “due to the turbulence that has hit financial markets.”

Turbulence? That’s whorls and eddies in a fluid that leads to a bumpy ride on an aeroplane or a bit of seasickness if you’re going by boat. It’s bloody great icebergs that have hit financial markets these last few years, “not a bit of turbulence”. Chaos theory helps us come to terms with the unpredictability of the weather, of catastrophic collapse, of fractal growth, and even economics. What is it that makes politicians and bankers imagine that they can control global finances? Haven’t they heard of the butterfly effect…

Anyway, back to the Nobels…you can watch the live stream later this morning:

DMAA is illegal in the UK

TL:DR – The purportedly natural bodybuilding and weight-loss supplement DMAA is illegal in the UK and elsewhere.

Back in April 2012, the US Food & Drug Administration ordered supplement manufacturers to stop selling bodybuilding and weight-loss products containing DMAA, 1,3-dimethylamylamine, methylhexanamine, also known as geranium extract. Ingestion of the compound is thought to carry a risk of cardiac arrest or stroke as well having been linked to other problems such as harm to the nervous system and psychiatric disorders.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) slapped a ban on the sale of DMAA in all sports supplements and other products at the end of August 2012, according to spectroscopynow.com. Earlier in August, sibling site separationsnow.com discussed the issue of so-called “natural” DMAA.

“A drug initially introduced as a vasoconstrictor [used as a decongestant] in the 1940s has gained notoriety in recent years due to its inclusion as an active ingredient in sports supplements backed up by claims that it is a natural ingredient,” the site reports. “Those companies marketing the products refer to a paper published in 1996 which claimed to have discovered it in the geranium Pelargonium graveolens but a number of research groups have since cast doubt on that claim.”