My latest SpectroscopyNOW column goes live today. Four items: Cheminformatics and TB, laser spectroscopy and graphene, ‘shroom doom and enmeshed drugs.
Multivariate statistical data processing has been used to create a model from gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) data of metabolite profiles of the various types of Mycobacterium species tuberculosis (TB). The model could allow diagnosticians and biomedical researchers to quickly and easily distinguish between various infectious Mycobacterium species – TB news.
When graphene is stimulated optically it produces a photocurrent on a time scale of mere picoseconds. A German research team has now used the pump-probe method of time-resolved laser spectroscopy to take a snapshot of this process as it happens – Atomic Absorption and Atomic Spectroscopy Resource.
Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, mass spectrometry and other techniques have been used to demonstrate that the consumption of toxic mushrooms may have been responsible for a series of unexplained deaths in China during the last three decades – NMR and toxic toadstools.
X-ray computed tomography can be used to look closely at superhydrophobic polymer meshes. These experimental materials have been shown to trap drug molecules with a barrier of air between them and an external aqueous environment – Drug smugglers.