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Science

Submission + - Mining May Have Harmed 22% Of Streams In Southern West Virginia (acs.org) 1

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: Decades of mountaintop-removal mining may have harmed aquatic life along more than 1,700 miles of streams in southern West Virginia, according to new research. Mining companies have converted 5% of the region to mountaintop mines. The resulting water pollution has caused so many sensitive insect species to vanish that 22% of streams may qualify as impaired under state criteria, the researchers report.

Paragraph taken from Chemical & Engineering News article.

Submission + - Sugars in Mummies Survive Thousands of Years (acs.org)

Submitted by
carmendrahl
carmendrahl writes: "The natural carbohydrates that serve to protect human proteins can survive for millenia in the preserved flesh of natural mummies such as Ötzi the Iceman. (These types of mummies differ from Egyptian mummies- in these cases the corpse encounters some extreme conditions that allow it to be preserved). Researchers reported this discovery last month at a mass spectrometry conference. It's a surprising finding- experts expected the sugars to have degraded long ago. The researchers who made the discovery hope to use their technique to learn more about the evolution of blood types, which are dictated by the carbohydrates attached to blood proteins."

Submission + - Debate Simmers over Science of Food Pairing (acs.org)

Submitted by
carmendrahl
carmendrahl writes: "Why do foods taste good together? Scientists aren't anywhere near figuring it out, but that hasn't stopped one popular idea from spawning a company dedicated to discovering avant-garde new pairings. The idea, called flavor-pairing theory, says that if foods share a key odor molecule, they'll pair well. But some scientists say the idea can't explain all cuisines, and another contends his work with tomato flavor shows that flavor pairing is "a gimmick by a chef who is practicing biology without a license.""
Science

Submission + - Tracking Designer Drugs, Many At Once (acs.org)

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: Drug tests spot banned substances based on their chemical structures, but a new breed of narcotics is designed to evade such tests. These synthetic marijuana drugs, found in "herbal incense," are mere chemical tweaks of each other, allowing them to escape detection each time researchers develop a new test for one of the compounds. Now chemists have developed a method that can screen for multiple designer drugs at once, without knowing their structures. The test may help law enforcement crack down on the substances.

The researchers used a technique called "mass defect filtering," which can detect related compounds all at once. That's because related compounds have almost equal numbers to the right of the decimal point in their molecular masses.

The researchers tested their technique on 32 herbal products with names like "Mr. Nice Guy" and "Hot Hawaiian." They found that every product contained one or more synthetic cannabinoid; all told, they identified nine different compounds in them — two illegal ones and seven that are not regulated.

The news story appears in Chemical & Engineering News and the original paper is (behind a paywall) in Analytical Chemistry.

Submission + - Materials from Tough-as-Nails Crustacean Could Inspire Better Body Armor (cen-online.org)

Submitted by
carmendrahl
carmendrahl writes: "The peacock mantis shrimp, a crustacean which is neither a mantis nor a shrimp, has hammer-like clubs for smashing the shells of its prey, so strong that regular glass aquariums can’t hold them. But what’s interested researchers for some time is how the clubs stand up to all that stress. Now, a team’s figured out why- the mantis shrimp club's molecular structure is set up to resist fractures. That discovery could lead to stronger and lighter car frames or body armor."
Science

Submission + - An "Oil Strider" Device Mimics Water Strider Insects (acs.org)

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: Who hasn't marveled at the ability of water bugs to skate along the surface of lakes and ponds? Now materials scientists in China have taken a cue from water striders and created a device that can coast along the surface between oil and water.

The tricky part was figuring out how to make an oil-repelling surface that worked underwater. It came down to coating copper wires with copper oxide microstructures that look like flowers made up of nanopetals.

Scientists think such coatings could enable robots that clean up oil spills, bug-proof car windshields, and ship hulls that don't build up barnacles.

Check out the photo of the device to see how technology imitates life.
Medicine

Submission + - Buyer Beware: Experimental Drug May Not Be What It Claims (acs.org)

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: Some bad bosutinib is going around. An isomer of the compound threatens to invalidate research efforts around the world.

The molecule is currently in late-stage clinical trials to treat chronic myeloid leukemia. Pfizer, the company sponsoring the human trials, says patients have only received the genuine article.

But just before publishing a paper on the molecule, which is used in basic and medical research, scientists at Stanford discovered that the compound they were working with--which they thought was bosutinib, and had ordered from a vendor--wasn't.

“We had wasted a huge amount of time and money on the wrong isomer,” one of the scientists says. Many other researchers may face the same problem. Perhaps the published literature is full of incorrect results based on the isomer instead of bosutinib itself.
Science

Submission + - Graphene Helps A Robot Creep Like An Inchworm (acs.org) 1

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: To develop new materials for robotics, scientists have developed graphene-based actuators that convert electricity into motion. In robots, actuators act like muscles, driving the movement of mechanical arms and fins. Most actuator materials, such as ceramics and conductive polymers, respond slowly, require a lot of power, or provide very little force. To make speedy, strong actuators, Chinese researchers coated graphene paper with the polymer polydiacetylene. Graphene provides a highly conductive, flexible backing for the fragile polymer crystals, which deform in response to electrical current. The actuators can bend 200 times per second and generate more force than most current materials. Using a sheet of the material, the scientists built a simple inchworm robot that arches and relaxes to crawl forward.
Science

Submission + - Serendipitous Discovery Of Assay For Lab Cell Contamination (acs.org)

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: Mycoplasmas are the smallest organisms known, tiny bacteria that most antibiotics don't kill. They also are a worrisome laboratory contaminant, infecting an estimated 15-70 percent of all mammalian cell cultures. They can change cell behavior, making healthy cells look cancerous, or otherwise mucking up research results. Now researchers at Harvard Medical School have made the most of an accidental contamination: they've developed a glowing assay for mycoplasmas.

They did by noticing that an assay for tumor growth gave inconsistent results across cell lines, and realizing the cause was mycoplasma growth in some of their cells. The same assay, an enzyme called Gaussia luciferase, can detect even very low concentrations of mycoplasmas.
Science

Submission + - Arrays of "Topological Insulators": A Step Towards Exotic Electronics

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: Chemists in China have precisely grown arrays of ultrathin flakes of bismuth selenide and bismuth telluride on a surface. The bismuth compounds belong to a recently discovered – and weird — class of materials called topological insulators, which conduct electrons only along their surfaces, not through their insides.

Researchers think topological insulators promise a new realm of fast, energy-efficient electronic and spintronic devices. Making well-defined nanoparticle arrays such as the new study’s flakes is a key step towards such devices.
Science

Submission + - Chicken Feathers: Another Way Drugs Get Into The Environment (acs.org)

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: Chicken feathers processed at high temperatures become “feather meal” that finds use as fertilizer and animal feed. But the feathers retain a slew of pharmaceutical compounds, and not just drugs used to treat chickens, researchers report. They discovered antibiotics, fungicides, caffeine, and other compounds in feather meal.

As with "biosolids" (derived from human and animal waste) that are used in agriculture, feather meal may provide a conduit for drugs to get into the environment and foster antimicrobial resistance.
Science

Submission + - Nanoparticles Shaped Like Star Fruits (acs.org)

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: In the past, scientists have synthesized star-shaped nanoparticles but no one has been able to make them shaped like star fruits. Until now. Researchers at Rice University started with gold nanorods that are pentagonal in cross section. They then coated more gold onto each of the corners to create star-fruit shapes. Pretty micrographs! The particles aren’t just nifty, they could have a useful application: improving results from a spectroscopic technique called SERS (surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy). The research paper (abstract) appears in the journal Langmuir.
Biotech

Submission + - Sensor Listens to Drug Molecules' Vibrations

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: Drugmakers rely on many analytical instruments when they screen for potential drug candidates. Now they may want to invest in headphones, Chemical & Engineering News reports. Researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland have developed a sensor that uses the sound generated by a vibrating crystal to measure properties of common drugs (abstract). The sensor’s quartz crystal microbalance can measure candidate drugs’ pKa, or acid dissociation constant, and partition coefficient, or affinity for fats. Since these characteristics help predict how well the body absorbs molecules, the acoustic sensor may offer a new way for drug developers to quickly assess candidate molecules.

Submission + - How to Make Diamonds in the Lab (youtube.com)

Submitted by
carmendrahl
carmendrahl writes: "Take a video tour of the diamond synthesis facility at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. Scientists there need diamonds for their research. But the gems produced by Mother Nature aren't plentiful or strong enough. So the scientists have learned to synthesize the sparkly rocks themselves. They use methane gas and tiny diamond seeds to make gems as large as 10 carats. It's part of Carnegie's extensive research into the element carbon."

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