Category Archives: Chemistry

This B vitamin compound is particularly important for pregnant women, but how was that importance discovered – and what has Marmite got to do with it? Find out all about folic acid in this week’s Chemistry in its element

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2012/10/10/chemistry-in-its-element-folic-acid/

Speculation over who will win this year’s chemistry Nobel prize has been feverish. Is it the turn of the biologists again (an old complaint that the lack of a biology Nobel prize means those feckless biologists have to filch our prize!) à la the 2009 prize for the structure of the ribosome? Or will it be awarded for more traditional chemistry like the 2010 prize for cross-couplings? Or it could even be another one like last year’s prize for quasicrystals that came completely out of left field and surprised a lot of people. We don’t know! But, if you want to see the predictions people have been making and even the odds for them then check our blog post. Otherwise sit back, relax and we’ll soon know who’s taken the most prestigious gong in the sciences and then the nice people on the Nobel prize committee will explain why it’s important and what it all means.

Patrick Walter

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2012/10/10/watch-the-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-live-as-its-announced/

With the Ig Nobels behind us, CW Towers now waits with bated breath for the chemistry Nobel. The prize for medicine and physiology has already been handed to John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for their work on understanding what makes a stem cell different to a mature, adult cell and how an adult cell can be transformed into a stem cell. This work could help produce a limitless supply of stem cells for therapeutic purposes without some of the ethical concerns that have dogged this promising medical technology. Supplies of stem cells are currently mostly derived from human embryos.

Today was the turn of physics. And that prize was taken by David Wineland and Serge Haroche for their work controlling quantum systems. Their research is seen as a first step on the road to creating quantum computers that would use ions or atoms as quantum bits. These quantum computers would calculate not just in ones and zeros, as conventional computers do, but have an extra state, a superposition that is both a one and a zero at the same time. This extra state, which relies on the weirdness of the way the quantum world works, holds the promise of making quantum computers vastly more powerful than any even the fastest binary supercomputer in existence.

Out of the sciences this leaves just the chemistry prize to go tomorrow morning – you can watch it live on our blog. And there are plenty of predictions out there of who’s in with a chance of taking home this prestigious gong.

Paul Bracher over at ChemBark has also put together his predictions and added a few more as he’s still smarting over not having Dan Shechtman’s quasicrystals down on his list for last year’s chemistry Nobel! He makes his predictions on a whole host of criteria, including the all-important gut feeling. Clearly he thinks it’s the biologists turn (as they don’t have their own Nobel prize) and has given nuclear hormone signalling the shortest odds.

Every year Thomson Reuters also puts together its predictions by doing some number crunching using Web of Knowledge to pick out those researchers whose work has been cited the most. One of the guys behind the Thomson Reuters picks has claimed that it has the best record of anyone at picking winners – although just not in the year they make those predictions! They’ve added gold catalysis, photocatalytic properties of titanium dioxide and quantum dots to their list for this year’s prize. Thomson’s says that after 11 years they’ve successfully predicted 26 Nobel laureates to date (although this also includes the other Nobel prizes) – we’ll have to wait and see how they do this year.

At the Curious Wavefunction, a whole host of predictions have been made, although he hasn’t put odds to them. Nuclear receptors again feature high up on the list. Other possibles include DNA fingerprinting, the synthesis of cholesterol-busting statin drugs and the discovery of chaperone proteins that help other proteins fold correctly.

There’s still time to have a flutter, so have a look through the list and make your own predictions! Who do you think will win the chemistry Nobel prize?

Patrick Walter

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2012/10/09/who-will-win-the-chemistry-nobel/

Probably best enjoyed without liquid nitrogen

Reports are coming out that an 18 year old woman has had her stomach removed after drinking a ‘nitro’ cocktail given a smoky effect using liquid nitrogen. It seems that outside of labs liquid nitrogen is proving quite the star turn… from making ice cream in Camden, to being used in cocktails around the country.

These cocktails seem to come in two types, either a small amount of liquid N₂ is used to cool the drink without dilution and with added smoky effect, or much more N₂ is used to whisk up a frozen cocktail, more N₂ is then poured over for, again, that smoky effect. Basically, everyone wants a cocktail that looks like it comes from the set of an Addams family movie.

So what happened in this instance? Well, the bar isn’t commenting and its website and Facebook page are unavailable, but the wonders of cached websites suggest that the cocktails the bar serves were of the smoking but liquid variety. That at least removes the risk of super cooled ice causing burns, but I can just imagine after a few drinks you’re not going to wait for the ‘smoke’ to disappear. Peer pressure, ‘having fun’, whether it was some super cooled ice in the drink or the liquid nitrogen itself, it sounds like a recipe for disaster and in this instance it was.

I recall, as well as having fun freezing things with left over liquid nitrogen, getting some pretty serious warnings about how to use liquid nitrogen safely – don’t touch any of the pipes, use protective gloves, never take the lift with it and instead put the container in the lift and send it off, while you take the stairs. I even saw how items dipped quickly into liquid N₂ did not freeze, because they were protected by an insulating layer of gaseous N₂ (a phenomenon known as the Leidenfrost effect), but how if left in contact for longer tissue could be frozen and destroyed.  I somehow doubt the risks of liquid nitrogen were spelled out to the poor woman in the same way they were to me and so, at the age of 18, she has lost her stomach.

But, to counter some of the more alarmist news reporting going on today, liquid N₂ is not toxic, it’s incredibly cold and used in a controlled manner it’s safe and can add drama to restaurant dining halls and labs alike. But I wouldn’t drive drunk, I wouldn’t go into the lab drunk and I’d not trust myself with liquid nitrogen when drunk.

Laura Howes

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/2012/10/08/liquid-nitrogen-not-toxic-stomach-removed/

Two US researchers have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for uncovering and mapping a key mechanism used by cells to detect and respond to the presence of hormones and other chemicals they encounter, a mechanism seen as vital to the pharmaceutical industry's development of new drugs.

The prize, which carries an 8 million krona ($1.2 million US) purse, was given to Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University in Durham, N.C., and the Maryland-based Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and to Brian Kobilka of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

The two were awarded for work on a family of proteins embedded in cell walls that detect the presence of a hormone such as adrenaline outside a cell, then conduct that information through the cell wall to a protein switch inside that touches off a cell's response.

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The cellular sensors, dubbed G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), help coordinate "an orchestrated response from billions of individual cells that make up our bodies" as the cells respond to an outside stimulus, said Sven Lindin, chairman of the committee awarding the chemistry prize. One such stimulus: the startling, raucous appearance of a ghoul at a Halloween haunted house.

The receptors have become prime targets for new drugs to treat a range of diseases, he added at a press conference on Wednesday announcing the award. By some estimates, roughly half of all the drugs used today rely on GCPRs as pathways for affecting the cells of interest. Armed with a knowledge of the receptor molecule's unique pattern of folds when it's triggered, he adds, pharmaceutical companies are working to develop new drugs that have fewer side effects.

The notion that cells must have some mechanism for sensing their environment emerged toward the end of the 1800s, researchers say, but no one succeeded in identifying the sensors cells use.

Indeed, "when I started doing my work 40 years ago, there was still huge skepticism as to whether things like receptors really existed even from some people who were central in pharmacology," said Dr. Lefkowitz in an interview for Nobel.org.

He found receptors by adding tiny quantities of radioactive iodine to a hormone. Once the hormone bound itself to receptors, Lefkowitz and his team could pinpoint them.

In the meantime, other researchers were trying to identify the molecular switch that triggers a cell's response once it sensed a change in the environment outside the cell. Indeed, two other American biochemists shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1994 for uncovering that internal switch, known as a G protein.

View post:
Chemistry Nobel Prize Could Lead to Drugs with Fewer Side Effects

Tight end Jermichael Finley began the 2010 season as the featured receiver in the Green Bay Packers' offense. Then he was lost for the year with a knee injury in Week 5.

Things haven't been the same since.

Finley's 2011 season was plagued by drops during a contract year for the matchup nightmare. The Packers' scheme also reduced the emphasis on Finley. With an extension signed, Packers fans hoped Finley would blossom and reach his Pro Bowl potential in 2012. The Green Bay offense, however, has taken a step back as a unit.

Finley believes the chemistry with quarterback Aaron Rodgers is lacking.

"I need the quarterback on my side, and I need to catch the ball when he throws it to me," Finley said, according to the Green Bay Press-Gazette. "It takes two things to get that going. So, the chemistry, I feel like we need to get that going."

Finley has 22 receptions for 198 yards and one touchdown this season. He is on pace for a career-high 70 catches, but his yards per game is down from 2011 (39.6 from 47.9). He's on pace for three touchdowns after having a career-high eight last season.

Finley had three receptions for 11 yards last week before a "slightly dislocated AC joint" in his shoulder forced him from the game. He did not practice Thursday.

Harrison: Week 6 predictions

Finley called the chemistry between he and Rodgers "OK."

"Not good enough at all," Finley said. "Something to be worked on, and try to work on it as much as I can, try to talk to him as much as I can.

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Jermichael Finley: Aaron Rodgers chemistry lacking