Category Archives: Chemistry

— A rock sample from the mineral collection of the Museo di Storia Naturale in Florence previously unearthed in the Koryak Mountains in Russia. © P Steinhardt

Not quite an alien invasion of cinematic proportions, but pretty cool none the less. As hinted at in my feature last year, Paul Steinhardt has shown that the only natural example of a quasicrystal ever discovered comes from space.

In 2009 Steinhardt was part of a team that looked through sample after sample for a natural example of a quasicrystal before finding one in a rock from north-eastern Russia. However, as Steinhardt told me last year, the discovery was not universally believed. That led to the theoretical physicist kitting up and heading into the field to try and find more examples. But as well as looking at other rocks (which aren’t discussed in this paper), Steinhardt’s also been looking more closely at the original and, to date, only rock containing a natural quasicrystal. And his findings? They come from space.

The isotopic ratios of oxygen around the quasicrystal grain are typical of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, suggesting that while the first quasicrystal was identified in 1982, the first quasicrystal was made around 4.5 million years before. This makes the mineral one of the earliest around. Pretty cool.

The work is published in PNAS, 2012, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1111115109 and is open access.

Laura Howes

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/?feed=rss2

- READ READ READ READ READ READ READ -- Okay so since Winter Break is here why not have a collab? :]. Comment the part you want and I'll tell you whether or not the part is taken.

Link:
[OPEN COLLAB] Contagious Chemistry. - Video

— A cracker of a show…

We wish you all a happy holiday and will see you in the new year, but if you find yourself missing out on your daily dose of chemistry we recommend you tune into BBC Radio 5 live on Thursday the 29th between 7 and 10 pm (UK time).

The Naked Scientists‘ Chris Smith, who you’ll know from our podcasts, will be hosting a Cocktail Party from his house (yes, really – we’ve seen the cables currently stored in his spare room) including Darcy O’Neil, a cocktail chemist who spoke to Hayley Birch last year for her feature on cocktails. They’ll also be discussing the chemistry of cooking, as well as finding out live on air if a chocolate teapot really is useless and whether bread does always land butter side down, along with  answering 5 live listeners’ science questions. You can find out more here.

Following Chris will be Maggie Philbin with a show called The World Tomorrow, not that different from the name of the TV show Philbin used to present…

The press release for the whole night, with more details about the scientists taking part can be read at the BBC’s media centre site.

I’ll be adding this to my list of Christmas listening/viewing, along with the RI Christmas lectures, Dr Who and, ahem, Downton Abbey…

Laura Howes

                  

Source:
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— What powers Santa’s sleigh?

So, on Saturday evening, Santa will fire up the reindeer and set off around the globe once again. In fact, you can track his flight. But how do those reindeer fly, it could all be to do with Christmas Spirit, but it’s long been suggested there’s a slightly more pharmacological explanation

On a mushroom hunt a few years ago I learnt how to identify some common, edible mushrooms, and to spot some poisonous ones as well. One of the most well known is fly agaric, or Amanita muscaria. The name comes from its use as a fly poison, but for bigger animals like reindeer its not so much poisonous as fun. In fact, I was told that upon smelling a crushed mushroom, reindeer will come from miles around to eat some. Why? Because of the psychoactive compounds the mushrooms contain.

The psychoactive compounds in fly agaric include, muscarine, which mimics the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and the two related compounds ibotenic acid (below) and muscimol (bottom), that mimic glutamic acid and GABA respectively.

Now, the story goes that it’s not just reindeer that like to get high from the mushrooms, but also the locals. Sometimes they eat it, and sometimes they use the reindeer as a filter, drinking the urine, which obviously contains a lower does of the psychoactive compounds, as well as their metabolites. So could this be where the story of flying reindeer comes from – tripping ruminants?

Whatever your opinion, it’s at least a salutary lesson in making sure you identify your mushrooms properly, so you avoid any unwelcome side effects. Or at least, talk to Frank.

Laura Howes

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/?feed=rss2

Here’s a quirky fact straight from the Journal of Environmental Monitoring. It turns out that a major river polluter in Sweden is the Uppsala Reggae Festival!

Over three days each August, 10,000 reggae-lovers converge on the shores of the River Fyris in Uppsala. Sounds like fun for the festival-goers, but not so much for the fish. You see, at the first sign of rain the contents of the

urine soaked festival field get washed into the river (toilet facilities can’t be all that good). If that wasn’t bad enough, any drugs taken by festival-goers (lots of painkillers) are excreted in their urine and end up in the river too. And these biologically active compounds have been known to have an adverse effect on aquatic organisms.

The festival can lead to ammonium levels in the nearby river increasing 210-fold

Tests showed that the festival can temporarily result in a higher pharmaceutical input (about 3.4 times greater) into the river than the wastewater treatment plant downstream! But only if it rains.

The recommendation for next year’s festival? Better toilet facilities! I would definitely recommend packing wellies if you’re thinking of going though.

Elinor Richards

                  

Source:
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Do your festive dinners need spicing up?

Fancy some science tricks to wow the guests around the Christmas dinner table with? Chemistry World has put together a small collection of videos that should help keep the kiddywinks quiet, wake up the snoozers and amuse even the more cynical table guests. If you like them let us know and if you have other tricks and experiments to share then tweet us or leave us a comment.

First up, the ever reliable Richard Wiseman of Quirkology fame. He’s put together 10 interesting table top challenges and tricks, including a tea bag rocket – don’t set fire to the curtains!

The next set of videos include a number of tricks and interesting scientific phenomena tailored for children, with simple explanations of exactly what’s going on.

And here’s another video from Richard with another 10 tricks including creating a fire extinguisher from baking soda and vinegar.

And if you’ve got any sticky tape or sugar left over, why not check out the phenomenon of triboluminescence, whereby light is emmitted when a material is pulled apart, ripped, scratched, crushed or rubbed? The phenomenon is still not completely understood but is thought to be due to electrical charges being separated and then recombining, with an electrical discharge.

Finally, one more from the prolific Dr Wiseman where he uses just milk, food colours and soap to produce dynamic colourful patterns reminiscent of the beautiful Belousov-Zhabotinsky reactions (video at bottom of the page).

Why not also check out our blog on that perennial Christmas table favourite the crystal tree and the chemistry behind it. There’s further Christmas themed blogs to be found here, where you can learn why snowflakes have six points, what linked Faraday with candles and what exactly are frankincense and myrrh. Happy Christmas and new year from all at Chemistry World!

Patrick Walter

                  

Source:
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