Category: Research News

Chemistry, Research News

Antimicrobial action of bleach

In my AS level chemistry class, students study the disproportionation reaction of chlorine with alkali. In this reaction chlorine gets oxidized and reduced. While studying this topic one of the students asked how chlorine actually kills microbes. This news article published by the British journal Nature in 2008 responds to his question: …Now, researchers have found that bleach can kill bacteria by attacking proteins, quickly destroying … Continue reading Antimicrobial action of bleach

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Research News

Table salt under pressure

Everything around you is made of elements that scientists have studied in quite some detail over the last 200 years. But all that understanding breaks down when these elements are subjected to high pressure and temperature. Now, using an advanced theoretical understanding and extreme conditions, researchers have converted table salt into exotic chemicals. Salt is made from one part sodium (Na) and one part chlorine … Continue reading Table salt under pressure

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Research News

The life and times of a pharmaceutical drug

One of the chapters in the A level (final year of high school) Salters Chemistry in the UK was drug discovery and clinical trials. The story line book covered this topic in 5 or so pages. What was not mentioned were the actual difficulties and the hurdles that the scientists underwent to discover a new drug. This article published in ‘The New Yorker‘ takes us … Continue reading The life and times of a pharmaceutical drug

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Research News, Sustainability

CO2 level in the atmosphere

  For the first time in human history, the concentration of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has passed the milestone level of 400 parts per million (ppm). The last time so much greenhouse gas was in the air was several million years ago, when the Arctic was ice-free, savannah spread across the Sahara desert and sea level was up to 40 metres higher than today. Read more…   … Continue reading CO2 level in the atmosphere

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Research News

Politics & Science

What happens to people when they become government science advisers? Are their children taken hostage? Is a dossier of compromising photographs kept, ready to send to the Sun if they step out of line? I ask because, in too many cases, they soon begin to sound less like scientists than industrial lobbyists. The mad cow crisis 20 years ago was exacerbated by the failure of … Continue reading Politics & Science

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Research News

Pollution and Cooling effect

Clouds profoundly influence weather and climate. The brightness2 and lifetime of clouds is determined by cloud droplet number concentration, in turn dictated by the number of available seed particles. The formation of cloud droplets on non-volatile atmospheric particles is well understood. However, fine particulate matter in the atmosphere ranges widely in volatility. Co-condensation of semi-volatile compounds with water increases a particle’s propensity for cloud droplet formation, with … Continue reading Pollution and Cooling effect

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Research News

Metabolomics

Compounds present in exhaled breath can act as a “fingerprint” for individuals, scientists say. These “metabolites” represent the waste products of the body’s chemistry – but their uniqueness had never been shown. Read more on BBC’s website *** Abstract: “The metabolic phenotype varies widely due to external factors such as diet and gut microbiome composition, among others. Despite these temporal fluctuations, urine metabolite profiling studies … Continue reading Metabolomics

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Research News

How to Write a Paper to Communicate your Research

When should you begin to think about writing up your research for publication? How do your students handle your approach of writing while you research? How do new technologies help scientists communicate their work? How many drafts does each paper undergo? Do you have your papers undergo an internal review? Do authors need to be thinking of marketing their articles? How concerned should I be … Continue reading How to Write a Paper to Communicate your Research

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Research News

The Science of Sleep

Nathaniel Kleitman, known as the “father of modern sleep research,” was born in 1895 in Bessarabia—now Moldova—and spent much of his youth on the run. First, pogroms drove him to Palestine; then the First World War chased him to the United States. At the age of twenty, he landed in New York penniless; by twenty-eight, he’d worked his way through City College and earned a … Continue reading The Science of Sleep

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