Plugging snails into the Matrix © ACS

In the 1999 film The Matrix, a race of sentient machines gets its power by harvesting bioelectricity from farms of plugged in human beings.

While that’s (as far as I know) not yet been realised, a group at Ben-Gurion University in Israel has managed to plug into a snail as a power source.

The team implanted a biofuel cell into a living land snail. The cell is made from carbon nanotube ‘paper’ modified with enzymes that process sugar. As the snail eats, some of the glucose in its food ends up in the fuel cell and generates electricity.

There’s no danger of the machines overthrowing their human masters just yet, though – the maximum power from the snail cell was 7.45µW, so it would take quite a lot of snails to power even a small robot. That said, the aim of these devices is not really to create a new source of renewable power by enslaving armies of snails – more to power tiny implanted medical devices that deliver drugs or monitor diseases.

I just hope they don’t join forces with the cockroaches with fuel cell-powered implants to control their movements.

Phillip Broadwith

Ref: L Halámková et al, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2012, DOI: 10.1021/ja211714w

                  

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

Last week I attended the Bench to Boardroom event organised by OneNucleus at the Newmarket Racecourse. Under the slogan discover-learn-connect, there were opportunities during the day to explore these themes. We certainly learnt a lot from Prof Sir Christopher Evans, whose keynote speech (the first of the day) ’From bench to billions’ inspired and incited debate, something I have now learnt to expect from him. Described by many as the founding father of the Cambridge biotech cluster, he talked about many things (we’ll be publishing the interview I had with him within the next couple of weeks so keep an eye on the homepage), among them what makes a business successful. The essential ingredients in his view are: a good product, excellent people, an exciting business plan, money (plenty of it!), hard work and luck. It doesn’t look like rocket science but I guess the trick is getting all the elements of the equation right.

— Fisher Scientific run a "fast pipette" competition at Bench to Boardroom

There was a also an opportunity to discover that my pipetting skills are still up to scratch when I came second (a position I shared with the gentleman in the picture) in the Fisher pipette competition that Fisher Scientific were running from their stand on the exhibition floor. The challenge was to fill six tubes of different volumes with different amounts of liquid, i.e. two 50ml tubes required 15ml each, two 15ml tubes required 5ml each, etc. I managed to do it in 1 minute 29 and you can just about manage to make out the text in the leader board shown in the picture (in case someone wants proof!), which is quite a feat if we take into consideration that I haven’t done any real chemistry since 2004. Also, in my defence (I should have been first really, after all I was representing the RSC plus there was a bottle of bubbly for the winner), when I did the test I had just arrived and my hands were freezing. In any case, I’m revelling in my success and my prize of Smarties!

The second keynote speaker was Alison Campbell, who told us: ‘There are two Is in innovation’, the second one being for investment, which she referred to as ‘intelligent capital’. Interestingly, she also emphasised the importance of choosing the right people to set up business with. ‘You need a partner, but the right one’, she said, and you have to value the time your partner invests, after all ‘the greatest type of investment is investment of their time’.

There were opportunities to  network during the workshops that were run throughout the day (Deloitte looked at the patent box and Global Regulatory Services covered the NHS, to name just a couple) or on the exhibition floor, which was covered with a range of suppliers, including equipment suppliers, providers of technical services, etc.

To finish it all we were treated to a live show by Dr Hal, who brought chemistry to life with experiments like the exploding ostrich egg, manufacturing liquid oxygen and chemiluminescence. A good time was had by all!

Bibiana Campos Seijo

                  

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Medicines are more and more often being developed by computer. This means chemists increasingly try out first of all on the screen something they afterwards replicate in actual practice in the laboratory. The computer acts as their playground and simulator, e.g. to find an active ingredient that binds perfectly to the specific structure of one of the bodys own proteins so it can suppress its activity, for example.

Whereas in the past chemists carried out such a computer-aided active ingredient search mainly by combing through data bases containing a limited number of candidate molecules to find which of them was most suitable, ETH Zurich researchers led by Gisbert Schneider, Professor at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, are now going one step further: they have developed a program that has memorised important rules of organic chemistry and can use it to build new active ingredient molecules from first principles. The researchers call it de-novo design.

Molecules never seen before

This has immensely expanded the possibilities for scientists searching for active ingredients. Practically all imaginable molecules are now available to the researchers as virtual candidate active ingredients. Schneider says, It gives us access to molecules that no chemist has ever synthesised or seen before.

Schneiders computer program can assemble molecules virtually on the modular principle and can compare them with existing molecules and calculate how well they fulfil the conditions defined by the researchers. The program can also modify molecules, thus gradually improving them in a process that resembles evolution, until finally the program delivers to the user the information about an optimised candidate active ingredient. To enable it to do this, the software knows a series of basic chemical modules and almost 60 of the most important reaction steps in organic chemistry. Schneider says, They are intentionally nowhere near all the reactions that exist. We have taught the program only the ones that are widely used by chemists and which in their experience also promise success.

The synthesis route is also taken into account

Schneider sees a big advantage in this, since comparable computer programs developed in the past 25 years sometimes produced random molecules irrespective of whether they were synthesizable at a reasonable cost. Because Schneiders program takes into account not only the finished molecule but also the route by which it could be synthesized in actual practice, it leads to active ingredients that really can also be prepared easily by laboratory synthesis.

The software has also passed its first practical test. Via the conventional computer-assisted method searching in a molecule data base - Schneiders work group found an active ingredient molecule that inhibits one of the bodys own enzymes involved in cell division. Thanks to the new software, they succeeded in finding another active ingredient with a structure completely different to the existing one. It has the same activity, but the advantage that it has not yet been patented. The aim is that one day they will be able to use this active ingredient in cancer therapy.

Also attractive for the industry

The search for active ingredients that have not yet been patented will then be an important area for the use of Schneiders software in the future as well. It is also important to find successor substances for medicines whose patent protection has expired.

Link:
The computer knows its chemistry

When I was a kid in Southern California, I had a pal up the street whose dad taught chemistry at the local university. That's all I really knew about the man, other than that he was very tall (6'5"!). He was always welcoming at their home when we did stop in after skateboarding, but by the time we were adolescents he was becoming quite famous. Little did we -- or he -- know he would make history. For as it turned out, one evening around then he came home after work and, when his wife, Joan, asked how his research was going, replied "It's going very well. It just means, I think, the end of the world." It also earned him a Nobel Prize.

Professor F. Sherwood ("Sherry") Rowland died this week at 84.

The research he was referring to was his pioneering work showing that human use of aerosol compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, present in spray cans and refrigerators of all kinds, was damaging to atmospheric ozone, which blocks the sun's ultraviolet rays -- and thus helped to allow life on earth to develop. His team's research had profound implications for the planet in a number of important ways, but most important, it showed we needed to do something sweeping and soon about an environmental threat.

Rowland's work, with his colleague and fellow 1995 chemistry Nobelist Mario Molina, thus also threatened some profits in the chemical industry. The scenario that unfolded was not unique -- attacks by the industry, both overt and stealth, and an unfortunate sort of shunning by some colleagues who did not want to be threatened by association. The aerosol industry even accused Rowland and Molina of "being K.G.B. agents out to destroy capitalism" -- McCarthyism lived (or rather, lives) on! Similar attacks on scientists predated Rowland -- such as the pioneering pesticide researcher and author Rachel Carson, and many who worked on showing the harms of tobacco. Rowland seems to have shrugged it off and continued his meticulous work. And of course, even before the Nobel, his colleagues came to recognize they had a true star in their midst.

Besides being a stellar scientist, Rowland was an eloquent writer, and in his Nobelist essay, he recalled his awakening to activism: "Mario and I realized that this was not just a scientific question, challenging and interesting to us, but a potentially grave environmental problem." His resultant advocacy for a ban on CFCs is a model of how good science can drive policy for the benefit of all. From their landmark 1974 paper on this topic -- "the initial reaction was absolutely nothing", he recalled -- to the 1987 international Montreal Protocol which stopped production and stockpiling of CFCs was only about 15 years -- a short span in such scenarios, where scientific and politicized controversy can delay real action for decades.

Rowland once reflected, with respect to his work and in the context of atmospheric and climate issues in general, "Is it enough for a scientist simply to publish a paper? Isn't it a responsibility of scientists, if you believe that you have found something that can affect the environment, isn't it your responsibility to actually do something about it, enough so that action actually takes place?... If not us, who? If not now, when?"

Dr. Molina this week told the New York Times that he and Dr. Rowland "were not sure we were going to be successful" in pushing for a ban on CFC's. "But we started something that was a very important precedent: people can make decisions and solve global problems."

Which, given the array of threats facing our species and planet -- climate change, overpopulation, chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, the decline of science literacy and education, to name a few -- might be the most important lesson of our time. In the video interview below, Rowland said he was not optimistic about humans doing the right thing on climate change, but that he never gave up hope.

I have one fond memory of Rowland's sly humor. A few of the neighborhood teens were sitting in his kitchen; I had recently read about the dangers of pesticides on food and thought it would be good to ask a famous chemist about it (and maybe show off something I had read, too). "Are fruits and vegetables safe to eat now?" I asked. "Is there anything we can do to get pesticides off food?" Rowland looked at me with a shocked expression and said "You eat fruits and vegetables? What a novel idea!" -- and shot a scolding look at his son, sitting nearby. He then added, "Yes, wash them off the best you can. We're still trying to figure out how to keep them off the food in the first place."

Rowland was a scientific and environmental hero. But as the Times notes, he demurred from that label -- he just thought he was doing what he had to do, given what he'd learned. Everyone alive can thank him for that.

Read the original here:
Steve Heilig: Better Living Through Chemistry: A Reluctant Scientific and Environmental Hero Moves On

Newswise Cleaner! Faster! Cheaper! is a rallying cry for chemists working to limit the impact of their work on the environment.

Their efforts reflect the 12 guiding principles developed by chemists Paul Anastas and John Warner, who founded the green chemistry movement in the mid-1990s. Among the rules: Its better to prevent waste production than to clean it up afterward. But if there must be waste, it should be nontoxic or minimally poisonousas should the chemical products themselves. Chemical reactions should be energy efficient, for example by running at room temperature instead of being heated up. And ideally chemists should use renewable resources.

Chemistry may not be as obviously green as planting a tree, but researchers are working to make it better for the planet, one reaction at a time. Here are a few examples of how chemists funded by the National Institutes of Health are going green by improving the chemical processes used to make medicines, plastics and other products.

Water, Water Everywhere

If two chemicals are going to react, they usually need a liquid in which to do so. Often, thats a toxic solvent. When the reaction is over, the chemists have to dump the solvent or try to recycle it. A greener alternative is to start with a safer solventwater.

Bruce Lipshutz at the University of California, Santa Barbara, designed minuscule, bubble-like particles (nanoparticles) that shelter the reactions while surrounded by water. The chemicals go inside the particles, where they find the perfect environment to react together, and the product comes out. Because the reactions are so highly concentrated, they can happen at room temperature. Scientists dont have to kick-start the reactions using heat, saving time and energy.

Call in the Microbes

Another way to make reactions water-based, instead of solvent-based, is to recruit microbes to help reactions along. Scientists engineer microbes to make useful molecules, typically enzymes whose job is to carry out chemical reactions in water-based solutions. Chemists can use the microbes or the enzymes alone to speed up chemical reactions in a water solution.

For example, Jay Keasling at the University of California, Berkeley, is designing microbes to manufacture certain molecules. Several years ago, he inserted more than a dozen genes into Escherichia coli and yeast that enabled the organisms to churn out an antimalarial drug that is otherwise expensive to produce. Hes exploring a similar technique to generate HIV/AIDS drugs and environmentally friendly biofuels that might replace fossil-based fuels such as gasoline.

Shorter Syntheses

The rest is here:
The Greening of Chemistry

The work and life of F. Sherwood Rowland, a chemist at the University of California, Irvine who died this weekend, should provide ample inspiration for those now grappling with the debate over climate change.

Rowland is best known for figuring out, along with his then post-doc Mario Molina, in the early 1970s how chlorofluorcarbons (CFCs), industrial chemicals widely used in, among things, air conditioners and aerosol sprays, were destroying the protective atmospheric ozone layer. (Rowland, Molina and Paul Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute, shared the 1995 Nobel prize in chemistry for the work.) Rowland also did pioneering work in other areas involving the monitoring and chemistry of trace gases, including research on the rise of methane in the atmosphere. But perhaps his greatest achievement was his demonstration that seemingly simple chemical reactions could play out over a massive scale and have planet-wide effects.

As I wrote in a 2007 Review on the 20thanniversary of the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty that effectively phased out the use of CFCs, Rowland helped to change our fundamental understanding of atmospheric chemistry:

Until the early 1970s, it could be said that, like politics, all chemistry was local. That changed in dramatic fashion with a series of discoveries concerning the global effects of a family of chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs

The researchers found that the CFCs wafted up through the lower atmosphere intact, too stable to react with the swirling brew of chemicals around them. But once they reached the mid-stratosphere, above most of the protective layer of ozone, the intense solar radiation broke the CFC molecules apart, releasing chlorine. Two simple reactions gave Rowland and Molina concern: Cl + O3= ClO + O2, and ClO + O = Cl + O2. That is, chlorine (Cl) reacted with ozone (O3), generating chlorine monoxide (ClO), which in turn reacted with an oxygen atom to release another chlorine; the net result was that the chlorine was destroying ozone without depleting itself. "When we found the chain reactions" occurring in the ozone layer, remembered Rowland this fall, the fate of CFCs "suddenly went from a scientific curiosity to an environmental worry."

Rowland loved to tell a story about his discovery. When his wife asked him how his work was going, he answered, well, it is going very wellexcept it looks like it might be the end of the world. It is a funny story, but it is also one that gets at a profound insight: increasing our understanding of chemistry is a great achievement, but we better be prepared to abide by what the science tells us.

It took more than a decade for Rowland to convince the worldand most notably the chemical industrythat his insight into the chemistry was correct. Though the United States banned the use of CFCS in spray-can applications in 1978, the chemicals remained a mainstay of refrigeration until the finding of an ozone hole above the Antarctic prompted the passage of the Montreal Protocol.

Controlling emissions of greenhouse gases and understanding the complexities of climate change will, no doubt, be more complex and expensive that it was to address the impact of CFCs on the ozone layer. But Rowlands tireless faith in advocating for policies based on the science needs to be remembered. For years he was aggressively challenged, particularly by those in the chemical industry. The idea that inert chemicals released by a spray can, could, somehow, have global effects on the atmosphere was ridiculed. Then, finally faced with the overwhelming evidence of the damage that CFCs were doing, the chemical companies found new chemicals to replace CFCs and began racing to build production capacity of the alternatives. Almost overnight, it seemed, the industry began embracing the lucrative business opportunities possible in replacing chlorofluorocarbons. As is almost inevitably the case, the science had won out.

I recall in the late 1980s hoping to interview Rowland at an American Chemical Society meeting.By then, he was already one of the world best known chemists. But for hours, as I waited impatiently, he sat in the front row of the dingy conference room, listening to endless presentations by young researchers on their latest findings. His interest never seemed to wane, despite the seemingly endless talks and slides showing the latest results of ongoing experiments. His message was clear to everyone in the room; understanding the minute details of chemistry matters.

See the article here:
Discovering the End of the World

HUNTSVILLE Sam Houston State University forensic chemistry senior Brittany Winner, from Kingsville, is not only a winner in name, but also in deed as the recipient of the 2012 Society of Toxicology Pfizer Undergraduate Student Travel Award.

Pfizer selects five outstanding undergraduates in the nation each year who are presenting research at the organizations annual meeting to receive travel support and free registration for the meeting. This years conference is March 11-15 in San Francisco.

Awardees are selected based on the quality of a submitted poster abstract, personal statement, and an advisers supporting recommendation. The purpose of the award is to foster an interest in graduate studies in the field of toxicology.

Winner will have an opportunity to showcase her work along with a number of other students interested in toxicological research during the week. Winner researches the properties of cyanide and methods to encapsulate it in order to create an antidote against its deadly effects.

Her interest in toxicology and cyanide arose from a mentorship with Ilona Petrikovics, professor of chemistry and Sam Houston States expert on the studies of cyanide.

She talked about her work with cyanide in class, and I found it really interesting so I asked if I could be involved, said Winner. Petrikovicss research on cyanide is an ongoing project funded by the U.S. Governments Department of Defense. The study focuses on methods to dissipate its effects on the general population in case of cyanide use in bio-terrorism and/or poisoning.

During the mentorship, the relationship between Winner and Petrikovics developed into a strong partnership.

We had weekly lab meetings that lasted about an hour. Outside the lab Id also just drop by and wed talk. We talked about the research and other aspects of life, Winner said.

At the conference, Winner will be presented with a plaque for her accomplishments during an awards ceremony. The conference also provides a range of opportunities for companies to view and come into contact with different types of research and scholars.

Its a great place for networking, Winner said.

Link:
SHSU forensic chemistry student gets national prize

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Nobody dreams of growing up and landing a low-paying job in New Jersey making chemicals used in shampoos and hair gels. And on those long, tedious days back in 1991 when a 24-year-old lab technician named Patrick Arnold stood alone in a room stirring thickening agents into smelly vats of goo, there was plenty of time to reflect on the twists of fate that had condemned him to work in a place where nothing interesting ever happened, in a job that was just going nowhere.

It took months to find the way out, but the path was there in front of him all along. Arnold was an avid weight lifter, cursed with an average build that had long ago stopped cooperating with his efforts to get bigger. Even so, every night after work he would head to one of several gyms where he pumped iron and talked shop with other muscleheads. The conversation would often turn to anabolic steroids. Arnold had majored in chemistry at the University of New Haven, and those weight-room discussions got him thinking.

One afternoon after starting the days reactions at work, Arnold marched down the hall to the chemistry library on his floor and looked up the molecular structures of the steroids mentioned in his muscle magazines. Anabolic steroids, which are essentially synthetic testosterone, had only just been declared controlled substances, so there was still an awful lot of information available about them.

It wasnt long before it hit him: I hate my job, Im sitting here, Ive got a labI can try making some of these things myself. No one will even know what the hell Im doing. Arnold added the steroid precursors he would need to the regular list of laboratory chemicals he ordered through the company, and nobody was the wiser.

Progress was slow at first. Often he would set out to make a product that he knew should form a crystalline structure, only to end up with a sticky oil stuck to a flask. To Arnold that residue was like a flashing caution sign, an indication that potentially toxic impurities and leftover reactants had failed to separate from the brew. But over time he became expert at using solvents to wash the impurities and reactants away, and his compounds increasingly came to form translucent, icelike crystals that indicated a high level of purity...

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Juicers, Trippers, and Crocodiles: The Dangerous World of Underground Chemistry | DISCOVER

Early Earth may have had too much water for life to take hold. Conditions for life may have been better on Mars, which had dry spots. Cycles of water and drying may have been needed to give the molecular building blocks for life a chemical toehold.

Given the same raw materials, Mars would have been a better host for life to arise than Earth, which some scientists believe was too flooded for the chemistry of life to gain a toehold.

Without at least occasional dry land, the chemistry needed to get life started doesnt work very well because the molecules to support genetics, such as RNA, are chemically unstable in many ways, particularly in water.

PHOTOS: Weirdest Mars Craters

That raises a problem, because life, at least as we know it today, seems to require water.

"How is it possible that the chemicals that we now have supporting modern life, which is so unstable in water, could have arisen in water?" biochemist Steven Benner, head of the Foundation For Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainsville, Fla., told Discovery News.

The answer could be that life evolved in places that occasionally dried out.

"You can get RNA and its building blocks to be stable in an Earth-like environment, provided you put them into some environment that is deficient in water," Benner said, pointing to a place like Death Valley, where there is intermittent rainfall to provide organic compounds from the atmosphere as well as cycles of dryness.

"If you get building blocks for RNA, you get genetics and you're off to the races. You've got life," Benner said.

But there's a catch.

Link:
Did Life on Earth Come From Mars?

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) Derek Fisher and Kobe Bryant joined the Los Angeles Lakers together in 1996. They've been in the same backcourt for most of the ensuing 16 seasons, winning five NBA titles during their intertwined careers.

Fisher's departure Thursday for Houston and Ramon Sessions' arrival from Cleveland made the Lakers younger and faster at point guard, their weakest position.

The Lakers don't yet know if the trades made the NBA's sixth-best team any better - and they still don't know whether the moves made Bryant angry.

General manager Mitch Kupchak said he didn't speak to Bryant before or after trading Fisher to the Rockets, and Bryant canceled a scheduled interview on the Lakers' flagship radio station when news of Fisher's departure broke. Kupchak also didn't speak directly to Fisher, intimating the 37-year-old NBA players' union leader took the news hard.

''It's hard to put into words what he's meant to this organization, on the court and off the court,'' Kupchak said Thursday at the Lakers' training complex. ''It's one of the hardest parts of the job that a general manager has, separating the emotions of a relationship you've had. ... We think Ramon will make an immediate impact. Despite Derek's presence, we felt that we needed more speed and more quickness in the backcourt.''

But the Lakers lost more than an aging point guard whose skills and athleticism have eroded considerably in the past few years. Fisher and Bryant were the Lakers' unquestioned locker room leaders, with Fisher's cerebral calm contrasting nicely with the fiery intensity of the NBA's leading scorer.

Kupchak and Lakers executive Jim Buss slept on the trades before making them Thursday. Kupchak felt the Lakers couldn't justify keeping three point guards - Sessions, Steve Blake and Fisher - on the roster making significant salaries, so Fisher had to go after starting their first 43 games this season.

''I'm concerned, yeah,'' Kupchak said. ''As each day goes on, it will get easier and easier, but you can't underestimate Derek's contribution from a chemistry standpoint. You can't say this team is going to wake up tomorrow and play as if he was never here.''

Kupchak is breaking up part of a team that isn't exactly broken, notwithstanding a few awful performances on the road. The Pacific Division-leading Lakers (27-16) have gone 7-2 in a brutal 15-day stretch since the All-Star break, and they've won 18 of their last 19 home games since Christmas heading into Friday's visit from Minnesota.

Kupchak acknowledges concern about dismantling part of the roster that reached three straight NBA finals from 2008-10, winning two titles, yet he is determined to make the Lakers younger. He also didn't hesitate to upend the Lakers' chemistry earlier this year when he shipped angry forward Lamar Odom to the Dallas Mavericks after a trade to land Chris Paul was blocked by the NBA.

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Lakers gamble chemistry in Derek Fisher trade

The Chemistry Club, a leading independent organisation serving the technology sector, has today announced that it will run a series of half-day intensive networking master classes in the UK. They are aimed at senior executives are set to launch later this year and have been co-created with leading industry trainers.

London (PRWEB UK) 15 March 2012

The Chemistry Club aims to cover every aspect of face-to-face networking as well as creating a simulated networking event to help delegates practice their new found skills. The half day master classes will offer a condensed version the full day master class and cover all key areas of networking including; how to develop confidence in your ability to connect with people you dont know, how to start, sustain and finish conversations, combating nervousness, and learning how to prepare for events. Understanding how to present information about yourself, how to make a lasting impression, and improving your self-projection will also be covered.

The master class will cost 1100 + VAT and to ensure all attendees gain maximum value from the programme, number of delegates at each session will be kept to a minimum. Every individual who attends one of the companys half-day courses can also take advantage of follow-on telephone support.

About The Chemistry Club

The Chemistry Club is a leading organisation serving the technology industry. The business was established in 1999 and holds a series of business-to-business events, executive coaching, special briefings, and networking master classes in the Central London area. The company run by Mark Simon is known for its networking events which have enabled people to meet and share their opinions in a neutral environment. For more information, please refer to The Chemistry Club website at http://www.networkingmasterclass.com/

Ross Hall FTI Consulting 020 7269 9334 Email Information

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The Chemistry Club creates half day networking master classes to meet demand

Hamburg High School's chemistry classes recently participated in an experiment accompanied by an interesting project.

Chemistry instructor Rose Hamilton created an experiment for the students to make cookies in the lab. Students made no-bake cookies in class, and they were required to make a dozen cookies from scratch for homework.

The students were given guidelines on how to make the cookies at home. They had to make the cookies from scratch, and the students were required to have pictures taken of them while they were making the cookies. The students then presented the cookies to their class, along with the recipe they had chosen.

According to Mrs. Hamilton, the experiment allowed the classes to work with limiting reactants, those factors that limit the amount of other reactants that can combine to produce the desired product. In the "cookie lab," the students were given a bag of sugar with an unknown amount and a recipe. The students had to determine how much sugar, or limiting reactant, they had and then calculate how much of each of the other ingredients they needed in order to make the "perfect cookie."

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Chemistry Students Prepare No Bake Cookies as Project

E AST LANSING -- Tom Izzo begged Branden Dawson to stay home to rest his surgically repaired knee. But Dawson heard the revelry in the background on the Michigan State bus Sunday night. He wanted to be part of a resurrection that would have amazed even Lazarus.

Dawson told Izzo that he would meet the team when it returned from the Big Ten tournament. When the bus pulled into the Breslin Center tunnel near midnight, a car followed, with the recuperating Dawson in the passenger's seat.

The players immediately greeted their fallen teammate. They had a surprise for him.

Dawson couldn't make the trip to Indianapolis, so the players arranged their own net-cutting ceremony in their Breslin Center locker room, giving the freshman the opportunity to experience that most treasured college tournament ritual: taking scissors to twine.

"It was all the players' idea," Izzo said Monday. "But that's what this team is all about. There's such a special bond, a special connection. I know it's a clich calling a team a family, but that's what this team really is."

This was a family in mourning a week ago. They choked away the chance to have the regular-season Big Ten title all to themselves. There's no other way to phrase it. Izzo called the home loss to Ohio State on the final day his most heartbreaking defeat -- and the man has endured more than his share of emotional coaching torture -- not just because of the conference consequences, but also because he lost his most athletic player, Dawson, for the remainder of the season.

But once again, the Spartans offered a lesson in resilience.

"I didn't think a No. 1 seed was possible at this same time last week," Izzo conceded.

Everyone searches for that epiphany, that moment of clarity when all external forces, mystical and real, align. But when searching for an impetus Monday, Izzo reverted back to what he called "the power of chemistry." Some teams simply heal faster emotionally than others. Some teams see adversity as an opportunity for growth. Some teams simply refuse to fall apart when fate challenges their fortitude.

Izzo admitted that, if given the option, he probably would take the outright regular-season championship over the Big Ten tournament. He called himself a "regular-season guy" but conceded that how the Spartans won the tournament -- and thus earned a No. 1 seed in NCAA tournament -- was probably the best thing for the program.

Excerpt from:
Drew Sharp: MSU has incredible chemistry, but is that enough?

Posted: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 4:28 pm | Updated: 12:44 pm, Fri Feb 24, 2012.

Time to spit sunflower seeds again.

Baseball season has begun with new talent aboard for Simpson as the 2012 season unfolds.

The Storm is fairly young this year, which makes it exciting for head coach Ben Blake. With a lot to look forward to, Simpson has been out on the baseball field, football field, Cowles Fieldhouse and The Yard working on batting, fielding and pitching to get ready for the season.

"It is the start of spring and better weather," Blake said. "We have a great group of guys, and we get a chance to play baseball, it's hard not to be excited."

Seniors Colton Calvert and Chris Dorff are also very excited for the season to begin. Both have agreed that team chemistry is at an all-time high since they began playing for Simpson.

"I think we have a great group of guys," Calvert said. "We all get along very well. Having a good group of guys is the first step in having a good team. I feel like our chemistry is really good which will help a lot when only having a small amount of seniors."

The seniors on the 2012 roster are: Dorff, Calvert, Grant Thomas, Kyle Ruehle and Brian Birks.

"The seniors have done a good job so far, and we will need them to lead the way on the field for us to be successful," Blake said.

Dorff is optimistic about this season and is also happy to see the chemistry boost up.

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Baseball team chemistry strong

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - March 14, 2012) - Sirona Biochem Corp. (TSX VENTURE:SBM.V - News)(PINKSHEETS:SRBCF.PK - News)(FRANKFURT:ZSB.F - News), a biotechnology company specializing in carbohydrate chemistry technology, announced today the appointment of Dr. Brett Premack as Scientific Consultant. Dr. Premack will consult and advise on preclinical development activities, particularly pertaining to alliances between public and private research organizations.

"Dr. Brett Premack's expertise in drug discovery and preclinical development will bring tremendous value in the evaluation and development of our therapeutic portfolio," said Dr. Howard Verrico, President & CEO of Sirona Biochem. "Our chemistry platform technology gives us several program options and our ability to attract high-calibre talent like Dr. Premack enables us to efficiently advance these programs," Dr. Verrico added.

About Dr. Brett Premack

Dr. Brett Premack is a Pharmaceutical Consultant and Technology Analyst based in San Francisco, California. He has held a number of key leadership positions in biotechnology and academia and has more than 15 years experience providing independent, strategic and technical analysis to drug discovery and pre-clinical programs in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors. He is currently a technology and strategic development consultant with Qu Biologics, a clinical-stage cancer biopharmaceutical company based in Vancouver, Canada. Previously, Dr. Premack was with ChemoCentryx, Inc. as the company's first Scientific Director after serving four years on the company's Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Premack was instrumental in bringing four new immunomodulatory chemokine receptor antagonist programs to the clinic (Phase I, II, III trials) for underserved inflammatory diseases. He was co-designer and developer of EnabaLink(TM), a collection of proprietary cell- and molecular-based functional genomics assays for evaluating immune system drug targets. As Manager, Funded Programs, he directed high-level public and private partnerships between industry, NIH, NIAID and DARPA focused on small molecule drug discovery and vaccine adjuvant programs, leading to ongoing clinical trials and testing of several radical vaccine approaches in primates. Before joining ChemoCentryx, Dr. Premack was an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA Molecular Biology Institute and Investigator at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr, Premack has also held previous roles at Stanford University Medical Center, Syntex Research, Roche Bioscience, Neurex Inc. (now Elan Pharmaceuticals) and Photon Technologies Inc. Dr. Premack is a former recipient of the California AIDS New Investigator Award and the Breast Cancer Novel IDEA Award. Dr. Premack regularly speaks at major scientific conferences and is author or inventor of more than 25 published scientific papers and issued patents.

About Sirona Biochem Corp.

Sirona Biochem is a biotechnology company developing diabetes therapeutics, cancer vaccine antigens, skin depigmenting and anti-aging agents for cosmetic use, and biological ingredients. The company utilizes a proprietary chemistry technique to improve pharmaceutical properties of carbohydrate-based molecules. For more information visit http://www.sironabiochem.com.

Sirona Biochem cautions you that statements included in this press release that are not a description of historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are only predictions based upon current expectations and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of release of the relevant information, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Actual results, performance or achievement could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, Sirona Biochem's forward-looking statements due to the risks and uncertainties inherent in Sirona Biochem's business including, without limitation, statements about: the progress and timing of its clinical trials; difficulties or delays in development, testing, obtaining regulatory approval, producing and marketing its products; unexpected adverse side effects or inadequate therapeutic efficacy of its products that could delay or prevent product development or commercialization; the scope and validity of patent protection for its products; competition from other pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies; and its ability to obtain additional financing to support its operations. Sirona Biochem does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

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Sirona Biochem Announces Addition of Dr. Brett Premack as Scientific Consultant

The world's largest natural products convention, a celebration of all things healthy and eco-friendly, was being held at the Anaheim Convention Center Saturday when F. Sherwood Rowland, 84, died at his home in Corona del Mar.

It's not much of a stretch to say that Rowland, 84, helped spawn the industry that drew more than 60,000 people and 2,000 exhibitors. In 1973, the UC Irvine chemistry professor and a young researcher on his team, Mario Molina, discovered that manmade chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons destroyed the Earth's fragile and vital ozone layer.

The pair faced criticism and scorn from the chemical industry before being vindicated and winning the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1995. In 1987, the international Montreal Treaty was ratified to phase out CFCs, which were found in aerosol sprays, electronic solvents and air-conditioning coolants.

As I walked the convention floor this weekend, I saw entrepreneurs with products that aim to respect human health and the Earth's precious resources. I don't think Sherry Rowland, a plain-spoken and no-nonsense kind of guy, would wax enthusiastic over acai berry-green tea energy drinks, chia-seed cranberry bars or compostable baby diapers. But I think he would appreciate the idea that people need to be careful with what they do to their bodies and the planet. He called it "being prudent."

I wrote a book about Rowland and Molina's discovery in 1988 (The Ozone Crisis). At first I was intimidated by Rowland when I sought him out to write the book. He was twice my size (6 feet, 5 inches), twice my age and had at least twice my IQ. I was pregnant and sick that year, but he was kind and patient, submitting to many interviews and turning over reams of books and notes to me.

He showed the same generosity to his students teaching undergraduate chemistry at UC Irvine for many years and hanging out in the lab with grad students and colleagues until just a few months ago. He didn't reap huge financial gain from his research. He was just a scientist with a deep sense of humanity. Orange County, UC Irvine the world was lucky to have him.

Follow me: twitter.com/LATShariRoan

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Nobel-winning UCI chemistry professor Sherry Rowland remembered

by Erin Strecker

Uh-oh. There's just one week until the workshop goes live before an audience, and as you might have expected, there were problems galore on last night's episode of "Smash." Julias script, and her affair with Michael, still werent totally finished, Karen realized she had only about $300 in her bank account (yikes!) and, worst of all, Ivy lost her voiceand possibly her claim as Marilyn?

One minute Ivy was fine, making catty comments and strutting around the studio, and the next, she was on vocal rest, and Julia, Eileen and Derek flirted with the idea of replacing her with Karen if she didnt improve, an idea that unbeknownst to them, Karen overheard.

At home, Ivy was resting and took some medicine, which everyone repeatedly explained would help with her voice, but would have a bunch of weird side effects. No one mentioned that the weirdest side effect would be her singing, alone in her room, and then going full "Black Swan" on everyone, seeing Marilyn Monroe and Karen behind her over her shoulder. Time to try and sleep it off.

Meanwhile, Eileen and Ellis formed a weird partnership that will definitely implode before the season is done. Ellis helped her out while she was apartment searching, and then she wound up at a downtown bar with him. You havent seen the last of this newly formed duo. I dont think its going in this direction, but Im just putting it out there: I wouldnt be too surprised if those two started hooking up. Eileen is newly single, and Ellis is determined to claw his way to the top, and nothingnot Julia, not his obnoxious personality and certainly not the idea of age-appropriate relationshipsare going to get in his way.

For those that thought Julia and Michaels porch make out would be the end of the Affair Round Two, youve clearly never seen a TV drama before. Obviously, things were about to get way dicier. Julia felt pretty bad about the whole thing, or at least extremely nervous her husband would find out, and tried to keep her distance from Michael during the next rehearsal. But no good deed make-out session goes unpunished, and Michael wanted more. So he called her (and her newly returned husband!), texted her and then finally, went for the always-romantic move: Casual stalking. He snuck up to the studio at night for some impromptu topless making out that presumably led to them shacking up on the couch in the studio. Convenient!

While Julia was ruining her personal life, Karen was attempting to improve her professional one, since the $200 a week she was getting paid for the Marilyn musical certainly wasnt paying the bills. Ivy had previously booked a bar mitzvah, which she gave away to one of the ensemble girls, who gave it away to Karen. Karen had never done a bar mitzvah before, and spent most of the time waiting for a follow-up text from Derek after he let her know her Marilyn moment might be happening sooner than expected if Ivys voice didnt improve. (Might need you tomorrow. Must be discreet.)

Her obsessive phone checking didnt get in the way of her performing a totally random Florence + the Machine "Shake It Out" cover against a backdrop of awkward 13-year-olds dancing. While she sounded lovely, the scene seemed totally tacked on to the show, simply to have Katharine McPhee sing a sell-able song available for download. Thats "Glee"s move, "Smash." But at least one audience member was impressed, and afterwards, Karen got the business card of Bobby Raskin, a big-time Broadway producer. She wont be a chorus girl for long.

At practice the next day (six days until the big workshop!) the other girls explained what Bobby Raskin's interest means to Karen, and she gave him a callwell have to wait to find out what exactly he told her, but the mere fact Ivy gave up a gig and now Karen is on the phone with Mr. Raskin was simply too much for Ivy, and during the run-through, when Derek made a typically snide comment, she snapped, and yelled at him that he had to be nicer, hes not that cute, and, per usual for explosive fights with drama queens, announced to the whole cast that the two were sleeping together and he wasnt that great in bed. She then stormed out with Tom close behind her. End scene.

Crushers: What do you think about the new friendship between Eileen and Ellis? Do you think Karen will have her workshop moment in the spotlight as Marilyn? After her rehearsal outburst, how much longer will Ivy and Derek be an item? Sound off in the comments and on Twitter!

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'Smash' Recap: 'Chemistry'

Irish head coach Billy Walsh has confirmed a nine-man squad for the 39th Chemistry Cup which gets underway in Halle, Germany on Wednesday.

The Irish team arrived in Halle on Friday last following an intensive training camp in Hennef, Germany.

Irish 2012 Olympians Michael Conlan and Darren O'Neill are included in the Irish Chemistry Cup panel along with 2010 and 2011 European champions Paddy Barnes and Joe Ward.

David Oliver Joyce, Ross Hickey, Adam Nolan, Steven Ward and Con Sheehan will wear the Irish lightweight, light-welterweight, welterweight, heavyweight and super-heavyweight vests by the banks of the river Saale.

John Joe Nevin, who has also qualified for the 30th Olympiad, has withdrawn from the tournament after picking up a facial injury boxing for Paris United against Milano Thunder in the World Series of Boxing on Monday week last.

Hosts Germany, Algeria, Austria, Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Romania, Russia and Uzbekistan have registered to compete in Halle.

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Ireland name squad for Chemistry Cup

— Trippy

It might sound far out (man), but it seems LSD can treat alcohol dependency according to a meta-analysis of previous clinical trials.

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD, or (8?)-N,N-diethyl-6-methyl-9,10-didehydroergoline-8-carboxamide to give it its systematic name, was discovered by Albert Hoffman in 1943 and you can find out more about this amazing compound in our podcast. As mentioned in the podcast, Sandoz, the firm Hoffman worked for, thought that LSD might be useful in treating alcoholism and depression but that all kind of got side-lined with the rise in use of LSD as a mind expanding drug in the 60s.

However, in the 60s and 70s some trials to investigate LSD’s use in treating alcohol dependency were carried out. Teri Krebs and Pål-Ørjan Johansen, of the Department of Neuroscience at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trodheim, Norway, identified six trials that met their criteria for experimental setup and then pooled the results. They found that 59% of patients given a single dose of LSD showed improvement, compared with 38% of the control patients. This positive effect seemed to last between six and 12 months after just a single dose.

Krebs and Johansen don’t know how LSD helps with alcoholism, whether it adjusts brain chemistry, or the trip just helps patients gain more insight into their problems (there’s that expanding the mind thing again), but again it seems that revisiting a compound that has been written off can lead to new uses. Previously, Krebs and Johansen have suggested MDMA can treat post-traumatic stress disorder and of course thalidomide is now being investigated to treat cancer. Perhaps LSD is due for a rethink as well.

The research is published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Laura Howes

                  

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

F. Sherwood Rowland, the UC Irvine chemistry professor who warned the world that man-made chemicals could erode the ozone layer, has died. He was 84.

Rowland, known as Sherry, died Saturday at his home in Corona del Mar, the university announced. He had Parkinson's disease.

In 1995, Rowland was one of three people awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work explaining how chlorofluorocarbons, ubiquitous substances once used in an array of products from spray deodorant to industrial solvents, could destroy the ozone layer, the protective atmospheric blanket that screens out many of the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.

The prize was awarded more than two decades after Rowland warned of the problem, and challenges to his theory plagued him for many years before he won widespread recognition for his work and leaders of nations worldwide began to act to ban or reduce usage of the chemicals.

The discovery was about more than just stratospheric ozone, said Donald Blake, a chemistry professor at UC Irvine who worked closely with Rowland for more than two decades. It was about the whole environment and the realization that something we can do in California could have effects somewhere else in the world. It was the start of the global era of the environment.

Born on June 28, 1927, in Delaware, Ohio, Rowland attended college before joining the Navy. He resumed his studies in chemistry at the University of Chicago in 1948.

As Rowland later acknowledged, his timing was superb. The university was home to Nobel Prize winner Willard F. Libby--the chemist who developed the carbon-14 dating technique and who became Rowland's mentor--and hosted such esteemed scientists as Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller.

After completing his doctorate, he took a job at Princeton University as a chemistry instructor. He later joined the faculty at the University of Kansas, but when the UC Irvine campus opened in 1965, he was lured from Kansas to become the school's inaugural chairman of the chemistry department. A full obituary will follow at latimes.com/obits.

-- Shari Roan and Claire Noland

Photo: F. Sherwood Rowland in his lab. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

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UC Irvine Nobel winner F. Sherwood Rowland dies