Results reported at American Chemical Society meeting

A chemical catalyst developed at Carnegie Mellon University completely destroys dangerous nitrophenols in laboratory tests, according to Arani Chanda, a doctoral student who is presenting his findings on Sunday, Aug. 28, at the 230th meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Washington, D.C. (Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Convention Center Hall A).

“We found an efficient, rapid and envi

Chemistry and biology researchers at Virginia Tech have enhanced the abilities of the molecules they are creating to deliver killing blows to cancer cells. The man-made molecular complexes enter cancer cells and, when signaled, deliver killing medicine or cause the cell to change. The new supermolecules have more units that will absorb light – providing more control over the range of light frequencies that can be included and excluded as signals and the responses.

Karen Brewer, p

Chemists are several steps closer to teasing hydrogen fuel from water using man-made molecular devices that collect electrons and use them to split hydrogen from oxygen.

Virginia Tech graduate students in chemistry will present two posters at the 230th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C., Aug. 28 through Sept. 1, 2005, describing photochemical processes.

Electrons are negatively charged particles that allow atoms to react and form bond

Brookhaven’s ’Electro Pen’ may impact a host of developing nanotechnologies

At the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, scientists have developed a new chemical “writing” technique that can create lines of “ink” only a few tens of nanometers, or billionths of a meter, in width.

“Our new ’writing’ method opens up many new possibilities for creating nanoscale patterns and features on surfaces. This may have a significant

Coffee provides more than just a morning jolt; that steaming cup of java is also the number one source of antioxidants in the U.S. diet, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Scranton (Pa.). Their study was described today at the 230th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

“Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close,” says study leader

DNA isn’t just for storing genetic codes any more. Since DNA can polymerize — linking many molecules together into larger structures — scientists have been using it as a nanoscale building material, constructing geometric shapes and even working mechanical devices.

Now Cornell University researchers have made DNA buckyballs — tiny geodesic spheres that could be used for drug delivery and as containers for chemical reactions.

The term “buckyballs” has been used up to

Research teams at Nihon Nohyaku Co., Ltd., Bayer CropScience and DuPont have developed two new classes of broad-spectrum insecticides that show promise as a safer and more effective way to fight pest insects that damage food crops. The insecticides, which represent the first synthetic compounds designed to activate a novel insecticide target called the ryanodine receptor, may also help tackle the growing problem of insecticide resistance, the researchers say. They described their studies today

Biochemical technique expected to yield new, more effective test for disease-causing prions in cattle and humans

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) have found a way to detect in blood the malformed proteins that cause “mad cow disease,” the first time such “prions” have been detected biochemically in blood.

The discovery, reported in an article scheduled to appear online in Nature Medicine Aug. 28, is expected to lead to a much more

Chicken-produced antibodies demonstrate enhanced cell killing compared to conventionally produced anti-cancer antibodies

Origen Therapeutics today announced the first published scientific report of fully functional, human sequence monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) produced in chickens. The antibodies were expressed solely in the chicken oviduct and deposited into egg white in concentrations of 1-3 milligrams per egg. Moreover, antibodies produced in this manner demonstrated 10-100 fo

Human beings are genetically adapted to conditions of scanty and irregular nutrition. In case of food abundance this advantage turned into a significant part of population’s predisposition to “diseases of civilization”. This conclusion has been made by I.S. Liberman, Doctor of Sciences, based on his own data and findings of other investigators.

Atherosclerosis, type II (insulin-independent) diabetes, primary hypertension, and obesity often accompanying them are called diseas

A device called “passive chemical dosimeter” will help to identify the quantity of poisonous substances and to determine particular substances inhaled by interlocutors of a smoker. The device is being developed by the Kazan chemists, financial support being provided by the International Science and Technology Center.

The smoking-room of the Lenin State Library – this is the proper place for catching eligible bachelors, as a heroine of the Oscar-winner film “Moscow Does Not Believe

A drug derived from an ancient Chinese herb has been shown to reduce the risk of death from severe malaria by a third, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of lives in nations on our doorstep.

A trial in malaria patients from four countries has shown a clear benefit over standard treatment with quinine, says Professor Nicholas Anstey of the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, Australia, which participated in the trial in partnership with the Indonesian Ministry of

Long-term hormone therapy used earlier in menopause is associated with fewer wrinkles and less skin rigidity in postmenopausal women, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in the August issue of Fertility and Sterility.

“These benefits were seen in women who had consistently used hormone therapy and had been in menopause for at least five years,” said Hugh S. Taylor, M.D., associate professor in the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility in the Department of Ob

The heart-lung bypass machine that stills the heart while surgeons bypass an adult’s clogged arteries or repair a baby’s malformed heart can also trigger a potentially deadly inflammatory response.

That unfortunate fact has Medical College of Georgia surgeons participating in an international study of a drug that may block the most deadly of these responses in adults who have coronary bypass surgery.

It also has them trying to better understand the process in children who

Inhibitory systems are essential for controlling the pattern of activity in the cortex, which has important implications for the mechanisms of cortical operation, according to a Yale School of Medicine study in Neuron.

The findings demonstrate the inhibitory network is central to controlling not only the amplitude, extent and duration of activation of recurrent excitatory cortical networks, but also the precise timing of action potentials, and, thus, network synchronization, s

Scientists from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) have achieved a new breakthrough in cancer research. The researchers, connected to Ghent University, have discovered the function of an important mediator involved in suppressing the development of tumors. Using a mouse model, they have shown that absence of the mediator makes the mice susceptible to the development of cancer. Through this research, the scientists are contributing to a better understanding of the molec