Chemistry
We summarize the week's science breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Chemistry
Vodka’s bonds may influence taste
Differences in vodka brands reflect structural variations in cages of water molecules encasing ethanol, new research suggests.
- Humans
Teeth as a forensic clock
Here’s something we’re likely to see that endearing techno whiz kid, Abby Sciuto, whip out of her forensic arsenal next season on NCIS. They’re chemical and nuclear technologies to date teeth. When paired up, new research indicates, they’ll identify not only when people were born but also the age at which they clocked out — thereby pointing to the general date of death.
- Chemistry
Exposure of moms-to-be to hormone-mimicking chemical may affect kids years later
In mice, BPA can cause pregnancy complications that can also trigger later metabolic effects in both moms and grown male offspring.
- Chemistry
A new source of dioxins: Clean hands
Manufacturers have been adding the germ fighter triclosan to soaps, hand washes, and a range of other products for years. But here’s a dirty little secret: Once it washes down the drain, that triclosan can spawn dioxins.
- Earth
Gulf spill: BP gets go ahead for full-scale underwater use of dispersants
All week, U.S. federal agencies have been evaluating an unprecedented use of oil dispersants: to break up crude spewing from the seafloor. BP won preliminary approval to try them in limited tests against an ongoing torrent of oil spewing from the base of a devastated exploration rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Late morning on May 15, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Coast Guard issued their joint approval for a scale-up of the novel subsea application of these chemicals.
- Animals
Fight or flee, it’s in the pee
Researchers get a better understanding of how mice smell a rat, or a cat, and maybe even a snake.
- Chemistry
EPA issues greenhouse-gas rules for new factories and more
EPA released new rules on greenhouse-gas emissions for new power plants, factories and oil refineries — any big new facility, really that emits huge amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, or any of several other classes of chemicals. Existing facilities can continue to spew greenhouse gases at current levels.
- Chemistry
Chinese would turn cigarette butts into steel’s guardian
People smoke a lot of cigarettes, which leads to a lot of trash. Tom Novotny has done the math: An estimated 5.6 trillion butts each year end up littering the global environment. But Chinese researchers have a solution: recycling. Their new data indicate that an aqueous extract of stinky butts makes a great corrosion inhibitor for steel.
- Chemistry
Another plastics ingredient raises safety concerns
Bisphenol A’s ‘twin’ may be more potent at perturbing estrogen signals.
- Chemistry
Decon Green can clean up the most toxic messes, developers claim
A new decontaminant could be a more benign alternative for cleaning up after chemical and biological accidents.
- Materials Science
Infection, kill thyself
Scientists devise wound dressings that trick bacteria into suicide.
- Health & Medicine
Chili pepper holds hot prospects for painfree dieting
A cousin of the chemical that packs the heat in chilis not only can rev up the body’s metabolism but actually encourage it to preferentially burn fat, according to a new trial in obese men and women. And the kicker: The molecule is itself so fat that it can’t fit into the receptors that would ordinarily register pain.
