Chemistry Instructor at Grand Rapids Community College
I am always amazed at the complexity of biological structures. There is so much freedom at the atomic level and we sometimes forget that until we find out how difficult it is to simulate the motions with computer. This article shows attempts to simulate protein functions using graphics processing units. This is the 2nd article I have read recently on using gaming technology for something other than… well… gaming.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gpu-aids-photosynthesis
I know that I suffer from allergies during small parts of the year. This podcast from Science Friday covers this annoying topic. It is interesting to hear about the water soluble enzymes on pollen that illicit an immune response in humans. If you have allergies or know someone who does, this is worth a listen.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200904242
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about E. Coli Part I: Scientific American Podcast
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Carl Zimmer discusses his book on E. Coli and there are some interesting historical pieces in this first podcast. I recently went to a talk that discuss the possibility of “kissing” developing to pass useful bacteria back and forth between people and I was reminded of this when I listened to this podcast. Certainly, we have gained much knowledge from studying more simple species and learning how genes are activated, deactivated, and passed from one cell to another.
Recently I went to Chicago and there was a terrible thunder/lightning storm. The rumblings bounced between the buildings and continuously resonated. It was quite an event. I found this video on current lightning research on Science Friday’s site.
The video is “Bring Down the Bolt“…
In a world of continuing antibiotic resistance do we to resurrect another approach to kill dangerous bacteria? I recently read an article on how many bacteria can live on antibiotic compounds as their source for carbon (Antibiotics For A Meal). Antibiotics have improved the lives of many humans, but maybe we need another main stream approach to fighting infection? Science Friday covered using bacteriophages (Phages Fight Bacteria) as an approach to fighting these bugs. There is something interesting to me about infecting the infection in a human for the battle of health. There is this benefit of specificity that comes along with using bacteriophages that does not seem to be present with typical antibiotics. Have a read and a listen… this is a good mix of chemistry and biology.
I always find articles like this recent concentrate in C&E News interesting because so often we think of pollution as the primary component that is “emitted” into the atmosphere. So much chemistry takes place to these pollutants after they are in the opened environment. This article discusses how light plays a role in the formation of new pollutants (or secondary pollutants). All of this chemistry is truly important to help improve air quality. I would assume that there are already emission standards that allow companies to emit more pollutants at night when their is no sunlight. This can help decrease the production of secondary pollutants that may be more dangerous. Every person should have an interest in clean air – because we don’t have a choice but to breath it…
If you could have a test telling you that some form of cancer MAY be in your future, would you have the test? Researchers find some genetic similarities in people that have certain forms of disease or cancer; this allows them to test people without the disease for similar “markers”. These markers don’t guarantee the person will get the disease or cancer, but they may have an increased risk (which may be very low).
On Science Friday last week (yeah, I am a little behind), they had a program on breast cancer markers. What interests me about these markers is the test may be able to indicate an increased risk, but not offer any suggestion on how to change those risks. SO, would you want to know if you couldn’t do anything about it? Might you live your life differently? More healthful?
As I listened to several different podcasts this weekend, I thought of how Kinetics and Equilibrium work together for the creation of new products and how they help our understanding of the world around us. Science Friday covered the creation of a new adhesive bandage as a medical application inside of a patient. This bandage would have to break down at some point (thus the equilibrium), but slowly enough to hold until no longer needed (thus the kinetics).
I also read an article on climate change and how the ocean absorbs much of the excess carbon dioxide produced. You wouldn’t need but a general chemistry course to understand that you can “shift” equilibrium if you push more of one reactant into a system. Small shift or big shift, more carbon dioxide should acidify the ocean. (carbon dioxide and water create carbonic acid) The change may be minor, but it may also affect the organisms that live in this system.
Whenever I hear people talk about global warming it makes me cringe. Someone will mention how cold it has been in Michigan and make some comment like, “if someone thinks there is global warming, they should live here!”. This drives me nuts because it takes a single data point and assumes that it represents the world as a whole. I am not saying that I can wrap my mind around global climate change, but I certainly understand that we do indeed pollute as a species. Pollution can be quantified and we know it has effects on organisms.
When I listened to the Scientific American podcast on the human impact on oceans, it made me think of the cold weather analogy I mentioned above. One person not catching fish or getting “skunked” doesn’t constitute global ocean changes; BUT these scientists are trying to study an enormous ecosystem. This is a difficult task because they have to sift through all information available.
Both of these problems, global climate and ocean change, truly are overwhelming issues. What I don’t understand is why people struggle with whether or not pollution contributes to either. Whether it does or doesn’t contribute, we know pollution has local impacts – couldn’t this translate to global impacts? Do you think these are just hoaxes?
