Chemistry News from the Spinneret

Carisoprodol Soma

David Bradley — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:00:25 +0000

Apparently, WWE’s Jeff Hardy has been embroiled in a drugs scandal related to prescription drugs such as carisoprodol (Soma) and steroids. Allegedly, “excessive” amounts of these and other substances were found in his home. Jeff Deville’s column on PWTorch defends the amounts reported.

You can read more about Carisoprodol the muscle relaxant here.

Carisoprodol Soma

Swine Flu and Glutathione Supplements

David Bradley — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:00:42 +0000

Could a simple dietary change that increases glutathione, or indeed supplementation with this tripeptide be all you need to boost your immune system and ward of influenza?

You can more read about the pseudoscience of glutathione supplements here.

Swine Flu and Glutathione Supplements

Malaria Drug Fail

David Bradley — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:47:38 +0000

The BBC reports today that malaria has started to evolve resistance to the artemesinin family of drugs that are used as the world’s front-line defense against the most prevalent and deadly form of the disease.

You can read more about the malaria drug artemesinin here.

Malaria Drug Fail

N-Acetyl-L-Tyrosine

David Bradley — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:50:17 +0000

N-Acetyl-L-tyrosine is showing up in spam emails and on twitter so I had to take a look to find out what claims are being made for it.

You can read more about that alleged marketing scam involving acetyl tyrosine here.

N-Acetyl-L-Tyrosine

Drugs in the Water Supply

David Bradley — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:01:01 +0000

According to an AP investigation, US pharma companies have released at least 1000 tonnes of pharmaceuticals into American waterways. This putative contamination of the drinking water supply has been consistently overlooked by the Federal government, their report says.

You can read more about drugs in the water supply here.

Drugs in the Water Supply

Cranberries and Urinary Tract Infections

David Bradley — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:00:13 +0000

It’s not the acidity of cranberry juice that prevent urinary track infections and cystitis, it’s natural chemicals in the tarty juice that prevent pathogenic bacteria from adhering to the cells that line the urinary tract. That’s according to research in the Journal of Medicinal Food.

You can read more about cranberry and urinary tract infections here.

Cranberries and Urinary Tract Infections

EEStor Super Capacitor

David Bradley — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:14:27 +0000

A Texan company, EEStor, claims to have developed an entirely new type of capacitor for storing electrical energy. Their Electrical Energy Storage Units (EESU) can apparently store enough energy to power a small car for almost 500 km. The same technology might be used to “backup” electricity generated from periodic alternative energy sources such as windpower and wavepower.

EEStor’s CEO and president Richard Weir, named as co-inventor on the company’s main patents was interviewed last year by the Barium Titanate blog, but other than that there is scant information about EESUs.

Are they a scam like so many other claims for perpetual motion and free energy? If only, the company would tell us more, science could decide.

EEStor’s patents describe the sintering of tiny grains of coated barium titanate powder into a bulk ceramic, which is claimed to eliminate pore spaces and so take full advantage of barium titanate’s extremely high permittivity without void arcing that would otherwise discharge the capacitor. Sounds reasonable, so far.

However, there are many skeptics. Jim Miller, a capacitor expert who visited EEStor in 2007 to evaluate the technology reckons there will still be current leakage at the typically high operating voltages caused by microscopic fractures in the sintered ceramic caused by temperature fluctuations.

Andrew Burke, another expert who visited EEStor also says that the permittivity could not be maintained at the high level claimed at the high voltage required. The energy density could not be that high, he says.

EEStor will apparently not provide supporting data for their claims to contradict the experts. Such reluctance to share knowledge and evidence around such a potentially revolutionary device inevitably leads to more skepticism than support. The EEStor website is still labeled “under construction“, which does not inspire confidence. Wonderful as the idea of a supercapacitor to help us harness renewable energy may sound, one cannot help but feel that EEStor is probably just another Steorn in a teacup.

By the way this article is about storage units, but those of the electrical kind, seems a lot of visitors are arriving looking for boxes and shelving and such like.

EEStor Super Capacitor

Urine clues for prostate cancer

David Bradley — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:03:56 +0000

A biomarker for prostate cancer has been identified in urine. Details of the molecule sarcosine is published later this week in the journal Nature.

More about urine clues for prostate cancer here.

Urine clues for prostate cancer

Ionic Boron

David Bradley — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:43:19 +0000

Chemistry textbooks will tell you that you need at least two different elements to produce an ionic material. So, what to make of a paper in the journal Nature by Artem Oganov of the Swiss research center, ETH Zurich, and colleagus have simulated a superhard form of boron that contains ionic bonds.

Oxytocin Facial

David Bradley — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:47:33 +0000

Oxytocin, the nurturing hormone involved in child-birth and breast-feeding, apparently plays a role in how we recognize faces, according to a paper in the Journal of Neuroscience. Researchers gave volunteers a nasal dose of oxytocin and found that they all had improved recognition memory for faces, but not for inanimate objects.

More about an oxytocin facial here.

Oxytocin Facial