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March 28 2012
March 23 2012
Which Wine Goes Best with Semiconductors? A 2009 Beaujolais, Apparently
Heads turned last year when Japanese scientists announced that heating iron telluride in red wine did wonders for its conductive ability. (They are mysteriously quiet as to how they decided to do this experiment.) Sake, white wine, and other alcoholic drinks were also, uh, sampled, but none had the vigor-inducing properties of a full-bodied red.
They’ve now taken the matter further and tested which kinds of red have the strongest effect. Their results, posted on the ArXiv and summarized in the figure above, indicate that the winner is a wine made from Gamay grapes, a 2009 Beaujolais from the Paul Beaudet winery in France. Beaujolais are known for being acidic wines, and indeed, when the researchers did a component-by-component breakdown of the wine, testing to see which of the substances in it was the one having the effect, they narrowed it down to tartaric acid.
The acid in question.
To test their findings, they mixed tartaric acid with water and found that the mixture did boost iron telluride’s conductivity. But not as much as wine itself, which indicates there’s something else in the wine that’s contributing to the ...
November 30 2010
To Make Gold Nanoparticles, Add a Dash of Cinnamon
“Is it just me, or do these gold nanoparticles taste like apple pie?”
Ok, you probably won’t hear that one around the lab (taste-testing the nano-gold is a strict no-no), but researchers have discovered a way to replace the toxic chemicals typically used to make gold nanoparticles with cinnamon.
Researcher Raghuraman Kannan explains in the press release:
“The procedure we have developed is non-toxic,” Kannan said. “No chemicals are used in the generation of gold nanoparticles, except gold salts. It is a true ‘green’ process.”
The cinnamon takes the place of the toxic agents that remove the gold particles from gold salts, explains Popular Science:
There are several ways to produce gold particles, but most involve dissolving chloroauric acid, also called gold salts, in liquid and adding chemicals to precipitate gold atoms. Common mixtures include sodium citrates, sodium borohydride (also used to bleach wood pulp) and ammonium compounds, all of which can be toxic to humans and the environment.
In Kannan’s new procedure, the gold particles are isolated simply by stirring gold salts, cinnamon, and water together at room temperature. What they get out of that recipe is a combination of gold nanoparticles and phytochemicals from the cinnamon.
Gold nanoparticles have potential in many different fields–from medical treatments to electronics–because they can be absorbed by cells, and because they have unique optical and electronic properties. When the researchers tested the particles created by the new process, they found they were safe and non-toxic. The nanoparticles were also able to deliver the phytochemicals to cancer cells, where they could help destroy or image the cells.
It’s important to consider the health and environmental impacts of new technologies, Kannan said in the press release:
“On one hand, you are trying to create a new, useful technology. However, continuing to ignore the environmental effects is detrimental to the progress,” Kannan said.
With so much hype about nanotechnology and how it will change the world, it’s nice to hear about research that’s trying to keep it from harming the world at the same time–even if it might raise prices at Cinnabon.
Related Content:
Discoblog: Did a Guy Find a Cure for Cancer Using Pie Tins and Hot Dogs?
Discoblog: The Tiny Robot that Can Crawl Through Your Veins—And Treat Your Tumors
Discoblog: Nano Snacks! Researchers Say Edible Nanostructures Taste Like Saltines
80beats: Golden Nanocages Could Deliver Cancer Drugs to Tumors
DISCOVER: World’s Tiniest Scale Can Weigh Individual Molecules
Image: flickr / pamramsey
September 09 2010
Science Sing-Alongs: Higg Boson vs Google Periodic Table
If the 2008 Large Hadron Collider rap didn’t appeal to your musical sensibilities, you might try two science songs now making the internets rounds.
The first isn’t really new at all: Joe Sabia has employed Google Instant for a pastiche based on Tom Lehrer’s 1959 Elements Song, which in turn parodied Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1879 Major General’s Song.
[via Boing Boing]
Returning to the Large Hadron Collider, CERN’s control center has hosted a sing-along. What’s especially enjoyable about this parody of Flanders and Swann’s The Hippopotamus Song are the physicists working in the background. See twelve second in–when one guy appears to do a face plant onto his desk.
[via The Inverse Square]
Not satisfied? Stay tuned for a hip-hop neuro-rap and Dr. Dre’s forthcoming space-themed album, called The Planets.
Related content:
Discoblog: I Swear: Subatomic Particles Are Singing to Me!
Discoblog: The Mother of all Rube Goldberg Machines!
Discoblog: The OK Go Video: Playing With the Speed of Time
Discoblog: Higgs Physicists’ Plan for Winning a Nobel Prize, Step 1: Stay Alive
September 03 2010
Nano Snacks! Researchers Say Edible Nanostructures Taste Like Saltines
We’ve asked tiny nanostructures to thwart counterfeiters, heal wounds, and boost computing power. Now, we want to eat them. Researchers have made “all-natural metal-organic frameworks”–and hope their creations’ edible frames may find use storing small molecules in foods and medical devices.
Though researchers have made similar metal-organic frameworks since 1999, most of the structures require chemicals from crude oil. As described in a recently published Angewandte Chemie paper, this team has devised a cheaper method employing starch molecules leftover from corn production.
The trick was to make a substance crystallize as a highly ordered, symmetrical, porous framework. Getting tiny symmetrical structures from non-symmetrical natural ingredients had seemed unlikely, but the team found the perfect molecule cages, using a special type of sugar (gamma-cyclodextrin) from the cornstarch and potassium salt. After dissolving gamma-cyclodextrin and potassium salt in water, they crystallized them to form the nano storage cubes.
Despite the sugar and salt combo, the nanostructures are not that tasty, team member Ronald Smaldone says in a press release:
“They taste kind of bitter, like a Saltine cracker, starchy and bland…. But the beauty is that all the starting materials are nontoxic, biorenewable and widely available…”
We also can’t imagine they’re that filling.
Related content:
Discoblog: How Butterfly Wing Patterns Could Thwart Counterfeiting Crooks
80beats: Nanoparticles + Stem Cells = Faster Healing Wounds
80beats: “DNA Origami” May Allow Chip Makers to Keep Up With Moore’s Law
80beats: Spitzer Telescope Finds Buckyballs… in Spaaace!
Image: flickr / Kerrie Longo
August 30 2010
Don’t Try This at Home: How to Stick Your Hand in Liquid Nitrogen
Remember those high school liquid nitrogen demonstrations? You know, the one where your teacher dipped a banana into the cloudy stuff, pulled it out, and then shattered it on the floor?
Well, Popular Science blogger Theodore Gray recently decided to stick in his hand. As you can see in a video over on their site, his hand survived the encounter. Though he stressed, and we reiterate, that this really isn’t a good idea unless you know what you’re doing, or unless you want your friends to call you Captain Hook, sticking your hand in the cold stuff isn’t necessarily a recipe for digit removal.
Since Gray’s hand was much warmer than the liquid nitrogen (which checks in at around negative 320 degrees Fahrenheit), the hand instantly created a layer of evaporated nitrogen gas–which shielded his skin, temporarily, from frostbite. Gray says on his blog:
“The phenomenon is called the Leidenfrost effect (after Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost, the doctor who first studied it in 1756). I’d known about it for years, but when it came time to test it in real life, I have to admit that I used my left hand, the one I’d miss less.”
Related content:
JOE GENIUS: Chemistry Cafe
Discoblog: Crazy Optical Illusion of the Day
Discoblog: To Levitate Water, Turn on the Strobe Lights
Discoblog: Prepare to Be Amazed… An iPhone App That Can Read Minds!
Image: flickr / Lee Gillen
June 04 2010
How Do You Like Your Vodka Molecules: Shaken or Stirred?
Stolichnaya or Grey Goose, martinis shaken or stirred: Everybody’s got a preference. Vodka may not taste like much—in industry terms, it’s neutral—but any bartender can tell you about the fierce partisanship its different types inspire. This division among drinkers, a new study suggests, could be a result of slight differences in the vodkas’ molecular structure.
Vodka is about 60 percent water by volume, and 40 percent ethanol, an alcohol. The water and ethanol naturally mingle in such close quarters, and some of the molecules stick together in interesting ways.
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Moscow State University compared the chemical composition of five common brands—Belvedere, Grey Goose, Oval, Skyy, and Stolichnaya—to see if those water-ethanol groupings always happen the same way. They found that two of the vodkas had a higher concentration a certain cage-like chemical structure, in which five or so molecules of water surround each ethanol molecule. This difference, the researchers say, might explain our preferences for one brand over another. It’s even possible that the act of shaking a vodka martini breaks up those cage structures.
It’s not clear if such a subtle change in molecular make-up could affect taste, or even that those cage-like structures hold together long enough to have much of an impact at all. So for now, it may be wise to take this explanation with a grain of salt—and, while you’re at it, maybe a few olives.
– by Valerie Ross
Related Content:
Discoblog: How to Tell a Fine Old Wine: Look for That Hint of Radioactive C-14
Discoblog: Each Shot of Mezcal Contains a Little Bit of DNA From the “Worm”
80beats: Science Explains: Why You Can’t Drink Red Wine With Fish
80beats: Fabulous Fizz: How Bubbles Make Champagne Burst With Flavor
Image: flickr / paPisc
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