Guest contributor, chemist Robert Slinn of the University of Liverpool, filters the latest happenings from the world of chemistry.
- Oxidation mechanisms at gold nanoclusters unraveled - Researchers believe that the puzzle of catalytic gold is now partially solved.
- Scared to Death: Chemophobia - ACSH compiled this resource book to teach legislators, industry, media, customers and parents about the true risk or lack thereof related to chemical exposure and employ in everyday items. The paper, authored by Jon Entine, a scholar using the American Enterprise Institute and respected science journalist, is really a response to the growing level of chemophobia — the irrational fear of chemicals — among the American public.
- Sweet Success: Cacao Genome Sequenced - An international team of scientists successfully sequenced the entire genome of the Theobroma cacao plant, considered to produce the best chocolate in the world.
- Chemists document workings of key staph enzyme — and how to block it - Researchers have determined the structure and mechanism of an enzyme that performs the crucial first step in the formation of cholesterol and a key virulence factor in staph bacteria.
- Special sugar, nanoparticles combine to detect cholera toxin - A complex sugar may someday become one of the most effective weapons to stop the spread of cholera, a disease that has claimed thousands of lives in Haiti since the devastating earthquake last year.
