Chemistry

How Safe Are Safe Ingredients In Food?

A 1997 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule allowed food manufacturers to use ingredients "generally regarded as safe," or GRAS, like vinegar and lots of other things, without needing approval all over again. Food advocates say the current GR ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 24 2014 - 12:04pm

RM 8027: World's Smallest Reference Material

If good things come in small packages, then nanoparticles are going to make engineers very happy. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently issued Reference Material (RM) 8027, the smallest known reference material ever created fo ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 28 2014 - 10:00am

New Formula Could Mean “Greener” Cement

Concrete is the world’s most-used construction material and thus a leading contributor to global warming, producing perhaps 10 percent of industry-generated greenhouse-gas emissions. Industry is already reducing greenhouse emissions, such as by using more ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 25 2014 - 12:01pm

Interstellar Molecules Branch Out

Scientists have time detected a carbon-bearing molecule with a "branched" structure in interstellar space. The molecule, iso-propyl cyanide (i-C3H7CN), was discovered in the giant gas cloud Sagittarius B2, a region of ongoing star formation clos ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 28 2014 - 10:15am

Artificial Photosynthesis Could Turn CO2 Into Renewable Energy

The appeal of artificial photosynthesis, in which the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide is used to produce clean, green and sustainable fuels, is that we can turn an atmospheric byproduct into a renewable energy technology. However, finding a ca ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 25 2014 - 4:01pm

How The Atmosphere Produces Its 'Detergent'

Earth's atmosphere is a complicated dance of molecules involving the output of plants, animals and human industry in sequences of chemical reactions. Such processes help maintain the atmosphere's chemical balance; most topically during protest w ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 26 2014 - 3:00pm

Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell And William E. Moerner Receive 2014 Nobel In Chemistry

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Eric Betzig of Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stefan W. Hell of the  Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and William E. Moerner of ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 8 2014 - 12:07pm

Nobel Prize In Chemistry: Beating Nature’s Limits To Build Super-microscopes

Winners of the Nobel Prize in chemistry: Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell and William Moerner. Credit: Matt Staley, HHMI / Bernd Schuller, Max-Planck-Institut / K. Lowder By Mark Lorch, University of Hull Robert Hooke was a pioneer of microscopy, when back in the ...

Article - The Conversation - Oct 8 2014 - 7:00pm

How Effective Are 'Natural' Bed Bug Pesticides?

People concerned about human-insecticide exposure have stimulated interest in alternative bed bug control materials, including oil-based pesticides and detergent insecticides. But how well do they work? Researchers from Rutgers University evaluated the ef ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 12 2014 - 10:48am

Olive, Corn, Soybean Or Sunflower Oil- The Science Answer As To What Is Best For Frying

Frying in oil is one of the world's most popular ways to prepare food — chicken and French-fried potatoes are staples but even candy bars and whole turkeys have joined the list of deep-friend goodness.  Lots of oil make health claims but there is a w ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 22 2014 - 12:29pm