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Just don't bug me

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:01:00 -0400

I’m here today to stand up for the rights of bugs everywhere. From an early age, I have been a voice in the dark for insects you mainly see in the light. I’m talking about the good guys: crickets, lady bugs, and my favorite, the praying mantis –– those guys that don’t cause you pain or eat your garden plants. I have been known to lovingly pick up a cricket from our family room carpet in a tissue (to my wife’s horror) and carefully carry it outside to a safe haven. They hurt nobody and to my thinking deserve a break.

But when it comes to the other ones –– mosquitoes, flies and stinkbugs in particular –– I’m not Mr. Nice Guy. Armed with our battery-operated, tennis racquet-shaped zapper, I will dispatch these pests when they dare to encroach upon our backyard deck let alone enter the sanctity of our home. Why, just the other day, in an office building, I quickly disposed of a cockroach that was sitting comfortably on a hall carpet.

Now, however, after reading this week’s ACS PressPac, I’m having some second thoughts about my deed. It seems cockroaches are not just dirty, useless pests…

Scientists have developed and implanted into a living insect — the False Death's Head Cockroach — a miniature fuel cell that converts naturally occurring sugar in the insect and oxygen from the air into electricity. They term it an advance toward a source of electricity that could, in principle, be collected, stored and used to power sensors, cameras, microphones and a variety of other microdevices attached to the insects in a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Daniel Scherson and colleagues explain that scientists are developing ways to generate electricity from chemicals inside living things or from their movements to power implanted sensors or other miniature devices. Such devices could provide researchers or physicians with important information about processes going on inside insects, animals or even people without the need for batteries. |

They also could someday power artificial organs, nanorobots or wearable personal electronics. But before such “sci-fi”-sounding advances can be realized, practical biofuel cells are necessary. That’s why Scherson and colleagues developed an implantable biofuel cell for use in a live cockroach.

The biofuel cell uses a sugar in the cockroaches’ bodies called trehalose and oxygen from the air to generate electricity. It did not kill the insects or impair functioning of their internal organs. They also implanted the device into a Shiitake mushroom, and it worked. Neither fuel cell — in the roach or the mushroom — produced a large amount of energy, so the team says that any microdevice that requires high power could operate only intermittently. The electricity generated by the biofuel cell, “in principle, could be collected and stored and subsequently used to power a variety of microdevices,” say the researchers.

To read more about this amazing development, go to http://bit.ly/xbEHvM.

Image: American Chemical Society

Nothing fishy about this big event

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:38:00 -0400

Fish tacos. Nick Croce. Normally, when someone mentions San Diego to me these rather disparate words come to mind. There’s nothing mysterious about my thinking of fish tacos: Rubio’s in San Diego features them and they’re super. It seems that after first tasting a fish taco in San Felipe, Mexico, Ralph Rubio returned to San Diego to hand-craft his own recipe and introduced America to the fish taco in 1983. I can tell you first-hand that he did a heck of a job crafting.

Why the city reminds me of Nick Croce –– now that’s a little more esoteric. I used to work with a man by that name, and I always think of him when I pass by Croce’s restaurant on Fifth Avenue in San Diego. I’ve never set foot in the place, but I vow to do so in March. Why March?

Already one of the largest scientific conferences of 2012, early registration indicates a big turnout of scientists from all over the world, the ACS Meetings Department tells me. And with the more than 11,700 presentations to choose from, I’m very excited about the topics we will be bringing to you in our news releases and our press briefings.

Our ACS Office of Public Affairs Press Center in the convention center will include a press conference room and a news media workroom fully staffed to assist in arranging interviews. The press center will have wireless Internet access, telephones, computers, photocopy and fax services, and refreshments.

Embargoed copies of press releases, non-technical summaries of newsworthy presentations, and a press conference schedule will be available in August. Reporters planning to cover the meeting from their home bases will have access to the press conferences over the Internet in ACS’ popular “Live Chat” format.

To apply for press credentials for the meeting, go to: registration.

See you in San Diego…

Image: San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau

A new wake-up call

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:48:00 -0400

I may be the only person in North America –– maybe even the world –– who can make this statement: I have no desire to drink coffee in the morning. I don’t need it to wake me up, and I don’t crave it. In fact, I have another distinction, though not as rare. On workdays I don’t eat breakfast. I’m just not hungry early in the day and I don’t run out of gas before lunch.

Don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy a good cup of coffee with dessert at dinner sometimes. My wife likes it more than I, though, but if she even has a cup of decaf after 10 a.m., she maintains that she won’t sleep that night.

So the bottom line is that you probably won’t be seeing the Bernstein family featured on a coffee commercial on TV.

Still, I have been fascinated with the large body of evidence scientists have been amassing about the potential benefits of coffee. Most recently, I call your attention to the following item in this week’s ACS PressPac:

Our staff asks: Why do heavy coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, a disease on the increase around the world that can lead to serious health problems?

Scientists are offering a new solution to that long-standing mystery in a report in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry.

Ling Zheng, Kun Huang and colleagues explain that previous studies show that coffee drinkers are at a lower risk for developing Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90-95 percent of diabetes cases in the world.

Those studies show that people who drink four or more cups of coffee daily have a 50 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. And every additional cup of coffee brings another decrease in risk of almost 7 percent. Scientists have implicated the misfolding of a substance called human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) in causing Type 2 diabetes, and some are seeking ways to block that process. Zheng and Huang decided to see if coffee’s beneficial effects might be due to substances that block hIAPP.

Indeed, they identified two categories of compounds in coffee that significantly inhibited hIAPP. They suggest that this effect explains why coffee drinkers show a lower risk for developing diabetes. “A beneficial effect may thus be expected for a regular coffee drinker,” the researchers conclude.

To learn more, go to: http://bit.ly/wHHFMl

Image: iStock

Something to get your teeth into

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:41:00 -0400

A friend of mine is, to my thinking, a sommelier of black licorice. I’ve lost track of the number of brands he has given me to try. The smoother the better, he says. I have, as you probably know, fairly strong opinions about food and drink. But I must say that when it comes to black licorice (there are favors like strawberry, but my friend does not acknowledge them), I have trouble differentiating among the good and the bad.

Their most noteworthy characteristic is this: They all get stuck in your teeth. With all of the advances in food science, you’d have thought they’d have fixed that problem. They seemed to have done a pretty darn good job smoothing out peanut butter, so why not licorice?

The licorice problem, then, makes an item in this week’s ACS Weekly PressPac very intriguing to me. It seems that scientists have discovered medicinal properties of licorice root.

They are reporting identification of two substances in licorice — used extensively in Chinese traditional medicine — that kill the major bacteria responsible for tooth decay and gum disease, the leading causes of tooth loss in children and adults.

In a study in ACS’ Journal of Natural Products, they say that these substances could have a role in treating and preventing tooth decay and gum disease.

Stefan Gafner and colleagues explain that the dried root of the licorice plant is a common treatment in Chinese traditional medicine, especially as a way to enhance the activity of other herbal ingredients or as a flavoring. Despite the popularity of licorice candy in the U.S., licorice root has been replaced in domestic candy with anise oil, which has a similar flavor.

Traditional medical practitioners use dried licorice root to treat various ailments, such as respiratory and digestive problems, but few modern scientific studies address whether licorice really works. (Consumers should check with their health care provider before taking licorice root because it can have undesirable effects and interactions with prescription drugs.) To test whether the sweet root could combat the bacteria that cause gum disease and cavities, the researchers took a closer look at various substances in licorice.

They found that two of the licorice compounds, licoricidin and licorisoflavan A, were the most effective antibacterial substances. These substances killed two of the major bacteria responsible for dental cavities and two of the bacteria that promote gum disease. One of the compounds — licoricidin — also killed a third gum disease bacterium. The researchers say that these substances could treat or even prevent oral infections

To read more, go to: http://bit.ly/yBjsSr

Image: iStock

This information bubbles to the surface

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:48:00 -0400

I’ll always remember my first champagne toast. The Dodgers, my favorite Major League baseball team, had just won the World Series. My best friend and I lifted our champagne goblets, clinked them, and drank the contents –– ginger ale. It was our first toast, to be sure, but being kids, we couldn’t go to the liquor store, so ginger ale had to do. And it did.

In the years that have passed, I have always reserved champagne for special occasions. I have not, however, limited my intake of carbonated beverages. I like carbonation and, I should add, I hate poorly carbonated soda or, even worse, flat glasses of beer. If you want a flat drink, try water, that’s my philosophy.

After sharing that nugget, you won’t be surprised that I was fascinated to watch a super American Chemical Society Bytesize Science video that was released today.

The title: A Toast to the Chemistry of Champagne. Specifically, what caught my eye and ear was a segment on the chemistry of how to pour the wine to maximize the bubbles. The podcast is available at www.BytesizeScience.com.

This latest addition to the award-winning Bytesize Science series from the American Chemical Society explains that champagne, unlike other wines, undergoes a second fermentation in the bottle to trap carbon dioxide gas, which dissolves into the wine and forms the fabled bubbles in the bubbly. More than 600 different chemical compounds join carbon dioxide in champagne, each lending its own unique quality to the aroma and flavor of champagne.

But even with all of that flavor, champagne would be just another white wine without those tiny bubbles. As the bubbles ascend the length of a glass in tiny trains, they drag along molecules of those 600 flavor and aroma substances. They literally explode out of the surface as the bubbles burst, tickling the nose and stimulating the senses.

Some accounts say that a French Benedictine monk named Dom Pierre Pérignon discovered champagne in the mid-1600s, and became namesake for the famous champagne cuvée, Dom Pérignon.

The video points out that early champagne makers had a tough time with that second fermentation. Some bottles wound up with no bubbles at all. Others got too much carbon dioxide, and exploded under the enormous pressure, wasting the precious vintage.

So what’s the best way to pour a glass of bubbly and maximize the sensory experience?

For an answer, the video turns to a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, one of more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific journals published by the ACS. Pouring champagne on an angle retains up to twice as much carbon dioxide in the champagne when compared to pouring down the middle of the glass. Those additional bubbles carry out more of the hundreds of flavor compounds in champagne.

Image:Sean Parsons, American Chemical Society

Out darned spot!

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:27:00 -0400

For those of you who know about my notoriously poor memory for names and such, the following short tale will seem like a fabrication, but I assure you it’s not. Actually, the tale itself isn’t so remarkable, but that I remember full details from one day when I was about 10 years old –– now that’s the amazing part!

While at summer camp in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, our group took a trip to nearby Tanglewood, the home of a popular annual summer music festival and an equally renowned jazz festival. On this day, famed conductor Leonard Bernstein, my namesake, was leading a spirited rehearsal. He was giving his troops plenty of not-so-gentle criticism. I remember that. I also remember that I was wearing a blue, striped suit, and when I opened a carton of milk it sprayed all over me. This was not good for my image or the suit.

This kind of beverage explosion has never happened to me since, but through the years, I have been known to inflict stains on a variety of shirts and jackets. And so it is with a great deal of pleasure that I now can report to you a breakthrough in the never-ending war on discolored apparel

Imagine jeans, sweats or socks that clean and de-odorize themselves when hung on a clothesline in the sun or draped on a balcony railing. Scientists are reporting development of a new cotton fabric that does clean itself of stains and bacteria when exposed to ordinary sunlight. Their report appears in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Mingce Long and Deyong Wu say their fabric uses a coating made from a compound of titanium dioxide, the white material used in everything from white paint to foods to sunscreen lotions. Titanium dioxide breaks down dirt and kills microbes when exposed to some types of light. It already has found uses in self-cleaning windows, kitchen and bathroom tiles, odor-free socks and other products.

Self-cleaning cotton fabrics have been made in the past, the authors note, but they self-clean thoroughly only when exposed to ultraviolet rays. So they set out to develop a new cotton fabric that cleans itself when exposed to ordinary sunlight.

Their report describes cotton fabric coated with nanoparticles made from a compound of titanium dioxide and nitrogen. They show that fabric coated with the material removes an orange dye stain when exposed to sunlight. Further dispersing nanoparticles composed of silver and iodine accelerates the discoloration process. The coating remains intact after washing and drying.

For more information go to: http://bit.ly/vBXjHt

Image: iStock

How sweet it is!

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:16:00 -0400

My connection with rubber tires dates back to my childhood, those days before I was old enough to drive. On weekends, my parents and I would go to one of several beaches in Connecticut not too far from our home. In the trunk of our car, next to the picnic basket, was something I loved: a large black inner tube. In those days, car and truck tires had inner tubes, flexible circles of rubber into which you pumped the air.

When we got to the beach, I would grab the tube and run to the ocean. It was my first boat. Actually, it was my only boat. My family never had one. Probably one reason was that my mother never learned to swim and never ventured farther than a few feet into the water.

Jump ahead a number of decades and I am driving my car in New Jersey, and I see what looks like a trillion used tires piled up in a lot beside the highway. As much as I loved those inner tubes, it bothered me to think of the effect that tire disposal might have on the environment. And then, this week, I read an item in the ACS Weekly PressPac that made me smile again…

Motorists may be driving on the world’s first “green” tires within the next few years, as partnerships between tire companies and biotechnology firms make it possible to produce key raw materials for tires from sugar rather than petroleum or rubber trees. Those new bio-based tires — already available as prototypes— are the topic of an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

C&EN Senior Business Editor Melody M. Bomgardner explains that tight supplies and high prices for the natural rubber and synthetic rubber used to make tires — almost 1 billion annually worldwide —are fostering the drive toward renewable, sustainable sources for raw materials. Petroleum, for instance, is the traditional source for raw materials needed to make tires, with a single tire requiring almost 7 gallons of oil. But changes in oil-refining practices have reduced supplies of those raw materials.

The article describes how companies like Goodyear and Michelin have teamed up with biotechnology firms to genetically engineer microbes that produce the key raw materials for rubber from sugar. Goodyear’s partner Genencor, for example, is making microbes that mimic rubber trees’ natural processes to make latex rubber.

Goodyear has already produced prototype tires with rubber made from sugar. Bomgardner explains that companies hope sugar will buffer them against future shortages of natural and synthetic ingredients, with “sweet” tires making a debut within 3-5 years.

For more information go to: http://bit.ly/uL2FZf.

Image: iStock

Here's something to chew on

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:00:00 -0400

My friend Roy is not going to be happy about this. In fact, I, myself, am not very happy about what I’m going to write in the next sentence. My favorite Major League ballpark hot dog is the (drumroll!) Fenway Frank, produced courtesy of the Boston Red Sox. And if that weren’t bad enough, here’s more: I have eaten the fabled Dodger Dog and the Fenway Frank is in another league.

The problem is that I am a lifelong Dodger fan and, even worse, Roy is such a fan that he has an L.A. Dodgers’ website. Boo to me. But I can’t help it. During one of our ACS national meetings in Boston last year a group of us went to a game at Fenway and one bite out that Fenway Frank and I was a goner. What a wonderful smokey flavor! I know virtually all Major League teams have good franks (there’s the Braves’ Georgia Dog, the Rangers’ Big Dog, the Yankee’s yummy Nathan’s Frank and so on). But I have never, ever eaten more than one dog at a game, until Fenway. So Roy, please forgive me.

Meanwhile, away from the game, I always look for low-fat hot dogs and some of them are good, albeit a tad chewy. Well, hope may be on the way for the fan of the low-fat frank.

In part of an effort to replace animal fat in hot dogs, sausages, hamburgers and other foods with healthier fat, scientists are reporting an advance in solving the mystery of why hot dogs develop an unpleasant tough texture when vegetable oils pinch hit for animal fat. A report on their study appears in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Anna M. Herrero and colleagues explain that some brands of sausage (frankfurters) have been reformulated with olive oil-in-water emulsion as a source of more healthful fat. With consumers gobbling up tens of billions of hot dogs annually, and the typical frankfurter packing 80 percent of its calories from fat, hot dogs have become a prime candidate for reformulation.

Some hot dogs reformulated with vegetable oil develop an unpleasant chewy texture. Herrero’s team set out to uncover the chemistry behind that change with an eye to guiding food companies to optimize low-fat sausage manufacture.

Using a laboratory instrument called an infrared spectrometer (IR spectrometer) they verified that sausages made with heart-healthy olive oil-in-water emulsion stabilized with casein were slightly tougher. However, when frankfurters were elaborated with an emulsion stabilized with a combination of casein and microbial transglutaminase (to help the oil blend in better) the sausage became much tougher.

The IR spectrometer revealed that the proteins and fats in low-fat cooked derivates formulated with this stabilizer system as animal fat replacer showed weak lipid-protein interactions, which implies more physical entrapment of the emulsion within the meat matrix. This fact could explain why those sausages are tougher than the others.

For more information go to: http://bit.ly/va0Tbn.

Image: iStock

The not-so-sweet smell of success?

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:16:00 -0400

Some people think they cause warts (they do not). Others like to enter them in jumping contests. Still others don’t like the feel of them: They are kind of slimy. Kids sometimes like to imitate their sound.

Me, I’ve never had very strong feelings about them one way or another. Sure, they do broadcast that weird croaking noise and they don’t smell too nice, but, in my humble opinion, the frog generally minds its own business. So I can take them or leave them. But something you should read in this week’s ACS PressPac definitely takes these croakers to a whole new level. Trust me on this.

It seems that some of the nastiest smelling creatures on Earth have skin that produces the greatest known variety of anti-bacterial substances that hold promise for becoming new weapons in the battle against antibiotic-resistant infections, scientists are reporting. Their research on amphibians so smelly (like rotten fish, for instance) that scientists term them “odorous frogs” appears in ACS’ Journal of Proteome Research.

Yun Zhang, Wen-Hui Lee and Xinwang Yang explain that scientists long have recognized frogs’ skin as a rich potential source of new antibiotics. Frogs live in warm, wet places where bacteria thrive and have adapted skin that secretes chemicals, known as peptides, to protect themselves from infections. Zhang’s group wanted to identify the specific antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), and the most potent to give scientists clues for developing new antibiotics.

They identified more than 700 of these substances from nine species of odorous frogs and concluded that the AMPs account for almost one-third of all AMPs found in the world, the greatest known diversity of these germ-killing chemicals. Interestingly, some of the AMPs have a dual action, killing bacteria directly and also activating the immune system to assist in the battle.

For more information go to: http://bit.ly/uXCdxa

Image: iStock

Catalyzing a better future (Video)

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 08:22:00 -0400

You can’t get very far these days without catalysts. The tires on busses like the one I rode to work this morning are made with them. So are the molded plastic seats. Even the diesel busses run on is refined with a catalyst. Catalysts jumpstart chemical reactions that would otherwise never work or would work too slowly to be useful and they play a role in making in 90% of all commercially produced products. That includes fuels, plastics, and even medicines.

Catalysts are also helping to make our world more green. I got a reminder about the important but largely unappreciated role of these chemical wonders from watching a new video featuring Jeffrey Bricker, Ph.D. Chemists like Bricker are using catalysts to produce biodegradable products and to reduce the need for ingredients that are potentially toxic. Bricker was awarded the 2011 American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention for his work with catalysts, which he has used to make detergents that break down in the environment, to refine fuel without creating undesirable chemical byproducts and much more.

Watch Bricker explain the power of catalysts in this episode of Prized Science and see how the science behind ACS awards impacts your life.

It all comes out in the wash

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:53:00 -0400

This memory has so many cobwebs on it that I can’t remember what the device was called. It was either a washboard or a washing board. Or maybe it even was called something else. (Jumping back to the present, I just checked online and it was a washboard.)

What I do picture clearly is my mother soaping up a shirt and vigorously scrubbing it against this board with metal ridges on it. It made a unique noise. She spent many hours slapping that board until we got our first washing machine.

Years later, even after we got our first clothes dryer, she preferred to hang our laundry on a clothesline in the backyard. I remember bringing frozen shirts into the dryer on more than one occasion.

The invention of the washing machine was a God-send for my mother and women everywhere, but now, eons later, there is a small problem with these ever-evolving devices.

It seems that household washing machines appear to be a major source of so-called “microplastic” pollution — bits of polyester and acrylic smaller than the head of a pin — that scientists now have detected on ocean shorelines worldwide. Their report describing this potentially harmful material was published in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Mark Browne and colleagues explain that the accumulation of microplastic debris in marine environments has raised health and safety concerns. The bits of plastic contain potentially harmful ingredients which go into the bodies of animals and could be transferred to people who consume fish. Ingested microplastic can transfer and persist into their cells for months.

How big is the problem of microplastic contamination? Where are these materials coming from? To answer those questions, the scientists looked for microplastic contamination along 18 coasts around the world and did some detective work to track down a likely source of this contamination.

They found more microplastic on shores in densely populated areas, and identified an important source — wastewater from household washing machines. They point out that more than 1,900 fibers can rinse off of a single garment during a wash cycle, and these fibers look just like the microplastic debris on shorelines.

The problem, they say, is likely to intensify in the future, and the report suggests solutions:

“Designers of clothing and washing machines should consider the need to reduce the release of fibers into wastewater and research is needed to develop methods for removing microplastic from sewage.”

For more information go to: http://bit.ly/vJ92Em

Image: iStock

Tears of joy

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:58:00 -0400

I’ve never been a big fan of the needle-in-the-arm inoculation, but it never really bothers me. Likewise, I never have had a problem donating blood or giving a sample to the lab. But when it comes to that simple pricking of the finger for certain blood tests, that’s where we get into uncomfortable territory.

It’s not that I feel some intense pain; it’s just a slightly unpleasant experience for me. A few times I’ve had the health professional take a sample from my ear lobe, but that wasn’t a great improvement. Through the years, I have had a special kinship with diabetics, who have had to experience daily needle-pricking for their lifetimes. And whenever I hear about a breakthrough in the blood-testing process for them, I am very happy.

This week, in reading an ACS PressPac item about the subject, I was overjoyed.

Scientists are reporting development and successful laboratory testing of an electrochemical sensor device that has the potential to measure blood sugar levels from tears instead of blood — an advance that could save the world’s 350 million diabetes patients the discomfort of pricking their fingers for droplets of blood used in traditional blood sugar tests. Their report appears in ACS’ journal Analytical Chemistry.

Mark Meyerhoff and colleagues explain that about 5 percent of the world’s population (and about 26 million people in the U.S. alone) have diabetes. The disease is a fast-growing public health problem because of a sharp global increase in obesity, which makes people susceptible to developing type 2 diabetes. People with diabetes must monitor their blood glucose levels several times a day to make sure they are within a safe range.

Current handheld glucose meters require a drop of blood, which patients draw by pricking their fingers with a small pin or lancet. However, some patients regard that pinprick as painful enough to discourage regular testing. That’s why Meyerhoff’s team is working to develop a new, pain-free device that can use tear glucose levels as an accurate reflection of blood sugar levels.

Tests of their approach in laboratory rabbits, used as surrogates for humans in such experiments, showed that levels of glucose in tears track the amounts of glucose in the blood. “Thus, it may be possible to measure tear glucose levels multiple times per day to monitor blood glucose changes without the potential pain from the repeated invasive blood drawing method,” say the researchers.

For more information go to: http://bit.ly/v4hDbI

Image: iStock

An ounce of prevention

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:06:00 -0400

I had a flu shot about five minutes ago and it was amazing. I didn’t even feel the touch of the needle. Sitting in my office afterwards, I had a flashback to a hot day in basic training in Texas many years ago. We had been walking in the 100-degree heat for about 20 minutes and finally approached the infirmary, where we were to get a series of inoculations. Sitting under a tree, bent over, was a man from another unit whom many of us knew.

“Whoa, are you O.K.?” I asked him. “What are they giving us today, that nasty plague shot?”

He looked up at me and smiled a little. “I don’t know, when I got one look at that needle, I fainted,” he said.

We’ve come a long way from those days when it comes to preventive medicine, thank goodness, and now there’s a neat breakthrough that surely won’t hurt anyone.

With flu season just around the corner, scientists are reporting development of a new material for the fiber in face masks, air conditioning filters and air cleaning filters that captures influenza viruses before they can get into people’s eyes, noses and mouths and cause infection. The report on the fiber appears in ACS’ journal Biomacromolecules.

Xuebing Li, Peixing Wu and colleagues explain that in an average year, influenza kills almost 300,000 people and sickens millions more worldwide. The constant emergence of new strains of virus that shrug off vaccines and anti-influenza medications has led to an urgent need for new ways of battling this modern-day scourge. So Li, Wu and colleagues sought a new approach, using a substance termed chitosan made from ground shrimp shells.

The scientists combined chitosan with substances that the flu virus attaches to in order to infect cells. They found that this new version of chitosan ideal for attaching to fibers of face masks and air filters was highly effective in capturing flu virus. The material could become an important addition to vaccinations, anti-influenza medications, and other measures in battling flu, they suggest.

For more information go to: http://bit.ly/vZj26Y.

Image: iStock

On the tip of your tongue

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:32:00 -0400

There’s no accounting for people’s taste when it comes to food. Some like thin, greasy burgers fried on a restaurant grill. Others of us like thick, juicy burgers broiled to perfection over a fire, gas or otherwise.

Some of us love a wide variety of spices from rosemary, sage and thyme to Jamaican curry and even turmeric. On the other hand, someone I know, who will remain nameless, is repelled by virtually all but the most basic spices. Salt and pepper generally will do for this person.

I’ve just read that individual taste not only depends on what kind of taste buds you have in your tongue, but what your emotional state might be. And now, after digesting this week’s ACS PressPac, I’ve learned even more about taste: There’s something new and exciting going on with the tongue and it’s not the one inside your mouth.

The "electronic nose," which detects odors, has a companion among emerging futuristic "e-sensing" devices intended to replace abilities that once were strictly human-and-animal-only.

It is a "magnetic tongue" — a method used to "taste" food and identify ingredients that people describe as sweet, bitter, sour, etc. A report on use of the method to taste canned tomatoes appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Antonio Randazzo, Anders Malmendal, Ettore Novellino and colleagues explain that sensing the odor and flavor of food is a very complex process. It depends not only on the combination of ingredients in the food, but also on the taster’s emotional state. Trained taste testers eliminate some of the variation, but food processors need more objective ways to measure the sensory descriptor of their products.

That’s where electronic sensing technologies, like E-noses, come into play. However, current instruments can only analyze certain food components and require very specific sample preparation. To overcome these shortcomings, Randazzo and Malmendal's team turned to nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) to test its abilities as "a magnetic tongue."

For more information go to: http://bit.ly/vLti6S.

Image: iStock