Movers and Shakers
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Highly Charged
Current battery technologies are holding back consumer electronics, electric mobility and the more widespread use of renewable energy. There is no shortage of new ideas, but very few make it to mass production, Michael Gross reports
Who knows the secrets of smell?
Smell is all to do with sex – at least for insects and mammals. They have highly developed ways of sending out sexual messages, and their would-be mates have equally sophisticated methods of detecting them. Both the broadcasting and the detecting involve chemistry and a host of various molecules.
Love Canal’s lesson: you’re on your own
Love Canal was a subdivision of Niagara Falls, New York (state). The canal – actually a ditch about 5 m deep, a remnant of a 19th-century industrial boondoggle – was used in the 1940s-50s to dispose hazardous wastes from chemicals production. Niagara Falls’ local government, despite repeated warnings from the chemicals’ manufacturer, soon thereafter decided to build a residential neighbourhood, right on top of the hazardous wastes.
A topsy turvy world
Dennis Rouvray, The author of this book, Stuart Kauffman, is an American polymath who has engaged with a vast repertoire of scientific themes, ranging from evolutionary biology, through non-equilibrium chemical reaction networks, to the role of quantum mechanics in living organisms.
Health in your hands
Researchers have developed a non-invasive method for screening for osteoporosis using the sensors in a smartphone, they reported at AAAS meeting in Boston in February. The technology exploits motion sensors called accelerometers that switch mobile phones from landscape to portrait mode when tilted on its side.
Drugs, GMOs and animals
When is a drug not a drug? Answer: When it’s a gene edited plant, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). But not, apparently, when it’s a gene edited animal, says the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Priority pathogens list
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued a call to action to develop new antibiotics with its first ever list of antibiotic-resistant ‘priority pathogens’. This catalogue of 12 families of bacteria that pose the greatest threat to human health is intended to guide R&D priorities.
More of the same
British chemical major ICI used to be regarded as a bellwether for the UK economy. If ICI was going well, this meant the UK economy was looking good. Germany’s BASF has been seen by many as a similar bellwether – if not entirely for the European economy, then certainly for the European chemical industry.