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Why Are Leaves Green?

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/user/minuteearth?feature=watch

ACS Breakthrough Science: A Drug to Affect Cocaine Addiction

Authors of research published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience discuss how two drug molecules combined to create a single medication could lead to an effective treatment for cocaine addiction.

Credit: American Chemical Society

World Water Day 2013

Friday, March 22

World Water Day 2013 

In reflection of the UN declaration of 2013 as International Year of Water Cooperation, this year’s World Water Day, which will take place on 22 March 2013, will be dedicated to water cooperation. Therefore, UN-Water has called upon UNESCO to lead the 2013 United Nations International Year on Water Cooperation, in particular because of the Organization’s unique multidisciplinary approach which blends the natural and social sciences, education, culture and communication. Read more

Credit: http://www.unwater.org/

 

Flashing Fish Brains Filmed in Action

Credit: http://www.nature.com (Article published on 18/03/2013)

Microwave Ivory Soap - Cool Science Experiment

Superheating of Water (Mythbusters)

QEprize-2013

• Louis Pouzin, Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Tim Berners Lee and Marc Andreessen are the first winners of the QEPrize.
• The Internet and the WWW is an engineering achievement that has changed the direction of the world. The Internet and www led to a communications revolution of unprecedented power and impact.
• Today a third of the world’s 7 billion population use the internet and estimates are that it carries 330 Petabytes of data per year. This is enough to transfer every character ever written in every book ever published twenty times over.
• The first QE Prize for Engineering was awarded to five people who made major contributions to the development of the internet and the WWW: Louis Pouzin, Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreesen each played a significant part in the development of the technology.



Robert Kahn (left) and Loui Pouzin (right)

• Louis Pouzin, Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf made seminal contributions to the protocols (or standards) that together make up the fundamental architecture of the Internet.
 

Credit: http://www.qeprize.org

Reimer-Tiemann Reaction

The Reimer-Tiemann reaction is an organic reaction used to convert a phenol to an o-hydroxy benzalde-hyde using chloroform, a base, and acid work-up. 

The mechanism begins with abstraction of the proton from chloroform with the base to form a trichlorocarbanion which spontaneously loses a chloride ion to form a neutral dichlorocarbene.  

The base also deprotonates the phenol reagent which then attacks the carbene. 

A series of steps and a final acid work-up result in the o-hydroxy benzaldehyde product. For more click here.

Image Credit: chemistry.tutorvista.com

Credit: http://www.name-reaction.com/reimer-tiemann-reaction

Amazing Water & Sound Experiment

18-Crown-6

• 18-Crown-6 is an organic compound with the formula [C₂H₄O]₆ and the IUPAC name of 1,4,7,10,13,16-hexaoxacyclooctadecane. 
• It is a white, hygroscopic crystalline solid with a low melting point. 
• Like other crown ethers, 18-crown-6 functions as a ligand for some metal cations with a particular affinity for potassium cations (binding constant in methanol: 10⁶M^-1). 
• The synthesis of the crown ethers led to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Charles J. Pedersen.
• Crown ethers are used in the laboratory as phase transfer catalysts. 
• In general however it is not widely used; cheaper and more versatile phase transfer catalysts are known. 
• In the presence of 18-crown-6, potassium permanganate dissolves in benzene giving the so-called "purple benzene", which can be used to oxidize diverse organic compounds. 
• More details are here. 

Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18-Crown-6

Foundations of Carbon-Based Life Leave Little Room for Error

Foundations of Carbon-Based Life Leave Little Room for Error

Life as we know it is based upon the elements of carbon and oxygen. Now a team of physicists, including one from North Carolina State University, is looking at the conditions necessary to the formation of those two elements in the universe. They’ve found that when it comes to supporting life, the universe leaves very little margin for error.

Light quark mass determines carbon and oxygen production and the viability of carbon-based life. Image credit: Dean Lee. Earth and Mercury images from NASA.

Albert Einstein Birthday

1879 - Albert Einstein was born. Einstein was a German physicist who was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the photoelectric effect. He is also known for his general theory of relativity which ties the forces of gravity, electricity and magnetism together.

 For more go through here.

Organometallic Compounds

Compounds that contain a metal-carbon bond, R-M, are known as "organometallic" compounds.

• Organometallic compounds of Li, Mg (Grignard reagents) are amongst some of the most important organic reagents.

• Many other metals have been utilised, for example Na, Cu and Zn.

• Organometallic compounds provide a source of nucleophilic carbon atoms which can react with electrophilic carbon to form a new carbon-carbon bond. This is very important for the synthesis of complex molecules from simple starting materials.

• To rationalise the general reactivity of organometallics it is convenient to view them as ionic, so R-M = R-M+

• The most important reactions is this chapter are the reactions of organolithiums, RLi, and Grignard reagents, RMgX, with the carbonyl groups in aldehydes, ketones and esters to give alcohols. However, we will also look at some useful reactions involving Cu, Zn and Hg (mercury).

 For more details click here.

 Credit: Dr. Ian Hunt, Department of Chemistry, University of Calgary

Ultra-High-Speed Optical Communications Link Sets New Power Efficiency Record

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2013—Next week, leaders from telecom, datacom and computing will convene for the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC)—the premier optical communications event where experts from industry and academia share their results, experiences, and insights on the future of hot topic areas such as cloud and datacenter networking, software-defined networks, photonic integration and more. More than 12,000 attendees and an exhibit with 550 companies are expected. For more details click here.

Optical link test chips, including transmitter (TX) circuits, laser diodes, photo diode, and receiver (RX) circuits. (Credit: Image courtesy IBM)

Sodium Chloride Solution Formation

 


Credit: http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/chemistry/essentialchemistry

Killing Cancer Cells With Acid Reflux

A University of Central Florida chemist has come up with a unique way to kill certain cancer cells – give them acid reflux.

Chemistry professor Kevin Belfield used a special salt to make cancer cells more acidic – similar to the way greasy foods cause acid reflux in some people. He used a light-activated, acid-generating molecule to make the cells more acidic when exposed to specific wavelengths of light, which in turn kills the bad cells. The surrounding healthy cells stay intact.

Kevin Belfield works in his lab at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. (Credit: University of Central Florida)

Credit: http://today.ucf.edu

Reaction Mechanism Animation

Credit: http://cd1.edb.hkedcity.net

Atomic Line Spectrum

 
Credit: http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/chemistry/essentialchemistry

Millikan Oil drop Experiment

 

Credit: http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/chemistry/essentialchemistry

First Documented Case of Child Cured of HIV

NEW YORK, March 3, 2013 – Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University today described the first documented case of a child being cured of HIV. The landmark findings were announced at the 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta, GA.

For more details click here.

Credit: http://www.amfar.org

Introduction to Rearrangement Reactions

Rearrangement reactions are really interesting. They can accompany many of the reactions we’ve previously covered such as substitution, addition, and elimination reactions. In fact, if you don’t look closely, sometimes you can miss the fact that a rearrangement reaction has occurred. Let’s look at a substitution reaction first. For more details click here.

Credit: http://www.masterorganicchemistry.com

Alien Planet Forming

 

"So far, planet formation has mostly been a topic tackled by computer simulations," astronomer Sascha Quanz of ETH Zurich in Switzerland, leader of the research team, said in a statement. "If our discovery is indeed a forming planet, then for the first time scientists will be able to study the planet formation process and the interaction of a forming planet and its natal environment empirically at a very early stage." 

Credit: http://www.space.com 

Solvay Process

 

For more click here.

Credit: http://www.chem.tamu.edu