Crystals And Catalysts

Every blog name/title has a story behind it; some maybe more interesting than others.  After I decided that I wanted to start a science website, I had to choose a name. At the time, I had hopes that my blog would be more chemistry driven but I also chose a title that is mixed - just like Medicinal Chemistry (what I did my Bsc in).   A couple of ideas I had for my blog name were: protons & pyrimidines neutrons & nucleotides electrons & enzymes as sweet as glucose sweeter than glucose chemistry crystals crystals of chemistry and finally: crystals & catalysts The name  Crystals and Catalysts  was derived from two things:  Crystals , from the most common product chemists make in the laboratory and also the most intriguing, and  Catalysts  are the substances that encourage reactions to happen. 

Fact: The radioactive potassium-40 emits about 15 articles of antimatter a day. So what, exactly, is antimatter? Antimatter is matter consisting of elementary particles which are the antiparticles of those making up normal matter. The person who discovered antimatter was the English Physicist Paul Dirac (1902-1984). Dirac derived an equation that explains how really small and really fast things behave, such as electrons travelling near the speed of light. Later, Dirac realised that not only did his equation & theory discover the behaviour of very tiny things, he also discovered something new to the growing world of science; anti-particles. Paul Dirac continued to assert that every particle has a mirror-image particle with nearly identical properties, except for an opposite electrical charge.  Similar to the way protons, neutrons and electrons combine to form atoms and matter, antiprotons, antineutrons and anti-electrons (called positrons) combine to form anti-atoms and an

A new molecule making machine could imitate 3-D printing, making it fast, flexible and accessible to everyone. This machine can assemble small, complex molecules at the click of a mouse. This automated process has the potential to greatly speed up and enable new drug development and other technologies that rely on small molecules. A team of chemists led by Martin D. Burke, at University of Illinois a team led by Martin D. Burke built the machine to imitate 3-D printer at a molecular level. They described the technology in a paper featured on the cover of the March 13 issue of Science. "Small molecules" are a specific class of complex, compact chemical structures found throughout nature. They are very important in medicine -- most medications available now are small molecules -- as well as in biology as probes to uncover the inner workings of cells and tissues. But small molecules are also very difficult to produce in a laboratory, and it takes a highly experienced che

Pineapple is almost everyone's favorite fruit and favorite juice. but not only is it good to consume, its also great for chemical reactions and green chemistry; cleaner ways to make pharmaceutical products.  An efficient and greener synthesis of a series of dihydropyrimidinone (DHPMs) derivatives were accomplished via three-component one-pot cyclocondensation between substituted aryl aldehydes, diketone/ke- toester and urea. This solvent free approach is totally nonpolluting having several advantages such as shorter reaction time, mild reaction conditions, simple workup and reduced environmental impact.

(( I am very proud to announce my very first guest post on GradJobs UK!! Be sure to check it out and tell me what you think!  You can find it here: GradJobs UK Blog: Looking after your health after graduation )) [UPDATE: The Gradjobs blog has since been removed and some posts moved to GradsCorner on Gradjobs UK website. So I have posted my guest post here for everyone to read.] Looking after your health after graduation. Stress. The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about stress is a person tearing their hair out and screaming in despair.  After the graduation ceremony graduates start to face the “real world”, independence and the dreaded question: “what are you going to do next?” Since this is the biggest transition in your life it’s definitely going to be the most stressful one. It’s really easy to get caught up in the moment and give in to stress, particularly in today’s tumultuous economy with hardly any job opportunities. Anxiety can overwhelm you

Dark chocolate has many health benefits and one health benefit is that it can lower blood pressure, although there has been research on this before, a new study goes into studying its effect on endothelial cells (responsible for vasoconstriction of blood vessels). At least  30% of the English population have blood pressure and most of them might not even know they have it and have not yet been diagnosed.   The endothelial cells are vital for cardiovascular function and the dysfunction of endothelial cells is one of the most precocious events in atherosclerotic process. Which is the main reason why this study was carried out on endothelial cells and taking the measurement of the  flow-mediated dilation (FMD). The FMD measurement can be seen as a predictor   of the incidence of cardiovascular events in adults with no prior cardiovascular diseases (CVD). The Method  A randomized and controlled trail was carried out, using 30 healthy young individuals, placed into 2 group