SCIENCE – Page 9

Clever chemistry turns ordinary bricks into electricity storage devices

12Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE

Clever chemistry turns ordinary bricks into electricity storage devices

The big idea In my synthetic chemistry lab, we have worked out how to convert the red pigment in common bricks into a plastic that conducts electricity, and this process enabled us to turn bricks into electricity storage devices. These brick supercapacitors could be connected to solar panels to store rechargeable energy. Supercapacitors store electric charge, in contrast to batteries, which store chemical energy. Brick’s porous structure is ideal for storing energy because pores give brick more surface area than solid materials have, and the greater the surface area the more electricity a supercapacitor material can hold. Bricks are red because the clay they’re made from contains iron oxide, better known as rust, which is also important in our process. We fill the pores in bricks with an...

What is ammonium nitrate, the chemical that exploded in Beirut?

5Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE

What is ammonium nitrate, the chemical that exploded in Beirut?

The Lebanese capital Beirut was rocked on Tuesday evening local time by an explosion that has killed at least 78 people and injured thousands more. The country’s prime minister Hassan Diab said the blast was caused by around 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored near the city’s cargo port. Video footage appears to show a fire burning nearby before the blast. Ammonium nitrate has the chemical formula NH₄NO₃. Produced as small porous pellets, or “prills”, it’s one of the world’s most widely used fertilisers. It is also the main component in many types of mining explosives, where it’s mixed with fuel oil and detonated by an explosive charge. For an industrial ammonium nitrate disaster to occur, a lot needs to go wrong. Tragically, this seems to have been the case in Beirut. What could h...

NASA’s big move to search for life on Mars – and to bring rocks home

29Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE

NASA’s big move to search for life on Mars – and to bring rocks home

This summer, NASA is taking the next giant leap in the search for signs of life beyond Earth. On July 30, if the weather in Florida holds, NASA will launch its most sophisticated and ambitious spacecraft to Mars: the aptly named Perseverance rover. This will be the third launch to Mars this month, following the UAE’s Hope and China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft. Perseverance will look for signatures of ancient life preserved in Mars rocks. And, for the first time, this rover will collect rock samples that will be brought back to Earth, where they can be scrutinized in laboratories for decades to come. Mars is one the few destinations in the Solar System that has had conditions suitable for life as we know it. There is a chance that Perseverance will collect the sample from Mars that answers the...

27Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE

Science elicits hope in Americans – its positive brand doesn’t need to be partisan

Harley-Davidson is one of the most iconic brands in the world. Harley-Davidson, however, doesn’t sell motorcycles – it sells a lifestyle. Look at any Harley-Davidson advertisement and you will see someone riding the open road. The Harley-Davidson brand is about freedom. Attitude. Living by your own rules. A brand is the unspoken starting point when you first encounter any object, person or idea. It’s the emotional, sensory and cognitive reflex that shapes how subsequent information is gauged. A key to successful marketing, therefore, is understanding that starting point. By the same token, effective science communication depends on understanding the factors that influence public perceptions of science so that those doing the communicating – such as the research community, health professi...

Why hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine don’t block coronavirus infection of human lung cells

24Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE

Why hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine don’t block coronavirus infection of human lung cells

The big idea A paper came out in Nature on July 22 that further underscores earlier studies that show that neither the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine nor chloroquine prevents SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – from replicating in lung cells. Most Americans probably remember that hydroxychloroquine became the focus of numerous clinical trials following the president’s statement that it could be a “game changer.” At the time, he appeared to base this statement on anecdotal stories, as well as a few early and very limited studies that hydroxychloroquine seemed to help patients with COVID-19 recover. Many in the antiviral field, including myself, questioned the validity of both, and in fact, one of the papers was later disparaged by the scientific society and the editor of the jo...

A new anti-platelet drug shows potential for treating blood vessel clots in heart attacks, strokes and, possibly, COVID-19

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS, SCIENCE

A new anti-platelet drug shows potential for treating blood vessel clots in heart attacks, strokes and, possibly, COVID-19

Clots obstruct blood vessels and can be deadly. They cause heart attack, stroke and are also a major problem in severe cases of COVID-19 patients. Treating clots with available drugs, however, can cause blood vessel leaking and bleeding, which can also be deadly in some circumstances. To address this problem, my colleagues and I have engineered a new anti-platelet drug designed to prevent vessel-blocking blood clots without causing bleeding. This drug shows promise in treating heart attack and may also be useful for other severe conditions caused by clots, such as stroke and COVID-19 patients with clots and blood vessel leaks. As a scientist studying the biology of blood cells and vessels, I am particularly interested in understanding how platelets – a kind of blood cells important in cl...

A restart of nuclear testing offers little scientific value to the US and would benefit other countries

15Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE

A restart of nuclear testing offers little scientific value to the US and would benefit other countries

July 15, 2020 marks 75 years since the detonation of the first nuclear bomb. The Trinity Test, in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert, proved that the design for the Nagasaki Bomb worked and started the nuclear era. The U.S. tested nuclear bombs for decades. But at the end of the Cold War in 1992, the U.S. government imposed a moratorium on U.S. testing. This was strengthened by the Clinton administration’s decision to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Although the Senate never ratified the treaty and it never entered into force, all 184 countries that signed the test ban, including the U.S., have followed its rules. But in recent weeks, the Trump administration and Congress have begun debating whether to restart active testing of nuclear weapons on U.S. soil. Some cons...

The UAE’s Mars mission seeks to bring Hope to more places than the red planet

13Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE

The UAE’s Mars mission seeks to bring Hope to more places than the red planet

On July 14, a new Mars-bound spacecraft will launch from Japan. While several Mars missions are planned to launch over the next month, what makes this different is who’s launching it: the United Arab Emirates. Though new to space exploration, the UAE has set high goals for the probe, named Hope. The mission aims to further study the climate of Mars, but Omran Sharaf, mission lead, also says, “It’s a means for a bigger goal: to expedite the development in our educational sector, academic sector.” With space exploration usually pursued by actors like the United States, Russia, China, the European Space Agency and more recently, India, Hope will be the first mission to the red planet from a Middle Eastern country. As a space policy expert, I believe Hope is also significant in two other way...

Synthetic odors created by activating brain cells help neuroscientists understand how smell works

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE, VIDEO REELS

Synthetic odors created by activating brain cells help neuroscientists understand how smell works

When you experience something with your senses, it evokes complex patterns of activity in your brain. One important goal in neuroscience is to decipher how these neural patterns drive the sensory experience. For example, can the smell of chocolate be represented by a single brain cell, groups of cells firing all at the same time or cells firing in some precise symphony? The answers to these questions will lead to a broader understanding of how our brains represent the external world. They also have implications for treating disorders where the brain fails in representing the external world: for example, in the loss of sight of smell. To understand how the brain drives sensory experience, my colleagues and I focus on the sense of smell in mice. We directly control a mouse’s neural activit...

Retractions and controversies over coronavirus research show that the process of science is working as it should

6Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE

Retractions and controversies over coronavirus research show that the process of science is working as it should

Several high-profile papers on COVID-19 research have come under fire from people in the scientific community in recent weeks. Two articles addressing the safety of certain drugs when taken by COVID-19 patients were retracted, and researchers are calling for the retraction of a third paper that evaluated behaviors that mitigate coronavirus transmission. Some people are viewing the retractions as an indictment of the scientific process. Certainly, the overturning of these papers is bad news, and there is plenty of blame to go around. But despite these short-term setbacks, the scrutiny and subsequent correction of the papers actually show that science is working. Reporting of the pandemic is allowing people to see, many for the first time, the messy business of scientific progress. Scienti...