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Sulfur Night-Vision Goggles

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140417192004.htm

Sulfur is one of the elements we have studied in the periodic table. Its atomic number is 16, and it has an atomic mass of about 32. I could continue to list all the different properties sulfur as an element has by referencing its position on the periodic table as proof, but I didn’t know much about its practical applications before reading this article. It turns out that sulfur is produced when fossil fuels are refined to be used by humans. This sulfur that is left over can be turned into cheap, lightweight, plastic lenses for infrared devices. These lenses can then be built into night-vision goggles, allowing a person to create thermal images.

This is the first time that scientists have been able to create a polymer material that can be used for quality thermal imaging. These lenses could potentially be used in handheld cameras for home energy audits, night-vision goggles, perimeter surveillance systems, and other remote-sensing applications. Due to their structure and composition, these new lenses are still inexpensive, lightweight, and malleable. They can be used inside detectors that sense carbon dioxide, which in turn allows them to become part of gas detectors that can adjust cooling and heating levels.

The new plastic is transparent to wavelengths of light in the mid-infrared range of 3 to 5 microns, a range that fits many applications in the aerospace and defense industries. As we learned in chemistry, infrared has a wavelength that is longer than that of visible light. Not only did this article refresh my understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum and periodic table rules, it also explained real-life applications of an element I had not studied in depth before.

New Nanoparticles can Deliver Drugs

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140415125542.htm

The polymer chains can be found in blue, doxorubicin is red, the small green particles are camptothecin, and the larger green core contains cisplatin.

Targeting tumors still proves to be a difficult task for scientists. However, delivering chemotherapy drugs in nanoparticles form could help reduce side effects by targeting the drugs directly to the tumors. In the past few years, scientists have been able to design particles that can carry one or two chemotherapy drugs to target cells, but it has been very hard to design particles that are capable of carrying any more than those few. Recently, chemists from MIT have designed a new kind of nanoparticles that can hold three or more different drugs. They believe that this is the first example of a nanoparticle that can carry a ratio of three drugs and release these drugs in response to three distinct triggering mechanisms. Since these types of nanoparticles can possibly carry more than just three types of drugs, researchers could develop new types of treatments that could kill cancer cells without the traditional side effects of chemotherapy. This method has begun being tested on animals.

Before this idea, scientists would either insert a drug inside a nanoparticle or attach it to the outside. However, even a combination of these two methods still limited scientist to only two types of drugs that could be transported at once. To overcome this obstacle, instead of building the nanoparticle and then attaching the drug molecules, scientists created building blocks that contain the drug. These blocks could then be joined in specific structures that allow the scientist to control the amount of drug being administered. Each one of these building blocks is made up of three parts: the drug molecule, a linking unit, and a chain of polyethylene glycol (PEG).

To test the method, researchers created particles that carry cisplatin, doxorubicin, and camptothecin, which can be used alone or in conjunction to treat ovarian cancer. The nanoparticles carry the three drugs in specific ratios that can be tolerated by the body, and each drug is released using its own mechanism. Cisplatin is released once the particles enters the cell since the bond holding the drug to the particle is broken once it is exposed to glutathione in the cell. Camptothecin is also let go when it comes into contact with cellular enzymes called esterases. Doxorubicin can only be released when ultraviolet light is shines on it. This new method utilizes the chemical structure of the actual nanoparticles and the chemical reactions between the drugs and their outside environment to potentially create a new method for treating types of cancer.

Tin Selenide

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140417124519.htm

In our growing industrial world today, one problem we have to face on a daily basis is the excessive waste of energy that is harming the environment. One strategy people have tried advocating for is to stop wasting energy when producing it. In coal-fired power plants or several means of transportation, nearly two-thirds of energy input is lost as waste heat. Now, however, researchers from Northwestern University have discovered a new material that can convert waste heat to useful electricity. It was found that the crystal form of the chemical compound tin selenide conducts heat so poorly due to its lattice structure that it is the most efficient thermoelectric material known. Even though it is a poor conductor of heat, it can still conduct electricity very well.

One place where this new material can potentially work is the automobile industry. Since a large portion of gasoline’s potential energy is released through a car’s tailpipe, the use of tin selenide can lessen the amount of energy wasted in the form of heat. Another industry is the heavy manufacturing industry, which includes glass and brick making, refineries, and coal- and gas- fired power plants. Tin selenide, as we know from chemistry, is really the element tin chemically bonded with the element selenium. These elements are both nonmetals, so the bond they form is a covalent bond.

To discover that tin selenide had a low conductivity of heat, a researcher grew crystals of tin selenide and measured the crystal in three directions, which means along each axis. Along what they called the a axis, they found that thermal conductivity was extremely low. They were then, no doubt, surprised to notice similar results along the other axes. The reason for this is that the bonds between some atoms in the compound are very weak. As we learned in chemistry, this leads to very soft, floppy atomic vibrations. These weak vibrations then prevent the materials from conducting heat. It is because of the structure of the chemical compound that makes it such a poor conductor of heat.

Genetically Modified Tomatoes

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140403131942.htm

Altering the genetic language of any organism can be considered quite difficult by the common person. Yet, scientists technically do this every day to a plethora of foods people consume on a daily basis. The fruits, vegetables, or other food products that are genetically modified have recently raised several questions about their safety. People questions whether these manipulations cause unintended changes in food quality or composition. To test whether genetically modified organisms are really harmful when consumed, researchers from Cornell University extracted about 1,000 biochemicals called metabolites from the fruit of GM tomatoes. These metabolites were analyzed and compared to the physiology of normal tomatoes. Although many may believe that there is a large difference between GM tomatoes and normal tomatoes, scientists found very little difference between the samples they tested. On the contrary, they found that the modified tomatoes actually fit within the normal range of biochemical diversity that is exhibited by tomatoes.

The reason modified tomatoes and ordinary ones came out to be so similar was because of how many restrictions are already placed on developers of GM crops. The FDA requires that they compare several key nutritional compounds in GM varieties relative to their non-GM parents. This process allows them to catch instances where genetic manipulation may have had an impact on the appearance or nutritional quality of the fruit.

The process by which the study extracted the metabolites and analyzed them was very expensive. So much that it would be unrealistic to believe it is ready to be introduced to the public as an official safety assessment. Despite this restriction due to price, the method used can also be applied to any type of plant or crop a scientists wishes to try. Although the chemistry used in this process may involve confusing concepts or intricate machinery, without it, scientists would have never been able to determine so much about genetically modified fruits, much less create them.

Virus Filter

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140331083738.htm

A new kind of filter has recently been created by scientists—not a coffee filter, pool filter, or even a search filter. Researchers at the Division of Nanotechnology and Functional Materials at Uppsala University have developed a paper filter that can remove industrial virus filters. The paper filter is made of 100 percent high purity cellulose nanofibers that come from nature. Virus particles are very small and can be about a thousand times thinner than human hair, yet they are very strong. This allows them to easily attach to biotechnological products and stick very tightly. With the need to remove viruses from equipment in such high demand, scientists need to figure out a cheap and effective way to exterminate these viruses. That is why they turned to cellulose-based products

Cellulose is one of the most common materials used to make filters due to how cheap it is and because it is disposable, inert, and non-toxic. Cellulose is mechanically strong, hydrophilic, stable in wide ranges of pH values, and can withstand sterilization. While normal filter paper used in chemistry has large pores, cellulose is more tightly woven. This new type of paper filter with smaller pores has been a work in progress for a period of ten years. Scientists have studied the properties of high surface area nanocellulose materials to create a filter that does not need to intercept viruses via electrostatic interactions like older filters. Due to their knowledge of the chemical structure of cellulose and the way it interacts when placed in different chemical environments, scientists were able to develop this new kind of cellulose filter paper.

GHB Indicator

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140327100000.htm

A group of researchers from the National University of Singapore has successfully developed the world’s first fluorescent sensor to identify the presence of a drug referred to as GHB. This drug is most commonly used to spike beverages and cause the drinker to become depressed and lose consciousness of their actions. When the new sensor is mixed with a sample of a beverage containing GHB, it will cause the drink to change color in less than thirty seconds.

GHB stands for gamma-hydroxybutyric acid and is a central nervous system depressant that has been used in medicine as a general anaesthetic. However, in the 1990s, it became popular as a drug used to spike drink, and today, it has become one of the most commonly used date rape drugs since it makes the drinker vulnerable to sexual assault. Normally, GHB is odorless, colorless, and slightly salty, so it is almost undetectable when mixed in with a drink. After much searching, scientists under the supervision of Professor Chang discovered a fluorescent compound that changes color significantly when mixed in with GHB. In order to test how intense the GHB Orange (which is the fluorescent dye) with different concentrations of GHB, scientists concocted mixtures with concentrations that varied from GHB-free and GHB-spiked beverages. Just as we studied in chemistry that a color change can be due to a chemical reaction, this mixing of the new dye with GHB is probably a chemical reaction that is causing a color change.

Artificial Solar Energy

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140307133631.htm

As we learned last year in biology, photosynthesis is the process by which plants can convert solar energy into glucose. While this process occurs naturally in plants, a new study by Berkeley Lab shows that about 90 percent of the electrons generated by a hybrid material designed to store solar energy in hydrogen are being stored in the target hydrogen molecules. The new study, led by a group of chemists, analyzed a unique photocathode material that that was developed by catalyzing the production of hydrogen fuel from sunlight. This material has the potential to address the issue of artificial photosynthesis to make renewable solar fuels.

Since the sun is only out during the day, we need a way to use sunlight all night long if solar power use is going to grow. The way we can do this is by storing the sun’s energy in chemical bonds. The way the new research has been able to take steps toward the photocathode is by using the gallium phosphide/cobaloxime hybrid. Gallium phosphide, which we know is a compound with a bonding between the elements gallium and phosphorus, is an absorber of visible light, which enables it to produce more photocurrents than semiconductors that only absorb ultraviolet lights. This makes it useful for harnessing solar energy. The way elements interact in the hybrid that was tested was monitored by the chemists. Their understanding of the types of bonds that were formed between the elements and their ability to name the compounds allowed the chemists to study the interactions of the elements and their application in the real world.

Tungsten Diselenide

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140309150546.htm

At the Vienna University of Technology, ultrathin layers made of Tungsten and Selenium have been created. These very thin layers could potentially be used as flexible, semi-transparent solar cells. Graphene, the material normally known for being very thin, has one atomic layer of carbon atoms. Due to its special structure, graphene has unique electronic properties. This new study has shown that other materials can open up new technological possibilities if they are arranged in one or two atomic layers. Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have just recently succeeded, for the first time, to create a diode made of tungsten diselenide (which, according to the rules for naming compounds, we know means there is one tungsten and two selenium atoms in this compound). Not only could ultrathin flexible solar cells be created but even possibly flexible displays.

In 2013, graphene research was chosen by the EU as a flagship-project and was funded with one billion euros. Graphene has the ability to sustain extreme amounts of mechanical strain and has opto-electronic properties unlike any of its competitors. Since graphene is a light detector, optical signals can be transformed into electric pulses on short timescales. For creating solar cells, however, the electronic states in graphene are not ideal for building solar cells. Instead, scientists chose to use tungsten diselenide because it has one layer of tungsten connected by selenium atoms above and below the layer. The light this material absorbs, unlike graphene, can be converted into electrical energy.

This layer of tungsten is so thin that 95% of the light just passes through while only a tenth of the remaining five percent is really absorbed and converted into electrical energy. While the internal efficiency is very high, stacking the layers can improve their performance as well. As we learned in chemistry, tungsten and selenium are two elements in the periodic table. Tungsten (W) is a transitional metal while selenium (Se) is a nonmetal. The article also named the newly discovered material tungsten diselenide, meaning there is one atom of tungsten and two atoms of selenium. The second element in the name is also a nonmetal that forms anions with a negative charge. Since it is negatively charged, it ends in the name –ide.

Manipulating a Mosquito's DNA

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140309172406.htm

Mosquitoes are a type of bug that everyone loves to hate. We, as humans, think that they will bite anything that has a pulse. Little did we know that these bugs actually have a strategy when choosing the people they will bite. A new research has found that a combination of carbon dioxide, heat, and odor attracts mosquitoes to specific humans.

Scientists have always known that carbon dioxide drives mosquitoes to bite human skin. A genome editing technique has allowed scientists to engineer a mutant version of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is the kind of mosquito that spreads yellow fever. The mutant version was missing a specific gene called as Gr3. This gene codes for carbon dioxide receptors, so without this gene, the mosquitoes are unable to detect the gas.

When the mutant mosquitoes were placed in a chamber that held a plate heated to the temperature of human skin, the mosquitoes were not attracted to the plate unless carbon dioxide was present near it. The mutants were not drawn to the plate at all since their receptors were not working. This proves that there is a connection between something’s chemical makeup and its behavior. By manipulating a mosquito’s chemical makeup, scientists were able to influence the way it reacted in its natural environment. If only they could do this to all mosquitoes.

Toxic Chemicals and the Brain

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140214203938.htm

Toxic chemicals, according to scientists, have led to an increase in neurodevelopmental disabilities among children. These disabilities include autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and dyslexia. A new study conducted by Harvard School of Public Heath and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. A previous study in 2006 found that five industrial chemicals were considered “developmental neurotoxicants,” which means they are chemicals that can cause brain deficits. This new study has identified new chemicals to add to the list, including manganese, fluoride, chlorpyrifos and DDT (pesticides), tetrachloroethylene (a solvent), and the polybrominated diphenyl ethers (flame retardants).

The new study has linked each of these newly-recognized neurotoxicants to negative health effects on children. Manganese is associated with diminished intellectual function and impaired motor skills. Solvents have been linked to hyperactivity and aggressive behavior. Certain kinds of pesticides may cause cognitive delays. Other kinds of toxins can also contribute to a “silent pandemic” of neurobehavioral deficits, which means that intelligence will decrease, behaviors will be disrupted, and societies will be damaged. Yet, despite all these potential harms, neurotoxins have not been regulated in society. It is essential that the use of these chemicals is regulated to protect children’s brain development worldwide. Scientists in this study propose that mandatory tests of industrial chemicals be carried out and new international clearinghouses be constructed worldwide to evaluate and test industrial chemicals.

As we just watched The Wrath of God and discussed how necessary it is for chemicals to be properly labeled, I noticed the connection between this study of neurotoxins and the worldwide epidemic. With more and more children being diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disabilities, it is necessary for the world to take action and regulate the use of chemicals that have elements in them that can negatively affect a person’s health.

History of the Flu

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140216151747.htm

Everyone gets the flu at least once in their life, and we know that people have been contracting it for hundreds of years. A new study, however, that reconstructs the evolutionary tree of flu viruses has now challenged conventional knowledge about this common illness. It also solves some of the mysteries that scientists have been attempting to explain for years. One of the tenets of conventional wisdom that the new study challenges is the idea that the virus moves unidirectionally from wild birds to domestic birds. However, this new study shows that there can be spillover in the other direction. This new research is probably going to change how scientists look at the history of the influenza virus, and the new information can possibly lead to new methods of developing vaccines.

Scientists noticed that in the evolutionary tree of the flu, each of the branches varied in length between horses, humans, flies, and other species of animals. By computerizing the evolutionary tree, the researchers were able to analyze a dataset with more than 80,000 gene sequences representing the diversity of the influenza A virus. Using this new family tree, it was found that several of the strands were not really as long as they were previously thought to be. Using this new information, scientists began to hypothesize that certain strands had undergone a great deal of chemical change that changed its chemical makeup. It is due to this chemical change and the reconstruction of the genes inside the flu strands that caused them to be untreatable. This is just an example of how chemistry can influence biological factors in the world.

Links Found Between Childhood Growth Disorder and Leukemia

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140309150542.htm

Leukemia takes the lives of hundreds of people every year. While not everyone may personally know someone who suffers from this type of cancer, we all know that research into its sources must continue if we are going to continue combating it. Now, however, this research has led scientists to discover that mutations in a gene associated with leukemia causes a new condition that can affect growth and intellectual development in children. The study that found this new information was led by scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research in London.

To gain this information, the scientists identified mutations in the DNA methyltransferase gene (called DNMT3A) in thirteen children. All the children in the test were taller than usual for their age, shared similar facial features, and had intellectual disabilities. The parents of the children did not have the mutations that the children had. The control group was a group of 1,000 people from the UK who could be compared to the experimental group. As a result of their research, a new condition called DNMT3A overgrowth syndrome was created. The DNMT3A gene is essential for development because it adds methylation marks to DNA that determine where and when genes are active. Mutations in this same gene are also known to occur in certain types of leukemia, yet mutations that occur in leukemia are different than those in DNMT3A overgrowth syndrome.

These new findings establish DNMT3A mutations as the cause of human developmental disorders, meaning this gene can be added to the list of genes that play a role in human growth disorders and leukemias. Chemistry plays a large role in the reading of genes and noticing how they cause certain diseases in humans. Due to their knowledge of chemistry, the researchers were able to document how the nucleotides in the test subjects’ DNA worked and figure out how DNMT3A and leukemia are related.

Desensitization of Odor Receptors on Mosquitoes

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130220184949.htm

With spring almost upon us, many people have begun to enjoy the warm weather and look forward to the arrival of summer. However, while the change of temperature may be a blessing after the crazy winter that has just passed, the oncoming heat signals the arrival of a very pesky insect—the mosquito. To protect themselves from bug bites and simply keep the creatures away, many people use repellents such as DEET. However, new research has shown that these types of sprays may not be as reliable as people thought.

According to a research published February 20th by James Logan, Nina Stanczyk, and colleagues from the London School of Hygiene Tropical Medicine, mosquitoes are able to ignore the smell of DEET within a few hours of being exposed to it. Most insects are strongly repelled by the odor of DEET, but certain genetic mutations possessed by some flies and mosquitoes makes them insensitive to the smell. The current study has shown that the exposure to the DEET only lasts three hours, but further studies need to be carried out in order to validate this data.

In the study, the researchers tested changes experienced by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. This type of bug is known for biting humans during the day and is capable of transmitting dengue fever. The study found that brief exposure to DEET was sufficient enough to make some mosquitoes less sensitive to the smell of the repellent. Three hours after being initially exposed, the same mosquitoes were able to seek out human skin again even though DEET may have been present. Researchers claim that the insensitivity to the smell could have been a result of a decrease in the sensitivity of odor receptors on the mosquito’s antennae. They also suggested that this desensitization could have resulted from prior exposure to the repellant.

Normally, the chemical makeup of DEET and other insect repellants makes them have a smell that bugs do not enjoy. So if they smell the repellant, the mosquitoes will not come near wherever the odor’s source is. However, the chemical and genetic makeup of the mosquito has allowed it to find a way to become desensitized to the smell of the thing that it finds unpleasing and is preventing it from receiving the nutrients it needs to survive, which in this case is DEET. Due to the scientist’s ability to study the chemical makeup of the mosquitoes, they were able to discover that the odor receptors on the wings of the bugs were becoming less sensitive. The entire process could be explained by the researchers’ knowledge of both chemistry and biology.

Dream Recall

Temporo-parietal junction (TPJ)

The reason people dream has been a topic discussed by the scientific world for years. The study of the difference between people who recall dreams regularly, or “high dream recallers,” and people who recall dreams rarely, or “low dream recallers,” has not turned up any solid information. In January 2013, a work was published in the journal Cerebral Cortex by a team led by Perrine Ruby. This work made two observations. First, they said “high dream recallers” have twice as many time of wakefulness during sleep as “low dream recallers.” Secondly, their brains are more reactive to auditory stimuli during sleep and wakefulness. They hypothesized that this increased brain reactivity may promote awakenings during the night, which in turn allows the person to memorize their dreams during brief periods when they wake up in the night.

In this new study, the researchers attempted to target which areas of the brain differentiate between high and low dream recallers. The used Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to measure the brain activity of 41 volunteers. These test subjects were monitored both during wakefulness and sleep. They were split into two groups according to how often they recalled their dreams. Twenty-one people were considered “high dream recallers” because they remembered dreams 5.2 mornings per week in average, and twenty people were called “low dream recallers” because they only reported two dreams per month in average they were able to remember. The high dream recallers, while both awake and asleep, showed stronger brain activity in the prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and in the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). The latter is an area in the brain that is involved in attention orienting toward external stimuli.

The researchers’ findings may explain why high dream recallers are more reactive to environmental stimuli and wake up during sleep more often. If the parts of their brains that control these actions are more active than normal, they will wake up more often. Since the only way to memorize new information is to be awake, it would make sense that their constant awakenings allows them to remember information that they dream. This idea is supported by the research of a South African neuropsychologist Mark Solms. He had observed, in earlier studies, that lesions in the mPFC and TPJ lead to a cessation of dream recall. Therefore, it may be valid to assume that regulating this area of the brain can also lead to varying levels of dream recall. On the other hand, another valid idea could be that high dream recallers simply dream more than low dream recallers, which in turn means that they will remember more dreams.

The brain is a very intricate system and controls every part of the body. In a way, if it were to be compared to a cell, it could be called the nucleus of the cell. While researchers know very little about what really occurs in specific parts of the brain, experiments such as this one allow us to get a deeper understanding of all the processes each part of the brain controls. From there, we can learn to understand how different chemicals interact with each other to control messages sent from the brain.

Pomegranate-like Batteries

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140216151743.htm

While it may seem like a strange connection, scientists have designed an electrode like a pomegranate. Silicon nanoparticles are clustered like seeds in a tough carbon rind. This new structure overcomes several obstacles to using silicon for a new generation of lithium-ion batteries. While this new design does not bring scientists straight to a way for using silicon anodes in smaller, lighter and more powerful batteries. With this new model, scientists have been brought a step closer to developing this kind of battery to potentially use in cell phones, tablets, and electric cars. Experiments have shown that the pomegranate-inspired anode operates at 97% capacity even after 1,000 cycles of charging and discharging. This capability puts it within the desired range for commercial operations.

This anode is really a negative electrode. The same kind of charged plate was used by Thomson when he created the cathode ray and discovered that electrons exist. Anyway, the anode is where energy is stored when a battery charges. Silicon anodes could store ten times more charge than the graphite anodes currently used in lithium-ion (which are lithium atoms that have either gained or lost electrons) batteries. While silicon may seem like a dream come true, there are some cons to their use. Silicon is very brittle because it is a nonmetal, so it swells very easily and falls apart during battery charging. It also reacts with the battery’s electrolyte to form gunk that coats the anode and degrades its performance. Over the past years, scientists have tackled the breakage problem by using silicon nanowires or nanoparticles that are too small to break into even smaller bits. The nanoparticles are also encased in carbon “yolk shells” that give them room to swell and shrink during charging.

The new study builds upon this same idea by gathering silicon yolk shells into clusters and coating each cluster with a second, thicker layer of carbon. These carbon rinds hold the pomegranate clusters together and provide a sturdy highway for electrical currents. These kinds of batteries work the best when they are made in the thickness required for commercial battery performance. While these methods may work, the process needs to be simplified and made cheaper in order to become viable on a commercial scale. Chemistry was used numerous times in the creation of these batteries and a deep understanding of several concepts we learned in class were needed to follow the experiments conducted in this new study. A person needed to understand anodes, electrodes, their role in batteries, ions, silicon’s properties as a nonmetal, electric currents, and carbon’s properties as an element. With all this information, scientists were able to develop this new pomegranate structure of an electrode.

A Father's Role

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140214075405.htm

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a disease that children suffer with if they had a mother who drank while pregnant. Almost everyone knows that a pregnant woman cannot drink because of the possibility of having a child with this syndrome, but no one ever warns the father to watch how much they are drinking. FAS can result in retarded intellect, stunted growth, and nervous system abnormalities, social problems, and isolation. While women might be blamed for their children having such a syndrome, more and more evidence points the finger at the father now.

Male mice were exposed to varying concentrations of alcohol and one control group was exposed to only saline. After being exposed to their respective solutions, the mice were mated and the resulting fetuses were examined. The findings revealed that paternal alcohol consumption can directly affect fetal development just as maternal alcohol consumption can do the same. Several fetuses sired by males exposed to alcohol had abnormal organ development and brain development. The fetuses whose fathers were only exposed to saline turned out to be normal. Due to this research, developmental abnormalities can be predetermined at fertilization based on knowledge of both the mother and father’s drinking habits.

Until this research, fathers did not have any connection to FAS, but now, scientists know that alcohol can potentially affect genes in sperm cells, which in turn affect the development and growth of a fetus. Due to the researchers’ knowledge of chemistry, they understood how cells in the body work and knew what kinds of effects alcohol could have on the sperm cells in a male body. Each cell in the body has a specific, sensitive chemical makeup, and any change in it could have severe repercussions in any part of the body, which is why it is important for any common people to understand how alcohol and other depressants can affect the body.

Geometries of Life

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140217161106.htm

A mouse and an elephant are two completely different animals. Yet, a mouse’s heart beats about the same number of times in its lifetime as an elephant’s even though the mouse lives about a year while an elephant can live about seventy years. In a similar manner, small plants and animals can mature faster than larger ones. For years, people have contemplated answers for these confusing phenomenons, and until now, they have not been able to come up with an explanation. Researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of Padua in Italy have proposed an answer based on a famous mathematical formula that has been accepted as true for generations even though it is not fully understood. The researchers have rethought this formula and looked at it as a mathematical expression of an evolutionary fact. Kleiber’s Law, as people normally learn in biology, is metabolism equal mass to the three-quarter power. This equation shows that as living things get larger, their metabolisms and their life spans increase at predictable rates.

Kleiber’s Law has been tried to be explained numerous times by hundreds of scientists, but now, the group of researchers has been able to apply the mathematical formula to the geometry of plants and animals and explain decades worth or real-world observations. For instance, an animal’s needs fuel to nourish its mass. Burning that fuel generates heat. This is due to the fact that a chemical reaction is occurring, and we can tell because energy is being released in the form of heat. As we discussed in chemistry, this is one of the indicators of a chemical reaction occurring. This excess body heat must be gotten rid of, but surface cooling would not be able to cool the animal fast enough. Therefore, as animals get larger in size, their metabolism must increase at a slower rate than their volume of they would not be able to get rid of the excess heat.

In chemistry and biology alike, equations are used to explain some of the processes that occur in nature. However, these equations can often be confusing or ambiguous, making them difficult to support and explain. While researchers in this article may have broken down some of the concepts in the equation and applied to real-life situations, they are still very difficult to understand. With more time and utilization of chemistry and biology, Kleiber’s Law can be completely understood.

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