The kind folks behind StackOverflow, a free Question/Answers website for programming questions, recently decided to open new Q/A websites for many additional interesting topics, from wine tasting and cooking to mathematics. The fundamental requisite for such new sites to be opened is a rather strict community review and development of a critical mass of contributors [...]
As you probably heard in the news, Craig Venter, the American biologist best known for starting up Celera Genomics and sequencing the human genome, achieved another big success. He created a fully working new bacterium, programming its DNA from scratch.
Like a computer having hardware and software, a bacterium has a set of components that execute [...]
Rule changed: stimulated research to explain electronic resonance.
Except for its nice regular hexagonal shape, benzene is not a nice compound. It is toxic, carcinogen, highly flammable, burns with a very dirty and smoky flame, and if it is not enough, it made chemists go crazy for one hundred years. The latter point is interesting for [...]
April 20, 2010 – 10:49 pm
Rule changed: demonstrated that organic compounds had no mysterious “vital energy”
The synthesis of urea is a fascinating and critical event. It sent a shocking quake through many open questions in chemistry, and answered them with a cold hard fact with no chance of misunderstanding. It slain one theory, vitalism, and was in front line to [...]
Rule changed: revolutionized the treatment of cancer
Cisplatin, formula [PtCl2(NH3)2] is a very simple compound of the precious metal platinum. It revolutionized the treatment of some types of cancer, in some cases with almost total chance of success, and it can be considered to full extent the “penicillin for (some, unfortunately) cancer treatment”.
Rule changed: the very first antibiotic compound
Penicillin. This is definitely one molecule that conquered the territories of the grim reaper.
Before Penicillin, a minor wound infection could mean a gangrene (followed by amputation), death, or all of them if you were particularly unlucky. People used to die for minor skin scratches. Falling, handling a rose, sewing, [...]
February 24, 2010 – 6:30 am
The paper I submitted some time ago at the Journal of Physical Chemistry A has been published: Borini S, Limacher PA, Luethi HP, “Structural Features Analysis and Nonlinearity of End-Cap-Substituted Polyacetylenes”, DOI: 10.1021/jp908439x
I already wrote about the findings reported in this paper at the time it was accepted. It is a very nice paper, and [...]
February 20, 2010 – 7:45 pm
With this post I want to start a series about single molecules whose synthesis, discovery, or explanation had such dramatic effects for humanity to produce a complete paradigm shift for daily life or scientific insight. On purpose, I left out the “big ones”: you will not find DNA in this list, nor you will find [...]
January 10, 2010 – 4:56 pm
I found this very interesting site about the periodic table of elements, from the University of Nottingham. For each element, there’s a video showing the characteristics of the element, and a brief commentary. Worth checking out if you always had some curiosity about the chemical elements, what they look like, and how they behave.
They also [...]
December 19, 2009 – 10:44 am
Of the many things I posted, I never had the chance to write something about my direct scientific activity. Recently I worked on optical properties of polyenes. A paper has been published recently on Journal of Chemical Physics. Another one is submitted right now, and a third is in preparation.
Molecules interact with light. This should [...]
