Chemistry.John Dalton

New patterning technology which could open opportunities to recreate complex biological environments has been developed by researchers. 3DEAL' is a simple and inexpensive fabrication technique able to generate complex molecular patterns within soft matter, such as hydrogels, with microscale resolution and up to centimetres in depth. This capacity enables the possibility to engineer 3-D hydrogel environments with spatial control of the chemical composition, opening the opportunity to recreate biological scenarios such as 3-D molecular gradients or patterns. This could be used to design new drug screening platforms or build complex tissue engineered constructs. "The human body is largely made up of anisotropic, hierarchical, and mostly three dimensional structures. New ways to fabricate environments that can recreate physical and chemical features of such structures would have important implications in the way more efficient drugs are developed or more functional tissue and or

A new chemical agent reveals hidden fingerprints with a fluorescent glow that lasts for months, a new study published in Analytical Chemistry concludes. The new substance may help forensic investigators identify prints on plastic and metal surfaces, which glow naturally under ultraviolet light and can obscure fingerprints, Chemical & Engineering News reports. What’s more, the new material makes crisper images of fingerprints than traditional fingerprinting powders. That makes the advance valuable for medical diagnostics, the researchers say, because clean resolution of fingerprint furrows and ridges can provide information about a patient’s metabolism.

New research suggests the presence of life might impact how fast a planet turns, Space.com reports. Thanks to the atmosphere’s 50-trillion-metric-ton mass dragging across Earth’s surface, changes to the atmosphere can influence how quickly Earth rotates. And biologic activity that releases gases such as oxygen can modify the atmosphere enough to influence the speed with which a planet spins, the new study finds. For now, the calculations, detailed in a study released on the preprint server arXiv, are a theoretical but reasonable “what if” scenario, the researcher says.

Did you know that the discovery of a way to make ammonia was the single most important reason for the world’s population explosion from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7 billion today? Or that polythene, the world’s most common plastic, was accidentally invented twice? The chances are you didn’t, as chemistry tends to get overlooked compared to the other sciences. Not a single chemist made it into Science magazine’s Top 50 Science stars on Twitter. Chemistry news just don’t get the same coverage as the physics projects, even when the project was all about landing a chemistry lab on a comet. So the Royal Society of Chemistry decided to look into what people really think of chemistry, chemists and chemicals. It turns out most people just don’t have a good idea of what it is chemists do, or how chemistry contributes to the modern world. This is a real shame, because the world as we know it wouldn’t exist without chemistry. Here’s my top five chemistry inventions that make the world you live in

Have you ever wondered how freshly baked bread gets its golden brown crust and why it smells so good? Or how nondescript green berries turn into beautiful brown coffee beans with a rich alluring aroma? The answers to these questions lie in a series of complex of chemical reactions, known as Maillard reactions, which give many foods their familiar flavors and colors. These sensory properties even guide us in how we choose foods and help create our initial perceptions of their quality. Tastes So Good As the name suggests, Maillard reactions were first described by a French physician and biochemist, Louis-Camille Maillard, in 1912. These reactions produce hundreds of chemical compounds that give color and aroma to some of our favorite foods such as roast meat, potato chips, bread and other bakery products, coffee, chocolate and confectionery. Maillard reactions occur between amine groups of amino acids or proteins and “reducing” sugars, such as glucose and fructose. These sugars are s

The immune system is the body’s first line of defense when it comes to fighting cancerous cells. It can identify and attack the smallest of threats before they become a danger, and distinguish tumor cells from the body’s normal cells, protecting our essential systems. But the immune system isn’t always successful. Tumor cells have mechanisms to evade or suppress immune response, allowing them to masquerade as normal cells and grow without restraint. “Cancer cells can mutate in ways that make them undetectable to the immune cells. In other cases, a dysregulation in the body can lead to key signals being shut down so the immune system doesn’t respond as it should,” says David Feltquate, head of oncology early clinical development at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Every tumor is unique: some respond well to chemotherapy, targeted or immunotherapy treatments, while others become resistant after an initial response or don’t respond at all. Researchers are looking at the tumor microenvironment to