Chemistry World Blog

Camouflage has been used by military forces since the ancient Roman Empire. It seems obvious that matching the colour of your vehicle to the environment will make you a far less visible target. But using modern scientific techniques, camouflage can be far more than simply painting a vehicle to blend into the background.

Foxhound light patrol vehicle in Army Brown. Courtesy of AkzoNobel.

AkzoNobel, a paints and coatings company based in the Netherlands, has announced a new paint for British Army vehicles that not only works as camouflage, but can help to protect soldiers against chemical attacks.

British army vehicles have been painted with sand coloured camouflage since before the Second World War. Warfare has changed a lot since then, so it’s about time they were redecorated. To devise a new colour scheme, the Ministry of Defence collected samples of soil and rocks from Afghanistan, along with high resolution imagery. The new hue was given the, perhaps uninspiring, name of Army Brown.

Army Brown is similar to the tan colour used by the US and Australian militaries, and designed to work well both in arid environments and amongst vegetation.

Tasked with developing the paint, AkzoNobel decided to build in more functionality, and designed a water-based solution that would protect the vehicles from corrosion and is capable of absorbing chemical warfare agents. Thanks to the inclusion of a specific resin, the paint can also be peeled off and disposed of when contaminated or if a quick change of colour is required.

The new paint has already been applied to Foxhound light patrol vehicles, as well as some of the Warrior tracked vehicles in use in Afghanistan. Further developments in the pipeline include a bespoke molecule which builds on the current generation’s ability to absorb chemical agents by changing colour to alert vehicle operators to their presence, and will also neutralise them on contact.

This marks an evolution of the capabilities of camouflage, and should help to keep soldiers safer on the front line in some of the most challenging environments.

Please indulge the author…

Hello!  I’m Ben Valsler, the newest addition to the Chemistry World family. I’ve been given the newly created position of Online and Multimedia editor, so amongst other things I’ll regularly be contributing to this blog, as well as inviting posts from occasional guest bloggers.

I must confess, I’m not a chemist. I’ve studied zoology & science communication, and throughout my career so far have concentrated on topics as diverse as genetics, astronomy & materials science. Being a jack of all trades (and some would say master of none) has given me a real interest in the boundaries – the edge effects where one specialism meets another, where theory meets application and where science meets engineering.

That’s why this story caught my eye. What seems initially like a simple request – formulate a new paint of a certain colour – led to the development of a coating that can do so much more.

What more can you say about solar photovoltaics (PV)? They basically tick all the boxes – completely clean, cheap, limitless, there’s enough to power the world and, most importantly, they’re bendy – and we are now so close to seeing it do its thing in a big way. In some ways, you could compare it to a promising young athlete (Gareth Bale, perhaps, for the football-minded) – you’re not sure just how good they can become, but they’re already exciting to watch.

Despite this, some feel that the technology is still not getting the support it needs from business to reach its potential. ‘For some reason, [solar energy] is never a big mix in the predicted 2020 or 2050 calculations,’ says Henry Snaith at the University of Oxford, UK. ‘I don’t think people who do the calculations really figure in the potential for technological evolution and development advancement.’

The best is yet to come

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Kids’ chemistry sets seem to be making a comeback (check out our great feature on chemistry sets), complete with the old gender stereotypes. Tesco is the latest retailer to come under fire for sexism, after it placed a toy chemistry set in the ‘boys’ category in its online shop. (more…)

I’ve recently heard of a competition called I’m a scientist – Get me out of here and I must say that I love the concept. Basically, it is a free online event a little bit like an X Factor-style (yes, I know, shameful but I do watch it) competition for scientists, where students are the judges. 

How does it work? Scientists put up a profile on the I’m a Scientist website where students then ask questions and challenge them over fast-paced online live chats.  Overall, over a two week-period (17–28 June), there will be around an hour of live text chats  and an hour answering questions each day so it is a fun way of developing communication skills, gaining a fresh perspective on your research, and finding out what young people think about science and the role of scientists.

The objective is to get school students to meet and interact with scientists and it works very well. Plus everything happens on the web, so participants can join in without leaving their desk. In addition, students have the option to vote and the winning scientist gets £500 to spend on science communication. Not bad!

 A number of Societies and professional bodies are supporting the competition and the Royal Society of Chemistry, for example, is sponsoring the Energy Zone, which will cover the science of and issues relating to maintaining a supply of affordable, secure energy. 

Scientists who want to take part need to apply before 6 May 2013.

Students who want to take part need to get their teacher to sign up asap.

Good luck and happy chatting to all!

Bibiana Campos Seijo

Mosquito nets have been instrumental in cutting cases of malaria

A person dies from malaria every minute. Seven people are infected with this debilitating disease every second. These are the figures that World Malaria Day – which is today – is seeking to highlight.

World Malaria Day has been going since 2007. It was established by the World Health Assembly, part of the World Health Organization, to get people to sit up and take note of this often underreported disease. While the headline figures look bad, great steps have already been made in tackling the disease.

The good news is that the global mortality rate for malaria has fallen by 25% since 2000. At the same time, 50 out of the 99 countries where malaria is endemic are set to meet targets to cut infection rates by three-quarters by 2015. However, new problems have emerged. As the UN and projects like the Medicines for Malaria Venture, with the help of philanthropic organisations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have stepped up the fight against the disease, criminals have taken advantage. It’s now estimated that a third of malaria drugs sold around the world are counterfeit. (more…)

History is peppered with stories of scientists simultaneously making discoveries. One of the most famous was, of course, when Newton and Leibniz independently developed calculus, but this also occurred for other huge scientific discoveries, such as Darwin and Wallace both coming up with the theory of evolution and, in chemistry, Scheele and Priestley separately discovering oxygen. (more…)

The game is afoot! UK charity Crimestoppers is enlisting the help of the Great British public to sniff out cannabis farms. To aid the public in their undercover work they’ve been handing out scratch and sniff panels. These give people an idea of what living, growing cannabis smells like – Crimestoppers describes it as a sickly, sweet smell as opposed to the more acrid aroma when it’s smoked (we at Chemistry World are relying on testimony from local a Cambridge councillor here!). (more…)

In a city frequently battered by the Gulf of Mexico’s windy progeny, one could be forgiven for thinking that a drink called ‘the Hurricane’ might be a bit tasteless. But it is in fact, a very tasty rum-based cocktail, and the classic drink of New Orleans, home of the ACS spring conference 2013.

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Govert Flinck, Portrait of Dirck Jacobsz. Leeuw and elemental distribution images of the painting.

While X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy is a well-established technique for the investigation of paintings, the apparatus used are usually custom built and not widely available. Now, Matthias Alfeld and colleagues have developed a portable macro XRF spectrometer to look at paintings in situ.

The team used the device to look at a portrait by Govert Flinck, a Dutch painter who was a protégé of the great Rembrandt. Interestingly, they found that originally the subject was painted wearing a broad bobbin lace collar and long lace cuffs but this was toned down for the final version, possibly because it was too trendy.

The device also made it possible to visualise Flinck’s first sketches on the canvas before he got to work with the paint. The authenticity of this particular painting was never disputed but being able to see sketches is a good indication of whether a painting is an original or a copy.

Which paintings would you like to look at with the device? I wonder how many fake Van Goghs could be uncovered?

Jennifer Newton

It’s funny the things that you see on Twitter. When this tweet appeared from RetractionWatch guru Ivan Oransky, it got me wondering why a Pharma company like GSK would be selling off over 350 paintings.

A quick call to GSK’s Philadelphia,US, office provided the simple explanation. According to company spokesperson Jennifer Armstrong, GSK is moving its Philadelphia operations to a brand new building, which opens this weekend. ‘The new workspace is completely open, without any individual offices, so we don’t have so many interior walls to hang artwork. The walls we do have are also used for other purposes – they’re either glass, or for writing on or tacking things to,’ she says.

— GSK’s new Philadelphia home

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