Chemistry World Blog

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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— One of the participating tokay geckos. Photo: Ethan Knapp and Alyssa Stark

I love a good gecko story, and I love how the cute little critters can climb up most things but would apparently struggle with my non-stick frying pan. Now I’ve found out that if my frying pan was still wet from the washing up Mr Gecko would have a better chance of holding on.

There is a serious side to this science. Hundreds of systems have been developed mimicking the adhesive power of gecko toes and all rely on creating a large surface area that can get in contact with whatever surface you want to stick to using van de Waals forces to do the rest. Understanding how different surfaces affect adhesion is obviously important and it’s been anecdotally known for a while that as well as struggling with Teflon, geckos can’t stick to wet glass despite their feet being superhydrophobic. In rainforests, things can get quite wet so how do the geckos manage?

To test this out Alyssa Stark‘s lab at the University of Akron, Ohio, placed geckos on different surfaces to investigate when the geckos slipped and when they stuck. To get more data than slip versus stick, those little geckos were fitted with harnesses and slowly pulled off surfaces using force meters to record the gecko adhesion values. If ever there’s a day you’d have liked to have been in someone’s lab, the day harnessed geckos were slid around for science has got to be up there (at least for me).

The findings are, in part, to be expected. Wetting surfaces usually makes them more slippery for geckos but it’s only wet glass that causes a real problem – hydrophobic surfaces that were wetted could still be clung on to as the lizard’s hydrophobic feet helped get rid of the water and form a contact with the dry surface beneath. So the lab work confirms that wet leaves shouldn’t be a problem. The exception, which also contradicted the Akron group’s modelling, was PTFE, or Teflon. Wet Teflon, it seems, is much easier for the geckos to hold on to. The why is not certain yet though, so I for one am looking forward to more gecko science, ideally with videos…

Laura Howes

It’s that time of year again, when the mad March hares are making an appearance, daffodils popping up and the world seems to be waking from its long slumber. It’s spring, and this means that the Royal Society of Chemistry’s magazines Chemistry World and Education in Chemistry are looking for their next (paid!) intern to come and work with us. It’s a great opportunity to see how the magazines process works and take part in all stages of the production process.

The eight week position is supported by the Marriott Bequest, which pays out a stipend of £1750 to make sure you don’t starve! Unsurprisingly, we’re looking for someone with a proven interest in science and science journalism. The candidate will probably be part way through a chemical science degree or postgrad course too. If you think that sounds like you then take a look at the job posting and send us your CV and some examples of your writing.

Previous interns have found the experience very handy and it has helped them to move into other interesting and varied jobs. Our 2010 intern, Akshat Rathi, went on to intern at the Economist, who he still writes for, and now works in the communications department of the RSC. Josh Howgego still writes for Chemistry World and Education in Chemistry and is currently on an MSci course in science communication at Imperial College, after a brief work experience stint at the Times Higher Education. And last year’s intern, Ian Le Guillou, is currently doing some work experience at the BBC as a researcher on Dara O’Briain’s Science Club before he takes up a full time science writer job at Understanding Animal Research.

It really is a once in a lifetime opportunity! We are looking forward to hearing from you.

Patrick Walter

A third of postgrads teaching in UK universities are getting paid less than the minimum wage. That’s the headline finding of a survey of postgrads’ pay rates by the National Union of Students (NUS). Currently, the minimum wage for employees over 21 is £6.19 per hour.

These surprising findings come from a survey of the working conditions of 1500 postgrads. But before postgrads around the nation break out the placards and prepare to form pickets to support their woefully underpaid and undervalued peers, an important caveat should be noted: it is postgrads’ estimates of the ‘unpaid’ hours they work, such as preparation time and marking, that drag down their hourly rate. On average, the hourly rate for postgrads is £19.95. But if all the extra work they do as part of their job is taken into consideration, this falls to just £10.39.

This finding was for all postgrads, in the humanities and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. Unfortunately there isn’t a breakdown of the third who are paid less than the minimum wage by subject, so we don’t know how chemistry postgrads fare or even what proportion in the sciences are getting less than £6.19 per hour for their graft. What would be really interesting is seeing which universities were the most generous and which were the tightest. Unfortunately, the NUS has decided to spare institutions’ blushes and hasn’t named and shamed! However, there is some breakdown on some topics between STEM and non-STEM subjects.

Worryingly, the survey found that postgrads teaching in STEM subjects were much less likely to have their working conditions formalised in a contract. Overall, the study found that 31% of teaching postgrads didn’t have a contract, but this rose to 54% for those who taught STEM subjects. The survey also found that postgrads were earning less than their non-STEM counterparts. Before taking account of unpaid hours, STEM postgrads are getting around £15 per hour, while humanities postgrads are getting about £23 per hour. What should also be a concern is that a fifth of postgrads receive no training before they start teaching. More worrying still is that postgrads teaching in STEM disciplines were less likely to receive training than those in the humanities.

Clearly this situation is less than ideal. The NUS report makes a number of recommendations including that unions and student bodies get organised and press university departments for better working conditions. What would concern me most if I was in the shoes of some of these postgrads is the lack of a contract. It seems as if universities are treating the work postgrads do as a bit of a favour to them, rather than a serious job that should have well defined working conditions. If something should happen it leaves the postgrad on a sticky wicket as they’ve no clue what they’re expected to deliver and what the university’s obligations to them are. They lack the most basic protections that a contract provides. I hope that the universities and unions can get their act together soon to hammer out some sort of action plan to tackle this problem.

Proving that there is always ‘an app for that’, it will very soon be possible to use your smartphone as a portable analytical chemistry lab, testing urine samples for the presence of up to 10 chemical and physical biomarkers. Hypochondriacs the world over will, no doubt, be delighted that the software can diagnose up to 25 conditions for them to agonise over, from diabetes to urinary tract infections (UTIs).

Resisting the temptation to call the software ‘iPee’, 29-year-old MIT graduate and entrepreneur Myshkim Ingawale announced the app – actually called ‘Uchek’ – at the Technology Education and Design (TED) conference in Los Angeles earlier this week.

Readers will be relieved to discover that a waterproof phone is not required to answer the call of nature. Instead one pees into a small cup, dips a diagnostic strip into one’s urine then waits for two minutes before photographing the strip with one’s phone. The Uchek software then cleverly colour-corrects the image and compares it to known standards – giving an indication of how much glucose, bilirubin, proteins, ketones, leukocytes and nitrites are present in the sample, as well as its specific gravity.

For the less medically savvy the software hints at what abnormally high or low levels of these various markers might mean. Tap the leukocytes tab, for instance, and the app will warn you that a UTI could be brewing. Ouch! Time for a trip to the GP.

Analysis of urine is nothing new, of course. Physicians have been looking at the stuff for years, using it to provide information on human health. The dipstick is the most common method of analysis, usually containing about 10 coloured patches that react differently according to the chemistry to which they are exposed. Although the dipsticks themselves are cheap and disposable, the machines that read them are certainly not, and require a technician to operate them. What Uchek does is take this diagnosis stage from the doctor and put it in the hands of the patient.

This is not as barmy as it first sounds. For those managing a disease like diabetes, a routine trip to the GP just to have your pee looked at can be a tedious use of time, and a drain on the resources of the clinic. Much better to be able to look at a sample in the comfort of one’s own bathroom and go to the GP when there is a problem.

Uchek will also be of interest to those promoting healthcare in third-world countries or locations that have poor transport infrastructure. It’s expensive to fly a doctor or fieldworker out into the African bush; much cheaper to send a $100 smartphone than can relay results back to base over a 3G or 4G cell phone network.

Currently, Uchek is making its way through Apple’s iTunes Store approval process, while being tested more clinically at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India. When it finally goes on sale it should retail in the UK for about £13, which includes several test strips and a colour chart to help with calibration. An Android version is expected to follow shortly.

In the Chemistry World office we are hopeful that the ability to Like your friend’s leukocytes on Facebook, or follow their glucose on Twitter, is not part of the app’s first release.  

Ian Farrell