RSC Blog

Trade in yer peg-leg for a real leg, mateys! Alchemists from Italy have discovered how  to transform wood into bone, and logged it in the ArrrSC Journal o’ Materials Alchemy.

Ahem.

A historically-accurate image of a buccaneer, complete with peg-leg

Although it’s not International Talk Like A Pirate Day until 19 September, this story called for a buccaneering theme. A relatively simple, multi-step chemical process to turn wood into bone has been reported by Anna Tampieri and colleagues at the Institute of Science and Technology for Ceramics, Faenza.

The organic structure of the wood is the perfect template for bone tissue suitable for use in repairing damaged limbs, which, in times past, might have been replaced with a peg leg. Cue stage right: gratuitous pirate picture, complete with all stereotypical accessories including wooden leg.

By changing the chemical composition of the wood, step by step, into hydroxyapatite (the main constituent of real bone) but retaining its natural structure, Tampieri’s team believe they have created a material that has the strength and structure of bone and could be suitably biocompatible for use in surgery.

Journal o’ Materials Alchemy (ok I’ll stop now) subscribers can view the article here.

Many famous brands are immediately recognisable symbols or colours: the Nike tick, Coca-Cola red, and so on. These aren’t necessarily evocative or appealing images – they’re just so well-known and consistent across the products that they’ve ascended to a whole new plane of brand awareness. The RSC’s theme for 2009 – food – has meant we’ve seen hundreds of brands and packaging for edible produce.

So let us look now to the most famous of sticky sauces, Lyle’s Golden Syrup. Everyone knows the century-old design: a round tin can with a lid you prise off with a knife; racing green bodywork with the golden words arching over a central picture of… of what is it again? A lion or something?

Look closely. It’s a lion alright, but a dead, rotting lion, and emanating from its stomach is a pestilential-looking swarm of bees. A more grotesque image for a foodstuff one can hardly imagine!

Under this disturbing logo are the words: “Out of the strong came forth sweetness”, a reference by its strongly-religious creator Abram Lyle to a scene in the Bible. Samson (of Delilah fame) saw in the desert a lion carcass which housed a honeycomb. For some reason Lyle thought this an appropriate way to sell his pancake topping.

Lyle's Golden Syrup - the most disturbing brand ever?

This marketing incongruity has puzzled us at the RSC. Clearly a household name and well-respected brand, Lyle’s Golden Syrup is as ubiquitous as Nike or Coca-Cola ever will be. EDIT: Our anonymous tipster below reports Lyle’s is “Britain’s oldest brand” according to the Guinness Book of Records. So the lion corpse definitely hasn’t done them any harm!

But have you ever even noticed that dead lion on the front? Now that you’ve seen it, does it put you off buying golden syrup? Is there a hidden champion of food producers with disgusting marketing that could tip Lyle’s to the title? Tell us below in the comments.

2009 marks the inexplicably overlooked 50th anniversary of the automatic electric kettle, the true patriarch of this noble dynasty being the Russell Hobbs K2.

As reported in today’s Metro, we’re appealing to the public on this contentious issue: should you reboil or refill a kettle for that second cuppa? The best answer wins a trip down to London for two people to indulge in a British instution: tea at the Ritz.

There’s a huge body of opinion that maintains a bad-tasting brew is inevitable if you reuse water once boiled – some say it rids the water of taste-enhancing dissolved oxygen gas. There are others who heard from their grannies that reboiled water causes cancer.

But some say that the difference in taste and composition is minimal, and a new draught of water is just a waste of a precious resource – not to mention more expensive. Still others say it makes no difference at all!

Arguments about limescale, dissolved gases… surely this is just chemistry, yes? So there must be a scientific explanation for all this.

Explain your choice of reboiled or reused water, in a clear and scientific manner, in a comment to this post. The answer we judge to be the best will win a trip for two to London, and tea at the Ritz hotel on Piccadilly – incidentally just a few steps down the road from home of the RSC, Burlington House.

We’ll be closing comments on 30 June, so pull up your favourite search engine, give your granny a ring and present your theory below!

Click here if you can’t see the comments box.

Last week an epic mission of sharing chemistry knowledge began at the University of Leeds – and will finish six weeks and 7000km later in Nairobi, Kenya.

Three thousand textbooks from the university library were shipped out and will be distributed through the RSC’s Pan Africa Chemistry Network (PACN).

The Head of the School of Chemistry, Professor Philip Kocienski, came down to lend a hand loading the huge haul of books into boxes and onto the van.

Prime Logistics International of Baildon, Shipley, are undertaking the massive journey to deliver the books to the chemistry department at the University of Nairobi, the African central hub of the PACN. From there they can be distributed to other learning centres that need them.

As the library undergoes redevelopment, it’s seen as an opportunity to support the growth of chemistry in Africa by providing these high-quality teaching aids such as textbooks.

The RSC’s Pan Africa Chemistry Network allows students, teachers and academics across Africa to access a wide range of support, including online science resources, networking opportunities and teaching materials.

UPDATE: Cadbury emerges the clear winner in our tasting. You can still cast your vote at the bottom of the post!

Over 300 people came to our chocolate tasting this morning, and a resounding 74% of participants said their preferred chocolate was Cadbury Dairy Milk.

Interestingly 71% of people raised in North America preferred Cadbury chocolate – so it’s not just “what you grew up with”!

Here’s a few photos from the morning’s event:

On Tuesday 28 April the RSC will host the bout of the century: Hershey’s vs Cadbury. Which is the public’s preferred chocolate?

The venue: the courtyard of Burlington House, Piccadilly, home of the RSC.

The contenders: in the purple corner, and weighing in at 49 g, Cadbury Dairy Milk. In the brown corner, at 43 g, Hershey’s Milk Chocolate.

The referees : the general public, who will express their opinions of their preferred chocolate in a blind test. A team of chemists from Keele University have analysed the chocolate and its different chemical properties, and will also analyse the results of the opinion poll on the day.

It would hardly be fair to limit this poll to the lucky few who walk past Burlington House at 10.30 on Tuesday, however. So we’re throwing the poll open to the entire world! Speed your preferred chocolate to success by casting your vote below:

 Loading ...

130 years ago a man showed the world how an electric charge run through a fine carbon filament in an evacuated glass chamber could emit light suitable to replace oil lamps or candles. This man had just unveiled one of the most important inventions in history, and most people reading will by now realise I’m talking about legendary American inventor Thomas Edison.

Except I’m not.

In the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society in 1879, it was a Sunderland-born polymath named Joseph Swan who publicly demonstrated for the first time “a practicable incandescent light bulb”. The RSC honoured his brilliance last week by awarding a Chemical Landmark to the Lit & Phil.

Joseph Swan Chemical Landmark Plaque

To highlight this wonderful achievement, the RSC put out the call to find the UK’s longest burning light bulb. We found the Livermore Centennial Light in California has been burning 109 years; surely there’s a bulb in the UK that’s been burning longer? We can but hope.

I was chatting about Swan’s invention and the competition with Carol Off on “As It Happens“, a Canadian radio show on CBC Radio 1, and she posed the question “how many chemists does it take to change a light bulb?” I’m afraid to say world-renowned British wit failed me that day, and I could give no humourous response.

Does anyone out there have a decent punchline?

Another gruelling day at the RSC. Sorry.

Today saw people flooding in to Burlington House’s courtyard from Piccadilly to try the RSC’s authentic Dickensian gruel. Held to order by the terrifying Mr Bumble, the public tucked into their traditional 1850s London workhouse cuisine.

The gruel was cooked up by our own chef Fabien Aid, and received mixed opinions: most thought the gruel itself was a tasty porridge, but the addition of onions certainly ruined a few officer-workers’ afternoons – or at least their colleagues’.

Giving out gruel – and thereby feeding the masses – serves to highlight the RSC’s upcoming report on food, “The Vital Ingredient“, which is launched later this month, and the RSC’s theme of food for 2009.

The pictures below were taken for the Press Association. Click each thumbnail to see the larger image, and the wide variety of faces people pulled while eating the gruel!

And if photos aren’t enough for you, here’s the news footage that appeared on Virgin news, MSN news and Daily Mirror videos… follow this link (goes to MSN News Videos).

Towering geniuses were often underappreciated in their day – Picasso, Stravinsky and the like. So when presented with an entry to our Italian Job competition that is so complex as to border on unreadable, I hesitated to immediately label it “bonkers”.

From Mitch Groves (”a.k.a. Mitch Groves”) in Pasadena, California, I received a mind-boggling submission. It seems to include a complex understanding of chemical bonding and fundamental principles. I think. It’s a bit hard to tell.

I reproduce it here (after the jump) in the hope someone with greater cranial capacity than I can make sense of it: perhaps Mr Groves’s entry will be the Petrushka of the 22nd century.

We will be announcing the winner of our competition on or around the 20th January, having searched through nearly 2000 entries for the most rigorously proven hypothesis. Thank you for a puzzling but enjoyable read, Mr Groves.

(more…)

It has long been known that most research articles start with “it has long been known”. This is generally followed by something you sort of knew, but not quite how, or when you learned it; yet it has “long been known”. But you know what they mean.

Anyone who has authored a paper knows it must be written in the secret, arcane language of scientific research. To the casual reader it may appear perfectly reasonable, but each publishing scientist has a kind of built-in universal translator – they know that when something “has long been known”, the author just couldn’t be bothered to find out who had first reported it.

A lone (rebel) scientist, C.D. Graham, Jr., flouted the vows of secrecy and published a glossary of research terms and their actual meanings in a 1957 issue of Metal Progress. I’ve reproduced it after the jump; use as a handy guide for the next time you read “it is generally believed that” and suspect the real meaning is “a couple of my friends think so too”. (more…)

Recently in Chem Comm two papers came through showing how scientists respond to real-world situations.

Both articles focus on detecting melamine, the plastic additive at the centre of the China milk scandal which caused thousands to fall ill, and four babies to die. Some comprehensive and well-researched coverage of the melamine milk scandal can be found on Sciencebase here.

The article authors describe two different mass spectrometry techniques which use ambient ionisation – so no special atmosphere or environment is required to prepare the sample.

They suggest the techniques could be developed to produce a “kit” which could be used on the production line cheaply, quickly and without much special training.

You can read more about the articles in Chemical Science, a news supplement included with some RSC journals. View the news story here.