Techdirt. Stories filed under "chemistry" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "chemistry"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 4 Mar 2013 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Microorganisms For Biofuel Production Joyce Hung http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101123/16300911997/dailydirt-microorganisms-biofuel-production.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101123/16300911997/dailydirt-microorganisms-biofuel-production.shtml
  • Companies like Luca Technologies and Next Fuel are investigating the potential for microbial methane production from coal. Their approach is to stimulate native microorganisms that feed on underground hydrocarbon deposits to produce more methane. This could make it possible to extract fuel from coal reserves that have been too expensive to mine. [url]
  • Researchers at Purdue University are studying how termite digestion could help improve biofuel production. They found that protists, which live in the termite's gut, may play an important role in the insect's digestion of woody material. Further research could lead to finding enzymes that could one day be used to help improve biofuel production. [url]
  • Researchers at UC Berkeley have created a biodiesel fuel using a fermentation process that was once used to make explosives in World War I. The process uses a bacterium called Clostridium acetobutylicum (also known as the "Weizmann Organism") to ferment sugar from various sources -- including corn, sugar cane, molasses, woody biomass, or plant biomass -- and produces acetone, butanol, and ethanol. The fermentation products are then converted into a mix of hydrocarbons that are similar to those in diesel fuel. The resulting fuel burns as well as petroleum-based fuel and has more energy per gallon than ethanol. [url]
  • Researchers at UC San Diego have demonstrated for the first time that marine algae can also be used to produce biofuels like fresh water algae. They genetically engineered the marine alga Dunaliella tertiolecta to produce five different enzymes that could be used to convert biomass to fuel. Their finding suggests that algal biofuels could also be produced in the ocean, in the brackish water of tidelands, or even on otherwise unusable agricultural land with high salt content in the soil. [url]
    • If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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    ]]>     urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101123/16300911997     Tue, 5 Jun 2012 17:00:00 PDT DailyDirt: Better Living Through Chemistry Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100706/16113510087/dailydirt-better-living-through-chemistry.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100706/16113510087/dailydirt-better-living-through-chemistry.shtml pharma companies and how they sometimes hinder innovation. There are lots of ways to develop new drugs, and apparently plenty of people out there are willing to ingest experimental drugs for fun (and then maybe eat other people's faces). Here are just a few examples of some innovative folks doing some chemistry. By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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    ]]>     urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100706/16113510087     Mon, 2 Apr 2012 17:00:00 PDT DailyDirt: Diamonds, With Lucy, In The Sky Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100406/1506138901/dailydirt-diamonds-with-lucy-sky.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100406/1506138901/dailydirt-diamonds-with-lucy-sky.shtml
  • The world's first all-diamond ring -- no setting needed, but it's kinda difficult to re-size -- weighs in at about 150 carats and $68 million. And if it gets stuck on your finger, it'll be really hard to cut off without taking your finger with it.... [url]
  • The 45-carat Hope Diamond could provide some insights on the geology of the Earth, but it's not easy to conduct science on famous museum artifacts. Scientists are looking at how boron makes blue diamonds blue, and they're etching off a few atomic layers of the diamond to determine how much boron is in it. [url]
  • Diamonds can store qubits at room temperature for at least a couple seconds -- a pretty long time in the world of quantum physics. This discovery might lead to more practical quantum computers -- but general quantum computing is still a long way from becoming as useful as traditional computing. [url]
  • To discover more interesting science-related stuff, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  
    • By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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    ]]>     urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100406/1506138901     Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Better Living Via Chemistry... Just Got A Bit More Complicated Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101216/00451812297/dailydirt-better-living-via-chemistry-just-got-bit-more-complicated.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101216/00451812297/dailydirt-better-living-via-chemistry-just-got-bit-more-complicated.shtml
  • The atomic weights of ten elements will now be expressed as intervals. And I'm looking forward to how They Might Be Giants will explain this in a song. [url]
  • There's a very boring answer to the question of what would happen if you threw every element together at the same time. It would reach equilibrium after creating a cloud of smoke. [url]
  • Do you know where your elements come from? Are they conflict-free? Blood diamonds get a movie, but when will they make a movie about "blood tantalum"? [url]
  • Have you noticed that your dish detergent is phosphate-free now? Procter & Gamble says it had no choice but to remove phosphate compounds from its products -- because it's better for the environment. Unfortunately, dishes everywhere aren't getting as clean as they used to be. [url]
  • Gold is not a gas, doesn't burn and won't kill you -- are those good enough reasons for you? I'll take: "Reasons why an element is precious for $200, Alex." [url]


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    ]]>     urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101216/00451812297     Thu, 8 Oct 2009 02:40:19 PDT Basic Building Blocks Of Life Patented... But Wins A Nobel Prize Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091007/1318556449.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091007/1318556449.shtml joseph franklin writes in to point out that this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to some researchers who helped uncover some of the basic building blocks of life, ribosomes. Figuring out how to model these was great, but Franklin's concern is that not only did these researchers get a Nobel Prize for it, they got a patent as well:
    The patent holders and licensees surely believe that these products will be life-saving, and profitable, and I hate to rain on the Nobel Prize parade. But should research so fundamental to life, such as the ribosome structure, be locked up for commercial gain -- like Dynamite? Should a private institution, such as Yale, have the only say over how ribosomes may be developed into new biomedical technologies?


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    ]]>     is-that-good-or-bad? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091007/1318556449     Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:15:59 PDT Online Study Group Creator Not Expelled; But Still Punished Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080318/192158578.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080318/192158578.shtml threatened with expulsion for setting up an online study group via Facebook for his chemistry class. If he'd done the same thing with a group in the library, it would have been fine. But, somehow, in setting it up on Facebook, he got in trouble. After plenty of news attention over this, the school has decided not to expel him, but will still give him a zero on the assignment in question and will place a "disciplinary note" in his file. While it's good he wasn't expelled, it's difficult to see how the school can justify this type of punishment either. Here's a student trying to help both himself and the rest of the class better learn the subject matter, and he's punished for it? That doesn't seem right.

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    ]]>     lesson-learned:-don't-study-with-others! http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080318/192158578