Materials are recycled to make tv's and other devices.

Tv's and other electronic devices such as cellphones and car batteries require a special type of rare earth metal. They are plentiful but some are in short in supply. Scientist have found a way to recycle these earth metals. Scientist have tried to recycle them before but it is very difficult and can cost a lot of money because some metals are really soft and they get diluted into the waste water, which is where they recycle it from. Scienitsts knew that nano-Mg(OH)2 was used to take out dyes and metals from water before so they decided to try it with the rare earth metals as well. When they tried it they found out that it was able to capture 85% of the metal. If the continue to use this there would be many benefits economically, as well as in other was. I never knew that a compound would be able to capture metals from inside an object. That is very interesting.  

New Barrier for Electronics

Scientists in Georgia created film that can help electronics such as phones. This barrier will protect the phone even if it is submerged in water. Some of the barriers today have tiny holes that could possibly let in oxygen or water thus damaging the product. Many high performance barrier films use sputter deposition or plasma enhanced chemical deposition, but the new product uses atomic layer deposition. The other methods need to put multiple layers to make it a better barrier. The atomic layer barrier gives scientists more control so that they can control the substance up to the molecular level and there only needs to be a thin coat because they can do so.  The scientists surround a substrate that contains a particular metal with a gas and it forms a layer of atom. The excess gas is removed and then another gas is added that oxidizes the metal and it forms a metal oxide that is a barrier to water or air and they do that a desired amount of times and then the barrier is created. This barrier could help people who are prone to dropping their phone in water or dropping it in general (like me..). This is a really awesome product  believe.  

Florescence is used to detect finger prints

In many crime scenes the finger prints are sometimes hard to see. But scientist have figures out a way in which  a finger print becomes florescent  and much easier to see. They did have a way to make it florescent before but it was very dangerous and it needed to be done in fume cupboards. But scientist have come across that hurdle. Scientist from Laboratoire de Photophysique et Photochimie Supramoléculaire et Macromoléculaire (CNRS/ENS Cachan), in partnership with the specialized firm Crime Scene Technology where able to combine cyanoacrylate with Tetrazine and then it would be put onto the fingerprint, then using uv light the finger print would be more visible and police officers would be able to take photographs. It requires less cost and time which is good. That is cool that they where able to come up with a way to do that.  

Chlorine Good or Bad??

Although chlorine is used to disinfect water studies have shown to increase the rate of bladder cancer and miscarriages  for pregnant women. This study has made many facilities stop using it. Other facilities started to use an ammonia diluted version of chlorine called chloramine. In Washington D.C. the use of that resulted in lead in the drinking water. It is not completely clear whether the effects of going with chlorine or leaving it behind are going to cause new problems. Chlorine stops Microbes. Microbes are usually more prevalent in water with organic matter the chlorine mixes with that and creates a disinfectant. It is expensive ti have chlorine do its full job so many industries just add ammonia before adding chlorine to speed up the reaction time. But that resulted in chloramine.  Washington Aqueduct added  orthophosphate to the drinking water and now the lead levels are way less. But the less use of chlorine reduces the amount of chemicals that go into the other water environments. I never even knew chlorine was used to disinfect water. I never really knew why we had to use a filter when drinking water but now I see that it helps get rid of all the bad stuff that is stuck in the pipes where the water comes from. 

Super antioxidant is created!

Scientist at Rice University where able to create Super antioxidant. A scientist Vicki Colvin lead a team that created small spheres of cerium oxide and then coated them with a fatty oleic acid. This discovery can potentially help cure Alzheimer's disease, brain trauma, cardiac arrest, and can also help cancer patients from the side affects of radiation. It could also protect astronauts from long term radiation in space. Cerium oxide contains nano crystals which can absorb and release oxygen ions, and the scientist made it small enough to be injected into the blood stream so if organs need protection from oxidation  it could be used. Essentially the next step they need to do is attach antibodies to this so that it will be attracted to a certain cell in the body. Colvin is especially happy to help the cancer patients. Helping cancer patients in even a small way is good I think because even if we cannot cure cancer yet, the patients should still be helped in some way. Also if it protects astronauts from radiation maybe we could go farther into space. That would be cool.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131015123700.htm

Nobel Peace Prize Awarded

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the organization that has tryed to stop chemical warfare in Syria. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons led the international charge to try to ban chemical weapons from Syria. Because of their continous efforts to try to help Syria they received the award. Some chemicals are really explosive and they use those to make these chemical weapons that kill many people including very innocent ones. I believe they do deserve the award because if their continuing efforts. 


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nobel-peace-prize-2013-chemical-weapons

Names Where Recently Proposed For Elements 114 and 116

Flerovium (Fl) and Livermorium (Lv) where the two names that where proposed for elements 114 and 116. The name makers of the element wanted to give the people a chance to comment on the names before they where officially put into the periodic table of elements. The people who named the elements had only named 114 elements up to that point and they have strict rules about the element and if one name is rejected then it cannot be used as a name for another element. Livermorium was named after the city it was found in and Flerovium was named to honor Georgi N. Flerov. People have made other suggestions for other elements so this time they where also given the opportunity to do the same. I do not understand why they have to pick such complicated names they could just say liver or flerov instead of adding the rest. It probably has something to do with the element itself I guess.

2013 Noble Prize Goes To......

2013 Noble goes to 3 chemists who where able to  predict chemical reactions and model them on a computer.Martin Karplus of Harvard University and the Universite de Strasbourg in France; Michael Levitt of the Stanford University School of Medicine and Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California these three scientists who used a lot of computer power to show for example who an electron from the catalyst of an enzyme can jump from chemists don't only have to experiment in real life they can also experiment in cyberspace as well. This can help many other pharmacutical companies when they are making drugs and other substances to help the sick. As technology is growing everything is being turned into some type of computerized mechanism that makes things a lot faster. This could be both bad and good. Good because it can help with many problems such as finding a cure for a so far uncurable disease like cancer, but it can also be bad because what if one da someone creates a completly intelligent mechanism and the take over the world that would be so bad. But anyway for now it should help in scientific research.



http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=2013-chemistry-nobel-for-molecule-computer-models

Another Material Harder than Diamonds

Diamonds have been the hardest material for the longest time but scientists have been experimenting with substances and they've found a new material that is harder than diamonds. They used a lot of pressure to create this new material. The scientists first started with a carbon molecule called fullerenes. Which contains 60 carbon atoms and it resembles the shape of a soccer ball if everything was drawn out. Then they add xylene which is a liquid and it keeps the ball shaped molecules a certain distance apart. They then added a diamond anvil which is two small pieces of polished flat diamonds. The diamond anvils exerted a lot of pressure and the fullerene cages collapsed creating a very hard substance. When they took the diamond anvils out I looked like the diamonds where chipped. Although it did chip the diamond piece it could be softer than the diamond but there are only small samples of the new material. They should make more and if it looks shiny it could be made into jewelry as well like the diamond and it should be really notexpensive that way people who can not afford diamonds would be able to buy something better than that for cheaper.....I doubt that's going to happen....



http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2012/10/harder-than-diamonds/

Neutrons Fall of Ice!

 Malcolm Guthrie of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and colleagues found out that if you squeeze ice hard enough the protons in the ice would fall of. They looked at ice while it was compressed between diamond anvil cells which had the pressure of 55 gigapascals and under those conditions they saw that the protons drifted away. When they drifted away they filled in the spaces between the molecules. The stray protons might have something to do with the inner parts of icy plants such as Uranus and Neptune. It had been said before that the ice might go to a super ionic stage in which there are mobile hydrogen atoms that can support protein currents and can give of a magnetic field. Now with what the scientists have learned the manner of that could be different than what was thought and it could be at a lower temperature. Scientists used to think that the molecules in ice would go closer together under high pressure, but what really happens is that the hydrogen bonds equally to the oxygen and the molecule becomes divided. Guthrie says that they protons detach from the original cell under much less pressure and it just falls into the cavities in between the molecules. Protons can fall of ice. That's a weird thing because you normally would not think that hey could. I never knew they could. Could protons fall off of other things as well??? Maybe scientists can find out. 





http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/06/magnetic-proton-soup-ice-gas-giant