Portal:Chemistry/In the news

11-17: Researchers at University of Windsor report a non-metal phosphonium-borate displaying reversible hydrogen storage.

[edit] Archive

2006-09-01 Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discover a convenient method for the generation of diphosphorus in solution at 50°C. Read more...
2006-08-27 Waterproof paper may become possible, thanks to work by Eva Malmström and co-workers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm. The Swedish group successfully grafted fluorinated groups onto paper, making the surface hydrophobic. See Chem. Commun., 2006, 3594 - 3596, DOI: 10.1039/b607411a, see full article.

2006-06-20 A research group at the University of Ottawa led by Keith Fagnou has developed a method for palladium-catalyzed cross coupling reactions of aryl halides with fluorinated arenes, in DMA. It is unusual in that it involves C-H functionalisation at an electron deficient arene. [1]

2006-06-08 Researchers at Caltech tackle the synthesis of 2-quinuclidone, a long elusive anti-Bredt molecule. More...

2006-06-05 Japanese chemists have prepared and described the first ever all-carbon persulfurane called bis(2,2'-biphenylylene) dimethylpersulfurane in which a central sulfur atom is bonded to 4 aryl groups and two methyl groups. In ordinary organosulfur compounds, sulfur has only two carbon neighbors. The compound is reported to be stable and moisture insensitive. More...

2006-05-24 Researchers at Chinese University of Hong Kong synthesize benzocarboranes, in which a benzene molecule is fused to a carborane. It was found that the benzene part is not aromatic. More...

2006-05-14 Robert Bruce Merrifield, the biochemist and winner of the 1984 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, died at the age of 84. His best known work, carried out at Rockefeller University, was the development of a powerful technique for solid phase peptide synthesis.

2006-05-19 With an interior only 0.6 nm across, this gilded cage may be too small for a bird, but can fit an atom! The groups of Lai-Sheng Wang and Xiao Cheng Zeng have published their detection of anionic gold clusters of formula Au_n⁻ where n = 16-18, identified using photoelectron spectroscopy.

2006-04-25 The groups of E.J. Corey (Harvard) and Masakatsu Shibasaki (Tokyo) have published new syntheses of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) bypassing the expensive and scarce shikimic acid, the starting material in the current production method. Corey's group elected not to patent their procedure, in order to stimulate work on reducing costs and supply problems ahead of a possible flu pandemic.

2006-03-28 Chemists in the group of A. Prasanna de Silva at Queen's University of Belfast have designed a compound that contains of three electrolyte receptors in one small molecule. The substance (shown below) is a molecular logic gate and is described in a paper in JACS (online March 28, 2006), and is able to detect Na⁺, H⁺ and Zn²⁺ in aqueous solution.

2006-03-24 A large ethylene explosion at a chemistry school in Mulhouse, France, has killed at least one and seriously injured one other. The incident occurred at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Mulhouse, part of the University of Haute-Alsace.

2006-02-14 Could licorice help prevent tooth decay? Possibly, say UCLA chemists Wenyuan Shi and Qing-Yi Lu, who recently isolated the flavonoid Glycyrrhizol A, active against the oral pathogen Streptococcus mutans.

2006-24-02 A large explosion at a chemistry school in Mulhouse, France, has killed at least one and seriously injured one other. The incident occurred at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Mulhouse, part of the University of Haute-Alsace.

2005-11-22 Richard Mathies and coworkers from UC Berkeley describe in Science how they used Raman spectroscopy to understand vision. They found that the double bond in rhodopsin converts from the cis-isomer to the trans-isomer in an unexpected way.

2006-01-11 Albert Hofmann, the first person to synthesize and use lysergic acid diethylamide (the hallucinogenic drug called LSD), turns 100 years old today. Happy Birthday Dr. Hofmann!