'ACS in the News' publishes daily articles from newspapers, blogs and magazines about the American Chemical Society and its 38 peer-reviewed journals. Click on the links below to view the published article. The full-text article can also be found in the attached document at the bottom of the page.
Time Magazine (New York, N.Y.: weekly circulation 3.4 million)
“Can blueberry juice boost your memory?”
January 21, 2010
It's hard to find fresh blueberries this time of year, but you might consider buying blueberry juice, particularly if you're having chronic trouble remembering where you put the car keys. According to a small new study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, drinking blueberry juice can actually improve your memory. The study included just 16 participants, average age 78, who were recruited in the Cincinnati area. Nine volunteers were asked to drink about two cups of blueberry juice every day for 12 weeks. While all participants experienced age-related cognitive problems, the blueberry-juice drinkers showed significantly better performance on two memory tests than a control group of seven participants who drank a sweet placebo beverage that contained no juice. What's more, the juice drinkers' test scores had improved by the end of the 12 weeks.
BBC News (London, England: 55 million monthly unique users)
“Carbon nanotubes used to make batteries from fabrics”
January 21, 2010
Ordinary cotton and polyester fabrics have been turned into batteries that retain their flexibility. The demonstration is a boost to the nascent field of "wearable electronics" in which devices are integrated into clothing and textiles. The approach is based on dipping fabrics in an "ink" of tiny tubes of carbon, and was first demonstrated last year on plain copier paper. The new application to fabrics is reported in the journal Nano Letters. "Wearable electronics represent a developing new class of materials... which allow for many applications and designs previously impossible with traditional electronics technologies," the authors wrote.
Daily Telegraph (London, England: daily circulation 842,912)
“Copper pipes could cause heart disease and Alzheimer's”
January 21, 2010
Scientists have claimed people should remove old copper pipes from their homes or install special filters because the metal has been shown to build up in their bodies and cause serious health problems. They have warned that tiny traces of copper from pipes, which are still installed in British homes, mix with tap water and are then consumed by people. Over a long period of time this leads to a build-up of copper in the body which then leads to Alzheimer's disease, heart disease and diabetes because the body cannot process the metal. The study found people over 50 should also avoid vitamin and mineral pills that contain cooper and iron, lowering meat intake and avoid drinking water from copper pipes. The study the "Risks of Copper and Iron Toxicity during Ageing in Humans" was published in the American Chemical Society's Chemical Research in Toxicology journal.
OneIndia (Bangalore, India: 1.7 million monthly unique users)
“School classrooms 'more polluted than outdoors'”
January 21, 2010
School classrooms are more polluted than outdoor places, a new study claims. Scientists in Australia and Germany insist some school classrooms may contain higher levels of airborne ultrafine particles. The experts fear children easily inhale these particles deep into the lungs. Lidia Morawska with her team studied levels of ultrafine particles in 3 elementary school classrooms in Brisbane, Australia. They found that on numerous occasions ultrafine particle levels in the classrooms were significantly higher than outdoors. The highest levels occurred during art activities such as gluing, painting and drawing when indoor levels were several times higher than outdoor levels. (Environmental Science & Technology)
RedOrbit (Dallas, Tex.: 5.4 million monthly unique users)
“UVa Engineers Find Significant Environmental Impacts With Algae-Based Biofuel”
January 21, 2010
With many companies investing heavily in algae-based biofuels, researchers from the University of Virginia's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have found there are significant environmental hurdles to overcome before fuel production ramps up. They propose using wastewater as a solution to some of these challenges. These findings come after ExxonMobil invested $600 million last summer and the U.S. Department of Energy announced last week that it is awarding $78 million in stimulus money for research and development of the biofuel. The U.Va. research, just published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, demonstrates that algae production consumes more energy, has higher greenhouse gas emissions and uses more water than other biofuel sources, such as switchgrass, canola and corn.
Science Daily (Rockville, Md.: 3.6 million monthly unique users)
“Zebrafish Swim Into Drug Development”
January 21, 2010
By combining the tools of medicinal chemistry and zebrafish biology, a team of Vanderbilt investigators has identified compounds that may offer therapeutic leads for bone-related diseases and cancer. The findings, reported in ACS Chemical Biology, support using zebrafish as a novel platform for drug development. In 2007, Charles Hong, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues described using fish embryos to screen for compounds that interfere with signaling pathways involved in early development -- pathways known to play roles in a variety of disease processes. They discovered the compound "dorsomorphin" and demonstrated that it blocked BMP (bone morphogenetic protein) signaling, which has been implicated in anemia, inflammatory responses and bone-related disorders.
Nanowerk (Hanolulu, Hawaii: 70,700 monthly unique users)
“Researcher suggests the mineral kotoite as new memory insulator material”
January 21, 2010
Breakthroughs in electronics often are the result of finding just the right material for a device -- like the tungsten in light bulbs or the silicon in transistors. Now, a Cornell scientist believes that the mineral kotoite could be an ideal insulator for memory storage devices called magnetic tunnel junctions, found in computers, cell phones and magnetic field sensors. The work, building on previous research by other Cornell scientists, is published by Derek Stewart, the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility's computational research associate, in the Dec. 17 online edition of Nano Letters.
Broadcast News
KHON-TV (FOX News affiliate, Honolulu, Hawaii: daily audience 76,581)
“Can blueberry juice impove memory?”
January 21, 2010
Researchers compared a group of elderly volunteers who drank two-and-a- half cups of blueberry juice every day to a group who didn't. After two months, the blueberry group showed significant improvement on learning and memory tests. Researchers credit anti-oxidants. The findings appear in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
… From the Blogs
Tips for Easy Weight Loss
January 22, 2010
Looking for a food that can help make you trim, fit, healthy, pump you full of anti-oxidants, and give you great skin? Who isn’t! Few foods are as well rounded and have as many health benefits as black beans. A study that appeared in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found flavonoid levels similar to those found in red grapes and cranberries. The anti-oxidants are found in the skin of the bean, and the darker the skin, the higher the levels of anti-oxidants.
itecs insider
January 20, 2010
Businesspeople are optimists by nature, and that trait comes through in their predictions for the chemical enterprise’s year ahead. Beaten and bruised by two years of the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, they still expect better times in 2010. Even economists, practitioners of the dismal science, have positive thoughts about the new year. The American Chemistry Council forecasts that U.S. chemical output will increase by 3.0% this year. The trade group’s European counterpart, the European Chemical Industry Council, is more optimistic, predicting a 4.7% rise in output for that region’s industry. (Chemical & Engineering News)