Monthly Archives: August 2007

Diamonds Almost Forever

Posted by spinneret on August 22, 2007 Comments Off

Diamonds almost as old as the Earth itself have been found locked in ancient crystals of zircon from the Jack Hills region of Western Australia, according to scientists writing in Nature this week. The diamonds could provide unique insights into …

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Azadirachtin Done

Posted by spinneret on August 22, 2007 3 comments

Steve Ley and his team (some 40 PhD students over the last two decades) have finally cracked the total synthesis of the natural insecticide azadirachtin. This hugely complex natural product extracted from the Indian neem tree put up quite a …

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Blue-Green Porphyrin Flip

Posted by spinneret on August 10, 2007 Comments Off

A molecular Möbius strip that can flip between single-sided and double-sided modes has been synthesised by chemists in Poland without snapping the ring. Lechoslaw Latos-Grazynski and his colleagues at the University of Wroclaw explain that for a molecule to be …

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Hemp Help for Everglades

Posted by spinneret on August 7, 2007 Comments Off

Atrazine, a herbicide, and some of its degradation products could seep into groundwater and impair water quality across the Florida Everglades, according to Scientists from the USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and University of Florida. The team reports details of its …

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