A remarkable mosaic of atomsIn quasicrystals, we find the fascinating mosaics of the Arabic world reproduced at the level of atoms: regular patterns that never repeat themselves. However, the configuration found in quasicrystals was considered impossible, and Dan Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 has fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter.On the morning of 8 April 1982, an image counter to the laws of nature appeared in Dan Shechtman's electron microscope. In all solid matter, atoms were believed to be packed inside crystals in symmetrical patterns that were repeated periodically over and over again. For scientists, this repetition was required in order to obtain a crystal.Shechtman's image, however, showed that the atoms in his crystal were packed in a pattern that could not be repeated. Such a pattern was considered just as impossible as creating a football using only six-cornered polygons, when a sphere needs both five- and six-cornered polygons. His discovery was extremely controversial. In the course of defending his findings, he was asked to leave his research group. However, his battle eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter.Aperiodic mosaics, such as those found in the medieval Islamic mosaics of the Alhambra Palace in Spain and the Darb-i Imam Shrine in Iran, have helped scientists understand what quasicrystals look like at the atomic level. In those mosaics, as in quasicrystals, the patterns are regular - they follow mathematical rules - but they never repeat themselves.When scientists describe Shechtman's quasicrystals, they use a concept that comes from mathematics and art: the golden ratio. This number had already caught the interest of mathematicians in Ancient Greece, as it often appeared in geometry. In quasicrystals, for instance, the ratio of various distances between atoms is related to the golden mean.Following Shechtman's discovery, scientists have produced other kinds of quasicrystals in the lab and discovered naturally occurring quasicrystals in mineral samples from a Russian river. A Swedish company has also found quasicrystals in a certain form of steel, where the crystals reinforce the material like armor. Scientists are currently experimenting with using quasicrystals in different products such as frying pans and diesel engines.

Advances in technology have almost lifted the curtain on the long-awaited era of the “$1,000 genome” — a time when all the genes that make up a person can be deciphered for about that amount – compared to nearly $1 million a few years ago. But an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS’ weekly newsmagazine, raises the disconcerting prospect that a price tag of $100,000, by one conservative estimate, is necessary to analyze that genetic data so it can be used in personalized medicine – custom designing treatments that fit the patient’s genetic endowment.In the article, C&EN Senior Editor Rick Mullin explains that while the cost of sequencing genes has dropped dramatically, the cost of analyzing genomic data so that it can be put to practical use in medicine has hardly budged. Today, assessing the genetic predispositions to disease means costly data analysis by specialists from several research areas, including molecular and computational biology, genetics, pathology and clinical science.Mullin, however, cites several trends in bioinformatics that are opening the door to collection and processing of genetic data more economically and efficiently. One trend is to incorporate genomic analysis in commercial drug discovery and development efforts from the beginning. Another way to ease the burden is to reduce the amount of data that is generated — one instrument company recently developed a brand-new sequencing technology that generates much smaller data files, for example. Pharma researchers also are collaborating and sharing data like never before, and some of them are making use of public cloud computing and free, open-source software.“The Next Generation in Genome Sequencing”Chemical & Engineering Newshttp://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/89/8919cover.html

Zhenguo (Gary) Yang and colleagues point out that concerns over the use of coal, oil, and other fuels that contribute to global warming and are in limited supply, have spurred interest in generating electrical energy from clean, renewable resources such as solar and wind power. But solar and wind are not constant and reliable sources of power, since wind power fluctuates from moment to moment and solar power is generated only in the daytime. This situation poses a significant challenge for electrical grid operators because other power plants need to compensate for this variability and the U.S. power grid currently has little energy storage capability. To enable a significant level of penetration and effective use of renewable energy sources amid growing energy demands, electrical grids of the future will need a low-cost, efficient way to integrate and store this electrical energy, the scientists note.The scientists analyzed the conclusions of more than 300 scientific studies and identified several technologies that can be used for energy storage for the green grid. These include high-tech batteries now in development that can efficiently store electricity in the form of chemicals and reversible release it on demand. Among the promising technologies are so-called redox flow and sodium-ion batteries, which could provide a low cost, high efficiency way to store energy. In addition to the United States, several other countries such as China and countries in Europe are planning to increase research activities related to energy storage and development. “The growing interests as well as worldwide research and development activities suggest a bright outlook for developing stationary energy storage technologies for the future electric grid,” the article concludes.“Electrochemical Energy Storage for Green Grid”Chemical Reviews

The compound ferrocene is proving a hit as an efficient electrolyte in dye-sensitized solar cells, reports a paper in Nature Chemistry this week. This iron 'sandwich' compound has the advantage over other electrolytes in that its structure has the potential to be tuned to improve its efficiency.The technology behind these solar cells — in which sunlight is absorbed by a dye — is two decades old, and improvements in their performance by small adjustments in the types of chemicals used as the electrolyte are levelling off. Leone Spiccia, Udo Bach and colleagues replaced the traditional iodide electrolyte with a ferrocene-based one, and made solar cells that achieved efficiencies approaching those of iodide. One of the great advantages of ferrocene, however, is the ease with which its structure can be altered, and the researchers predict that this can be used to improve its efficiency.Previous efforts to use metal compounds as the electrolyte have resulted in poor performance, and many proved corrosive to the solar cells. The ferrocene electrolyte does not corrode the cell and its behaviour is well understood.Dye-sensitized solar cells based on iodide/triiodide (I−/I3−) electrolytes are viable low-cost alternatives to conventional silicon solar cells. However, as well as providing record efficiencies of up to 12.0%, the use of I−/I3− in such solar cells also brings about certain limitations that stem from its corrosive nature and complex two-electron redox chemistry. Alternative redox mediators have been investigated, but these generally fall well short of matching the performance of conventional I−/I3− electrolytes. Here, we report energy conversion efficiencies of 7.5% (simulated sunlight, AM1.5, 1,000 W m−2) for dye-sensitized solar cells combining the archetypal ferrocene/ferrocenium (Fc/Fc+) single-electron redox couple with a novel metal-free organic donor–acceptor sensitizer (Carbz-PAHTDTT). These Fc/Fc+-based devices exceed the efficiency achieved for devices prepared using I−/I3− electrolytes under comparable conditions, revealing the great potential of ferrocene-based electrolytes in future dye-sensitized solar cells applications. This improvement results from a more favourable matching of the redox potential of the ferrocene couple with that of the new donor–acceptor sensitizer.High-efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells with ferrocene-based electrolytesTorben Daeneke, Tae-Hyuk Kwon, Andrew B. Holmes, Noel W. Duffy, Udo Bach & Leone SpicciaNature Chemistryhttp://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v3/n3/full/nchem.966.html

Scientists are reporting development of an advanced lithium-ion battery that is ideal for powering the electric vehicles now making their way into dealer showrooms. The new battery can store large amounts of energy in a small space and has a high rate capacity, meaning it can provide current even in extreme temperatures. A report on this innovation appears in ACS’ Journal of the American Chemical Society.Bruno Scrosati, Yang-Kook Sun, and colleagues point out that consumers have a great desire for electric vehicles, given the shortage and expense of petroleum. But a typical hybrid car can only go short distances on electricity alone, and they hold less charge in very hot or very cold temperatures. With the government push to have one million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015, the pressure to solve these problems is high. To make electric vehicles a more realistic alternative to gas-powered automobiles, the researchers realized that an improved battery was needed.The scientists developed a high-capacity, nanostructured, tin-carbon anode, or positive electrode, and a high-voltage, lithium-ion cathode, the negative electrode. When the two parts are put together, the result is a high-performance battery with a high energy density and rate capacity. “On the basis of the performance demonstrated here, this battery is a top candidate for powering sustainable vehicles,” the researchers say.The authors acknowledge funding from WCU (World Class University) program through the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation.“An Advanced Lithium Ion Battery Based on High Performance Electrode Materials”Journal of the American Chemical Society

ANAHEIM, March 31, 2011 — Scientists today described development and successful initial tests of a spray-on material that both detects and renders harmless the genre of terrorist explosives responsible for government restrictions on liquids that can be carried onboard airliners. They reported on the new ink-like explosive detector/neutralizer at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).“This stuff is going to be used anywhere terrorist explosives are used, including battlefields, airports, and subways,” said study leader Allen Apblett, Ph.D. “It’s going to save lives.”The material is a type of ink made of tiny metallic oxide nanoparticles — so small that 50,000 could fit inside the diameter of a single human hair. The ink changes color, from dark blue to pale yellow or clear, in the presence of explosives. It also changes from a metallic conductor to a non-conducting material, making electronic sensing also possible.This color-change feature allows the material to work as a sensor for quickly detecting the presence of vapors produced by explosives, Apblett said. Soldiers or firefighters could wear the sensors as badges on their uniforms or use them as paper-based test strips. Airports, subways and other facilities could use the sensors as part of stationary monitoring devices. The sensors could even be engineered into jewelry and cell phones, the scientist added.The same color-changing material can also serve as an explosives neutralizer. Firefighters and bomb squad technicians could spray the ink onto bombs or suspicious packages until the color change indicates that the devices are no longer a threat, Apblett said. Technicians could also dump the explosives into vats containing the ink to neutralize them.Apblett notes that authorities are concerned about peroxide-based explosives, made from hydrogen peroxide, which are easy to make and set off. These explosives first drew public attention in 2001, when thwarted “shoe bomber” Richard Reid tried to use one such substance as the detonator onboard a commercial airliner. In particular, they are concerned about a substance called triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, sometimes used in suicide vests and improvised explosive devices that have claimed such a toll among troops and civilians. However, current methods of detecting this explosive are ineffective, allowing the material to easily escape detection at airports and other locations.The new ink provides a quick way to detect and test these explosives, which might be hidden in clothing, food, and beverages. The ink contains nanoparticles of a compound of molybdenum, a metal used in a wide variety of applications including missile and aircraft parts. The dark blue ink reacts with the peroxide explosives and turns yellow or clear.When used as an electronic sensor, the highly-sensitive material is capable of detecting TATP vapors at levels as low as a 50 parts per million, equivalent to a few drops of the vapor in a small room, within 30 seconds. The same chemical reaction allows the materials to serve as an explosives neutralizer. In lab studies, the scientists showed that they could add the material to TATP or HMTD and make them nonexplosive.“This does a really good job of neutralizing terrorists’ explosives,” said Apblett, a chemist at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla. “I’m excited to see it moving from the lab to the real world.”The material can also improve safety at laboratories that use explosive chemicals. Recently, Apblett developed pellets containing the ink that can be added to laboratory solvents to prevent the build-up of levels of dangerous peroxides, which can cause accidental explosions. The color-changing feature allows the users of the solvents know that they are safe.Apblett and colleagues founded a company called Xplosafe to develop and market the material. They hope to see the explosive detecting ink used in airports in as little as a year.The scientists acknowledge funding from Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, the National Science Foundation, Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology, Xplosafe, and Oklahoma State University.This research was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS)

ANAHEIM, March 31, 2011 — In a scientific advance literally plucked from the waste heap, scientists today described a key step toward using the billions of pounds of waste chicken feathers produced each year to make one of the more important kinds of plastic. They described the new method at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).“Others have tried to develop thermoplastics from feathers,” said Yiqi Yang, Ph.D., who reported on the research. “But none of them perform well when wet. Using this technique, we believe we’re the first to demonstrate that we can make chicken-feather-based thermoplastics stable in water while still maintaining strong mechanical properties.”Thermoplastics are one of two major groups of plastics, and include nylon, polyethylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and dozens of other kinds. They are used to make thousands of consumer and industrial products ranging from toothbrush bristles to soda pop bottles to car bumpers. Thermoplastics got that name because they need heat (or chemicals) to harden from a liquid into a final shape, and can be melted and remolded time and again. The other group, thermosetting plastics, harden once and can’t be remelted again.Yang pointed out that both kinds of plastics are made mainly from ingredients obtained from oil or natural gas. Because of concerns about petroleum supplies, prices, and sustainability, dozens of scientific teams are working to find alternative ingredients. One major goal is to use agricultural waste and other renewable resources to make bioplastics that have an additional advantage of being biodegradable once discarded into the environment.“We are trying to develop plastics from renewable resources to replace those derived from petroleum products,” said Yang, who is an authority on biomaterials and biofibers in the Institute of Agriculture & Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “Utilizing current wastes as alternative sources for materials is one of the best approaches toward a more sustainable and more environmentally responsible society.”Chicken feathers are an excellent prospect, Yang explained, because they are inexpensive and abundant. Few shoppers think about it, but every shrink-wrapped broiler in the supermarket cooler leaves behind a few ounces of feathers. Annually there are more than 3 billion pounds of waste chicken feathers in the United States alone. These feathers can be processed into a low-grade animal feed, but that adds little value to the feathers and may also cause diseases in the animals. All too often, they become a waste disposal/environmental pollution headache, incinerated or stored in landfills.Yang explained that chicken feathers are made mainly of keratin, a tough protein also found in hair, hoofs, horns, and wool that can lend strength and durability to plastics. Yang added that the mechanical properties of feather films outperform other biobased products, such as modified starch or plant proteins.To develop the new water-resistant thermoplastic, Yang and colleagues processed chicken feathers with chemicals, including methyl acrylate, a colorless liquid found in nail polish that undergoes polymerization — that’s the process used in producing plastics in which molecules link together one by one into huge chains. This process resulted in films of what Yang’s group terms “feather-g-poly(methyl acrylate)” plastic. It had excellent properties as a thermoplastic, was substantially stronger and more resistant to tearing than plastics made from soy protein or starch, and as a first among chicken-feather plastics had good resistance to water.This research was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS)

Half a century ago, a Russian carpenter's son named Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, carving an indelible mark in human history and scoring the greatest Soviet Cold War success. The 27-year-old's 108-minute flight on April 12, 1961 is still remembered in Russia even after the collapse of the Soviet Union as its greatest national achievement. His death in a plane crash seven years later only added to his mythical status. Gagarin's safe return to earth in central Russia -- where he was famously given bread and milk by an astonished grandmother -- ensured he would live the rest of his life as a legend in Russia and abroad. Hundreds of thousands flooded the streets of Moscow when news broke of his triumph, which confirmed the Soviet Union's undisputed supremacy in the space race, a lead it would keep for eight years until Americans walked on the moon. The other-worldly allure of Gagarin is exemplified by the 40-metre-high (130-feet) titanium monument that still bears down on Moscow, his arms outstretched like a bionic superman and apparently preparing to shoot upwards into the sky. Gagarin was confirmed as pilot just four days before launch, a choice which propelled him to stardom and the reserve Gherman Titov, who would later become the second Soviet cosmonaut in space, to relative obscurity. His name also overshadows the mastermind of the mission, Sergei Korolev, who designed the equipment that took Gagarin to space yet whose role in the space programme was kept from the public as a state secret until his death in 1966. When Gagarin was killed, a driving licence, 40 rubles and a photograph of Korolev were found in his pocket. Few lives in modern history have been the subject of so much mythologising as that of Gagarin, with every aspect of his mission and subsequent life pored over in detail. He took off at 9:07 am Moscow time from the Baikonur cosmodrome whose location in the south of Kazakhstan was tightly-kept secret. He ejected and parachuted down to earth in the Saratov region of central Russia. The first people to make contact with the newly returned cosmonaut were peasant Anna Takhtarova and her four-year-old granddaughter Margarita. "I looked round and saw this orange monster with a huge head coming towards us," Margarita recalled in an interview with tabloid daily Komsomolskaya Pravda. "Grandma helped Yuri Gagarin take off his helmet -- she pressed some kind of button. And when we saw a smiling face in front of us we understood that it was a human being in front of us." SOURCE:Russian Federal Space Agency - http://www.roscosmos.ru/

Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons. The solar cell does all this using only a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells."These solar cells have, for the first time, surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials," says Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes Professor, professor of applied physics and materials science, and director of Caltech's Resnick Institute, which focuses on sustainability research.The light-trapping limit of a material refers to how much sunlight it is able to absorb. The silicon-wire arrays absorb up to 96 percent of incident sunlight at a single wavelength and 85 percent of total collectible sunlight. "We've surpassed previous optical microstructures developed to trap light," he says. Atwater and his colleagues—including Nathan Lewis, the George L. Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry at Caltech, and graduate student Michael Kelzenberg—assessed the performance of these arrays in a paper appearing in the February 14 advance online edition of the journal Nature Materials.Atwater notes that the solar cells' enhanced absorption is "useful absorption."This is a photomicrograph of a silicon wire array embedded within a transparent, flexible polymer film. Credit: Caltech/Michael Kelzenberg "Many materials can absorb light quite well but not generate electricity—like, for instance, black paint," he explains. "What's most important in a solar cell is whether that absorption leads to the creation of charge carriers."The silicon wire arrays created by Atwater and his colleagues are able to convert between 90 and 100 percent of the photons they absorb into electrons—in technical terms, the wires have a near-perfect internal quantum efficiency. "High absorption plus good conversion makes for a high-quality solar cell," says Atwater. "It's an important advance."The key to the success of these solar cells is their silicon wires, each of which, says Atwater, "is independently a high-efficiency, high-quality solar cell." When brought together in an array, however, they're even more effective, because they interact to increase the cell's ability to absorb light."Light comes into each wire, and a portion is absorbed and another portion scatters. The collective scattering interactions between the wires make the array very absorbing," he says.This effect occurs despite the sparseness of the wires in the array—they cover only between 2 and 10 percent of the cell's surface area."When we first considered silicon wire-array solar cells, we assumed that sunlight would be wasted on the space between wires," explains Kelzenberg. "So our initial plan was to grow the wires as close together as possible. But when we started quantifying their absorption, we realized that more light could be absorbed than predicted by the wire-packing fraction alone. By developing light-trapping techniques for relatively sparse wire arrays, not only did we achieve suitable absorption, we also demonstrated effective optical concentration—an exciting prospect for further enhancing the efficiency of silicon-wire-array solar cells."Each wire measures between 30 and 100 microns in length and only 1 micron in diameter. "The entire thickness of the array is the length of the wire," notes Atwater. "But in terms of area or volume, just 2 percent of it is silicon, and 98 percent is polymer."In other words, while these arrays have the thickness of a conventional crystalline solar cell, their volume is equivalent to that of a two-micron-thick film.Since the silicon material is an expensive component of a conventional solar cell, a cell that requires just one-fiftieth of the amount of this semiconductor will be much cheaper to produce.The composite nature of these solar cells, Atwater adds, means that they are also flexible. "Having these be complete flexible sheets of material ends up being important," he says, "because flexible thin films can be manufactured in a roll-to-roll process, an inherently lower-cost process than one that involves brittle wafers, like those used to make conventional solar cells."Atwater, Lewis, and their colleagues had earlier demonstrated that it was possible to create these innovative solar cells. "They were visually striking," says Atwater. "But it wasn't until now that we could show that they are both highly efficient at carrier collection and highly absorbing."The next steps, Atwater says, are to increase the operating voltage and the overall size of the solar cell. "The structures we've made are square centimeters in size," he explains. "We're now scaling up to make cells that will be hundreds of square centimeters—the size of a normal cell."Atwater says that the team is already "on its way" to showing that large-area cells work just as well as these smaller versions.In addition to Atwater, Lewis, and Kelzenberg, the all-Caltech coauthors on the Nature Materials paper, "Enhanced absorption and carrier collection in Si wire arrays for photovoltaic applications," are postdoctoral scholars Shannon Boettcher and Joshua Spurgeon; undergraduate student Jan Petykiewicz; and graduate students Daniel Turner-Evans, Morgan Putnam, Emily Warren, and Ryan Briggs.Their research was supported by BP and the Energy Frontier Research Center program of the Department of Energy, and made use of facilities supported by the Center for Science and Engineering of Materials, a National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Caltech. In addition, Boettcher received fellowship support from the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech.

Way back in 1967, a young UK nuclear scientist, Peter Harrop laboured to complete his PhD thesis under the sponsorship of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. It showed that well used water-cooled nuclear reactors had a vulnerability. The zirconium alloy used to clad the nuclear fuel becomes more chemically reactive after a prolonged and massive dose of neutrons caused by very extensive use. The thesis and the scientific papers resulting were quietly ignored. After all, at the time, the UK generated electricity using gas-cooled nuclear reactors considered to be far safer. It only deployed water cooled nuclear reactors where their small size was essential - in nuclear submarines - and these were unlikely to be operated for many decades or pushed to their limits. Indeed, massive over design was the order of the day for nuclear reactors in Europe and any Westerner suggesting siting a nuclear power station in an area subject to violent earthquakes would have been subject to a dry laugh.Dr. Peter Harrop, still a practicing scientist, explains, "When the outer building of the Japanese Fukushima No 1. reactor massively exploded, it was speculated that this was caused by hydrogen emitted from the overheated zirconium fuel cladding being in contact with cooling water. It is possible that, if this is true, just one of the contributory factors was that the zirconium alloy and its protective oxide film had built up neutron damage over nearly 40 years. Indeed the plant was about to be decommissioned in one month, having been commissioned in 1971."These days Dr. Harrop is out of the nuclear business but still involved in the science of electricity generation both large and small scale. His Cambridge company IDTechEx Ltd stages the world's largest events on Printed Electronics, encompassing printed flexible solar cells that can even be wrapped around buildings, cars and ships. The next such event is Printed Electronics and Photovoltaics Europe in Dusseldorf on 5-6 April.He notes, "I think there will always be space for several forms of electricity generation but governments must show consistency of purpose in supporting them in the early stages. The Japanese and Spanish governments have suddenly collapsed financial support for photovoltaic generation in the past, destroying nascent industries and associated employment and wealth creation. It is feared that the British government and some others are about to make the same mistake."He thinks that wind generators on land in countries like the UK where the wind rarely blows are merely gesture politics and he is pleased to see new ones sited in the North Sea where the wind rarely ceases to blow. However, he still supports nuclear power, noting that, "The UK and France, for example, have a superb record of safety with their nuclear power stations because they are correctly over designed and properly maintained and sited. Nuclear power is one of the least-worst solutions for power hungry countries wishing to avoid global warming and a sharp contrast to the massive human and planetary toll of coal power, for example. Millions of people are injured by the silicosis, cancer and accidents in coal mining and from breathing the emissions from burning coal and the planet is severely impacted. It would be a shame to revert to that because the press tend to keep it quiet." He supports the UK building more nuclear power stations, including the best modern water cooled versions."One day we shall be able to fully follow the advice of Edison that electricity should only be generated where it is used. Then there will be no power stations. Progress is gradual but essential on that one," he tells us.Dr. Peter Harrop, Chairman IDTechEx Ltd, Cambridge, UK, PhD Thesis "The Mechanism by Which Nuclear Radiation Enhances the Corrosion of Zirconium" Brunel University, 1967

The OECD is developing a new initiative to improve coordination of anti-corruption and transparency initiatives - first within its member countries, and then with all other relevant players, including governments, international organisations, NGOs and the private sector. “We are developing a new initiative, clean.gov.biz, that will improve our own anti-corruption tools and reinforce their implementation,” OECD Deputy Secretary-General Richard Boucher said. “We then want to strengthen cooperation with all relevant players to ensure that our instruments complement those of our partners.” Mr. Boucher discussed the initiative during the March 2-3 meeting of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, hosted at the OECD, underlining how many of its elements complement EITI work. EITI aims to improve natural resource management and reduce corruption by encouraging oil, gas and mining companies to publish the fees, royalties and taxes they pay and commiting governments to transparency about what they receive. The OECD is at the forefront of global anti-corruption efforts. In 2010, its 34 member countries and leading partners including Brazil and Russia agreed to a Declaration on Propriety, Integrity and Transparency in the Conduct of International Business and Finance. The Declaration is based on OECD instruments including the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Entreprises, which since 1975 set standards for business behavior, and the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, which set out broad rules to guide business conduct. The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention commits 38 signatory governments to establish bribery of foreign public officials as a criminal offence. OECD work on public procurement, public sector integrity, including on lobbying and conflicts of interest, as well as budget transparency is at the core of the reform agenda in a growing number of countries. “Political turmoil in highly corrupted regimes reminds us that citizens around the world will no longer accept corruption as business as usual,” Mr. Boucher said. The OECD is also actively cooperating with the G20 in the implementation of its Action Plan on Anti-Corruption, which includes initiatives on foreign bribery, asset recovery, international cooperation, protection of whistle blowers, government integrity and public-private partnerships in fighting corruption. It will co-organise with the French Presidency and the support of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime a G20 conference in April 27-28 on “Joining forces against corruption: G20 business and government.”For further information on the OECD’s anti-corruption work, visit www.oecd.org/corruption or contact the OECD Media Division (tel: + 33 1 4524 9700; news.contact@oecd.org).About the OECD (from the Website of the Organisation) The mission of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. The OECD provides a forum in which governments can work together to share experiences and seek solutions to common problems. We work with governments to understand what drives economic, social and environmental change. We measure productivity and global flows of trade and investment. We analyse and compare data to predict future trends. We set international standards on all sorts of things, from the safety of chemicals and nuclear power plants to the quality of cucumbers.We look, too, at issues that directly affect the lives of ordinary people, like how much they pay in taxes and social security, and how much leisure time they can take. We compare how different countries’ school systems are readying their young people for modern life, and how different countries’ pension systems will look after their citizens in old age.Drawing on facts and real-life experience, we recommend policies designed to make the lives of ordinary people better. We work with business, through the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD, and with labour, through the Trade Union Advisory Committee. We have active contacts as well with other civil society organisations. The common thread of our work is a shared commitment to market economies backed by democratic institutions and focused on the wellbeing of all citizens. Along the way, we also set out to make life harder for the terrorists, tax dodgers, crooked businessmen and others whose actions undermine a fair and open society. OECD at 50Now, as the OECD turns 50, we are focusing on helping governments in our member countries and elsewhere in four main areas:•First and foremost, governments need to restore confidence in markets and the institutions and companies that make them function. That will require improved regulation and more effective governance at all levels of political and business life.•Secondly, governments must re-establish healthy public finances as a basis for future sustainable economic growth.•In parallel, we are looking for ways to foster and support new sources of growth through innovation, environmentally friendly ‘green growth’ strategies and the development of emerging economies.•Finally, to underpin innovation and growth, we need to ensure that people of all ages can develop the skills to work productively and satisfyingly in the jobs of tomorrow. The OECD’s core values•Objective: Our analyses and recommendations are independent and evidence-based.•Open: We encourage debate and a shared understanding of critical global issues.•Bold: We dare to challenge conventional wisdom starting with our own.•Pioneering: We identify and address emerging and long term challenges.•Ethical: Our credibility is built on trust, integrity and transparency.

The enzyme that makes fireflies glow is lighting up the scientific path toward a long-sought new medical imaging agent to better monitor treatment with heparin, the blood thinner that millions of people take to prevent or treat blood clots, scientists are reporting. Their study appears in the ACS’ monthly journal Bioconjugate Chemistry.Bruce Branchini and colleagues describe a need for new medical imaging agents that emit near-infrared light — the light rays that “night vision” technology detects, enabling soldiers to see in the dark. Those rays penetrate deeper into the body and could give doctors a better way of detecting the proteins involved in blood clotting. Scientists already use luciferase, the enzyme that makes lightning bugs glow, in laboratory research.The new study describes an advance toward using luciferase in medical imaging. The scientists combined a protein obtained from firefly luciferase with a special dye that allows the protein to emit near-infrared light. In laboratory experiments, the new material successfully detected minute amounts of a specific blood protein, called factor Xa, which is used to monitor the effectiveness of heparin treatment. It offers promise for improved monitoring of heparin therapy, the article suggests.More in detail, bioluminescence and bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) are two naturally occurring light emission phenomena that have been adapted to a wide variety of important research applications including in vivo imaging and enzyme assays.The luciferase enzyme from the North American firefly, which produces yellow−green light, is a key component of many of these applications. Recognizing the heightened interest in the potential of near-infrared (nIR) light to improve these technologies, the research group has demonstrated that spectral emissions with maxima of 705 and 783 nm can be efficiently produced by a firefly luciferase variant covalently labeled with nIR fluorescent dyes. In one case, an outstanding BRET ratio of 34.0 was achieved emphasizing the importance of selective labeling with fluorescent dyes and the efficiency provided by the intramolecular BRET process. Additionally, the researchers constructed a biotinylated fusion protein that similarly produced nIR light. This novel material was immobilized on solid supports containing streptavidin, demonstrating, in principle, that it may be used for receptor-based imaging. Also, the matrix-bound labeled fusion protein was used to measure factor Xa activity at physiological concentrations in blood. Researchers conclude that they believe this to be the first report of bright nIR light sources produced by chemical modification of a beetle luciferase.“Chemically Modified Firefly Luciferase Is an Efficient Source of Near-Infrared Light”Bioconjugate Chemistry

Scientists are reporting discovery of an environmentally friendly way to make a key industrial material — used in products ranging from paints to diapers — from a renewable raw material without touching the traditional pricey and increasingly scarce petroleum-based starting material. Their report on a new catalyst for making acrylic acid appears in ACS Catalysis.Weijie Ji, Chak-Tong Au, and colleagues note that acrylic acid is essential for making paints, adhesives, textiles, leather treatments, and hundreds of other products. Global demand for the colorless liquid totals about 4 million tons annually. Acrylic acid is typically made from propylene obtained from petroleum. With prices rising, manufacturers have been seeking alternative ways of making acrylic acid without buying propylene. One possibility involves making it from lactic acid. But current processes for using lactic acid are inefficient, less selective, and require higher temperatures and the accompanying high inputs of energy.The scientists’ potential solution is a new catalyst that can convert lactic acid into acrylic acid more efficiently. Lactic acid is a classic renewable starting material, produced by bacteria growing in vats of biomass such as glucose and starch from plants. In laboratory studies, the scientists showed that the new catalyst can convert lactic acid to acrylic acid more selectively at lower temperatures. This could mean better use of lactic acid, lower fuel consumption, and less impact on the environment, the scientists suggest.“Efficient Acrylic Acid Production through Bio Lactic Acid Dehydration over NaY Zeolite Modified by Alkali Phosphates”ACS Catalysis

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2011 — Imagine a day without cars, electric lights, TV, telephones, safe food, and water, medicine, clothing, your house, and thousands of other familiar objects that make up modern society. Do it, and you are imagining a day in a world without chemistry.The American Chemical Society (ACS) explores that thought-provoking premise in a new high-definition video released before the Feb. 1 official U.S. launch of the International Year of Chemistry (IYC). A Day Without Chemistry follows a person who sees more and more everyday necessities and conveniences disappear before his widening eyes.The video was developed in conjunction with the ACS Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) to coincide with the start of the IYC, a global, year-long observance of the importance of chemistry in everyday life. YCC advocates for and provides resources to early-career chemists and professionals in the chemical sciences and related fields.The program is debuting today concurrently on the websites of the ACS and other chemistry organizations throughout the world. There is no dialogue in the video, but voices in various languages provide narration at the close to illustrate the global nature of the chemical sciences. The video was produced by the Digital Services Unit in the ACS office of Public Affairs (OPA).Mick Hurrey, Ph.D., YCC past chair, traces the video’s roots to 2010 and the European Younger Chemists Network (EYCN) Delegate Assembly. “I presented the idea of a video project for IYC 2011 that could be posted online to inform millions of young people about the importance of chemistry in their lives. We came up with the idea of A Day Without Chemistry as a topic that could inform audiences about the positive contributions of chemistry to everyday life — contributions all-too-often overlooked. "The 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry, envisioning a worldwide celebration of the achievements of chemistry and its contributions to the well-being of humankind. Also being celebrated in 2011 is the centennial of the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Marie Curie for her work on radioactivity, and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the International Association of Chemical Societies.http://www.bytesizescience.com/

Scientists are reporting an advance in overcoming a major barrier to the use of the genetic material RNA in nanotechnology — the field that involves building machines thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair and now is dominated by its cousin, DNA. Their findings, which could speed the use of RNA nanotechnology for treating disease, appear in the monthly journal ACS Nano.Peixuan Guo and colleagues point out that DNA, the double-stranded genetic blueprint of life, and RNA, its single-stranded cousin, share common chemical features that can serve as building blocks for making nanostructures and nanodevices. In some ways, RNA even has advantages over DNA. The field of DNA nanotechnology is already well-established, they note. The decade-old field of RNA nanotechnology shows great promise, with potential applications in the treatment of cancer, viral, and genetic diseases.However, the chemical instability of RNA and its tendency to breakdown in the presence of enzymes have slowed progress in the field.The scientists describe development of a highly stable RNA nanoparticle. They tested its ability to power the nano-sized biological motor of a certain bacteriophage — a virus that infects bacteria — that operates usingmolecules of RNA. The modified RNA showed excellent biological activity similar, even in the presence of high concentrations of enzymes that normally breakdownRNA. The finding show that “it is practical to produce RNase (an enzyme that degrades RNA) resistant, biologically active, and stable RNA for application in nanotechnology,” the article notes.“Fabrication of Stable and RNase-Resistant RNA Nanoparticles Active in Gearing the Nanomotors for Viral DNA Packaging”ACS Nano

In the materials science equivalent of a football fan jumping onto the field and scoring a touchdown, scientistsare documenting that one fundamental component of computer chips, long regarded as a passive bystander, can actually be made to act like a switch. That potentially allows it to take part in the electronic processes that power cell phones, iPads, computers, and thousands of other products. In a report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the scientists document the multiple ways in which silicon dioxide, long regarded simply as an electric insulator, gets involved in the action. This behavior had formerly confused scientists working in the area of nanoelectronics — they thought that the switching was due to the nano-additive but it turns out that the source of the switching might be from the underlying silicon oxide itself.Jun Yao, Douglas Natelson, Lin Zhong, and James Tour explain that manufacturers have long used silicon oxide, normally a very poor conductor of electricity, as both a supportive and insulating material in electronics. Silicon, a primary component of beach sand, is the semiconductor material at the heart of modern electronics. When bound to oxygen, the resulting silicon oxide is generally one of the highest quality electronic insulating materials. The scientists recently showed, however, that the oxide material can be converted to a switchable conductor by an electrical process. This phenomenon may hold the key to developing a new generation of smaller, more powerful computer chips, but the mechanism behind this switching was unclear, until now. It also clarifies the possible nature behind the switching events in former molecular and nano-scale systems.The scientists sandwiched a nano-sized layer of silicon oxide, thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair, between two electrodes and exposed the device to increasing amounts of electrical current. They demonstrated that electricity can cause the silicon oxide to breakdown into smaller components, nano-sized crystals of silicon, in a way that boosts its electrical conductivity and makes it a player in the working processes of computer chips.“Silicon Oxide: A Non-innocent Surface for Molecular Electronics and Nanoelectronics Studies”Journal of the American Chemical Society

Brussels - On the occasion of the European Antibiotic Awareness Day, ECDC is releasing new European-wide surveillance data on antibiotic resistance from the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net). With annually up to 400,000 patients reported to suffer from infections resistant to multiple antibiotics, the data show that antibiotic resistance remains a public health problem across the European Union. In Klebsiella pneumoniae, a common cause of infection amongst hospital patients, an emerging trend is the proportion of resistance to powerful last-line antibiotics, such as carbapenems. Proportions of resistance range from less than 1% to more than 25%. Without effective last-line antibiotics, doctors face the dilemma of not having any treatment options left. Speaking today at the launch event for European Antibiotic Awareness Day in the European Parliament, ECDC Director, Marc Sprenger, said: “Antibiotic resistance remains a serious threat to patient safety, reducing options for treatment and increasing lengths of hospital stay, as well as patient morbidity and mortality. However the news is not all gloomy. European-wide surveillance data from EARS-Net – a network coordinated by ECDC – show that a significant number of countries have reported decreasing trends for MRSA for the second consecutive year. Notwithstanding, we are seeing increasing multi-drug resistance and the emergence of resistance to last-line antibiotics in European hospitals which we must take urgent action to address.”The focus of this year’s European Antibiotic Awareness Day is promoting prudent antibiotic use in hospitals in order to turn the tide on antibiotic resistance. Whereas, up to 50% of antibiotic use in hospitals can be inappropriate. Prudent use means only using antibiotics when they are needed, with the correct dose, dosage intervals and duration of the course. Activities to promote prudent use of antibiotics are taking place in 36 different European countries, including all member states of the European Union. An EU-level launch event was organised today in the European Parliament to draw attention to the many national campaigns on prudent antibiotic use. Marc Sprenger, ECDC Director, stressed: “ECDC has been involved in coordinating the European Antibiotic Awareness Day since 2008. We are very proud that 36 countries are joining efforts to mark this day. Campaigns to promote prudent antibiotic use across Europe are bringing some good results, as in the case of MRSA. We are also happy that this year the United States’ Get Smart About Antibiotics Week is being launched simultaneously during the week of 18 November in an effort to show global solidarity”.About European Antibiotic Awareness Day The European Antibiotic Awareness Day is a European health initiative which aims to provide a platform and support for national campaigns about prudent antibiotic use. Across Europe each year the European Antibiotic Awareness Day is marked by national campaigns on prudent antibiotic use during the week of 18 November. The focus of this year’s European Antibiotic Awareness Day is promoting prudent antibiotic use in hospitals. Prudent use means only using antibiotics when they are needed, with the correct dose, dosage intervals and duration of the course. For more information, visit: http://antibiotic.ecdc.europa.eu

London (Ontario – Canada) - No! This isn’t good news for smokers. Smoking is still one of the most unhealthy habits of mankind. Nevertheless, tobacco can be employed in a different way. Tobacco, used on a small scale as a natural organic pesticide for hundreds of years, is getting new scientific attention as a potential mass-produced alternative to traditional commercial pesticides. That’s the topic of a report in ACS’ bi-weekly journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. Cedric Briens and colleagues note that concerns about the health risks of tobacco have reduced demand and hurt tobacco farmers in some parts of the world. Scientists are looking for new uses for tobacco. One potential use is as a natural pesticide, due to tobacco’s content of toxic nicotine. For centuries, gardeners have used home-made mixtures of tobacco and water as a natural pesticide to kill insect pests. A “green” pesticide industry based on tobacco could provide additional income for farmers, and as well as a new eco-friendly pest-control agent, the scientists say. They describe a promising way to convert tobacco leaves into pesticides with pyrolysis. That process involves heating tobacco leaves to about 900 degrees Fahrenheit in a vacuum, to produce an unrefined substance called bio-oil. The scientists tested tobacco bio-oil against a wide variety of insect pests, including 11 different fungi, four bacteria, and the Colorado potato beetle, a major agricultural pest that is increasingly resistant to current insecticides. The oil killed all of the beetles and blocked the growth of two types of bacteria and one fungus. Even after removal of the nicotine, the oil remained a very effective pesticide. Its ability of the oil to block some but not all of the microorganisms suggests that tobacco bio-oil may have additional value as a more selective pesticide than those currently in use, the report indicates.“Experimental Investigations into the Insecticidal, Fungicidal, and Bactericidal Properties of Pyrolysis Bio-oil from Tobacco Leaves Using a Fluidized Bed Pilot Plant”Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research