First Ever Chemistry Picnic and it's Mole Day!

Serving tacos at the
Chemistry Picnic

Subsequently, it is also national chemistry week! And it is Jennifer Mallory’s birthday! If you see her walking around today, say happy birthday and tell her how she was destined to become a chemistry professor because she was born on mole day. As for mole day though the official mole day started at 6:02 AM and continues until 6:02 PM tonight in honor of Avogadro’s incomparably important unit. For those of you who need a refresher, this day commemorates Amedeo Avagadro’s number; 6.022 X 10²³ which is a basic measuring constant used in chemistry. Hence why mole day falls on 10/23 from 6:02 to 6:02. This number defines the number of particles in 1 mole of a substance. If you are awesome and wish to celebrate one of the only chemistry related holidays, this link will take you to the ACS website where they have many mole day related activities that one could do: ACS Mole Day Activities . Or you could go to Trader Joe's and enjoy some deliciously punny guacamole called Avocados Number. Either way have the best mole day ever!

A week and a half ago (10/13/13) the CI Chemistry department held its first ever picnic at Mission Oaks Park. This event was probably the best most relaxed setting for students to get to know chemistry faculty and ask questions about anything and everything. So I was shocked to see that when I arrived the number of students was fairly scarce. Regardless, it was quite a pleasant Sunday afternoon spent in the part with like minded chemistry enthusiasts. There were all sorts of games set up and the event was catered by a professional food truck service. They were delicious tacos. There will be more chemistry department events coming up and I highly encourage all students and faculty to attend. It is really a great opportunity to get to know your professors or students. Enjoy the pictures.

by Sammy Freitag

A Lonely Whale's Earwax Story

            

Ear Wax Plug Removed

                How do you want to tell your life’s’ story? Probably not through your earwax. Unfortunately for whales who lack thumbs though; their options are limited. In 2007 a male blue whale washed up on a Santa Barbara beach after being struck by a ship. Researchers removed a 10-inch long earplug from the carcass. . They decided to perform an extensive chemical analysis on it to see what the whale had been exposed to over its lifetime. Scientists normally use whale blubber to determine stress levels of whales, but blubber only provides valid information at certain intervals of the whale’s life. And scientists want to know all of it! They had been using earwax to determine age, similar to counting rings in trees. This detailed chemical analysis however provided some groundbreaking insight into the whale's life story.

Stress Hormone Cortisol

           

The earwax accumulates in layers inside the ear canal, which eventually creates a waxy plug that can be over a foot long. That could produce over 5 whale earwax candles, if your in to that. The layer is very light in color when the animal is migrating and not eating much, and it is much darker when the animal is getting plenty of food. How is this a useful tool for scientists? Well, just from the earwax scientists could tell the whale was likely born around 1995, that it was exposed to organic pollutants like DDT and many other pesticides in the first six months of life, most likely from nursing. They were also able to analyze the stress hormone cortisol, testosterone, flame-retardants, and mercury. The stress hormone levels were found very high in certain layers which tells us that it could have been separated from its mother at that time, or been seriously disturbed by noises. Based on whale migration patterns, the scientists could speculate where and when the whale was most stressed, and where it was exposed to most of the toxic chemicals. This gives us good insight into how the chemicals we produce affect all life.

            This new way of testing whale earwax can start to answer the 100 year old question of how are we  really affecting these animals? The stress hormone can tell how, where, and when ship traffic affects whales, environmental noise, climate change, and other contaminants. It can tell us more about whale development and what they encounter in their life. This also opens up the possibility of examining fossilized earwax which can tell us how the environment has changed. This new way of studying the mammal has opened up more possibilities than we realize right now. It is a very exciting time for cetologists! Lets just hope they don’t develop a whale sized Q-tip any time soon.

Blue Whale

 by Samantha Freitag

Sperm whale  -Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Chemistry that Kills

Chemistry is a very selective science. I am not saying it chooses only certain types of people, but that in all chemists there lays a never-ending desire for learning. There is an instinctive outlook on life that perpetuates an existence of exploration. It takes a certain kind of person to taste the ocean spray on their lips and wonder why it tastes salty. And it takes a chemist to experiment that interest.

Chemistry is for the curious.

It is also for the creative. That is not a word that people often associate with chemists, but it takes a creative mind to visualize molecules, atoms, and molecular interactions that one would not even know existed without other chemists’ curiosity. It is undeniable the vital role that chemistry plays in everyone and everything’s lives’. As I sit at this computer trillions of reactions are occurring, in my mind, with the keyboard, in the air.  My body chemistry is making sure I am warm, that my K⁺ Na pump is working in all of my cells, that I am kept alive, it even created me, all of us, and everything around us. Part of what makes chemistry so fascinating is that it is literally everything, everywhere, all the time. Things are always interacting at atomic levels and the result is what we experience. Chemists alike understand that with this great knowledge come great responsibilities. 

The knowledge of chemistry can be used to kill cancerous cells, or stop an infection, or help pump adrenaline when you are freaking out about that chemistry test you didn’t study for. We use it to make wine, Cheetos, and conversely, it can also be used to kill people. I remember turning 18 and being called by the US military recruiters to see if I wanted to join the army. They asked what major I intended to study and when I told them Chemistry they sounded enthralled. They explained that they have tons of laboratories set up to assist our armed forces. I had always known that I was not interested in the army, but this was the first time I contemplated that I could use this knowledge as a weapon. I absolutely did not want to use chemistry to help hurt people, or even to help people who hurt people. I knew even then, the potentials that chemistry has in harming people. This was made evident when on August 21^st 2013, while we were all getting ready for the school year, the chemical gas Sarin was used against civilians in Syria. 

The chemical weapon attack in Syria was horrific. The videos of children lying side by side, surrounded by their parents was more than terrifying and heart wrenching. So what could kill 1500 people without spilling a drop of blood? Sarin is a nerve agent chemical weapon, which means it is one of the most toxic and fast acting chemical weapons known of. They have similar effects as certain types of insecticides called organophosphates in terms of how they work. It makes you think about the insect massacre that happens so our fruit is bug free. Sarin works by attacking the nervous system by stopping the nerve endings in muscles from switching off. The result is not being able to breath due to the inability to control the muscles involved in breathing. You basically suffocate because your muscles go into this crazy spasm, which you can see is happening from the videos.

For you biochemists reading this, Sarin specifically inhibits acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme that destroys the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter used at the neuromuscular junction where signals are transmitted between neurons from the central nervous systems to muscle fibers. Thus, your muscles are never signaled to relax.

Sarin Gas Structure

The effectiveness of chemical weapons was shown so deadly, cruel, and untargeted that in 1993 an Organization for the Prohibition for Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was created. They wrote a treaty that would prohibit the use, manufacturing, and stockpiling of chemical weapons by any state that signed it. Currently 188 state parties have signed this treaty, but Syria was not one of them.

The effects of the gas were tragic, and yet you cannot blame chemistry for it did exactly what it was intended to do. Obviously it was the people who released the gas that should be blamed for the mass murder, but what about the chemists who make such weapons of mass destruction? At what point do we stop blaming the shooter and start blaming the bullet maker? The chemists who came up with Sarin gas designed it to be a lethal gas. We chemists hold great knowledge and in some ways more powerful knowledge than doctors and yet there is no real ethical code for chemists like there is for doctors. Why would a chemist use his specialized knowledge for malicious intentions? And who would?

Fritz Haber

My searches lead me to a man by the name of Fritz Haber.  He was a Jewish German physical chemist who revolutionized the way we grow our food, and the way we fought WWII. He thought of fixing the Nitrogen in the air to use as fertilizer. Without this Nitrogen fixation process, the world could not support it’s current population. But this discovery came about during World War II when it was believed that by cutting off Germany’s Nitrogen deposit supplies that the war would be over within a few months. Thanks to Haber’s Nitrogen Fixation process however, the war was able to continue. Haber devoted his research to chemical warfare for Germany and thought of using Chlorine gas, which was one of the first chemical weapons ever made. It is such an odd thought that the mind that saved millions from starving also killed millions in battle and in gas chambers in concentration camps. Why would such a brilliant mind commit this atrocity against his fellow man? Fritz Haber was not evil, he was curious and in some ways forced to work for the German government in order to avoid persecution himself. Yet his research on chemical weapons was intended for mass death only. Was he in the wrong along with the Germans?

So I guess what this search really asked me was how would I use my knowledge of chemistry after college? At what point does synthesizing an anticancer drug and knowing that at the same time you are poisoning water supplies from that same synthesis make it unethical? All I believe is that I am interested in chemistry because I am interested in everything. And as chemists we may be faced with hard questions. Hopefully, because we understand the intricate network that is life, we will not allow others to disassemble its beauty. How can one truly determine the moral compass of the chemist?

Sarin gas being released in Houla, Syria

What A Tangled Web of...Insulin?

Example of an
insulin injection

An insulin pump

Researchers at North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Children’s Hospital Boston have developed a new type of regulation for type 1 diabetes that could revolutionize the disease, as we know it.

Let me make sure you know it then:

There are two types of diabetes. Both have a similarity with an inability for the body to take up sugar in the blood (glucose). The difference between the different types lie within why the body is unable to process glucose. Type 1 has to do with the pancreas (insulin producing organ) losing its ability to produce insulin. Whether a person is diagnosed at age 1 or at age 20, there is a genetic predisposition for type 1 diabetes that is inherited and develops, eventually, over time. Type 2, however, is when a body becomes desensitized to insulin, because it is produced so much. Due to insulin being produced to counter the intake of glucose in the blood, when there is too much glucose being introduced, the cells develop a resistance to insulin and no longer take in the glucose to be broken down for energy.

Type 1 diabetics need insulin supplied to them because they don’t have any to signal glucose breakdown. Whether the insulin is supplied by injections or by an insulin pump, type 1 diabetics have to learn a routine in order to maintain their health. Even though modern technology has provided a way for type 1 diabetics to keep their glucose levels in check, there are still some health complications that can occur from improper and poorly scheduled insulin injections, whether through syringe or pump: limb amputation, blindness, kidney failure, seizures, unconsciousness, brain damage, and even death.

Researchers at universities across the United States have found a way to produce a “glucose-mediated release strategy for the self-regulated delivery of insulin using an injectable and acid-degradable polymeric network” or as I like to call it, “a scientific miracle”.

Schematic of the nano particle
web and how it administers insulin 

The production of this new insulin is fairly basic, when broken down. Nanoparticles are subjected to differently charged substances that will “stick together” when exposed to each other. This network of nanoparticles creates a figure similar to a web that allows blood to flow seamlessly through the cluster of particles, which makes way for the miraculous science behind it.

When the web of nanoparticles encounters high glucose levels in the body, the glucose oxidase (an enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of glucose to gluconic acid) in the dextran (the substance that makes up most of the nanoparticles and encapsulates the insulin and glucose oxidase) of the particle starts to convert that glucose into gluconic acid. When this happens, the dextran starts to break down, releasing the insulin into the blood stream. Now that insulin has been released, it can complete its job by signaling the cells to transport glucose to where it gets broken down through cellular respiration.

These researchers have found that the web of nanoparticles can regulate blood sugar levels successfully for approximately ten days. Such duration of proper regulation is remarkable, especially when injections are being performed many times a day to do the same thing with diabetics currently.

The future is upon us and I cannot wait to see what this “smart insulin” holds for type 1 diabetics!

Once again, science, you rule.

Kayte Bataille 

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Futuristic simulation of OLED technology.

She had done it! Dr. Brittnee Veldman has managed to incorporate LEGOs into her new research project.

With a blend of materials chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering, Dr. Veldman is working on a new way to synthesize high-dielectric, nano-composite materials for use in flexible transistors. What does that string of complex science terms mean? Well, Dr. Veldman is trying to develop a way to make anything with a LED screen, from televisions to computer screens and even cell phones, as flexible as what we observe in projection screen material. Eventually, televisions will be shoved into poster tubes and hung on the walls with thumbtacks and desktop monitors will be rolled open when in use!

Specifically, Dr. Veldman is working towards organic electronics over our traditional inorganic electronics we encounter today because these organic electronics have synthetic diversity, they are light weight, flexible, inexpensive, and can be made into very large screens as opposed to the breakable and heavy metal-based ones.

Student-made Spin Coater

In order to produce these flexible organic LED (OLED) screens, there needs to be an organic field-effect transistor (OFET) to handle the malleability of these displays. A field-effect transistor is an electrical switch that uses electric fields to control the shape and conductivity of a channel in electronics. An OFET is a field-effect transistor that is made from organic materials. In order for these OFET’s to work, they need insulators to keep the current in the channel and these insulators have to be compatible with the OFETs.

Ideally, an OFET compatible insulator would have high capacitance (ability to keep the electrical charge within the system), be inexpensive as well as simple in production, and have consistent morphology and flexibility. The current materials used as insulators are successful in all but one of those requirements. Dr. Veldman is currently working, yes on the CSUCI campus, to produce an insulator that rises above all others.

By an intricate process of chemical reactions, that I am not at liberty to release, and trust in the laws of chemistry and physics, Dr. Veldman is hoping to synthesize a composite insulator that has a high capacitance, is easy to produce, and is scalable to large areas.

Aside from generating a large piece of the puzzle that stands between me and my television that can be rolled up for transport, Dr. Veldman is further working towards developing the mechanical instruments used in her experiments herself, with assistance from several CSUCI students, of course.

Student-made Dip Coater

There are two possible ways to apply this new insulator to the substrate used in OFETs: spin and dip coating. Spin coating is the process of putting a small amount of the insulator onto a disc and spinning that disc at high speeds to obtain a desired thickness and surface area of the insulator, this works almost like those tie-dye splatter paint spinner things used in the 90’s or a pottery wheel used in ceramics (depending on when you were born, one metaphor will make more sense than the other). Dip coating is when a sheet is dipped or dragged through the insulation substance in order to coat the sheet. THIS IS WHERE THE LEGOS COME IN! Dr. Veldman is utilizing LEGO Mindstorms kits to produce the dip coater to be used in her research project. I just hope no one steps on the LEGO blocks!

Dr. Veldman is working to better the technology we interact with in our every day routines, saving money by producing her own techniques, and I cannot wait until I am able to drop my iPhone without worrying about the glass shattering.