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Explainer: The science of alkyl nitrites aka poppers | News
Sep 16, 2021 · Inhaling alkyl nitrites feels like becoming instantly drunk according to some users, although the effect lasts for only a few minutes. Also known as poppers, these chemicals have been taken recreationally since the 1960s. Although they are sold openly, usually in small brown bottles with enticing brand names such as ‘liquid gold’, their ...
There’s something about boron | Feature | Chemistry World
Apr 8, 2019 · Small-molecule boron chemistry has really come into vogue in the last 10 or 15 years. But over the past decade, boron chemistry has been steadily subverted. A string of boron compounds in exotic bonding states have turned the element’s behaviour on its head. Boron can be coaxed into become a strong nucleophile, a Lewis base, an electron donor.
One-electron covalent bond between two carbons pushes limits of …
Oct 4, 2024 · Scientists in Japan have made a groundbreaking discovery: they have identified a covalent bond between two carbon atoms that share only a single electron. ‘This [study was driven] by a curiosity to know where the limits of chemical bonds are,’ says Takuya Shimajiri at the University of Tokyo. Bulky aryl groups helped to stabilise the one ...
Why are there 20 amino acids? | Feature | Chemistry World
Sep 17, 2018 · But the selection of the 20 amino acids used in biology is clearly linked to the development of proteins. By polymerising amino acids in long polypeptide chains, proteins could fold into soluble structures with close-packed cores and ordered binding pockets. The arrival of proteins and the eventual adoption of the standard 20 amino acids was ...
Quantum tunnelling explains why several supposedly stable …
Oct 4, 2024 · Over a quarter of hypothetical tricyclic benzene isomers that earlier computational studies had classed as stable are completely unsynthesisable due to quantum tunnelling. 1 That’s according to quantum chemistry calculations by Sindy Julieth Rodríguez and Sebastian Kozuch from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Benzene has been a hot topic of discussion …
Recalibration is the biggest shake-up in the carbon dating world …
Aug 12, 2020 · Greater precision allowed the team to use samples such as trees preserved in New Zealand bogs, which can be 40,000 years old. The new calibration was pushed further back by including data from marine sediments from Venezuela, which go back 60,000 years, and a stalagmite record from Hulu cave in China that goes back 54,000 years.. The calibration is …
Aqua regia | Podcast | Chemistry World
Jul 13, 2017 · Ben Valsler. Please stand for the most aristocratic of acids: Aqua regia. Here’s Tabitha Watson. Tabitha Watson. Way back in the 8 th century AD, an alchemist by the name of Jabir ibn Al-Hayyan prepared the first recorded batch of aqua regia, a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid in a 1:3 ratio.. Named from the Latin for ‘royal water’, this volatile mixture …
The scale of the problem of replacing ‘forever chemicals’ PFAS
Oct 10, 2024 · Some packaging contains PFAS to repel grease, for example fast food wrappers and pizza boxes. One study published last year found PFAS chemicals in single-use paper, cardboard and plant-based moulded fibre food containers from 17 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. The research team identified …
The dark side of dichloromethane | Opinion | Chemistry World
Jul 19, 2017 · The dark side of dichloromethane. Policymakers and industry must take steps to curb emissions of popular solvent. Dichloromethane (DCM) is a fantastically useful solvent. It can dissolve a huge variety of compounds; whisk them through chromatography columns; and then Rotovap away in a trice. Yet it also has a dark side.