Diatom skeletons make silicon sensors

US scientists have converted frustules - the intricate silica-based skeletons of common single-celled photosynthetic organisms called diatoms - into pure silicon sculptures.  

Prising silicon and oxygen atoms apart usually requires temperatures around 2000°C, but Ken Sandhage and his team at Atlanta's Georgia Institute of Technology found magnesium gas could reduce the glass frustules to silicon and magnesium oxide at 650°C; the latter dissolve in acid leaving delicate silicon nanostructures which would be hard to fabricate from porous flat wafers. 

The researchers, publishing in Nature, found that the silicon skeletons made excellent gas sensors, and could be used as electrodes in batteries, or to assist liquid chromatography separation. 

Renewable funding 

The US Department of energy (DOE) has announced it will provide up to $385 million (£200 million) to underwrite six cellulosic ethanol projects across the country. Three use enzymes to break down pre-treated cellulose to ethanol; two convert biomass to synthesis gas and thence to liquid fuel; one uses acid to hydrolyse cellulose. 

The DOE has also selected 13 industry-led groups to share $168 million between 2007 and 2009, to support the design of cheaper solar technology. The average price of US electricity in 2005 was 8.14 cents a kilowatt-hour; photovoltaic systems cost up to 23 cents a kilowatt-hour, but by 2015 that could be cut to 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, according to the DOE. 

Beilstein bought 

The Amsterdam-based scientific publisher Elsevier has acquired the Beilstein database, the giant compendium of organic chemistry literature, from the Beilstein Institute, based in Frankfurt, Germany.  

The database, which includes 10 million reactions and 9.8 million compounds, had been produced and marketed by Elsevier since 1998; now, it will be owned by the publisher's subsidiary, MDL Information Systems, and integrated with other chemical data services. 

European institute delayed 

Agreement to establish a European Institute of Technology (EIT) - modelled on the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology - looks set to be deferred to mid-2008.  

European Commission officials have backed the German presidency's request for more detailed proposals on the innovative flagship university's funding and aims.  

Plans published in October 2006 had called for £1.7 billion, financed by industry and the European Union, to make the EIT operational next year. 

Relay runners inspire pH sensor 

UK chemists have created a molecular sensor which measures pH over a wide range, 0-9.5 units, approaching that of a conventional glass pH electrode.  

The researchers from Queen's University, Belfast, publishing in Journal of the American Chemical Society, used compounds whose fluorescence was released when a connected receptor - which would normally quench fluorescence by electron transfer - bound to hydrogen ions.  

But each receptor bound most strongly over differing narrow ranges of pH values, so the team combined a set of four receptors, which like relay runners handed over the task of responding sensitively to different pH ranges.  

E-scrap recycling crackdown 

A UN-led initiative, 'Solving the e-waste problem' (StEP), has partnered governmental, NGO and academic institutions with hi-tech manufacturers such as Microsoft and Dell, in efforts to standardise global recycling of electronic scrap components (e-scrap).  

Mercury, palladium, cadmium and indium are just a few of the metals which should be recycled, not dumped or incinerated, to avoid the release of toxic chemicals, water contamination and wasted resources.  

StEP hopes to authorise the best way of salvaging elements from computers, phones, TVs and other e-scrap, and to shape government policies on the issue in countries across the world. 

Carbon cuts agreed 

The UK government has committed to a 60 per cent cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, unveiling a legally binding draft climate change bill which calls for an independent panel to set five-year 'carbon budgets' for emissions reduction. Failure to meet budgets will be subject to judicial review. The plan should see UK carbon emissions cut by around 30 per cent in 2020, greater than the 20 per cent cuts agreed in principle by European Union leaders at a Brussels climate change summit. 

Though no such federal mandates exist in the US, five western states have signed an agreement to create their own carbon cap-and-trade programme, matching a similar scheme developed by northeastern states; if the two regions counted as a country, they would together be the world's fourth largest carbon emitter, according to the Pew Center on global climate change. 

Biofuels bandwagon 

Amidst a host of biofuels announcements, US president George Bush and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed an agreement to share scientific and technological research on ethanol production.  

The two countries also confirmed the creation of an International biofuel forum, which will meet regularly for a year to draft standards for biofuel production and encourage investment.  

A large bioethanol plant will be built in Buelstringen, eastern Germany, for 130 million (£89 million). When operational in the first half of 2009 it should consume 600,000 tonnes of wheat a year, the grain procured from east German farmers. 

Spanish energy and engineering firm Abengoa is considering halting production at its bioethanol plant in Salamanca, Spain, due to the increase in cost of the plant's raw materials crop, barley.  

F Albert Cotton (1930-2007) 

F Albert Cotton, one of the world's top inorganic chemists, died on Tuesday 20 February at the age of 76. 

Cotton spent most of his career at Texas A&M University, College Station, US, authoring or co-authoring more than 1600 publications; his many prestigious awards included the Priestley Medal and the Wolf Prize, whose jury called him 'the pre-eminent inorganic chemist in the world'.  

Cotton's body of work on metallic elements has impacted not only inorganic chemistry but also biochemistry, molecular biology, chemical engineering and physics. His books, some standard student texts, have been translated into 40 languages.

Date rape drugs investigated 

European drug crime experts have been commissioned by the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly to investigate ways of combating the increased use of 'date rape' drugs such as Rohypnol and other benzodiazepines.  

One idea to tackle the problem involves making drug test kits available to police officers and in bars, to give rapid access to testing: vital as the drugs may only be detectable within hours of ingestion and cause victims to lose their memory recall. 

On the legislative side, the assembly called for benzodiazepines to be subject to tougher Europe-wide controls. 

Chemistry buildings boost 

The chemistry department at Manchester University, UK, has unveiled a £14 million three-storey extension with new research and teaching labs. The news follows a string of investments in UK chemistry departments (see Chemistry World, March 2007, p10). 

Telecommunications company Nokia has announced it will establish a research facility at the University of Cambridge, UK, working on nanotechnology projects; while the University of Southampton, UK, has opened a research facility for nanofabrication research, replacing some of the lab space lost in a devastating fire which destroyed a major optoelectronics research centre in 2005 (see Chemistry World, December 2005, p6); that in turn is due to re-open mid-2008. 

Cheap malaria medicine 

French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis says its anti-malarial drug ASAQ, a fixed-dose combination of artesunate (AS) and amodiaquine (AQ), will soon be available throughout sub-Saharan Africa at low cost price to the poorest patients. 

ASAQ, which is approved by the World Health Organization, will cost less than 50 cents per treatment for children under five, and less than $1 for adults. It is not patented, so generic drug companies can manufacture their own versions.  

The drug's development was aided by a medical charity, the Drugs for neglected diseases initiative. 

X-rated surprise 

Methylated DNA may not always be a silencing signal, as many biologists assume. US researchers have found to their surprise that the active versions of genes on X chromosomes are more heavily methylated than their inactive equivalents, shut down on one of female mammals' two X chromosomes to avoid overdosing their activity.  

Asaf Hellman and Andrew Chess at Harvard Medical School, publishing in Science, suggest that the relationship between DNA methylation and gene activity is far less clear than previously thought: it may be that methylation can stimulate or block gene activity depending on the context.  

US plans new nuclear bomb 

The US national nuclear security administration (NNSA) has chosen Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, to develop the nation's first new nuclear warhead in almost two decades. Initially intended for nuclear submarines, the 'reliable replacement warhead' should be in production by 2012. 

The US has also discarded plans to stockpile a drug to treat radiation sickness from start-up firm Hollis-Eden, based in San Diego, California. The country's department of health and human services says no drug now meets its requirements.