Tag Archives: chemical

Marijuana might be the “Ferrari” of THC production, but could yeast be the Tesla?

by LesleeLkdf Posted on September 15, 2015

Marijuana might be the “Ferrari” of THC production, but could yeast be the Tesla?

By on 15 Sep 2015commentsShare

If we start making THC with microbes, rather than marijuana plants, what image will we use to replace the iconic pot leaf?

This isn’t a ridiculous question — well, it is, but it’s not unfounded. Researchers at Technical University of Dortmund in Germany have genetically modified yeast to make THC. (For a primer on how scientists engineer microbes, check out this video on synthetic biology.)

Fermenting THC with microbes could be much less resource-intensive than growing actual pot plants, which require a lot of water and light. It could also help facilitate much-needed medical research on the potential health benefits of THC and other compounds in marijuana. Here’s more from The New York Times:

Synthetic versions of THC are available in pill form under brand names like Marinol and Cesamet; they are generally used to treat nausea,vomiting and loss of appetite caused by H.I.V.infection or cancer chemotherapy. Genetically modified yeast could make THC in a cheaper and more streamlined way than traditional chemical synthesis.

Using yeast could also shed light on the clinical usefulness of cannabis-derived compounds. Marijuana is increasingly embraced as medicine, yet there is limited evidence that it is effective against many of the conditions for which it is prescribed. Researchers hoping to separate fact from wishful thinking will need much better access to marijuana’s unique constituents. Modified yeast may provide them.

“This is something that could literally change the lives of millions of people,” said Kevin Chen, the chief executive of Hyasynth Bio, a company working to create yeasts that produce THC and cannabidiol, another marijuana compound of medicinal interest.

For now, microbe-made THC is pretty far from commercial viability. The yeast can only churn out small amounts of THC at a time, and they require special “precursor molecules” in order to do so, The Times reports. In a perfect world, they’d be able to make a lot of THC using only simple sugars, and then, presumably, they’d crave even more of that sugar once they’re drowning in THC (just kidding — that’s not how this works). Jonathan Page, an adjust professor at the University of British Columbia who contributed to this research, told The Times:

“Right now, we have a plant that is essentially the Ferrari of the plant world when it comes to producing the chemical of interest,” Dr. Page said. “Cannabis is hard to beat.”

Still, this research shows that it’s possible to get THC from microbes. So while these scientists have a lot of work ahead of them, it’s not too early to start thinking about how we’re going to rebrand pot culture. I say we replace the leaf with a microbe munching on a THC-infused brownie — you know, because it’s like it’s eating its own excrement, which is hilarious, especially if you’re high.

Source:

Newly Risen from Yeast: THC

, The New York Times.

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Marijuana might be the “Ferrari” of THC production, but could yeast be the Tesla?

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Mutant Super Lice May Be Coming to a School Near You

by ReganV32die Posted on August 26, 2015

Mother Jones

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With the summer closing out its final weeks, kids around the US are packing up their book-bags, collecting their colored pencils and heading back to school. But, amidst the excitement, parents have a new worry: super lice.

Lice infestations typically affect up to 12 million kids ages 3 to 11 each year. But, in 25 states, the blood-eating parasites that make their homes in hair and are commonly spread in classrooms have become resistant to most over-the-counter treatment methods, according to a new study.

Lice populations in the states in pink have developed a high level of resistance to some of the most common treatments. Kyong Yoon, Ph.D.

“We are the first group to collect lice samples from a large number of populations across the U.S.,” researcher Kyong Yoon said in a statement published with the study, which was presented at the American Chemical Society. “What we found was that 104 out of the 109 lice populations we tested had high levels of gene mutations, which have been linked to resistance to pyrethroids.”

Pyrethroids, insecticides that can be bought in FDA-approved shampoo-form from a pharmacy, have long been go-to treatments for lice infestations.

Overuse, Yoon found, could be to blame for the loss in the insecticides’ effectiveness — and the problem has been growing for years. While the latest study used the largest survey of the data on lice in the United States, the super lice problem was identified back in the 1990’s.

Still, Yoon’s study—and the alarm that resulted from it—has been scrutinized by other scientists who say it’s not time to panic yet. While Yoon concluded many of the lice had genetic mutations that made them less sensitive to the insecticides, traditional treatment methods may still be enough to kill them. As Medpage Today reports:

“The relationship between clinical and genetic resistance is still debated,” said Rémy Durand, PharmD, PhD, HDR, a researcher in the Department of Parasitology and Mycology at Hôpital Avicenne in Paris, France. While kdr mutations are well known for their effects on insecticide resistance in many insect species, Durand pointed out that some limited studies have actually reported that the presence of these “mutant alleles” in lice did not correlate with clinical failure.

Should we fear the rise of mutant lice? The good news, health officials report, is that the critters aren’t dangerous and they don’t spread disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends the over-the-counter treatments, followed by prescription-strength remedies if that doesn’t knock them out.

Still, Yoon’s findings serve as an important warning that extends beyond louse-removal:

“If you use a chemical over and over, these little creatures will eventually develop resistance,” Yoon says. “So we have to think before we use a treatment.”

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Mutant Super Lice May Be Coming to a School Near You

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Wealthy Donors and Lobbyist Bundlers Are Largely Bankrolling Hillary Clinton’s Campaign

by Jerilyn2556 Posted on July 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton hauled in $47.5 million in the first three months of her campaign, besting both Republican Jeb Bush, who raised $11.4 million, and her surprising Democratic challenger, Bernie Sanders, who racked up $15.2 million. According to her campaign, she had more than 250,000 donors, of whom 61 percent were female, an unprecedented number of female donors. But what Clinton did not highlight was that she had relied on wealthy donors and lobbyists to pull together most of her money.

Clinton reported raising $8 million—or 16.8 percent of her total—from small donors who gave $200 or less. Many politicians raise far less from small donors. Jeb Bush, for example, raised just 3 percent of his campaign cash from small donors. But Sanders blew Clinton out of the water when it came to grassroots fundraising, taking in $10.4 million (or 68 percent) of his warchest from $200-or-less donors.

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Wealthy Donors and Lobbyist Bundlers Are Largely Bankrolling Hillary Clinton’s Campaign

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WomanCode – Alisa Vitti

by Myrna Posted on June 14, 2015

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

WomanCode

Perfect Your Cycle, Amplify Your Fertility, Supercharge Your Sex Drive, and Become a Power Source

Alisa Vitti

Genre: Health & Fitness

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: March 19, 2013

Publisher: HarperOne

Seller: HarperCollins


A holistic health coach helps you rebalance your hormones, create easier periods, preserve your fertility, and revitalize your sex drive. Alisa Vitti will teach you how to support the chemical conversation of your entire endocrine system, from your head to your ovaries. With a few easy strategies and changes to your diet and lifestyle, you can not only solve hormone-related problems, but have the energy, mental focus, and stable moods to be your best self. Simply put, once you support the flow of your hormones, you create flow in your life. In WomanCode, you will learn how to connect the dots between your symptoms, your biochemistry, and food. This prescriptive program over the past decade has successfully helped thousands of women regulate their periods, clear up their skin, lose weight, alleviate PMS, get pregnant naturally, have more successful IVF, restore their energy, improve their moods, and have better sex. Vitti&apos;s revolutionary five-step program gives you the insight and tools you need to: work in harmony with your body&apos;s natural rhythms minimize the impact of toxins in the environment, your diet, and the products that you use target and support the parts of your endocrine function (blood sugar, adrenals, elimination, or reproduction) that need attention tap into the immensely transformative power of your feminine energy Passionately and strategically, the WomanCode protocol gives women from their teenage years to perimenopause the keys to unlock their hormone health. Giving a brain-toovaries explanation of what is going on inside your endocrine system, Vitti can help your whole body thrive. Now that you have turned on your healing power, you are better able to power up your purpose in life. If we&apos;re in the flow of our internal rhythm, we&apos;ll also attract effortless opportunities, enjoy moments of creative expression, and connect intimately with others—that&apos;s when we&apos;re in the flow of our power, our life-force energy, and our fullest potential.

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WomanCode – Alisa Vitti

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The Science of Why New York’s Bagels Taste So Damn Good

by CarynKunkle Posted on May 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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MANHATTAN—New York City has the best bagels in America. This is a truth handed down from generation to generation. Why are the bagels here better than the bagels in Boston, Boise, Birmingham, or even cities that begin with letters other than B? Legend has it that it has something to do with the water that’s piped down here from upstate. That’s never really felt right. I’m not a water scientist but it just seems like some nonsense that sounds like it could be true so what the hell, sure, it’s true! Doctor Oz probably credits NY bagels to the water.

So, anyway, some cats from the American Chemical Society got together and ran some tests and spoke to some chefs and concluded that indeed it’s not the magical properties of the Empire State’s water supply that makes NYC bagels unique, but rather the unique competence of NYC bakers. Yes, the softness of the water plays a role but not an integral one. The baking method used in New York is just better than the baking method bakers in other cities use—but there is no reason why those bakers couldn’t start using the NYC method (with some slight modifications), or so sayeth the video.

Is this video accurate? I have no idea. I am not a professor of baked goods. It sounds maybe reasonable to me. It sort of makes sense, right? Because, yeah, New York has the best bagels but I’ve certainly had good bagels other places. But those bagels are normally the exception to the bagel culture of the area. I’ve definitely had one or two okay bagels in LA. Maybe those bakers are using the NY method? I don’t know. What do you think?

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The Science of Why New York’s Bagels Taste So Damn Good

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Sneakerheads’ souls crumble as their soles crumble

by IvoryECCpmopww Posted on May 19, 2015

Sneakerheads’ souls crumble as their soles crumble

By on 18 May 2015commentsShare

Sneakerheads are in the midst of a crisis, as they watch their prized possessions — those sick kicks they’ve been coveting for years — literally fall apart in their hands.

Turns out, those old-school Nikes are so out-of-this-world, they actually can’t survive Earth’s atmosphere. Wired has the scoop, and it’s truly heartbreaking. Take the story of Nagomo Oji, a Japanese sneakerhead who decided to whip out his DS/OG Air Max 95s with midsole BWs (DS = dead stock; OG = original; DS/OG = $$; BW = big window) after 20 years:

As soon as he planted his feet, Oji sensed something was terribly wrong. The midsoles flattened, and his footing became strangely unstable. He didn’t realize it at the time, but the polyurethane (PU), that squishy, shock-absorbing material sandwiched between the upper and the outer sole, was more than ten years past its projected lifespan.

After just one step, the hardened PU foam fractured and collapsed, like arid soil crumbling beneath the boots of a Dust Bowl Okie. Oji looked down in disbelief. With the inner soles completely detached from the uppers, his feet were actually touching the ground. His beloved Air Maxes had just morphed into Fred Flintstone shoes.

Or this tearjerker about a “geriatric hoarder” in Buenos Aires who has a whole showroom full of DS/OGs:

All of these shoes were found in various states of decay in one of the biggest known cases of PU mass destruction. Seven minutes into the video, collector Robert Brooks pulls a forgotten artifact labeled Silver Wind from the stacks. He’s elated. It’s an obscure Adidas runner that’s eluded him for “a long, long time.” But as he lifts the shoe, the sole peels off and falls into the box. Recounting the story later, he sighs and whimpers “No!” stretching out the syllable for a few seconds, like a Loony Tunes character plunging from a high cliff into the abyss.

The polyurethane-injected foam soles common in a lot of sneakers tend to spontaneously fall apart after a while. Who knew? Certainly not the executive director of the Polyurethane Foam Association, who spoke with Wired about the problem and seemed shockingly out-of-the-loop: “I’ve never seen a technical paper on polyurethane shoes falling apart. But now that you mention it, I’ve owned several pairs of shoes that started cracking inside and outside. I didn’t know if they were just poorly made or if I stepped into something.”

Come on, man! Try reading this 2011 study on the aging performance of polyurethanes, which says that plastics like the one used in these sneakers are susceptible to hydrolysis and oxidation. Here’s a translation from Wired:

That’s right, the two things that make human life possible — water and air — are killing our shoes. Their role in degrading polyurethane can be attributed to the chemical processes of hydrolysis (in the presence of moisture) and oxidation (in the presence of oxygen). Simply put, the humidity in the air, and, yes, even the air itself, seeps into the PU and, slowly but surely, breaks it into itty-bitty sticky pieces. Delve deeper into the subject, and the news only gets worse. Bottom line: Pricy collectables shouldn’t be made out of PU.

But there’s good news! SonBinh T. Nguyen, a chemistry professor at Northwester University, (jokingly) told Wired that sneakerheads can preserve their treasures if they just keep them in an “airtight steel vessel filled with argon.”

Zing! But seriously, isn’t this disintegrating sneaker fiasco really just one big metaphor for the impending demise of our species? We built a society that’s cheap, fast, and flashy. Sustainable? Not so much. And now, climate change is the water and oxygen to our DS/OG Air Max 95s. But good news! If all else fails, we could all just go live in steel bunkers.

Source:
The Sneakerheads Racing to Save Their Kicks From Decay

, Wired.

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Sneakerheads’ souls crumble as their soles crumble

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Study: Monsanto’s Roundup Herbicide Probably Causes Cancer

by HassieCounts Posted on March 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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Monsanto has assured the public over and over that its flagship Roundup herbicide doesn’t cause cancer. But that may soon change. In a stunning assessment (free registration required) published in The Lancet, a working group of scientists convened by the World Health Organization reviewed the recent research on glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup and the globe’s most widely used weed-killing chemical, and found it “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The authors cited three studies that suggest occupational glyphosate exposure (e.g., for farm workers) causes “increased risks for non-Hodgkin lymphoma that persisted after adjustment for other pesticides.” They also point to both animal and human studies suggesting that the chemical, both in isolation and in the mix used in the fields by farmers, “induced DNA and chromosomal damage in mammals, and in human and animal cells in vitro”; and another one finding “increases in blood markers of chromosomal damage” in residents of several farm communities after spraying of glyphosate formulations.

Monsanto first rolled out glyphosate herbicides in 1974, and by the mid-1990s began rolling out corn, soy, and cotton seeds genetically altered to resist it. Last year, herbicide-tolerant crops accounted for 94 percent of soybeans and 89 percent of corn, two crops that cover more than half of US farmland. The rise of so-called Roundup Ready crops has led to a spike in glyphosate use, a 2012 paper by Washington State University researcher Charles Benbrook showed.

Benbrook told me the WHO’s assessment is “the most surprising thing I’ve heard in 30 years” of studying agriculture. Though a critic of the agrichemical industry, Benbrook has long seen glyphosate as a “relatively benign” herbicide. The WHO report challenges that widely held view, he said. “I had thought WHO might find it to be a ‘possible’ carcinogen,” Benbrook said. “‘Probable,’ I did not expect.”

He added that the report delivered no specific conclusions about the dosage glyphosate requires to trigger cancer. But given that US Geological Survey researchers have found it in detectable levels in air, rain, and streams in heavy-usage regions, that it’s widely used in parks, that it has also been found in food residues (though the US Department of Agriculture does not regularly test for it), the Environmental Protection Agency will likely come under heavy pressure to demand new research on it. Most US research on glyphosate, Benbrook added, has focused on the chemical in isolation. But in the real world, glyphosate is mixed with other chemicals, called surfactants and adjuvants, that enhance their weed-slaying power. Importantly, some of the research used in the WHO assessment came from outside the US and looked at real-world herbicide formulations.

Monsanto shares closed nearly 2 percent lower Monday as investors digested the news. It’s not heard to see why they’re squeamish. The agribusiness giant is most known for its high-tech seeds, but its old-line herbicide business remains quite the cash cow, as its 2014 annual report shows. That year, the division reaped about a third of the company’s $15.8 billion in total sales. Indeed, Monsanto’s herbicide sales grew at a robust 13 percent in 2014 clip, vs. an anemic 4 percent for its other division, seeds and genomics.

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Study: Monsanto’s Roundup Herbicide Probably Causes Cancer

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On Torture, Dick Cheney Isn’t the Problem. We Are.

by SusannaRusconi Posted on December 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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Rich Lowry is a satisfied man:

After a week of condemnations of the CIA interrogation program, and talk everywhere of how it violated our values and weakened our standing in the world, the verdict of public opinion is in: People support it….In the case of Cheney v. Feinstein, Cheney wins—at least with the public.

This is the most discouraging part of the whole torture debate. It’s one thing to learn that Dick Cheney is every bit the vicious wretch we all thought he was. But time after time since 9/11, polls have shown that the American public is basically on his side. As a nation, we simply don’t believe that a comprehensive program of state-sanctioned torture is wrong. On the contrary: we think it’s just fine as long as it’s done to other people. If we’re a Christian nation, as we’re so often reminded, we’re still an Old Testament one.

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On Torture, Dick Cheney Isn’t the Problem. We Are.

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The Great Paradox of Bitcoin: If It Ever Succeeds, It’s Doomed

by LoisCraine Posted on December 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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Will Bitcoin ever become a major competitor to the world’s more conventional currencies? It certainly has some advantages over existing payment networks, thanks partly to its technical structure and partly to the fact that it’s largely free of regulation. But Henry Farrell argues that its freedom from regulation is a chimera:

Up to this point, regulators have largely tolerated Bitcoin as a curiosity and experiment….But if Bitcoin were ever to threaten to become a truly decentralized payments network, owned by no one, and with no one e.g. capable of implementing Know Your Customer rules, regulators would know very well what to do with it. They’d introduce regulatory guidances and pass laws to freeze it off from the regular financial system. Very possibly, Bitcoin could still survive at the margins (as the Hawala system has survived). However, it would be isolated, and in no position to threaten Visa or Mastercard, let alone the underlying payment and messaging services that really underpin the world financial system.

If Tim Lee and other Bitcoin fans want to make the case that Bitcoin can become a major payment network, they need to do one of two things. First, they could show that the U.S. and other major states would not feel threatened by a well-established payment system that they couldn’t control. Second, they could show that a Bitcoin financial network would survive the opposition of hostile states that have enormous control over the actually-existing financial systems that Bitcoin needs to connect to, as well as regulators, police, etc. I don’t see any very plausible arguments that would support either claim. It’s perfectly possible that the underlying technologies of Bitcoin (which help solve some interesting problems of trust and exchange) can be deployed to other valuable uses. But Bitcoin is doomed as a payments network — the very point at which it looks as though it is likely to be widely deployed is the point at which governments, like that of the United States, will crack down on it.

This is almost certainly correct, and the interesting question, I think, is whether Bitcoin and its ilk can figure out ways to operate on a large scale without being effectively shut down by real-world governments. At the moment, I don’t see any way they can do that, but it’s not impossible that this will change in the future.

The evolution of the internet itself provides conflicting guidance as an analogy. Generally speaking, national governments have had considerable difficulty regulating internet content. It’s just too distributed and fast moving. So perhaps digital payment networks similar to Bitcoin will eventually thrive because they pose similar problems to would-be regulators. Like kudzu, they’ll simply be impossible to contain.

On the other hand, countries like China have shown that internet content can be regulated. It merely requires sufficient motivation. And even less authoritarian governments have managed to throw a lot of sand in the gears when they rouse themselves to action. Given that regulating commerce and money is easier than regulating content, this bodes ill for the future of Bitcoin. There’s not much question that it can harried into uselessness if national governments decide to do it.

Still, there are lots of currencies in the world, and it’s possible that a medium-scale version of Bitcoin could stay alive by remaining fairly modest in its connection to any one currency, but fairly large when all of its connections to all the world’s currencies are added up. This might cause problems of coordinated action that would end up defeating national regulators, especially if there were dozens or hundreds of different digital currencies to deal with. Maybe. Possibly. I’m not sure if the arithmetic here would ever add up to anything significant, but I’m also not sure it’s impossible.

But if I had to put money on it? I’d say Bitcoin is doomed in the medium-term future. Farrell is right: it can be a bit of a curiosity, but if it ever enjoys wider success, that very success will kill it.

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The Great Paradox of Bitcoin: If It Ever Succeeds, It’s Doomed

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This Little History Lesson Should Terrify Vladimir Putin

by Donekola Posted on December 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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Why did the Soviet Union lose control of its satellite states behind the Iron Curtain in 1989? Lots of reasons, but the proximate cause was a disastrous war in Afghanistan; plummeting oil prices; and a resulting economic crisis. Here is Yegor Gaidar:

The timeline of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be traced to September 13, 1985. On this date, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the minister of oil of Saudi Arabia, declared that the monarchy had decided to alter its oil policy radically. The Saudis stopped protecting oil prices, and Saudi Arabia quickly regained its share in the world market. During the next six months, oil production in Saudi Arabia increased fourfold, while oil prices collapsed by approximately the same amount in real terms. As a result, the Soviet Union lost approximately $20 billion per year, money without which the country simply could not survive.

The Soviet leadership was confronted with a difficult decision on how to adjust….Instead of implementing actual reforms, the Soviet Union started to borrow money from abroad while its international credit rating was still strong. It borrowed heavily from 1985 to 1988, but in 1989 the Soviet economy stalled completely. The money was suddenly gone. The Soviet Union tried to create a consortium of 300 banks to provide a large loan for the Soviet Union in 1989, but was informed that only five of them would participate and, as a result, the loan would be twenty times smaller than needed.

The Soviet Union then received a final warning from the Deutsche Bank and from its international partners that the funds would never come from commercial sources. Instead, if the Soviet Union urgently needed the money, it would have to start negotiations directly with Western governments about so-called politically motivated credits. In 1985 the idea that the Soviet Union would begin bargaining for money in exchange for political concessions would have sounded absolutely preposterous to the Soviet leadership. In 1989 it became a reality, and Gorbachev understood the need for at least $100 billion from the West to prop up the oil-dependent Soviet economy.

….Government-to-government loans were bound to come with a number of rigid conditions. For instance, if the Soviet military crushed Solidarity Party demonstrations in Warsaw, the Soviet Union would not have received the desperately needed $100 billion from the West….The only option left for the Soviet elites was to begin immediate negotiations about the conditions of surrender. Gorbachev did not have to inform President George H. W. Bush at the Malta Summit in 1989 that the threat of force to support the communist regimes in Eastern Europe would not be employed. This was already evident at the time. Six weeks after the talks, no communist regime in Eastern Europe remained.

This sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it? War, sanctions, an oil crash, and finally bankruptcy. And while history may not repeat itself, it sure does rhyme sometimes: 25 years later Vladimir Putin has managed to back himself into a situation surprisingly similar to the one that led to the end of the Soviet Union and the final victory of the West—the very event that’s motivated almost everything he’s done over the past few years. This is either ironic or chilling, depending on your perspective.

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This Little History Lesson Should Terrify Vladimir Putin

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