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[apchemistryclub]

Ah, the elusive poppyseed. If you asked me right now with a gun to my head to tell me what it actually tasted like I would probably just have to deepthroat the barrel and make it weird but one cannot deny that a poppyseed bagel IS substantially different from a plain bagel. And it makes you fail drug tests. Truly a mysterious femme fatale if ever there was one

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What happens when LITHIUM burns?

[apchemistryclub]

What happens when Aluminium put in Alkaline solution?

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Happy #StPatricksDay! 🍀🍺 https://goo.gl/byCg31

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The UK has identified the nerve agent used in Salisbury as a Novichok agent. Here’s what we do (and don’t) know about them: https://wp.me/s4aPLT-novichok

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On this day in 2005, the Kyoto Protocol came into force. Here’s a little more about it! http://www.compoundchem.com/2018/02/16/kyoto-protocol/

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For International Women’s Day, here are 12 women from chemistry history: wp.me/p4aPLT-2ra and 12 from chemistry present: wp.me/p4aPLT-5w7

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For #WorldWaterDay, here’s a look at the chemistry involved in bringing water to your home: http://www.compoundchem.com/2016/04/21/water-treatment/

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Prior research has shown that the drug ketamine, generally used as an anesthetic drug, can lead to reduced symptoms of depression in some people. In this new effort, the researchers have delved farther into the brain to find out why.

The efforts by the team actually resulted in two papers, both printed in Nature. In the first, they report finding that ketamine reduces depression symptoms by blocking LHb neural bursting (where groups of nerves fire as a barrage rather than as a slow pulse). They also noted that for the drug to work, both N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors and low-voltage-sensitive T-type calcium channels had to be active. In their second paper, they describe identifying a possible means for regulating the bursting behavior, reducing the need for blockers such as ketamine.

The results explain why ketamine works so quickly, in as little as 30 minutes, to reduce depression symptoms, while other drugs can take weeks or months. Instead of causing changes in brain chemical levels.

More information: Yan Yang et al. Ketamine blocks bursting in the lateral habenula to rapidly relieve depression, Nature (2018). DOI: 10.1038/nature25509

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Excerpt:

Nestled inside the U.S. budget lawmakers passed Friday morning were tax breaks for an array of energy sources, including some struggling and controversial projects and technologies.

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, including several Democrats from coal-producing states, pushed through extended tax breaks for carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS) in the new bill, expanding a tax credit created in 2008 for 12 years.

The CCS extenders have drawn praise from a diverse collection of fossil fuel and clean energy camps, but also skepticism from some groups who claim the credits have been used only to subsidize increased oil production. The budget also extended a credit for nuclear power plants that will primarily help the struggling Vogtle plant in Georgia.

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On this day in 2005, the Kyoto Protocol came into force. Here’s a little more about it! http://www.compoundchem.com/2018/02/16/kyoto-protocol/

[apchemistryclub]

Description from You Tube:

Starving Eagle Rescued from Well | This [golden] eagle was starving to death, but rescuers found him just in time and helped him get better — and the moment he finally goes back home is amazing. 

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[apchemistryclub]

Excerpt:

Irma knocked 50 to 90 percent of Florida’s citrus fruit to the ground in some areas, according to the state commissioner of agriculture, Adam Putnam, causing $760 million in damage in the worst year for Florida oranges since 1945.

But more was damaged than just a year’s crop.

Citrus accounts for approximately 45,000 full- and part-time jobs in the state. Hurricane Irma is credited with wiping out nearly 56,000 jobs directly and indirectly tied to Florida’s agricultural sector and dealing a $2.39 billion blow to labor income.

The storm also signaled the end of a way of life for many farmers who lost their harvest. Those who had no one to pick what remained have since given up and sold their land.

Many were already reeling before the winds and rain hit, thanks to a crippling disease known as citrus greening, which has ravaged crops here for years. Greening was responsible for a 31 percent decline in employment in the industry from 2012 to 2015.

Citrus greening, also known as yellow dragon disease, is spread by a kind of louse called the Asian citrus psyllid, the size of a grain of rice. Psyllids are whipped across the state by wind, making them effective carriers for disease during hurricanes.Citrus greening is harmless to humans and animals, but the disease causes fruit to be misshapen and overly bitter. Most citrus trees in Florida are believed to be infected with it.

Since Hurricane Irma rolled through Florida, an additional bacteria, known as canker, has begun to infect trees

“It functions differently than greening does,” Gee Roe, the packing operations manager, said. “It affects the outside of the fruit, primarily just the fruit and the leaves.”

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Excerpt:

The data on short term effects of global warming are sparse — likely because the process is so slow moving and the changes are, for now, minor — but doctors said they know what they see and they’re ready to act.

Heat worsens asthma, heart and lung disorders and even mental illnesses. Rising seas push floodwater polluted by leaky sewage pipes into neighborhoods. A changing climate helps spread mosquito-bourne diseases (think Zika), and research shows it makes hurricanes stronger and more common.

And who’s most vulnerable? The same people that always are, doctors say: low income populations, the elderly and people of color.

The same group that’s already underinsured, overexposed to risk and financially unequipped to deal with it isn’t prepared for a far-reaching issue like climate change, he said. That’s where clinicians want to come in.

They want to make sure everyone knows about the impacts of climate change and how to protect themselves, all the way from making sure high school coaches know how to teach their athletes the warning signs of heat exhaustion to explaining the benefit of community cooling centers in low-income neighborhoods to politicians.

Florida Clinicians on Climate Action was officially formed last month, said Dr. Mona Sarfaty, Director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health. One of the group’s goals, she said, was to bridge the gap between Floridians who know climate change is happening (70 percent, according to a Yale survey) and those who think it will affect them personally (41 percent).

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Excerpt:

Since Donald Trump’s election, Arnold Schwarzenegger has continued making headlines out of office by trading barbs with the president of his own party over reality-television ratings and racism in Charlottesville, Va.

The former California governor recently found a new Trump-related target: Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

While testifying at the California State Capitol late last week, Schwarzenegger laid into Trump’s EPA chief, calling him “without any doubt, the wrong person at that place” and his tenure at the agency “so sad,” according to press reports in the Sacramento Bee, Los Angeles Times and elsewhere.

“He does not represent the people,“ Schwarzenegger said. "He only represents the special interests. He should be removed immediately.”

Among Democrats, Pruitt is one of the most disliked deputies in the Trump administration, and it isn’t uncommon to hear rhetoric this cutting from across the aisle. Plenty of former EPA officials from Republican administrations, like ex-EPA administrators William Ruckelshaus and Christine Todd Whitman, have criticized Pruitt in harsh terms as well.