ACS News Service Weekly PressPac: May 8, 2006

• USDA Reports Decreased Consumption of Key Nutrients
• The Poisons Within: A New Focus for Toxicology
• Electrifying Sewage
• Cleaner Gas Flaring for the Energy and Petrochemical Industries
• Summer’s Medical Milestone: Insulin without the Injection

• 232nd National Meeting

Previous estimates suggested that the average person consumed up to 185-215 milligrams (mg) of anthocyanins per day. Although cited extensively, those figures were complied in the 1970s when analytical techniques were not as advanced and dietary patterns were different from those of today. The latest findings, done by U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers, indicate the average person consumes just 12.5 mg of ACNs per day.

Ronald L. Prior and a group of colleagues with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Arkansas screened more than 100 common foods to get accurate information on ACN content. The foods included fruits, vegetables, nuts, spices, snack items and juices. The researchers used that data and current food consumption figures from the 2001-002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in developing the new estimate.

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Wastewater from toilets could do more than go just down the drain. It could become a new renewable source of electricity. Bacteria like those in wastewater naturally produce electrons as they decompose organic material; and electricity is nothing more than flowing electrons. There already are microbial fuel cells (MFCs), which produce minute amounts of electric current by exploiting electron-producing chemical reactions inside bacteria.

The challenge is to make practical MFCs that produce enough electricity to power devices in the real world. A report scheduled for the May 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology now provides researchers with reassurance that practical MFCs are possible. The study was done by Willy Verstraete and colleagues, of the Laboratory of Microbial Ecology and Technology at Ghent University in Belgium.

Researchers had hoped to get higher voltage or more current by connecting multiple MFCs together, much like batteries stacked inside a flashlight. However, they faced uncertainties about how stacking MFCs might affect the electricity-producing microbial populations inside each fuel cell.

Verstraete’s research focused on how stacking of MFCs and the evolution of the microbial communities inside the MFCs influenced the electric output. “This is the first report that relates the evolution of the electrochemical and microbial features of MFCs,” he noted.

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A milestone in medical history is approaching as “insulin-without-the-injection” hits pharmacy shelves around the country this summer. Approved by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration in January, Exubera^® is the first form of insulin that can be inhaled. It’s the answer to an 85-year-old quest for a more convenient way of administering the hormone, taken by millions of people with diabetes.

An article by Linda Wang in the May 8 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) previews Exubera’s debut and describes the daunting challenges that researchers overcame to bring the drug to market.

“It’s an historic event,” C&EN quotes Tarun K. Mandal, a professor of pharmaceutics at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. Mandal predicts that inhalation insulin will not only offer people with diabetes more options to control their disease, but also may pave the way for other inhalation drugs.

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Mark your calendars now for the 232nd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, which will be held September 10-14 in San Francisco, Calif. With almost 12,000 presentations anticipated, “Chemistry 2006 San Francisco” will be one of the year's largest and most influential scientific meetings. The ACS News Service is updating its national meeting press arrangements to assure that reporters can access this rich news event both from the meeting site in the beautiful Bay Area and remotely from their offices. Bookmark the meeting website for future reference:

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