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ACS News Service Weekly PressPac: May 12, 2010

ACS News Service Weekly PressPac: May 12, 2010

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News Items in This Edition

A new study suggests expanding community recycling programs beyond newspapers, beverage containers, and other traditional trash to include an unlikely new potential treasure: Cigarette butts. Terming this tiny trash “one of the most ubiquitous forms of garbage in the world,” the study describes discovery of a way to reuse the remains of cigarettes to prevent steel corrosion that costs oil...

All the major groups of medications for schizophrenia turn up the volume of a brain signal known to be muted in individuals with this psychiatric disorder — a signal that also can be influenced by diet. “This is the first example of a common but specific molecular effect produced by all antipsychotic drugs in any biological system,” scientists note in the current edition of...

Scientists are reporting success in a first attempt to silence the biochemical conversations that disease-causing bacteria use to marshal their forces and cause infections. In a study in ACS’ monthly journal, Biomacromolecules, they describe use of specially designed plastic-like materials to soak up the substances that bacteria produce and pass to one another as messages. Elena Piletska...

Just as cooking helps people digest food, pretreating polycarbonate plastic — source of a huge environmental headache because of its bisphenol A (BPA) content — may be the key to disposing of the waste in an eco-friendly way, scientists have found. Their new study is in ACS’ Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal. Mukesh Doble and Trishul Artham note that manufacturers produce about 2.7 million tons...

Choosing “greener” household cleaners, computers, and other consumer products could become as easy as reading a product’s label thanks to a movement under way to develop universal guidelines for determining whether chemical products and chemical processes are environmentally friendly. That’s the topic of an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS’ weekly newsmagazine. C&EN Senior Correspondent Stephen Ritter notes that chemical companies are eager to produce greener products…

Journalists’ Resources

  • Save the Date: ACS Fall 2010 National Meeting
    Thousands of scientists will gather in Boston August 22-26, 2010 for the 240th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society. Watch for further information in the months ahead.
  • Press releases, briefings, and more from ACS’ 239th National Meeting
    www.eurekalert.org/acsmeet.php

    http://www.ustream.tv/channel/acslive
  • Must-reads from C&EN: Critical shortage of helium catches scientists by surprise
    A serious shortage of helium-3 gas is creating havoc among scientists, oil and gas drilling companies, and national security specialists. The only supplier is the federal government, and its stockpile of helium-3 is almost depleted. To read more: m_bernstein@acs.org.
  • ACS Pressroom Blog The ACS Office of Public Affairs’ (OPA) pressroom blog highlights research from ACS’ 38 peer-reviewed journals and National Meetings.
  • Bytesize Science blog Educators and kids, put on your thinking caps: The American Chemical Society has a blog for Bytesize Science, a science podcast for kids of all ages.
  • ACS satellite pressroom: Daily news blasts on Twitter
    The satellite press room has become one of the most popular science news sites on Twitter. To get our news blasts and updates, create a free account at https://twitter.com/signup. Then visit http://twitter.com/ACSpressroom and click the ‘join’ button beneath the press room logo.
  • C&EN on Twitter
    Follow @cenmag <http://twitter.com/cenmag> for the latest news in chemistry and dispatches from our blog, C&ENtral Science <http://centralscience.org>.
  • ACS Press Releases
    Press releases
    on a variety of chemistry-related topics.
  • General Chemistry Glossary
  • Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) Web site on everyday chemicals
    Whether you want to learn more about caffeine, benzoyl peroxide (acne treatment), sodium chloride (table salt), or some other familiar chemical, CAS Common Chemistry can help. The new Web site provides non-chemists and others with useful information about everyday chemicals by searching either a chemical name or a corresponding CAS Registry Number. The site includes about 7,800 chemicals of general interest as well as all 118 elements from the Periodic Table, providing alternative names, molecular structures, a Wikipedia link, and other information.
  • Science Connections from CAS
    CAS - Science Connections
    is a series of articles that showcases the value of CAS databases in light of important general-interest science and technology news. Topics range from fruit flies to Nobel Prize winners, with the CAS - Science Connections series pointing to CAS databases for a more complete understanding of the latest news.

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