I haven’t had time to look at it closely, but a paper showed up on the physics arXiv claiming possible discovery of element 122. They were analyzing thorium-containing solutions in an inductively-coupled plasma sector field mass spec (ICP-SFMS) and saw a peak they could not explain at mass 292. They argue this should be from an element with atomic number 122. They cite an abundance relative to thorium of about 1E-12. My early, somewhat uninformed, guess is that a contaminant is responsible, but it should make for an interesting read.

PDF Article Link

Does anyone remember the E. Coli breakout back in 2006? I do. There has never been a quicker way to convince a 19-year-old to eat vegetables until you take lettuce out of their sandwiches for a couple of months.

According to the LA Times report[1], these greens are washed in potent chlorine bath, often up to three times, before they are bagged and shipped to the retailer. This standard procedure has a reported 90% effectiveness in killing the microorganisms that may cause harmful effects to the human body.

I don’t know about you, but I would rather not take that 10% chance to get sick. In the single breakout of E. Coli due to cross contamination with the cattle back in 2006, 200 people became ill and three lost their lives. That’s the 10% chance that nobody should have to take.

This past month at the ACS National Meeting in New Orleans, researchers from the USDA presented their findings and results of radiation treatment of fresh produces. Irradiation of high energy beams of photons or electrons, said the scientist, can disrupt the DNA of these pathogens. While the chlorine rinse offers a 90% effectiveness in killing bacterias on the surface of the leaves, it is not able to penetrate beneath the surface. Irradiation method has a reported >99.9% effectiveness in wiping out pathogens such as E. coli, salmonella and listeria, and the high energy beams allows penetrating power that works inside and outside the leaves.

Some members of the scientific community are calling irradiation one of the “few intervention steps that indeed can penetrate the leaf surface and kill microorganisms.”

Irradiation for enhancement of food safety is permitted for some hamburger meat, poultry and spices, but not for fruits and vegetables. However, there has not been any health problems associated with eating irradiated food. So why is FDA steering away from adopting an improved method that could potentially save lives?

Consumer experts and food safety researchers offer some of their speculations:

1. Irradiation may damage the apparence of the product, which may not be as appealing to the customers
2. Nobody would buy lettuce from a bag with a radiation sticker
3. The treatment could shorten shelf lives of the products
4. Technically, irradiated produces cannot be certified organic

Though reasonable, it is hard to believe that the above mentioned points would stop either FDA or independent research institutes from further investigating in a method that could possibly be so much more potent in eradicating pathogens than the existing practice. Perhaps these novel ideas would not suffer as much if we could deliver more transparent and correct ideas regarding the applications of radiation.

Using innovative ideas to improve the quality of our everyday lives, isn’t that what science is all about?

Noel

[1] USDA scientists say irradiation could be key to food safety

Mitch Garcia, member of DNCT and our fellow blogger, will be featured on American Latino TV this weekend. He’ll be talking about the field of nuclear chemistry and how he got there. In addition, he’ll be discussing the popular chemical education tools that he has created (ex. www.chemicalforum.com). Tune in to support a fellow DNCT member!

A complete listing of available channels is available at:

http://aimtvgroup.com/altv/wheretowatch/

Yesterday the blog was supposed to be debuted at the NUCL business meeting here at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. Unfortunately, there was no projector available to do the demo with (although it was mentioned that we paid for it), so Noel and I did the best we could to describe the functionality of the site.

So far we have seen several new members sign up and have already gained another author. So sign up, and take part in the latest tool for the DNCT.

Also, the talk Noel and I gave about online social networking tools (this blog specifically) in a CHED symposium can be found here:

Incorporating Online Social Networking tools to Facilitate Participation and Discussion in Nuclear Chemistry.

With the 235th ACS National Meeting kicking off in just under a week, you may want to start mapping out what events you plan on attending. The entire technical program for the spring 2008 meeting is available here.

However, here’s some info on sessions you really should attend:

1.) Monday, April 7 2008, at 4:35 PM Hilton New Orleans Riverside — Oak Alley, Oral #768
Incorporating social networking tools to facilitate participation and discussion in nuclear chemistry
M. N. Ali, Noel N Chang, Mitch A. Garcia, Heino Nitsche

That will be the semi-grand unveiling of this blog. Be sure to attend to learn more about how to get involved in the blog, and hear about future development plans.

2.) Monday, April 7 2008, at 8:35 AM Hilton New Orleans Riverside — Oak Alley, Oral #184
Development of chemical forums, blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, crowdsourcing, and social bookmarking websites for chemistry
Mitch A. Garcia, M. N. Ali, Noel N Chang, Heino Nitsche

Attend this session to learn more about how to use new internet technologies for research and teaching purposes.

For the DNCT sessions, here is how the timing has worked out.

See complete list of sessions

Legend A = AM; P = PM; D = AM/PM;

Don’t forget that the NUCL business meeting from 5 - 6pm Monday evening at 211 — E. Morial Convention Center.