Chemical Education Today
Reports from Other Journals
Slick Nanoparticles and Other Gleanings from Nature by Sabine Heinhorst and Gordon Cannon The total synthesis of a new class of compounds that An interesting commentary by Axel Kahn on these issues promise to be cancer chemotherapeutic agents at least as efappeared in Nature 1997, 386 (March 13), 119). No end fective as taxol was presented in the May 15 issue (Vol. 387, seems to be in sight for debates about the ethical, legal, and pp 238–239) as a “News and Views” article. Although strucmoral aspects of generating human clones in the future! turally unrelated, epothilones, like taxol, target the microtuAmong the books recently reviewed in Nature, the folbules of the cytoskeleton and inhibit cancer cell growth by lowing caught our attention as being particularly polymerizing these subcellular structures. Future research interesting to the chemistry educator. In A History of Chemwill have to determine which derivatives of natural istry, historians Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Isabelle epothilones are effective and which functional groups hold Stengers trace the changes of the discipline from the days the key to the compounds’ biological activity. An article by of alchemy to the present (March 6 issue of Vol. 386, p 34). Deshpande and Danishefsky (May 8 issue of Vol. 387, pp The Neutron and the Bomb: A Biography of Sir James 164–166) details the successful chemical synthesis of an oliChadwick, by Andrew Brown, details Chadwick’s scientific gosaccharide that is frequently found on the surface of colon life from the discovery of the neutron (which earned him a adenocarcinomas. While the small quantities of this cancer Nobel prize) to his involvement in the Manhattan Project antigen that can be purified from natural sources preclude (Vol. 387, May 29 issue, p 467). The March 27 issue (Vol. its usefulness as an 386) contains the annual Spring Books immunological tool, supplement with reviews of many inthe synthetic comteresting books from all areas of scipound and an analog ence—among them two highly enterthat can be linked to taining accounts of the dawn of moa carrier molecule for lecular biology: The Double Helix, by biological delivery James Watson, and The Eighth Day of have potential as vacCreation, by Horace Freeland Judson, cines for several huwhich are now available in new ediman cancers. tions. Finally, in the The field of solid April 10 issue (Vol. 386, lubricant research pp 566–567), Talking has received a boost about Leaving: Why with the developUndergraduates Leave ment of elastic, holthe Sciences, by Elaine low nanoparticles of Seymour and Nancy M Rolling along: The round tungsten disulfide tungsten disulfide Hewitt, was reviewed. fullerenes keep two metal surface (which are that are structurally The book seeks to deteruneven on the molecular scale) from touching related to nested mine the factors that one another as they move, thus reducing friction fullerenes (June 19 contribute to the frein the machinery. issue of Vol. 387, pp quently observed change 791–793; see also the in career goals of many “News and Views” article on pp 761–763). Rapoport et al. U.S. students, especially women and ethnic minorities, who believe that the superior properties of the new material can had begun their college careers majoring in the sciences. be attributed to the chemical inertness of the round parFinally, we would like to direct readers’ attention to a ticles, which prevents their interaction with the lubricated commentary by physicist Paul M. Grant (March 13 issue of surface, and to their rolling motion—similar to tiny ball Vol. 386, pp 115–118). The article recounts the history of bearings, as opposed to the sliding motion of their layered superconductivity since its discovery a little more than a conventional counterparts. Projected applications of the decade ago, summarizes recent advances towards developnew solid lubricants lie in areas where liquid lubricants ing high-temperature, processible (i.e., less brittle) secondcannot be used, such as in the temperature extremes and generation superconducting materials, and outlines future vacuum found in space, and in automobile technology. practical applications of this technology. Since the publication in Nature of the successful cloning of the sheep Dolly (as reported in our previous column, Sabine Heinhorst (
[email protected]) and J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 490), almost every issue of the jourGordon Cannon (
[email protected]) are in the Denal has featured reports of political action under considerpartment of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of ation in the U.S. to ban cloning of humans, and discussions Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS 39606-5043. about the ethics and implications of the process for humans.
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Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 74 No. 9 September 1997
