Letters from Chemistry World readers – Page 11
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Opinion
Letters: June 2008
From Peter Bentley Your article, ’The Trouble with Antibiotics’ (Chemistry World, March 2008, p16) was unremarkable in containing nothing new, but it did omit a few aspects. The timeline failed to show dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) or isoleucyl tRNA synthetase inhibitors, exemplified by trimethoprim and pseudomonic acid respectively. That takes ...
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Opinion
Letters: April 2008
From Jeremy Tomkinson, Adrian Higson and Geraint Evans We found the article ’Flawed policies encourage damaging biofuels’ (Chemistry World, February 2008, p6) to be disappointingly unbalanced. The provocative titles used for the piece do little to stimulate a reasoned and scientific debate in this immensely complex subject. The RSC has ...
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Opinion
Letters: March 2008
From Martin Humphrey A group of scientists in New Zealand recently announced that they had genetically modified onions in such a way as to eliminate the lachrymator. Having spent many years studying the chemistry of this phenomenon, I would like to assure them that they will also have removed the ...
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Opinion
Letters: February 2008
From Chris Ewels The British Carbon Group (a special interest group of the RSC, the Institute of Physics and the Society of Chemical Industry) is organising an image competition, including a category for under-18s. There is a ?150 prize in each category and there will be a prize-giving ...
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Opinion
Letters: January 2008
From Bernard Langley May I congratulate you and your colleagues on your splendid November issue of Chemistry World. The balance of topics, the quality of the writing, the enthusiastic spirit of the whole thing - from your editorial right through to that magnificent killer review of the green chemistry book ...
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Opinion
Letters: December 2007
From David Feakins Congratulations on the splendid October issue of Chemistry World. I found all the articles on the topic of energy absolutely riveting. For example, I have always been a supporter of nuclear fission as a medium-term answer to the supply of energy, but had not realised until I ...
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Opinion
Letters: November 2007
From Alfred Bader Why do chemists refer to Avogadro’s number (Chemistry World, August 2007, p11) when, correctly, it should be called Loschmidt’s number? Amedeo Avogadro predicted in 1811 that someone, some day, would be able to calculate that number. The calculation of the number was first done by Joseph Loschmidt ...
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Opinion
Letters: October 2007
From Geoff Cloke, Andrew Smith and Bob Allison We were astonished to read the remarks made about chemistry at the University of Sussex by Professor Sir Richard Sykes (Chemistry World, September 2007). In particular, the statement: ’If chemistry is a drain, vice-chancellors have no choice but to deal with ...
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Opinion
Letters: September 2007
From Allan N Smith All those involved in the writing, editing and production of Chemistry World are to be congratulated. It is interesting, accurate and comprehensive; I look forward to reading it every month when it gives me a good few hours of informative pleasure. A N Smith CChem ...
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Opinion
Letters: August 2007
From John Holman Your editorial ’Dear Gordon’ (Chemistry World, June 2007) points to the skills that chemistry graduates can contribute to the economy. Chemistry is a quantitative subject that teaches the scientific use of evidence, and that is one reason why chemistry graduates are so employable. However, Peter Cotgreave’s ...
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Opinion
Letters: July 2007
From Ronald Bentley In his ’Bench Monkey’ column (Chemistry World, April 2007, p40) Dylan Stiles notes that the odour of benzylmercaptan, used by a colleague, stays with him long after he leaves the lab. In 1989, I worked with the many reports describing the war-time research on the chemistry of ...
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Opinion
Letters: June 2007
From Peter Plesch When in 1989 I was writing the paper entitled The relation between reduction potential and solvation energy for some aryl-methylium ions, (J. Chem. Soc. Perkin Trans. 2, 1989, 1139), I needed the ionisation potentials of the tri-4-X-phenylmethyl radicals, where X = Cl, H, and MeO, as these ...
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Opinion
Letters: May 2007
From Peter Plesch I wish to challenge Ted Nield’s Comment piece (Chemistry World, March 2007, p38). As chair of the Association of British Science Writers, he should know better than to lump together science and technology. Science is about finding and developing ideas about Nature in the widest ...
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Opinion
Letters: April 2007
From Clifford Jones In the UK, batches of faulty petrol were recently found to have been contaminated with silicon (see p11). Burning this fuel would have formed silica (SiO2) particles which clogged the oxygen sensor at the exhaust, causing it to fail in its role in ’engine management’. ...
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Opinion
Letters: March 2007
From Clive Delmonte Sir John O’Reilly’s comment on peer review covers many pertinent points, but I feel there is a further crucial aspect to consider (Chemistry World, February 2007, p36). The accepted paradigms in science are that non-experts defer to the opinion of experts, while the experts ...
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Opinion
Letters: February 2007
From Peter Swindells I must disagree with my former colleague Roger Lintonbon that marine organisms can provide a sink for increasing levels of carbon dioxide (Chemistry World, January 2007, p34). Increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide does not lead to increased phytoplankton growth because it is not carbon ...
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Opinion
Letters: January 2007
From Richard Schmidt Horst Hippler asks why most natural amino acids are l and most natural sugars d (Chemistry World, October 2006, p22). The answer to this question might already have been answered: selection for these enantiomers has been driven by a fundamental property of interfacial (or vicinal) water. Philippa ...
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Opinion
Letters: December 2006
From Paul Davies I would like to thank the readers of Chemistry World for their assistance with our survey, investigating the mechanism of hair greying (Chemistry World, September 2006, p35). Specifically we are looking at a possible link between cessation of melanogenesis in the hair follicle and the ...
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Opinion
Letters: November 2006
From John Haigh It is excellent to be reminded that chemistry graduates have a good grounding for a range of careers, but the salaries listed in your article confirm the sad story that some of us in education have been bemoaning for years (Chemistry World, October 2006, p68). ...
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Opinion
Your views: November 2006
21st century science, the new UK GCSE programme, promises to develop scientific literacy in a societal context. Is the new teaching programme a good thing?