The amount of veterinary drugs detected in baby food is very low and not worrying, but it shows a need for control. Credit: SINC

The quantities are very small, but in milk powder and in meat-based baby food, residues of drugs given to livestock were found. Researchers from the University of Almería (Spain) have developed a system to analyse these substances quickly and precisely.

The water hexamer, shown, is the smallest assembly of water molecules that adopts a three-dimensional structure displaying hydrogen bonding patterns characteristic of liquid water and ice.

(Phys.org) -- Water is the most abundant and one of the most frequently studied substances on Earth, yet its geometry at the molecular level – the simple two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, and how they interact with other molecules, including other water – has remained somewhat of a mystery to chemists.

Figure 1: Modification of nitrogen-bearing pyridine compounds (far left) with olefins (blue spheres, left) at an ortho-C-H position (yellow sphere) can be performed selectively and efficiently, using novel rare-earth catalyst complexes. Credit: 2012 Zhaomin Hou

The chemical frameworks of ’natural products’—molecules generated by biological organisms—have inspired many of today’s most potent pharmaceuticals. But the complexity of these compounds makes time-consuming tricks necessary to produce them at large scales. Bing-Tao Guan and Zhaomin Hou from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Wako, however, have developed a rare-earth catalyst system that promises to make natural product synthesis significantly easier by enabling direct modification of aromatic pyridine compounds.

Daejeon, the Republic of Korea—In our everyday life, we use gasoline, diesel, plastics, rubbers, and numerous chemicals that are derived from fossil oil through petrochemical refinery processes. Fossil resources are limited and not sustainable. Our world is facing problems associated with climate change and other environmental problems resulted from lavish consumption of fossil fuels. One solution to address these problems is to use renewable, non-food biomass for the production of chemicals, fuels, and materials through biorefineries.