2015 Nobel Prize for Chemistry

waltky · Oct 7, 2015

Three share in Nobel prize for chemistry...

Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to DNA cell repair pioneers
Oct. 7, 2015 -- The 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded Wednesday to three scientists for their discoveries on how cells repair DNA and protect genetic information from complete chemical chaos.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Chemistry prize to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar for their independent work on DNA that provided knowledge on how living cells function, which has led to the development of new cancer treatments. The scientists will share a reward of nearly $1 million. Human DNA is constantly damaged by external attacks such as ultraviolet radiation, free radicals and other carcinogenic substances. DNA molecules are also inherently unstable, as thousands of spontaneous changes occur to a cell's genome daily and defects to DNA can materialize during the millions of times cell division takes place in the body every day.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to (from left) Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar for their independent work on DNA that provided knowledge on how living cells function.

Lindahl, Modrich and Sancar will share this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "having mapped, at a molecular level, how cells repair damaged DNA and safeguard the genetic information," The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement. "The reason our genetic material does not disintegrate into complete chemical chaos is that a host of molecular systems continuously monitor and repair DNA," the statement adds. Although scientists in the 1970s believed DNA was an extremely stable molecule, Lindahl's work demonstrated that DNA decays at a rate that would make life impossible on Earth. Lindahl, born in Sweden, discovered base excision repair, a molecular mechanism that constantly prevents the collapse of DNA.

Lindahl is currently an emeritus group leader at England's Francis Crick Institute and the emeritus director of Cancer Research UK. Modrich, born in the United States, discovered mismatch repair, a cell mechanism that allows the cell to correct errors that occur when DNA is replicated during cell division. An inherited variant of colon cancer can be caused by hereditary defects to mismatch repair, which reduces error frequency during DNA replication by about a thousand times. Modrich is a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute non-profit organization and a professor of biochemistry at the Duke University School of Medicine.

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waltky · Jan 5, 2016

Granny whupped up a new potion called possumium - it'll grow hair on yer tongue...

New Elements Added to Periodic Table
January 04, 2016 - Chemistry students will now have a tougher time memorizing the periodic table.

Four elements have been added to the table, according to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). The elements, which have yet to be officially named, are being called Element 113, Element 115, Element 117 and Element 118.

Four new elements have been added to the periodic table

The new elements also provide a certain symmetry to the periodic table, filling out the seventh row of the chart. "The chemistry community is eager to see its most cherished table finally being completed down to the seventh row, said Professor Jan Reedijk, president of the Inorganic Chemistry Division of IUPAC.

The elements, which were discovered by teams in the U.S., Japan and Russia, were observed by colliding smaller, lighter nuclei and tracking the decay of the resulting radioactive elements. To scientists, this is of greater value than an Olympic gold medal, Ryoji Noyori, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, told The Guardian newspaper.

http://www.voanews.com/content/mht-new-elements-added-to-periodic-table/3130428.html
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2015 Nobel Prize for Chemistry

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