Gateways 2018-2019

Alexander Flemming was an English chemist born in 1935. Although he was a chemist his most important discovery was not in that field. He is credited with the discovery of Pennissillian.  He attended Pembroke college located in Cambridge England, where he received a bachelors of art and Ph.D. He also attended Harvard University to further his education. He then was appointed a professor of bacteriology. During his experiments in this position, he was growing a culture of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria in a petri dish. He then noticed a mold growing on the sample, which impeded with the growth of it, he then named it penicillin. His discovery of the mold eventually lead to antibiotic medicine and was used during world war one. This discovery lead Alexander Flemming to have the name of St. Mary's Inoculation Department changed to the Wright-Fleming Institute in his dedication.  He also won a Nobel peace prize for physiology or medicine in 1945 with the collaboration with...

The Chemistry of Diamonds By: Bell Muthukumaran                                                         Even though diamonds are pretty and hard, they are really old, they are usually found in rocks that are 50 million to 1.6 billion years old. The amazing part is that the diamonds in the rocks are actually much older than the rocks, they are usually about 3.3 billion years old. The reason that diamonds are much older is because when volcanoes explode, the magma brings up diamonds from deep inside the earth. That volcanic magma solidifies into rock, and the diamonds can be found within the rock. That magma didn't create the diamonds though, it only transported the diamonds from inside the earth to the surface. This is why the diamonds are so much older than the rock that contains them.              ...

Four types of chemical bonds        An ionic bond is used to tie something or fasten things together. In this blog i am going to be talking about four types of chemical bonds ionic bonds, convalent bonds, polar bonds, and hydrogen bond.      An ionic bond is the complete transfer of the valence electron(s) between atoms. Ionic bonding involves electrons transferring so one atom gains an electron while on loses an electron. This results in one of the ions having to carry a negative charge, while the other ion carries a positive charge. And because opposite charges attract, the atoms will began to bond together to form a molecule      An convalent bond is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electron pairs between atoms.A covalent bond involves the sharing of electrons between two atoms. Once the pair of electrons have been shared they go on to make a new orbit that extends around the nuclei of both atoms ...

2/26/19 BY: Owen                                     Potential Drug Treatment From                                Artificial Lung Cancer Tissue            Professor at U of T Molly Shoichet has found the potential drug that could fight highly invasive cancers.  This is such a big deal because the reason why cancer can be so powerful against the body is due to the cell invasion. Unlike other cancer drugs that are used around the world that really focus on killing the cancer cell, while  Shoichets cancer drug will kill the cancer cell and prevent cell invasion   They also internationally own making it a lot easier to distribute the drug they may have found.          The experiment they did that would mimic real lung cancer helped to co...

For my atom blog, I chose to focus on two of the most expensive elements on the periodic table. First we need to understand what the periodic table! The periodic table is a tabular display of the chemical elements, which are arranged by atomic number, electron configuration, and recurring chemical properties. It was created by Dmitri Mendeleev on March 6th of 1869. It was presented to the Russian Chemical Society. The most expensive element is Francium, atomic number 87. The price of the element per gram is $1,000,000,000! It’s so expensive because of the fact that its half-life is only 22 minutes. The largest amount of it produced was more 300,000 atoms. Francium is very radioactive and extremely rare. It has been estimated that there might be from 340 to 550 grams of francium in the earth's crust at any one time. The second most expensive element is Californium, atomic number 98. The price of this element per gram is $25,000,000. Californium is used to attract other elemen...

The use of Copper dates back far into history. Copper beads have been found in what is now modern Iraq, dating back to 9000 BC. The metal is easy to mine and ,contributing to its early and widespread use. Being soft, however, it is unsuitable for making reliable tools and weapons. Early metalmakers as far back as 3000 BC learned to combine copper with other metals to produce more durable alloys. Brass (copper and zinc) and bronze (copper and tin) are two examples. Before 1982 U.S. pennies were pure only copper. Now they are mostly zinc with a thin shell of copper. Most copper that is mined today is drawn into wire for use in the electrical industries. A significant portion is also used in manufacturing water pipe. Copper, of course, has a characteristic color which most people recognize. It is one of the best electrical conductors and resists corrosion from most acids.When exposed to the elements for a period of time it develops a greenish coating or patina which is copper(II) carbonat...

How Molecules Became Machines: 2016 Chemistry Nobel Prize Winners Arden Jansen  There have been huge advancements in the chemistry field over the last 70 years. In 1959 scientist attempted to build molecular machines. They were not able to complete the task. Later, the University of Strasbourg attempted the same task. They were able to use prior knowledge of how molecules bond and reasoning to complete the job. This experiment was led by Sauvage from the University of Strasbourg.   Sauvage had many trial and error situations when attempting the experiment. He started by changing the natural affinity by devising a system to link two ring-shaped molecules together. He did this by using a copper ion. This was a big step because they were able to do this without destroying the molecules agility. This fundamental research was crucial to the creation of nanometers made of molecules.    In 1991, Northwestern University’s professor Stoddart made advanceme...