chemistry

Crystallography, according to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy is the "description of the forms that bodies take when crystallizing". However, it is much more than that. It is a fundamental science in chemistry, physics, biology, mineralogy, and so on. In fact, due to its importance, UNESCO has just named 2014 as the International Year of Crystallography.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected a plastic on Titan, a moon of the planet Saturn. It is propylene, a ubiquitous chemical in our daily lives that is used to make food storage containers, car bumpers, and other consumer products. This is the first time that a component of plastic has been detected outside the Earth.

Table olives cannot be eaten directly from the tree because they contain a very bitter phenolic compound, called oleuropein. To eliminate it ("sweetening" process), they are usually immersed in a dilute solution of soda (sodium hydroxide), which also forms organic acids that favor subsequent fermentation and increase the permeability of the fruit.

An international group of scientists has confirmed the existence of a new superheavy chemical element that has the atomic number 115, previously suggested by Russian researchers. If officially recognized, ununpentium would become part of the periodic table.

Oil pearls, false caviar of melon with ham, spherical pea ravioli, raspberry balls, liquid croquettes, spherical gazpacho ... These are some of the foods that can be cooked with the spherification technique, which uses a substance called alginate - obtained from natural algae - to create spheres of liquid food protected by a very thin flexible membrane that "explodes" on contact with the mouth and immediately releases its contents.

A smelly molecule called cadaverine or, 5-pentanediamine, which is found primarily in dead organic matter, is responsible in part for the strong rotten odor.

Bisphenol A or BPA is a chemical substance used since the 1960s to make hard and light plastics that is used in food and beverage packaging, dental fillings, paints and glasses lenses, among others. everyday objects. France and Spain have already banned the use of this substance in all materials that are in contact with baby food, applying what is known as the "precautionary principle".

Combining neuroscience and chemical engineering, scientists from Stanford University (USA) have created a three-dimensional technique that allows us to see through biological tissues and makes any organ transparent. The method, tested with mouse brains immersed in a hydrogel, and which allows keeping the biological structures intact, has been baptized with the name of CLARITY (clarity, in Spanish).