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Host Bill Nye looks back over the past two centuries, in which chemistry has brought us from a time when atoms were a hypothesis to an age where scientists may be able to combine particles on the atomic level into micro-machines. Learn how electricity transforms chemicals, elements can combine into more complex molecules, and the combination of nonliving substances produced organic compounds that led to pharmacology. Nye examines the second half of the 19th century, a time dominated by discoveries relating to light, electrons, radioactivity, and the periodic table of the elements as well as 20th century advances in science.

PhysOrg.com™ is a leading web-based science, research and technology news service which covers a full range of topics. These include physics, earth science, medicine, nanotechnology, electronics, space, biology, chemistry, computer sciences, engineering, mathematics and other sciences and technologies. Launched in 2004, PhysOrg's readership has grown steadily to include 1.75 million scientists, researchers, and engineers every month. PhysOrg publishes approximately 100 quality articles every day, offering some of the most comprehensive coverage of sci-tech developments world-wide. Quancast 2009 includes PhysOrg in its list of the Global Top 2,000 Websites. PhysOrg community members enjoy access to many personalized features such as social networking, a personal home page set-up, RSS/XML feeds, article comments and ranking, the ability to save favourite articles, a daily newsletter, and other options.

"Greetings citizen scientists, budding biohackers, and backyard explorers! We think you'll find the Make: Science Room a fun and useful resource. We hope you'll use it as your DIY science classroom, virtual laboratory, and a place to share your projects, hacks, and laboratory tips with other amateur scientists. Your Make: Science Room host is Robert Bruce Thompson, author of Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture. (Make: Books, 2008) and Illustrated Guide to Forensics Investigations: Uncover Evidence in Your Home, Lab, or Basement (not yet published). We'll be drawing material from these titles first, but will soon branch out into biology, astrononmy, Earth sciences, and other disciplines."

Join Bill Nye as he delves into the Greatest Discoveries in Biology. This program explains how the early use of microscopes and Anton Van Leeuwenhock's accidental discovery set the stage for studying microorganisms. It explores 19th century research breakthroughs and covers cell division, sex cell division, and cell differentiation. Learn how the discovery of mitochondria has helped us understand reproduction, ancestral lines, and cancer; how cells convert sugars, fats, and proteins into energy in the Krebs Cycle; and how they communicate through neurotransmitters and hormones. Explore the process of photosynthesis and how the discovery of the ecosystem process bridged biology with physics, chemistry, and other fields of science that describe the environment.

Fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena from the PhET project at the University of Colorado.

"A team at the Carnegie Institution for Science subjected the material to pressures up to 1.4 million times atmospheric pressure at sea level, and temperatures up to 2,200C. They found that it pulls off the trick of changing its electrical properties without any shifting of shape - it can be an insulator or conductor depending just on temperature and pressure. Combined with computer simulations of just what was going on with the material's electrons, the group claim that the results show a new type of metallisation. "At high temperatures, the atoms in iron oxide crystals are arranged with the same structure as common table salt," said Ronald Cohen, a co-author of the study. "Just like table salt, iron oxide at ambient conditions is a good insulator-it does not conduct electricity.""

"In the few, limited tests conducted outside the United States, BPS shows estrogenic activity - not as strong as BPA, but not a good sign. BPS is now used in the United States to make PES (polyethersulfone) plastic. Some baby bottles marketed as BPA-free use PES plastic. Bisphenols are shaping up to be a dysfunctional family of chemicals. BPAF is BPA's fluorinated twin. It is used in electronic devices, optical fibers and more. New studies have found BPAF to be an even more potent endocrine disrupter than BPA. Bisphenol B and Bisphenol F are other variants used instead of BPA in various products. In the limited testing done on those chemicals in other countries, scientists found Bisphenol B to be more potent than BPA in stimulating breast cancer cells. "

"The onset of wrinkles, muscle wasting and cataracts has been delayed and even eliminated in mice, say researchers in the US. It was done by "flushing out" retired cells that had stopped dividing. They accumulate naturally with age. The scientists believe their findings could eventually "really have an impact" in the care of the elderly."

"A US-based team of scientists claims to have invented a material that releases over two weeks of night-vision light after just one minute's exposure to the sun. The University of Georgia team says the near-infrared emitting substance could offer the military "secret" illumination at nighttime."

"Adults who ate canned soup daily showed a jump in levels of the plasticizer BPA in their urine, according to a small study. The study of 75 people in Tuesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association is one of the first to quantify BPA levels in humans after eating canned foods compared with eating freshly prepared ingredients. Bisphenol A is an industrial chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic for water bottles and food containers as well as the protective lining in metal cans."

COSMOS is a literary science magazine with a global following. Australia's #1 science media brand, it reaches 400,000 people every month via a print magazine, a daily online news website and a weekly e-newsletter. Our COSMOS Teacher's Notes reach 65% of Australian high schools, and we produce a wide range of quality editorial products (such as websites, booklets, posters and DVDs) for a range of clients. COSMOS internationally respected for its literary writing, excellence in design and engaging breadth of content. It's the winner of 44 awards, including the Magazine of the Year trophy in both 2009 and 2006, and twice Editor of the Year, at the annual Publishers Australia Excellence Awards. COSMOS has also won the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award, the Reuters/IUCN Award for Excellence in Environmental Journalism, the City of Sydney Lord Mayor's Sustainability Award and an Earth Journalism Award.

"Scientists in Russia have grown plants from fruit stored away in permafrost by squirrels over 30,000 years ago. The fruit was found in the banks of the Kolyma River in Siberia, a top site for people looking for mammoth bones."

Arithmetic, Population and Energy, a presentation by professor Albert A Bartlett

Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in fast food: Signatures of corn and confinement

Chemical extraction of gold from microprocessor electronics.

Science comedian Brian Malow jokes that a virus is "the ultimate David and Goliath" when compared with humans. He then rattles off a series of science-related jokes. "Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and doesn't."

"Graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of graphitic carbon, has great potential to make electronic devices such as radios, computers and phones faster and smaller. But its unique properties have also led to difficulties in integrating the material into such devices."

"Graphene - a clean, safe future alternative to silicon in CPUs - has been used to make a transistor which runs at a whopping 300GHz."