Cone snail toxins can be deadly to humans – but they also have potential uses in anaesthesia and to treat other medical conditions. This latest Chemunicate graphic takes a look at one way scientists are trying to optimise them for this use.
Category: Chemunicate
We spend a lot of time on this site looking at the chemistry that goes on all around us. However, there are also chemical reactions taking place in every one of your cells. This Chemunicate graphic takes a brief look at mitochondria and the reactions that take place inside them that power our bodies.
Testing for pregnancy and testing for diseases might sound like two very different things. However, they can both be accomplished with the use of nanoparticles. In the latest Chemunicate graphic, we take a look at how nanoparticles can be used to detect diseases, and how scientists are working to improve them even further.
It’s one of the most popular science demonstrations: Pop a handful of Mentos candies into a bottle of Coke, and a fountain of bubbles rapidly spurts from the open bottle, often over a metre into the air. Originally the explanation for the effect was thought to be quite simple. However, scientists are finding that there’s more […]
In 2012, the most recent year for which the information is available, there were 8.2 million cancer-related deaths worldwide. Chemotherapy is a common treatment resort, but it’s by no means a magic bullet, and this is often due to chemoresistance. This latest Chemunicate graphic, made on behalf of Thomas Fleming at the University of Oxford, looks at […]
When pharmaceutical companies manufacture a drug, finding the drug’s most stable form is important. Not only do drugs become less effective as they degrade, limiting their useful shelf life, but if a more stable version of a drug is discovered after it has reached the market, products may end up being withdrawn, costing money. As a […]