Week 13: Compounds

11/25/2018

13 Comments

Nov 26 - Dec 1
Posts Are Due By Midnight On Saturday Dec. 1st

13 Comments

luqman link

11/25/2018 07:00:20 pm

There is a vine compound that's been killing cancer cells lately. These compounds, located in rainforests, have been seen as the cure to pancreatic cancer, which is the formation of malignant cells in the pancreas (back of the stomach). Pancreatic cancer is known to be very difficult to treat, and these alkaloids (plant compounds) have been able to kill pancreatic cells.

Dami Babs-Olorunfemi link

11/26/2018 08:03:01 pm

For grade 9 chemistry, My partner and I did our unit project on ethyl acetate. This is a compound that is commonly used as a solvent. It has a fruity aroma and is commonly used in some wines. One of its more controversial use is in nail polish, nail polish remover and other manicuring products. From our research we found more work highlighting its negative effects as opposed to its usefulness. It is found naturally in some plants but if workers in a factory are exposed to it for a long period of time, they can be negatively affected. This raises the question. Why is something harmless in a natural environment but, in a synthesized form, can be dangerous.

Camryn Moerchen link

11/27/2018 03:50:27 pm

This little picture is a water molecule asking an ionic compound, Sodium chloride, if it would be cannibalistic to drink water (because H20 is water). The Sodium chloride replies with Naaa (because sodium is Na).

Adam Gaisinsky link

11/29/2018 05:19:55 pm

Scientists are always trying to create new compounds. One interesting one is aerogel. It is the lightest compound knows to man and it looks like a cloud! It is used in space missions to collect comets dust from their tails because it is so light which is pretty cool.

Madison link

11/29/2018 08:03:13 pm

This is funny because there are models of H2O (water) all over the ground and the sign says "caution! Wet floor". Water would make the floor wet but because they are only models of water the floor is not actually wet. But the joke is still funny because they are water atom models and if the water was real this is what it would be made up of.

Yuxi Qin link

11/30/2018 01:13:28 pm

"Burp by Burp, Fighting Emissions from Cows"

This article talks about the idea of reducing methane emissions from cows, and also related back to the presentation given by students from the University of Windsor.

The first of the four stomachs of a cow is called a rumen, and is what produces/causes the mass amounts of methane - something that greatly contributes to climate change due to its heat retaining behavior. This is due to the millions of microbes that break down the grasses that cows eat, but it still produces a lot of hydrogen and carbon dioxide gas.

Scientists have discovered a compound - 3-nitrooxypropanol, or 3NOP, that when mixed in with the cow's feed, reduces the methane gas production by ~30%. Over the weeks of research, scientists were astounded when data showed that there were no negative effects to the cow.

It also shows that the rumen was very flexible, and essentially re-routed the fermentation of the food somewhere else, and even helped the cows gain weight throughout the experiment, which was very uncommon, as milk cows tended to lose weight due to the large amounts of energy used in milk production.

Wafi Hassan link

11/30/2018 02:45:03 pm

This article talks about how water is cleaned for drinking. The first step for cleaning water is to add chemicals called coagulants, which cause solid bits to come together. These solid bits can cause cloud water which can make water have a funny taste. Making the solid bits clump together makes it bigger which makes it easier to remove. Next the water moves into a big tank where the solid pieces are at the bottom of the tank. The water flows through a membrane like structure where the smaller contaminants are filtered out. Water then gets treated with UV light to kill bacteria. Then the water is able to flow through the pipes into your home. Different water companies are trying different methods like reverse osmosis which can remove every contaminant. 1 in 7 people in the US get their water from their own well or private sources.

Tara Azad link

11/30/2018 03:34:44 pm

This journal abstract talks about how strong a covalent bond really is. They talk about the bond between silicon and carbon as well as sulfur and gold.

Salman Rashid link

11/30/2018 03:39:33 pm

I watched a video by The Fuse School about metallic bonds. The video explained how a "sea" of free-floating electrons makes the bonds between metal ions very strong. It also described the lattice structure of metals and how this structure creates their very useful properties.

Alishba Malik link

12/1/2018 10:35:44 am

This article talks about the noble gas elements; He, Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe. It states that, these NG's were believed to not react with other elements for decades, because of their stable closed shell. A scientist named Pauling, predicted that Kr and Xe may react with F and O. Since then, a lot of noble gas compounds have been synthesized.

Leila Abi-Karam link

12/1/2018 02:41:22 pm

In this picture this kid is showing their report card with one C and four Fs. The kid is saying it is carbon tetrafluoride because this compound is made up of one carbon and four fluorides.

Sophia Costa link

12/1/2018 06:51:35 pm

Previously thought to not be able to form hydrogen bonds it has now been discovered that hydrogen sulfide does in fact form bonds. This discovery disproves 1954 Nobel laureate Pauling's belief where in its solid state H2S is fundamentally different from H2O. He wrote that ice structured by hydrogen bonds where, solid H2S is formed by electrostatic interactions between dipoles. In H2S each molecule is surrounded by 12 others whereas in ice it in surrounded by 4 others. However in ultra-low temperatures hydrogen sulfide forms some of the same things as ice does.

Noya Khan link

12/1/2018 08:52:51 pm

A team of people from UCLA have discovered a new technique to identify the structures of molecules, using electron microscopes. This will help them inspect nanocrystals within 30 minutes instead of a couple of hours. This is important when scanning drugs, as these molecules penetrate the cells in the body easier as they are smaller, and before it took longer to scan them as they are quite small.

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