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Here is the place where you can get the original paper, but you have to pay if you are not a subscriber: http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/nalefd/20 07/7/i02/abs/nl062778+.html

You would think but you would be wrong.

You see a landfill gets many things dumped into them that should not be. The major problem with this is that many of these chemicals end up reacting with mercury which causes more problems then most people realize, please see some of the URL's below as to why you are mistaken in assuming that mercury is a noble gas. On top of this you also have the problem that it appears bacteria found in landfills are able to convert mercury into the much deadlier form of methylated mercury which is again bad.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20010707/fob1. asp

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/20 01/jul/science/kc_landfill.html

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/people/lindberg/lindberg3. html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4814/is_20 0507/ai_n17457809

Other biochemical systems have been shown to rely on QM effects. See, for example,

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/20 06/128/i24/abs/ja061585l.html

There is even some debate that enzymes may have evolved to take advantage of QM tunneling and the like. This is interesting, but not "news for nerds"

Seriously, if you want to make science 'interesting', just stick the words nano and quantum in front and everyone will listen.

The author of the actual paper is Hideo Hosono, not "Hideo Hono". The paper, available here, was not published in the April 11 issue of Nano Letters. Rather, it was published on-line on March 22.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/85/8513cover1.h tml

Go to the above link by a Darwinist. Faith commitments seem to be holding Darwinist Origin of Life scenarios together.

There we go, on top.

With glasses like those, you can be the hit of every nerd party, I can hardly wait.

Here is a better link for ethanol yields http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioethanol#Yields_of_ common_crops_associated_with_ethanol_production.

I don't disagree that biodiesel has a lot of advantages. It can be used in home heating in a B20 mix for example. But the yield per acre is not as high as for ethanol and the higher energy density does not make up for this. The lower energy input might in some cases. It is true that you can make biodiesel from almost any oil, but plants don't make that much oil.

The big problem for biofuels from rooted plants is that the watt per square meter ourput is pretty low compared to silicon photovoltaics so you end up needing a lot of area to match our energy use whereas the area needed for solar power is about the same as our roof area, space we are not otherwise using. The much larger areas needed for biofuels lead to a competition between food and fuel that does not make a lot of sense from the point of view of trying to live well. Putting too much land under cultivation also has water use and ecological consequences. But, there is likely some role for both ethanol and biodiesel from rooted plants. Algae can approch the efficiency of silicon with adequate CO2 input. This might be a way to avoid the land use issues to some extend though you're tied to a CO2 source. The concentration of N2 for this process http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/iecred/as ap/abs/ie061550u.html might, as a by-product, also concetrate CO2 at the same time in which case there could be some synergy. But, for now the high efficiency algae appear to be tied to consumption of fossil fuels.

"Alignment-Based Approach for Durable Data Storage into Living Organisms" Yachie N, Sekiyama K, Sugahara J, Ohashi Y, Tomita M.; Biotechnol Prog. 2007 Jan 25; http://pubs3.acs.org/acs/journals/doilookup?in_doi =10.1021/bp060261y

• Better article
  
• Research paper, about data storage in acteria which can only be accessed if you have a log in, (or site license, whee)
  

But just because you have the same amino acids coded doesn't mean you get the same results. I think I saw this here at some point, but I can't find the original article.

Link:
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/85/8504sci1.html

I rember seeing an article about this in Chemical and Engineering News. The article (subscription required) discusses the globalization of science in terms of NSF count of scientific papers and publication in ACS journals. To make a long story short, the article concludes that the U.S. is still the leader in scientific output (as measured by publications), but it is decreasing as global competition heats up.

"What I think we should be serious about is sequestering a percentage of fossil fuel production and make sure it is set aside for those industries that produce secondary products that are not possible without petroleum - e.g. pharmaceuticals, plastics, various advanced materials.

You might be able to build a clean-burning coal-fired automobile, given the NECESSITY of doing so (in the not-so-distant future), but can you imagine the difficulty of doing so with no plastics?"

Not to dispute most of your post but coal is a fossil fuel itself and very similar in composition to oil. If you look about you will find that pharmaceuticals, plastics and many industrial base products can be and have been manufactured from coal as well. I seem to remember that high sulfur coal is the preferred raw material for some pharmaceuticals. My father was a coal miner for most his life, the last company he worked for (Mapco) at one time gave its employees a set of outdoor furniture made from a combination of unburnt coal products and fly ash - a burnt coal product. It looked very much like plastic to me and was extremely tough and durable. The practice of using coal as a replacement for oil is mostly a question of economics. It rests not only on the question of which is cheapest at any specific time, but also on infrastructure costs and the old "who gets to make the money issue". All these questions today favor oil. Two, ten or twenty years from now that might not be the case especially considering the US and Canada have huge coal and oil shale/sand reserves. Despite these facts I do agree that the preservation of certain oil reserves might be a good idea.

Wabi Sabi
Matthew

Some quickly Googled links on this topic:

http://www.heritageresearch.com/manufactured_gas_I .htm

http://acswebcontent.acs.org/landmarks/industrial_ t1.html

http://chemicalland21.com/specialtychem/finechem/P HENANTHRAQUINONE.htm

It goes both ways. There are some good farmers out there, and some of the worst pollution comes out of factory farms. But, though I am not a "degreed biologist living amongst the rustics" I am married to a nationally recognized environmental journalist, and I do have more than a little environmental background as well. Farms use a hell of a lot of fertilizer and a hell of a lot of pesticides, and though both vary depending on the crop, neither one is remotely environmentally friendly, and there are always issues with estuaries and water table runoff. Don't believe me? Believe the American Chemical Society

And to blame fricking golf courses for the majority of pesticide pollution in this country is laughable. Fertilizer? Maybe. They're up there. But they cover such a small amount of space compared to the amount of land in this country that is under cultivation. Now, home users, with their nice green lawns, again, possible point, but that's not cities, that's the goddamn suburbs.

I've lived quite a lot of my life around farms and farmers...Mostly eastern, so Tobacco, Cattle, Chickens, Pigs, Tomatoes, Tree crops, and Cotton, so I'm not quite as ignorant as you seem to think. And, since I'm sure you have better sources for statistics than I do, I'd really like to see some numbers on "latest techniques" especially where water use and soil conservation come into play. My numbers basically say that water sources are drying up and becoming contaminated and that soil loss (in indiana in 1997) hit a 50 year low...with a mere 2.9 tons per acre.

Frankly, and I've seen it pretty often, I think you're suffering from some serious arrogance. You're completely right, and I'm completely wrong. My points have no merit (drawing down the aquifers? Hello? This is a no brainer.), and yours do, but not because you backed up your assertions (you didn't) and not because you didn't lay out some outlandish assertions (you did), but because you're all educated, and I'm just a dummy from Georgia who should just back off what'n all I don understand...Speaking of "redneck" stereotypes.

So get off it and prove me wrong, or shut the hell up.

Yet another slashvertisement for New Scientist claptrap. Will the pseudo science crap ever stop? If I wanted to read that shit I'd go there, PLEASE stop posting it here.

"New" Scientist? If this is the new science I don't want anything to do with it.

At least they do not claim to be scientists, just "New Scientists". New Scientist = euphemism for Pseudo Scientist.

Give us some real science please. You won't find it at New Scientist, nor will you find it in Nature.

You can find real science in publications like those overseen by the following organisations: ACS, RSC, AIP, IOP, AMS, Elsevier, etc., etc...

See the difference? Probably not...

Are you on Crack? USA largest polluter in the world? Yeah when you look at numbers like per person polution. When you look at total polution out put china and India both top the US by a large margin May I suggest you at least google pollution. (or visit mexico city)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID =9509
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5058
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_of_China
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/20 06/jun/science/tw_chineseair.html

but maybe this one is the most recent.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,16051 46,00.html

As a scientist, I don't believe that there should a ban on stem cell research. I was simply pointing out other controversies that meet with great debate currently and I believe that the merging of IT and biology will meet with political and moral barriers that most futurists don't think about.

I also disagree that public opinion is what the loudest pressure group believe, but rather a mixture of all viewpoints comingled.

To paraphrase Rick Mullin:

It's clear what futurists are up to: P. T. Barnum-style showmanship. They are popularizing a very important concept-the fact that medicine, with the decoding of the human genome, has become a matter of information technology. The circus act is a goofy distraction, for the most part.

"Frankenstein" is not so much a cautionary tale about science as it is an explication of man's fall from grace as a consequence of overarching ambition. Shelley illustrates this with references to Western literature's two great examples: Adam and Eve's ouster from the Garden of Eden in the Bible and Satan's fall from the ranks of the archangels in John Milton's "Paradise Lost." Strictly on a literary level, these stories are compelling, especially the story of the Garden, as it illuminates the brilliant but naive Frankenstein's crossing the line that can't be crossed."

Wires aren't necessary, because the cellulose is sensitive enough to be controlled by microwaves (an antenna converts them into dc current).

The electrical power consumption was 18 mW, which
corresponds to 5 mW/cm2. This low electrical power consumption
is promising for achieving a microwave-driven actuator.
Cellulose EAPap can be integrated with a microstrip antenna,
so-called rectenna (rectifying antenna). When microwave arrives
at the rectenna, it converts the microwave power into dc power,
and this power is distributed to the EAPap actuator via power
allocation device (PAD) circuit. Since rectenna and PAD are
thin film based, they can be integrated onto cellulose EAPap,
which comprise a remotely driven EAPap actuator. This means
that EAPap actuators can be remotely driven using microwaves,

http://217.160.138.71/portal/index.php?page=10

As you can see, most projects are in mathematics, but there are enough categories to interest everyone.

Just some info: Pande's most recently published folding@home project concerns the folding of a helix in a nanotube.

You needn't go as far as free radicals, since Ozone by itself will react with the strained olefins in nanotubes, and is abundant in the upper atmosphere. Here is a computational paper on the matter, and here is an experimental follow-up. Then there's the problem of the increased UV radiation when you get higher, since your elevator is just one big chromophore.

You needn't go as far as free radicals, since Ozone by itself will react with the strained olefins in nanotubes, and is abundant in the upper atmosphere. Here is a computational paper on the matter, and here is an experimental follow-up. Then there's the problem of the increased UV radiation when you get higher, since your elevator is just one big chromophore.

Take glucose - perhaps produced by a bacteria, or as also mentioned in the article available in the human blood stream and using a glucose oxidase enzyme - oxidise it - take electrons from it, you do this on the surface of an electrode at one end of the circuit - at the other end you have another electrode coated with another enzyme on that uses electrons to reduce someting - such as oxygen to water. With oxidation at one end and reduction at the other you have electrons flowing between them.

A paper describing doing this - but not using real human blood (why doesn't someone get on and do that - has the human race lost the spirit of development??)

Why use bacteria and not just enzymes? One answer maybe that enzymes need a specific substrate, some bacteria might be less choosey? An enzyme's only a catalyst why not use "chemical" catalysts like conventional fuel cells?

the immunity to the negative effects of LDH cholesterol developed in a single man in Italy (creating descendants among whom heart disease and strokes are vanishingly shockingly rare).

Oh and regarding Visa restrictions impacting foreign student enrollment, it's not just my opinion.
Although apparently, enrollment improved in 2005 after three years of decline as a result of efforts made on behalf of the departments of Homeland Security and State to streamline the visa process. So if anybody is spouting subjective bull, it's you, Mr. Reactionary Weenie.

Oh and regarding Visa restrictions impacting foreign student enrollment, it's not just my opinion.
Although apparently, enrollment improved in 2005 after three years of decline as a result of efforts made on behalf of the departments of Homeland Security and State to streamline the visa process. So if anybody is spouting subjective bull, it's you, Mr. Reactionary Weenie.

The Chemical and Engineering News article is much more informative, if you have access to that journal, and you like chemical structures.

Note that raising mad-cow testing to the standard (i.e. testing all cattle) in Japan would add only about 5 cents to each pound of beef.

Guess which side is Washington supporting? Consumers or beef agribusiness?

There are several properties that make gold suitable for these medicinal applications. I'll give a few that I took from chem rev 2005, 105, 1103(*).:

• It can readily form a thiol-bond with sulfur-containing molecules, this allows for sticking lots of stuff to it, synthetic carbon chains, but also DNA and proteins, all by relatively simple techniques
• It is very easy to create gold layers of a known structure, there are several deposition techniques available.
• It is biocompatible: less noble metals like Nickel have Nickel atoms migrating into the system, which can kill cells. Furthermore there will be a lot of oxidation going on at those less noble metal surfaces.
• Gold can be combined with a lot of electrochemical analysis techniques, and others like SPR, MS, etc.

There are alternatives available, e.g. Palladium, Platinum, but gold is so versatile that it will be the mostly used metal for quite some time I would say.

(*) the article is mostly about self-assembled monolayers, so not very general and most of it will not be useful to you, but it contains a very good explanation of the reason why people choose gold in any of these applications.

That's cool, but where do you get the tiny little paintbrushes?

Here.

Just to prove that science is stranger than fiction :)

(Mod this interesting, if you want)

"There is no useful research remaining to do in a poky little LEO space station."

Here's a somewhat old article that discusses some of the research done in microgravity.

One of the interesting comments from the article is that the problem with using the Space Shuttle is that it's flight time of about two weeks are not long enough for statistically meaningful research.

Anyway, read the article.

Richard Smally, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his co-discovery of the Buckyball once tried to point this out to Eric Drexler in a published series of articles., but the nano-enthusiast will not be disauded, no matter how well versed in the subjet matter their opponents.

As for "responsible nanotechnology." Nature has already crated her own version of "grey goo" which we would be hard pressed to copy. That is the simple bacteria. While the cover the Earth, we are in no more danger of them starting to grow out of control and devowering all our resources then we are the nano-technologists every getting machine-phase matter working.

According to Swedish scientists, people should be more worried about the subway air they breathe, than their cell phone use.

First, the rate of usage is about 100 per 1000 people, in the US.

Second, anti-depressants do not prevent suicide and in some cases appear to even increase suicide rates.

Third, anti-depressants are a major money earner for drugs companies, who continously need to develop new drugs as older ones become commoditized.

That is what this study is about... setting the stage for new anti-SAD drugs. This is big pharma marketing.

What's the point here? Perhaps that a huge majority of people who take anti-depressants are actually being abused. I hardly think this is a radical statement: it's just valium all over again.

For many people, their drug is their problem.

My list of cures basically comes down to "get a life" and although I've every faith that drugs can solve some problems, they should be the last solution, not the first.

It's too bad that Richard Smalley, co-discoverer of the buckmeisterfullerene, died a few weeks ago. I'm sure he would have loved to finally see some of his research hitting practical consumer markets.

Rice University hasn't been the same without him. He was sort of a big deal around here.

I have been doing some research on the notion of "Decentralizing the Poo Structure," and came across a very appropriate article, " Re-engineering the toilet for sustainable wastewater management ," which discusses the "NoMix Toilet" concept. Essentially (for those unable to RTFA), this has a separate flush mode for urine, enabling it to use a fraction of the normal water needed. Personally, this sounds better than putting oil into the black water stream or disposable filters. The NoMix, combined with a storage tank or with a specialized wastewater exit infrastructure allows for many possibilities:
You can store and release into the regular wastewater stream during non-peak hours (e.g. NOT during a storm or early morning); you can reuse--since urine is so high in phosphorous and other useful nutrients it's perfect for agriculture, especially organic farms; etc. Reuse offers you the possibility of saving significantly more water than the "no-flush urinal." Redirecting from the normal stream is then not only useful, but important and necessary because the current WasteWater Treatment System is unable to handle all the nutrients it is currently receiving.

This is definitely the way to go, separating streams of wastewater. Granted it seems very difficult, but then you have to factor in the need to build up current systems further, and you start to realize what a great alternative this can be. To me, this is all notably suited to areas that lack good sanitation infrastructure, so that they can start off right the first time.

Supposedly, people can learn from others mistakes, or so I've been told! Well, that's my 5 paise. To see some of the other interesting links I dug up, or read the paper I'm working on, you can check my files for my Natural Resource Economics class.
All from me, hasta luego, -Ajay

Like this person?

Here is a decent link form Tufts Univ:

http://csdd.tufts.edu/NewsEvents/RecentNews.asp?ne wsid=5

Average amount in 2001 was $802 million (several were significantly above that; there is a 'long tail effect' here).

According to a more recent link it is 1.7 Billion:

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/topstory/8150/8150notw5.ht ml

yes, here is the link to the actual article. http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/as ap/abs/ja055470d.html Have a nice day.

Yeah, but the first flash of the camera's strobe during the pr0n shoot and you're a gonner.

(See the link at the bottom of the page for a video clip.)

While I'm just a lowly analytical chemistry student, I did hear about the DESI systems and the new DART last week. The DART's certainly the more impressive of the two:

"DART works by applying an electrical potential to a gas such as nitrogen or helium to form a plasma of excited-state atoms and molecules that then interact with the sample and the atmosphere. Several different ionization mechanisms are possible, and operating conditions can be manipulated to favor one over the others.

For example, proton transfer is the dominant mechanism of positive ionization. This type of ionization occurs when metastable helium atoms react with water in the atmosphere to produce ionized water clusters that can protonate the sample molecule, forming positively charged ions.

Under different conditions, electrons also can be formed if the carrier gas can form metastable species with high enough internal energy. For example, helium reacts with atmospheric water to form negative-ion clusters of oxygen and water that in turn react with analytes to form negatively charged ions.

In the negative-ionization mode, nitrate and nitrite ions are not produced because, in DART, plasma formation from the carrier gas is isolated from the air. Those ions can interfere with the detection of nitrogen-based explosives and reduce the sensitivity of anion detection."

Link

The truth is that most of the "Asian Tiger" economies were under autocratic control during the initiation of their massive economic growth (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore). However, all of those countries reached a point of economic development where autocratic control was no longer compatible with continued economic growth.

I suspect in about 10-20 years, China will reach that same level of economic development when the pressure to democratise will be unstoppable.

Already we see protests in China (more here) about environmental and labor issues. It is a matter of time...

What is Acrylamide? It is just a chemical that food manufacturors put in French Fries and Chips.

Cringely's comment is absolutely correct. "Much of the rest of the world" does EXACTLY what he said, as he said.

If you don't want to be taken for an ignorant, arrogant flamer yourself, you would be well advised to make some basic effort to substantiate your assertions. "Much of the rest of the world" implies a significant proportion of the world, or possibly even a majority. Would you kindly (a) clarify exactly what proportion you are talking about and how significant the infringement is in economic terms, and (b) back up your clarification with some form of verifiable fact?

For example, "much of the rest of the world" clearly does not include Europe, Canada, or Oceania, where I think it goes without saying that patent protection is comparable to the USA. It also appears not to include China, where (for example) Chinese courts regularly rule in favour of foreign companies. I admit I haven't bothered to check how well India is doing, but I haven't heard its regime is notoriously lax.

In any case, North America-Europe-Oceania-China covers most of the world's major economies. It's hard to describe what's left as "much of the world" in an economically significant sense.

In fact, the only high-profile cases of any country apparently condoning patent infringement that I can think of would be the handful of instances where a third-world nation has attempted to manufacture generic versions of patented drugs. Note that while this is clearly in violation of international treaties, its actual economic impact is questionable, since (a) the nations in question are not typically profitable markets at present, and the scope for growth is uncertain, and (b) the companies in question often manage to resolve the issue admirably by offering genuine drugs at heavy discounts.

I am truly impressed at your ability to take a single throwaway statement and build on it a strawman of anti-Americanism. However, the fact is that Cringely's article is as poorly researched as ever, it contains no data to support his assertions, and many of his accusations - such as the one you are supporting so vociferously - are at best misleading and at worst plain trolling.

Who's the ignorant, arrogant flamer?

Probably Cringely. Unless you had your own eye on that cap?

For an excellent review of Clinical Chemistry, that also explains how Vitamin D can be derived from ergocalciferol (D2) and cholecalciferol (D3), both of which are a product of UV irradiation of a plant sterol and 7-dehydrocholesterol, respectively.

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/ancham/19 91/63/i12/f_ac00012a011.pdf

D. J. Anderson, F. Van Lente, F. S. Apple, S. C. Kazmierczak, J. A. Lott, M. K. Gupta, N. McBride, W. E. Katzin, R. E. Scott, J. Toffaletti, C. J. Menendez-Botet, M. K. Schwartz, W. J. Castellani, D. S. Hage, R. C. Allen, J. C. Griffiths, B. R. Hepler, J. C. Touchstone, K. J. Skogerboe, J. Wang, A. C. Kuesel, T. Kroft, I. C. P. Smith, R. G. Haas, and D. Chou, Anal. Chem. 1991, 63, 165R-270R.

Note that this link is for members of the American Chemical Society with access privileges, or companies and educational institutions with access.

This journal article is chock full of really interesting and useful information, it is worth the 106 page 21MB download; it contains everything you wanted to ever know about which metals are essential to your health, which chemical reactions they participate in, metabolites, vitamins, medical disorders and diseases and the chemical compounds and enzymes associated with them, and analytical techniques for identifying the species, etc...

Of course, I was not entirely innocent in posting this article. Eric Heller is a friend of my Ph.D. adviser, and he is also a very famous scientist (he famously formulted the "semi-classical approach to spectroscopy", see p. 368). He is a big advocate of visualization precisely because it can make getting the point across more easily. My claim to "fame" in visualization can be seen here and here. (Obviously, I like Igor Pro.) In the case of my own work, I like to think that the contrast in the nice 3-D surfaces shows the viewer that something important is going on (energy transfer). The meat of the argument comes from taking the slices of the pictures and doing curve fitting, and fitting the results to established theories, but people can read on for that stuff. it is awfully nice to get the point across in one or two pictures.

If you ever have the pleasure of attending a Heller talk, you will see how he uses the nice pics as an overview of the results, and proceeds to dig deeply. And, that's actually the point. The picture should get a valid physical picture across. It is difficult to suffer a presentation in which the speaker is offering fancy animation after animation, none of which represents any real concept or any real treatment of the statistics behind the process being described.

The question is whether the absolutely fantastic hardware and software tools that are available to scientists are being put to good use to get a fair, realistic picture across to the readers.

Of course, I was not entirely innocent in posting this article. Eric Heller is a friend of my Ph.D. adviser, and he is also a very famous scientist (he famously formulted the "semi-classical approach to spectroscopy", see p. 368). He is a big advocate of visualization precisely because it can make getting the point across more easily. My claim to "fame" in visualization can be seen here and here. (Obviously, I like Igor Pro.) In the case of my own work, I like to think that the contrast in the nice 3-D surfaces shows the viewer that something important is going on (energy transfer). The meat of the argument comes from taking the slices of the pictures and doing curve fitting, and fitting the results to established theories, but people can read on for that stuff. it is awfully nice to get the point across in one or two pictures.

If you ever have the pleasure of attending a Heller talk, you will see how he uses the nice pics as an overview of the results, and proceeds to dig deeply. And, that's actually the point. The picture should get a valid physical picture across. It is difficult to suffer a presentation in which the speaker is offering fancy animation after animation, none of which represents any real concept or any real treatment of the statistics behind the process being described.

The question is whether the absolutely fantastic hardware and software tools that are available to scientists are being put to good use to get a fair, realistic picture across to the readers.

Viagra was actually meant as a drug for hypertension, then angina, before you know what. http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/mdd/98/novdec/viagra. html
Many of the anti-psychotics were originally for epilepsy. Unfortunately innovation doesn't usually come from highly focussed research. The discovery of new drugs and technologies is more haphazard than that, and those that fund research are aware of this problem.

ACS have an open letter on their site http://www.acs.org/ for anyone interested in getting the whole story.

Bottom line, ACS is trying to protect their investment and jobs regarding CAS.

If your not a chemist or familiar with this data base; at issue is NIH (which is a government granting agency) creating a tool that would compete (for free) with fee for service tool that creates jobs for 1300 people (ACS statistics.)

Can't blame people for being worried about that; they see it as unfair competition.

I'm an ACS member, and I can see both sides of this. If my job were on the line, I would not be happy. However, small startups will benefit with lower R&D costs.

One more thing for all of the "screw the corporation" posters; Pubchem will provide free database access to the entire viewing world thanks to your US tax dollars, costing up to 1300 US jobs in the process (probably.)

Just so you know.

Basically, my own thoughts on this are that both databases have good points about them and I believe that they can ultimately co-exist. Oddly enough, in my personal opinion, I believe that the superior product currently is the ChemAbstracts (CAS) service (ACS). Not only does it have 25 million compounds, compared to PubChem's 850,000, but it links to far more information, and provides info about patent literature and reactions, that simply isn't in PubChem. CAS is also easier to search; obviously here I am referring to their online search services, like SciFinder Scholar. If anyone's ever searched CAS using the paper-based books in the library, it's pretty much a royal pain in the ass! ;-) But SciFinder Scholar has a really easy mechanism to search, and even lets you draw in the compound your searching for, and searches the structure. With PubChem, one must first get the SMILES string to search the structural information,...

So it's going to be some time before PubChem even comes close to equalling the kind of service that CAS offers.

So at first, you're not too sure what ACS is complaining about, since they're already ahead. But I think in the long run what they're concerned about is that every few years or so there's a major budget crunch by state supported schools, mainly because tax revenue shrinks and schools need to find more money. And one of the prime targets of this every time they cut budgets is looking at the library budget: what journal subscriptions are students/faculty actually reading and which ones are read by like 2 people that they can get by without having? And since CAS is a subscription service, usually provided by libraries (at most schools), it's also subjected to this same scrutiny. Furthermore, an organization like ACS, which publishes a substantial amount of journals, has a lot to lose every time this budget situation goes on.

But to ACS's credit, the rarely have to worry, since ACS journals are some of the most read and sought after journals at most schools. Chemistry, after all, is a pretty big program at many schools (some schools even have more than one chemistry department; if biochemistry is a separate program)! SciFinder Scholar also enjoys a pretty high amount of users as well.

I also think that most researchers would want to have more than one chemical database to search by; this could only enhance the quality of information, since it's unlikely that any two databases would be identical. Another great chemical database is the ZINC database, which is geared towards virtual screening. This database combines many databases into one, and has links to ordering compounds directly from other vendors.