Word: molecular
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Jean Baptiste Perrin has studied the atom all his long life. Born at Lille during the Franco-Prussian War, he became a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Paris in 1910, became an expert on molecular oscillations and the Brownian movement (movement of visible particles in liquids because of impacts from flying molecules). In 1926 he was awarded a Nobel Prize. Today he is president of the French Academy of Sciences. Last week he announced the discovery of naturally occurring ekarhenium-element...
Gasoline was first made by distilling crude oil, then by the "casing-head process," next by "cracking," finally by hydrogenation. Cracking, of which hydrogenation is a continuation, consists of breaking down the molecular structure of heavy crude oil into a number of lighter, more salable derivatives such as kerosene and gasoline. Polymerization is the reverse; it takes the very lightweight, gaseous fractions of petroleum, which were formerly wasted or used only in restricted ways,* and through pressure, heat and catalytic agents builds them into heavier molecules for high-test (antiknock) gasoline...
Since no chemist can truly say that he has seen a molecule under the microscope, laymen may be mystified to hear scientific talk of "giant molecules." But molecules, infinitesimally tiny as they are by ordinary standards, vary greatly in size. Molecular weight of ethyl alcohol, for example, is 46 units; * of sodium chloride (salt), 58.5; of the hormone secretin, 5,000; of hemoglobin, about 68,000; of the thyroid substance thyroglobulin, about 700,000. Dr. Wendell Meredith Stanley and his associates at the Rockefeller Institute have crystallized the virus which causes mosaic disease in tobacco, found that it weighs...
...this was unfortunate. In no case has the structural formula, or atomic architecture, of any protein molecule been mapped out by biochemists. It has been calculated that if a typical protein consists of 30 amino acids (protein structural units), 18 of which are different, the number of possible molecular arrangements is about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Young Dr. White made the point that the mystery of protein structure must be cleared up before scientists can understand how the hormones exert their obscure, powerful control on living processes. The chemists applauded his paper heartily...
This award was made for progress in research which involves the application of the methods of physical chemistry to the problems of organic chemistry. Bartlett explained, "This approach proved valuable in checking certain much-debated theories concerning molecular rearrangements and additional reactions of halogens to carbon compounds...