Category: Metals
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Bovine serum albumin (Fraction V)
Bovine serum albumin (BSA or “Fraction V”) is a serum albumin protein derived from cows. It is often used as a protein concentration standard in lab experiments. The nickname “Fraction V” refers to albumin being the fifth fraction of the original Edwin Cohn purification methodology that made use of differential solubility characteristics of plasma proteins. By manipulating solvent concentrations, pH, salt levels, and temperature, Cohn was able…
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Laterite
Laterite is a soil type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by intensive and prolonged weathering of the underlying parent rock, usually when there are conditions of high temperatures and heavy rainfall with alternate wet and dry periods. The…
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Flame Test
A flame test is relatively quick test for the presence of some elements in a sample. The technique is archaic and of questionable reliability, but once was a component of qualitative inorganic analysis. The phenomenon is related to pyrotechnics and atomic emission spectroscopy. The color of the flames is understood through the principles of atomic electron transition and photoemission, where varying elements require distinct energy levels (photons)…
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Albumen prints and egg whites…all the rage back in the day…and a few other things
The albumen print, also called albumen silver print, was published in January 1847 by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, and was the first commercially exploitable method of producing a photographic print on a paper base from a negative. It used the albumen found in egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper and became the dominant form of photographic positives from 1855 to the start…
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The trefoil knot fold is a protein fold in which the protein backbone is twisted into a trefoil knot shape
“Shallow” knots in which the tail of the polypeptide chain only passes through a loop by a few residues are uncommon, but “deep” knots in which many residues are passed through the loop are extremely rare. Deep trefoil knots have been found in the SPOUT superfamily. including methyltransferase proteins involved in posttranscriptional RNA modification in all three domains of life, including bacterium Thermus thermophilus and…
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Cyanamide notes (it was a polio vaccine that spurred these notes and by now polio has five mentions on the page and these are two of them)
I’m going to add some polio vaccine stuff at the top of these notes. Hilary Koprowski is the one mentioned on the Polio Hall of Fame page who was not included in the hideous monument, see What In God’s Name, even though he (and his work) have direct connection to those who are included. He…
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Basil O’Connor (1892 – 1972) was an American lawyer
In cooperation with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt he started two foundations for the rehabilitation of polio patients and the research on polio prevention and treatment. From 1944 to 1949 he was chairman and president of the American Red Cross and from 1945 to 1950 he was chairman of the League of Red Cross Societies.…
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Fibroin is an insoluble protein present in silk produced by numerous insects
Fibroin is an insoluble protein present in silk produced by numerous insects, such as the larvae of Bombyx mori, and other moth genera such as Antheraea, Cricula, Samia and Gonometa. Silk in its raw state consists of two main proteins, sericin and fibroin, with a glue-like layer of sericin coating two singular filaments of fibroin called brins. BRIN AND BAVE (BRIN) One of the radiating sticks of a fan.…
