The first thing talked about in this chapter is the fact that some elements do things we wouldn't expect them to do. For example, silver and copper are "self-sterilizing" which means that bacteria that comes into contact with them absorb their atoms and so their metabolisms are disrupted and they die. This explains why they are so commonly used in public places and why we have copper coated coins. Some are used for medicinal purposes like vanadium as a spermicide and gadolinium which is used in MRIs because gadolinium has the maximum number of unpaired electrons and so it is more magnetized than any other element. This combined with tumor targeting agents makes it easier to locate the tumor on the MRI. Also, gadolinium has the potential to fight cancer better than chemo because if gadolinium absorbs neutrons it turns radioactive and in a controlled situation, could destroy the tumor without destroying healthy cells around it. Louis Pasteur discovered in 1849 that almost all proteins in life forms are "left-handed" meaning they bend light clockwise when dissolved and that nature prefers to have molecules of all the same handedness and not a mixture of both. He also developed pasteurization and the rabies vaccine. In 1935 Gerhard Domagk used a red dye or Prontosil to cure his daughter of streptococcal and then Prontosil was examined by scientists at Pasteur Institute in France and found that mammal cells split it in two to create sulfonamide. Sulfonamide inhibits produstion of folic acid used in cells to replicate DNA and reproduction so while humans get folic acid from food, bacteria can't make their own so they can't reproduce. Domagk earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939 but was brutalized by Nazis and the Gestapo and later saved soldiers with his drugs, including Winston Churchill.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment