Human beings have an astonishing capacity to smell things. Our personal olfactory measuring instrument (a.k.a. the nose) can distinguish tens of thousands of individual odors. Unless, of course, you have the inability to smell (anosmia) or a hyper enhanced sense of the odorous (hyperosmia).

Can this sense of smell be duplicated with a scientific instrument? Such a device could be useful in, say, sniffing out explosives or assessing whether food was free of contaminants.

The answer is yes; such sensors can be made, but generally they are specific to a particular smell. Example: certain polymers can be fabricated that are quite sensitive to TNT. Useful for detecting bombs, but less useful if you don’t know what you are looking for.

A research group at Tufts University recently published a wildly clever idea for using DNA to detect smells. The beauty of DNA is that large numbers of structural variations can be easily prepared by systematically changing the sequence. In the new work these sequences are about 20–24 bases in length and are expected to have slightly varying affinity for odorant molecules.

DNA sequences in hand, the authors attached them to a fluorescent dye and then tacked the whole thing to a solid surface. Easy enough then to test for smelly chemicals by watching changes in fluorescence. The method is quite sensitive to low concentrations and can discriminate particular molecules in mixtures.

All this bodes well for developing an “artificial nose” that can screen for dangerous substances. Don’t think I’ll be using it, though, to sniff my 2000 Bordeaux.

The endless fascinations of periodic tables was subjected to my musings a couple of weeks ago. The favorite at the time was a printmaking extravaganza assembled with 118 separate (and gorgeous) works of art, each representing the story of a chemical element.

Another periodic table has found its way to my conscious attention, but this one is a bit distressing. Called the A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science, it presents examples of the best scientific advice being suppressed, misstated, or ignored. And it’s all nicely arranged into the familiar periodic-table format with catchy symbols standing for particular cases.

Element C, for example, describes how National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists were forbidden to use mainstream scientific language on climate change because of unspecified “policy implications.” Element K is the story of the Food and Drug Administration approval process for the antibacterial drug Ketek, including the point at which scientific evidence for dangerous liver toxicity was ignored.

Although this periodic table covers only episodes between 2001 and 2007, all presidential administrations and both parties in Congress have been more interested in making their case than in objectively analyzing scientific advice to form sound public policy.

When will this get better? Perhaps not until scientists grow so tired of their hard work being ignored that they stop offering elected officials and government agencies advice on technical subjects. The world will be much the poorer if we allow such a crisis to occur. 

A better solution would be to adopt the suggestion—offered last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science—to develop federal guidelines protecting scientific integrity. I’m holding my breath.

Kids love to collect things: stamps, baseball cards, butterflies, rocks, Barbie dolls, seashells, curios of all sort. And what happens to this collecting instinct when we become adults? Museums, of course, plus galleries, libraries, archives, and all the other grown-up versions of our basic urge to collect and preserve.

Scientists collect things, too: publications, citations, grants, patents, awards. But because science is so attuned to the future, the past can be neglected. Hence, collecting the arts, artifacts, personal papers, instruments, and other paraphernalia of scientific progress is often given less attention by the working scientist.

This is one reason the Chemical Heritage Foundation exists—to serve as a research center for our shared history. We maintain a fabulous collection of books and objects that document human scientific achievement, and we serve as a resource for scholars and interested friends.

Happily the prestigious journal Nature has joined the collecting party. While they have not actually become collectors themselves, the good folks who bring us this journal have started a monthly series that pays homage to science collections around the world.

The first (Nature, 31 January 2008, p. 526) showcases the University History Museum in Pavia. The collection features everything from the grotesque (pickled body parts) to the miniature (cellular Golgi bodies, discovered at Pavia). The chemistry section offers fascinating insight into the importance of northern Italy in the emergence of the discipline.

Worth a look online or, better yet, a visit in person, should you be so lucky as to be in Pavia.

What could possibly link these three subjects, you rightly ask?

Easy. On Saint Valentine’s Day the Chemical Heritage Foundation held a monthly meeting of the Joseph Priestley Society (he, the inventor of carbonating aqueous solutions) that featured a talk entitled “Fuel Cells on the Road to Commercialization.” Voila!

Fuel cells are hot, both figuratively and literally. On the literal side, if you react hydrogen and oxygen, you get water plus heat. And it’s the heat that is handy because it can be used to power many imaginable (and potentially unimaginable) purposes.

One usually thinks automobiles when the term fuel cell comes up. But at the symposium, all variety of planes, trains, and boats were under consideration, as well as everything from cell phones, to general-purpose batteries, to emergency electricity devices, to power generation in the field.

And best of all, fuel cells are quiet, non-polluting, reliable, and carbon free. The only nagging limitation is that the technology is not quite ready for prime time or to reliably address our voracious appetite for energy.

Hopeful signs abound, however, for rapid emergence of commercial applications that will use the full potential of this amazingly promising technology. And the burgeoning field even offers a great example of a university-industry collaboration that really works.

The unsurprisingly named Research Center for Fuel Cells is housed at the University of South Carolina and headed by John Van Zee, a chemical engineering professor. Worth a look, especially if you are struggling for guidance on how to form such partnerships and encourage them to flourish.