People respond to beauty. That’s why we like music, painting, poetry, dance. It’s also one of the reasons we like science.

Egad, even chemistry is beautiful! And the beauteous art that emanates from chemistry is no better typified than in the work of Graeme Jones, a Brit who combines chemistry and art in stunning and magnificent ways.

Of particular interest on Jones’ Web site is a current exhibit on the hallowed ground of the Royal Society of Chemistry in Piccadilly, London. Beguilingly called Carbon Rapture, the exhibit shows sculptural interpretations of three forms of carbon: diamond, buckyballs, and graphite.

If you’re feeling spiritual, check out Sacred Molecules. Or if a more adventurous experience is your cup of tea, visit Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll.

Any way you look at Jones’ work, the beauty of art interpreting science is bound to impress.

Discerning the way names are assigned to new drugs is as mysterious as deciphering the way such drugs bring about their intended magic.

Take rapamycin, for example. The name sounds like the drug might cure (or perhaps cause) an intense entanglement with rap music. A little research stifles that speculation and reveals that rapamycin is named after the place of its discovery: Rapa Nui, known to most people as Easter Island.

And what does rapamycin do? Naturally, it binds to TOR. Unhelpfully, though, TOR is Target of Rapamycin. Perfectly circular, at least if you are trying to understand what rapamycin does to physiological systems.

Despite the mysteries, rapamycin is a useful molecule because it suppresses the immune system in ways that are quite helpful in organ and tissue grafts. It also possesses both anticancer and antifungal properties but is not yet a clinical mainstay for these conditions.

The excitement quotient for this molecule has risen considerably thanks to a recent publication from a collaborative group hailing from Maine, Michigan, New York, Texas, Maryland, and North Carolina. (Sheesh, you wonder how they all manage to get together.)

Writing in Naturethis far-flung group showed that adding rapamycin to the diet of mice lengthens their lives (460:7293 [16 July 2009], 392–395. The females do better than the males: 14% and 9% increases in lifespan, respectively. Best of all, the drug is effective at increasing lifespan even when taken late in life. Don’t try it at home though, as the immunosuppressive action on humans would surely lead to unwanted infections.

How this effect works is anybody’s guess, but the results implicate TOR signaling pathways as possible mediators of dietary restriction, which is already known to influence longevity. TOR also promotes the translation of messenger RNA into protein so there may be a variety of targets involved in the anti-aging effect. Should keep a lot of scientists happily engaged in the lab for some time.

Returning to nomenclature, Rapamycin is an appealing, even poetic name. Alas, someone has decided that the stuff’s new name will be sirolimus. No poetry there.

About this time last year I paraphrased a wise person: you can accomplish a year’s work in eleven months, but not in twelve. Good advice, and the more one tends to stress-inducing behaviors the more necessary to heed it.

Accordingly, I am chilling this week at the proverbial “shore” where all true Philadelphians seek solace during the summer. Wonderfully, and even despite occasional peeks at the daily e-mail deluge, my days are filled with family and good old fashioned R&R. I recommend it and shall return to the blogosphere, refreshed, a week hence.

We rely on a multitude of chemicals for nearly every aspect of contemporary life. In fact it’s hard to conceive of life in the 21st century without the drugs, materials, foods, fuels, and other chemicals that make it all happen.

There is also general agreement that society needs to protect citizens from the toxic repercussions of chemicals. Hence, in the U.S. we have TSCA (the Toxic Substances Control Act) and in the European Union there is REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals).

But how do we decide which chemicals are dangerous and which are not? A recent thought piece by Thomas Hartung of Johns Hopkins University shines helpful light on the nature of the scientific problem (Nature 460 [9 July 2009], 208–212). The essence:

• Experiments on human beings are unethical.
• Animal experiments often don’t mimic human responses.
• Current animal testing strategies yield too many false positives.
• Incorrect choice of end point can bias the results and conclusions.
• Acute toxicity is relatively rare and hard to detect with imperfect models.

So what to do?

Hartung doubts that traditional toxicity testing will radically improve our ability to make wise choices. Thus, he proposes an “integrated testing strategy” that relies less on animals and more on cell-culture, computer modeling, and emerging insights from systems biology. This would require a complete retooling of traditional toxicology, but would be high throughput, cheaper than current methodologies, and build on the immense knowledge base of current chemistry and biology.

Alas, regulation is not only about science, but also about politics. My colleagues Jody Roberts and Gwen Ottinger have written about this aspect for the blog The Center. (See posts from 17 April 2009, 25 June 2009, and 12 June 2009).

So perhaps together we can harmonize good policy and hard science. Worth a try, don’t you think?