The Virginia Blue Ridge Section uses tour speakers for some of its meetings and local experts for others. Abstracts of the talks for some of the meetings follow.
"Peer Review, Ethics in Science, and How Science Really Works"
January 20, 2005 Meeting
Bistro Veranda
Roanoke, VA
Everyone learns about the "scientific method" in school. Is that how scientists really go about their work? If so, should we try to disprove every result that we get in the lab? Should we try to disprove every interesting result that we read about in the scientific literature? Although many high-profile experiments attract confirmation (or non-confirmation) from other researchers, most research work is subject to a rigorous review by the "scientific method". This talk will discuss some of the social aspects of the scientific enterprise and a few cases of how it self corrects after ethical breaches by scientists.
"Food Chemistry of Carbohydrates"
February 24, 2005 Meeting
Roanoke Colege
The several different kinds of carbohydrate used as ingredients in our food are almost never added for their caloric value, or even as sweeteners. Rather, they are used primarily to provide texture. Or they may be employed as processing aids, to replace fat, or to provide other functionalities, among which are emulsion, foam, and freeze-thaw stability; generation of flavors, aromas, and color; and adhesion. They may be also be employed as dietary fiber, prebiotics, or acidulants. And the list goes on. Major classes of food carbohydrates are starches, hydrocolloids (food gums), sugars, and polyols. These and others will be covered.
TBA
March 23, 2005 Meeting
Virginia Tech
"Green Plastics"
April 20, 2005 Meeting
Radford University
New plastics are being developed, with characteristics not usually associated with plastic--plastics made from natural, renewable starting materials, plastics that are able to biodegrade completely in an environmentally benign manner. They are made from agricultural feedstocks like starch and vegetable oils rather than irreplaceable fossil fuels; they contribute little to the already burdensome problems of waste management; and they help prepare us for the time when fossil fuels become exhausted. This talk will describe the driving force behind the emerging bioplastics industry, survey the new technologies, and examine their prospects for the future.
"Grape-derived Aromas and Flavors"
May 11, 2005
"Biometrics - Government Activities and Growth Opportunities"
September 29, 2005 Meeting
Virginia Military Institute
Lexington, VA
"Strategies for finding terrorists can be complicated by their efforts to disguise themselves among innocent civilians. As a counter to this, the implementation of biometric technologies (identifying an individual based on physical characteristics, such as fingerprinting, facial recognition, iris scans, etc.) shows great promise in improving the accuracy, consistency, and efficiency of identification devices"
--Science and Technology: A Foundation for Homeland Security (April 2005) This talk will provide an overview of biometrics and related federal research activities, as well as discuss the need for new researchers in this important field.
"The Chemistry Enterprise: the next ten years"
October 3, 2005 Meeting
Higher Education Center
Roanoke, VA
"Your Garbage = My Reactants: Trash Recycling"
November 17, 2005 Meeting
Ferrum College
Technical solutions to social-technical problems, such as the warming of the planet by the greenhouse effect and the loss of energy supplies caused by the consumption of fossil fuels, often involve the utilization of biomass. There are many sources of biomass, ranging from sewage sludge to lobster hulls, but the bulk of this material is one of the two most common natural polymers, cellulose and lignin. Lignin is a wood processing residue of paper production or ethanol fermentation that is often burned as fuel. A method of grafting lignin has been developed that allows water-soluble and plastic graft copolymers of lignin to be made. The grafting reaction is a solution polymerization often run in aprotic, polar, organic solvents. The cationic copolymers are made by conducting the reaction with dimethyldiprop-2-enylammonium chloride, (3-oxy-4-oxo-5-methylhex-5-enyl) trimethylammonium chloride. The plastics are made with 1-phenylethene and 4-methyl-2-oxy-3-oxopent-4-ene. The lignins grafted have been obtained from pine by the kraft process. This same reaction can also be run to run thermoplastic graft copolymers of lignin. These materials are being tested for applications as consumer plastics and as coupling agents in forming wood composites. The materials have also been shown to be biodegradable plastics and are being developed as materials for packaging and consumer products.
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Last update: August 20, 2005