The Chemistry of Health is a science education booklet that explores the work chemists do. Many chemists are medical explorers looking for new ways to maintain and improve our health. Others are helping to preserve our planet by developing safe, cheap, and efficient ways to make the materials we use every day.
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The Chemistry of Health in PDF [2.71MB] | E-PUB
Chemists want to know about matter and its properties”the density, acidity, size and shape of molecules. Biologists want to understand living things and how they interact with their environment.
Lipids and carbohydrates are the scientific names for fats and sugars. These natural substances do a lot to keep us healthy. Along with giving us energy, they help cells move around the body and communicate.
Chemists are masters of materials, and they often work in the world of the very small. Using tools made from the building blocks of life, chemists can spy on the movements of single molecules and make miniature devices that pick up trace levels of contaminants in food and the environment.
Our world is full of molecules with natural healing power. Chemists examine substances produced for self-defense by microbes, algae, plants and animals to learn how to make powerful antibiotics, painkillers, cancer treatments, and other medicines.
Chemists want to understand how biology works so they can manipulate it. Inventing environmentally friendly approaches that make reactions more efficient and produce minimal toxic by-products is an important goal of modern chemistry.
Lots of could-be medicines look good on paper "or on a computer screen" but a drug can only do its intended job of treating a symptom or fighting a disease if it gets to the right place in the body to do its job. That™s where chemistry plays such a big role, in tweaking molecules to interact appropriately with the body.
A crossword puzzle covering topics in the booklet.
