Gordon F. Kirkbright Bursary 2005

In 1985 a fund was established as a memorial to Professor Gordon Kirkbright in recognition of his contributions to analytical spectroscopy and to science in general. The fund is administered by the Committee of the Association of British Spectroscopists (ABS) and by the ABS Trust. The prestigious award enables promising non-tenured young scientists of any nation to attend a recognised scientific meeting or visit a place of learning.

Applications are invited for the 2005 Gordon Kirkbright Bursary. The award is not restricted to spectroscopists. The closing date for entries is 18 March 2005.

For further information contact: John Chalmers, Department of Physical Chemistry, School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK, vibspecconsult@aol.com.

Coblentz Award

The Coblentz Society’s Coblentz Award is presented annually to an outstanding young molecular spectroscopist under the age of 36. The candidate must be under 36 on 1 January of the year of the award. Files of candidates will be kept active until the date of age eligibility is exceeded. Annual updates of files of nominated candidates are encouraged. Nominations, which should include a detailed description of the nominee’s accomplishments, a curriculum vitae and as many supporting letters as possible, must be submitted to the award chairman: Dr Curt Marcott, Procter & Gamble Co., PO Box 538707, Cincinnati, OH 45253-8707, USA.

Optical properties database

A database of optical (radiation) properties (the OPdb) has been introduced by the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL). It contains information on the optical radiation properties of a variety of key artefacts (sources, detectors and materials), covering the wavelength range of 200–2500nm. Anybody who uses, makes, develops or designs optical radiation artefacts is invited to upload data. Downloading of data is available to anyone with an interest in optical radiation who registers with the system first.

All data will be reviewed and assigned a “quality rating” before it appears on the database. The assessment of the quality of the data will be linked to ISO 17025 Accreditation. www.opdb.npl.co.uk

Silk analysis by Raman

Researchers in Canada have used polarised Raman microspectroscopy to determine quantitatively the orientation of the protein β-sheets in silk monofilaments, for the first time. Their discovery will lead to a new approach to studying spider and silkworm silks with a view to producing synthetic materials that emulate their properties more closely.

Silk is strong; pound-for-pound, many spider silks beat even steel for overall strength. However, only spider silk is as resistant as steel; silkworm silk shows less tenacity. Materials scientists would like to know how species like Bombyx mori and Samia cynthia ricini silkworms, and the spider Nephila edulis produce such interesting materials regardless. The silk filaments produced by these orb-weaving spiders and the larvae of Bombyx moths are among nature’s most highly engineered structural materials, according to Michel Pézolet of the Université Laval in Québec. Natural silks achieve, he adds, a combination of strength and toughness unprecedented in the world of artificial fibres.

Pézolet and colleagues Marie-Eve Rousseau, Thierry Lefèvre, Lilyane Beaulieu of Université Laval and Tetsuo Asakura of the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have now shown that valuable information about the conformation and orientation of the major protein in the silk monofilaments, fibroin, from B. mori and the spidroins I and II from S.c. ricini, and N. edulis is available with polarised Raman microspectroscopy. They have used the technique to make a comparison between the silk fibres from each different species and a regenerated silk film from B. mori. This allowed them to assign important spectral bands to specific protein backbone and side chain structures.

They confirmed earlier findings that the silks from S.c. ricini and N. edulis, contain related poly(alanine) sequences by revealing their very similar Raman spectra. Indeed, their results show that the carbonyl groups are highly oriented perpendicular to the axis of the fibres and that the beta-sheets are orientated parallel to this axis; this is in agreement with previous diffraction and NMR results.

First published on www.spectroscopynow.com