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Chemistry and Biotechnology

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: physical science, environment
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make products, or "any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use" (UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Art. 2). Depending on the tools and applications, it often overlaps with the (related) fields of bioengineering, biomedical engineering, biomanufacturing, molecular engineering, etc.
Chemistry
Chemistry is the scientific discipline involved with compounds composed of atoms, i.e. elements, and molecules, i.e. combinations of atoms: their composition, structure, properties, behavior and the changes they undergo during a reaction with other compounds. Chemistry addresses topics such as how atoms and molecules interact via chemical bonds to form new chemical compounds. There are four types of chemical bonds: covalent bonds, in which compounds share one or more electron(s); ionic bonds, in which a compound donates one or more electrons to another compound to produce ions (cations and anions); hydrogen bonds; and Van der Waals force bonds.
Chemistry
Once you are there you'll be like a drop of water in a piece of rock crystal- your medium will dignify your commonness.
Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes, 1873
Chemistry
I praise the chemical physicians, for they do not go about gorgeous in satins, silks, and velvets, silver daggers hanging at their sides, and white gloves on their hands, but they tend their work at the fire patiently day and night. They do not go promenading, but seek their recreation in laboratory. They thrust their fingers among the coals into dirt and rubbish and not into golden rings.
Paracelsus (in Jaffe, Bernard. Crucibles: The Story of Chemistry. 4th Edition. New York: Dover, 1976. (Originally, 1930) | Pgs. 13-24)
Chemistry
Modern warfare, we discovered, was to a far greater extent than ever before a conflict of chemists and manufacturers. Manpower, it is true, was indispensable, and generalship will always, whatever the conditions, have a vital part to play. But troops, however brave and well led, were powerless under modern conditions unless equipped with adequate and up-to-date artillery (with masses of explosive shell), machine-guns, aircraft and other supplies. Against enemy machine-gun posts and wire entanglements the most gallant and best-led men could only throw away their precious lives in successive waves of heroic martyrdom. Their costly sacrifice could avail nothing for the winning of victory.
David Lloyd George (1938) War Memoirs
Under the auspices of an EU-funded project, researchers are working on ways to dispose of nuclear waste underground and seal it off with specialised plugs. If the project succeeds, the first permanent geological repositories could be operating in Europe by 2025.
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