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HEALTH
By Rachael Nowak
Medicines that could be very useful, but which have toxic side effects, could become safer and more widely available thanks to some unexplained chemistry.
Many potential drugs are fat soluble chemicals that do not dissolve or mix well with water, blood and other body fluids. To turn them into medicines, they are usually dissolved in a “carrier” oil, and then an additive such as a detergent is used to disperse the oily solution in water.
A more sophisticated approach is to encase the drugs in microscopic water-soluble particles. But the carrier oils and additives can have unpleasant side effects, trigger allergic reactions and be painful to inject, while the soluble-particle approach requires a complicated manufacturing process.
Ric Pashley of the Australian National University in Canberra believes he has found a better way. Two years ago, he discovered that, contrary to what we are taught at school, oil and water will mix – providing all the gas dissolved in the liquids is removed first (New Scientist, 22 February 2003).
While chemists continue to puzzle over what exactly is going on, Pashley and Mathew Francis, also of ANU, have now shown that the technique can be used to mix fat soluble drugs with water, which could do away with additives and their adverse reactions, as well as simplifying drug production.
Is Enoch a Sumerian?
+ Enmeduranki appears as the seventh name on the Sumerian King List, whereas Enoch is the seventh figure in the list of patriarchs in Genesis. Both of them were also said to have been taken up into heaven.
+ Few Biblical figures are as intriguing and mysterious as Enoch. He is mentioned only a few times in the canonical Hebrew Bible, but the impact of his story went on to affect the theology of many books written during the Second Temple Era