A famous experiment in 1953 showed that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could have formed spontaneously under the atmospheric conditions of early Earth. However, just because molecules could form doesn't mean ...
Biochemistry
Aug 07, 2019
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Cyanide and carbon monoxide are both deadly poisons to humans, but compounds containing iron, cyanide, and carbon monoxide discovered in carbon-rich meteorites by a team of scientists at Boise State University and NASA may ...
Space Exploration
Jun 26, 2019
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Australia is leading the charge towards greener and safer gold production with an environmentally-superior alternative gold recovery process technology, dispensing with toxic cyanide and mercury currently used in most gold ...
Environment
Jun 19, 2019
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Cyanide exposure can happen occupationally or in low levels from inhaling cigarette smoke—or from being poisoned by someone out to get you. The effects are fast and can be deadly. But because cyanide is metabolized quickly, ...
Materials Science
Feb 27, 2019
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Organic chemists at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuania have synthesised a new material, which can be used as a detector of cyanides in water. In contact with cyanides it changes colour in half a minute – more ...
Analytical Chemistry
Sep 04, 2018
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177
Are we alone in the universe? This question has been with us for thousands of years, but it is only now that science is on the cusp of providing a real answer. We now know of dozens of rocky planets orbiting stars other than ...
Astronomy
Aug 02, 2018
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Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist.
Astronomy
Aug 01, 2018
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454
C/2016 R2 (Pan-STARRS) is a comet abundant in carbon monoxide and lacking hydrogen cyanide, according to a new study conducted by researchers from the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, Florida. The finding is detailed ...
Around 4 billion years ago, Earth was an inhospitable place, devoid of oxygen, bursting with volcanic eruptions, and bombarded by asteroids, with no signs of life in even the simplest forms. But somewhere amid this chaotic ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 09, 2018
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It sounds odd, but cyanide may have been a key ingredient in the origins of life.
Biochemistry
Mar 20, 2018
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28
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic.
In organic chemistry compounds containing a -C≡N group are known as nitriles and compounds that contain the -N≡C group are known as isocyanides. Organic nitriles and isocyanides are far less toxic because they do not release cyanide ions easily.
The dye Prussian blue had been first accidentally made, it is presumed around 1706, from substances containing iron and carbon and nitrogen, and the (then unknown) cyanide was formed during the manufacture of the dye. An iron-containing compound was found in Prussian blue and named "ferrocyanide", meaning "blue substance with iron", from Latin ferrum = "iron" and Greek kyanos = "(dark) blue". When ferrocyanide was analyzed, removing the iron from the compound and from its name left "cyanide".
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