Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute is trying a new approach to developing effective, topical antibacterial agents – one that draws on a naturally occurring substance recognized since antiquity for its medicinal properties: clay. The medicinal use of clay can be traced back 5,000 years, when it was documented in the ancient tablets of Nippur as […]
A team of researchers from Harvard, Princeton, and Brandeis universities have demonstrated how small, semi-permeable compartments that form in inorganic clay provide an ideal container for the compartmentalization of complex organic molecules. Scientists say the discovery opens the possibility that the Earth’s first primitive cells might have formed inside inorganic clay bubbles. “A lot of […]
Beauty treatments that use clay aren’t new, but clay-based medicinal treatments are. And if Arizona State University’s (ASU) Lynda Williams and Shelley Haydel’s research pans out, then clay might one day become an antibacterial standard like penicillin. “We use maggots and leeches in hospitals, so why not clay?” Haydel asks. The ASU duo have just […]
