Chemistry

With his photogenic wife at his side and a willingness to make eye contact and engage in small talk, Xi Jinping looks more like an American politician than the gray suits who populate the upper ranks of Chinese politics. One of his first acts as head of the Chinese Communist Party last year was to ban long speeches, banquets and red carpets. But during his first months in power, Xi has proved himself more hard-line on a number of issues than his recent predecessors. He has tightened censorship in academia and the media, and spearheaded China's territorial assertions in the South China and East China seas.

Landon Donovan and Juergen Klinsmann are not the best of friends. Which can be a problem given that Donovan is arguably the best soccer player in the history of the U.S. national team, the team Klinsmann now coaches. Part of what separates the two is approach. Donovan believes there is life outside soccer, while Klinsmann believes life is soccer. And that helps explain why Donovan hasn't played for Klinsmann in more than 10 months. But here's why Donovan, 31, may not start for Klinsmann's national team going forward: The U.S. is getting along just fine without him. Yes, Donovan, the national team's all-time leader in goals and assists, was named to the U.S.' provisional B team roster for next month's Gold Cup tournament.

Mildred Cohn, a chemist who overcame both religious and sexual prejudice to make major contributions in applying physics to problems of biology, died of respiratory failure Oct. 12 at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia. She was 96. Refusing to accept the limitations imposed on her by others, Cohn worked with four Nobel laureates over the course of her career, eventually earning the nation's highest science award, the National Medal of Science, in her own right. Cohn pioneered the use of stable isotopic tracers to study the mechanisms of enzymes, which are the proteins that carry out chemical reactions within the cell.

Despite a threefold increase in people and cars in the last 50 years, California's strict vehicle emissions standards have managed to significantly clear the state's air, according to new research. The study also found that Southern California's air chemistry has changed for the better. The amount of organic nitrates in the atmosphere - which cause smog's eye-stinging irritation - has drastically fallen off, according to federal researchers. Ozone and other pollutants have been monitored in the state since the 1960s.

UCLA chemistry professor Patrick Harran has been ordered Friday to stand trial on felony charges stemming from a laboratory fire that killed staff research assistant Sheharbano “Sheri” Sangji more than four years ago. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench denied a defense motion to dismiss the case, which is believed to be the first such prosecution involving a U.S. academic lab accident. Harran is charged with willfully violating state occupational health and safety codes and faces up to 4 1/2 years in prison if convicted.

The world's largest natural products convention, a celebration of all things healthy and eco-friendly, was being held at the Anaheim Convention Center Saturday when F. Sherwood Rowland, 84, died at his home in Corona del Mar. It's not much of a stretch to say that Rowland, 84, helped spawn the industry that drew more than 60,000 people and 2,000 exhibitors. In 1973, the UC Irvine chemistry professor and a young researcher on his team, Mario Molina, discovered that manmade chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons destroyed the Earth's fragile and vital ozone layer.

It's getting tough for the rich. Just ridiculous. They can't buy love, and now it seems, chemistry. Hope they're still able to nab a swimsuit model. I mean, there has to be some perks beyond being first in line for a Tesla. Perhaps by now you've heard that pithy little comment from Giants first baseman Brandon Belt on the Dodgers' free-spending binge: “All I can say is,” he told Comcast's Andrew Baggarly, “you can't buy chemistry.” Suppose not, though I understand the Smithsonian Mega Science Lab makes for a mean chemistry starter set. Now there is chemistry that turns Peter Parker into a web crawler, chemistry that makes the opposing sex go weak in the knees, and presumably, the kind that brings teams together so they can go out and conquer the sporting world.

Sweet and sought after, young Hollywood stars Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are speaking out about their chemistry - onscreen, that is, in "The Amazing Spider-Man . " While the two keep a low profile in their personal relationship (sparked last June), the actors bring some theatrical heat as lovebirds Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker. "We got on really well as people, in between [takes]," Garfield told MTV News. "That was the fun stuff. In between, we'd just mess around, and I felt, 'Ah, this is different.'" Garfield expressed relief that Stone decided to take the role, saying that his scenes with the "Crazy Stupid Love" actress were his favorite to shoot (watch the interview below)

Chemists are not just scientists wearing white coats in laboratories. From such simple tasks as taking vitamins and baking bread to fueling automobiles and fertilizing plants, every person alive works with chemicals and chemical reactions daily, and is in fact a walking laboratory of chemicals in action. Learn how chemistry can help you understand how the world works and explore the many ways chemistry enhances our lives through these direct links on The Times Launch Point Web site: http://www.

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt's comments about the big-spending Dodgers hit Matt Kemp's radar. "All I can say is, you can't buy chemistry," Belt said at his team's FanFest earlier this month. Kemp was puzzled as to why Belt would say anything. "If I was a World Series champ, I wouldn't be saying anything about anybody's team, you know what I'm saying?" Kemp said Friday. "I don't have to say anything, I'm a World Series champ. "I think we all saw those quotes.

UCLA chemistry professor Patrick Harran has been ordered Friday to stand trial on felony charges stemming from a laboratory fire that killed staff research assistant Sheharbano “Sheri” Sangji more than four years ago. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench denied a defense motion to dismiss the case, which is believed to be the first such prosecution involving a U.S. academic lab accident. Harran is charged with willfully violating state occupational health and safety codes and faces up to 4 1/2 years in prison if convicted.

Matt Kemp has heard the whispers: The Dodgers don't have chemistry. Kemp shook his head. “That's what I keep hearing people say,” he acknowledged. This view, or some variation of it, is the crux of every argument that a team other than the Dodgers will win the National League West. A record payroll of $230 million has afforded the Dodgers a lineup with five former All-Stars, including sidelined shortstop Hanley Ramirez, and a rotation topped by two former Cy Young Award winners.

Jerry Buss did not enroll as a USC graduate student with aspirations of becoming one of the most successful owners in professional sports history. As a youngster, he thought he might be a photographer. But in high school, he shifted his focus to becoming a chemist. "I wanted to go on and teach school in a big university, preferably one with a really good football team," he once said in a television interview, "and that's why I went to USC. " The University of Wyoming graduate earned a master's degree and then a PhD in physical chemistry from USC in 1957, becoming the Dr. Jerry Buss who made a fortune in real estate and purchased the Lakers a little more than two decades later.

SACRAMENTO - A coalition of chemical companies is suing the Jerry Brown administration to stop an additive commonly found in food containers from being included in the state's list of substances that cause birth defects. The lawsuit by the American Chemistry Council, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court on Friday, seeks to prevent the state's Environmental Protection Agency from placing new restrictions on the use of Bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical agent widely used to protect aluminum food cans from corrosion and to strengthen plastic bottles, toys and containers.

I'm going to gush here, the local columnist going homer on you again as I do so often. Obviously I won't be writing about the Lakers. Instead this is going to be an ode to a great friendship, and how two incredible players would rather praise each other than talk about themselves. So no way this could have anything to do with the Lakers. But as inviting, competitive and cool as I've been telling everyone that I find Chris Paul, I just spent time with his twin, Chauncey Billups.

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt's comments about the big-spending Dodgers hit Matt Kemp's radar. "All I can say is, you can't buy chemistry," Belt said at his team's FanFest earlier this month. Kemp was puzzled as to why Belt would say anything. "If I was a World Series champ, I wouldn't be saying anything about anybody's team, you know what I'm saying?" Kemp said Friday. "I don't have to say anything, I'm a World Series champ. "I think we all saw those quotes.

Herbert Hauptman, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1985 for work uncovering the structure of molecules that accelerated medical research and led to the development of new drugs, has died. He was 94. His death Sunday in Buffalo, N.Y., was announced by the research center there that bears his name: the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute. Hauptman, who recently had a stroke, had worked into his 90s at the institute, where he was research director and later president.

From the earliest recorded times, people have used chemical processes to enhance their lives, including making dyes to color cloth and, starting in the Copper Age, extracting metals to create tools. Today, chemistry continues to be used to develop new products, to find solutions to such problems as acid rain and to decipher the genetic code of human DNA. Explore chemistry concepts and perform some experiments through these direct links on The Times Launch Point Web site: http://www.latimes.

It's getting tough for the rich. Just ridiculous. They can't buy love, and now it seems, chemistry. Hope they're still able to nab a swimsuit model. I mean, there has to be some perks beyond being first in line for a Tesla. Perhaps by now you've heard that pithy little comment from Giants first baseman Brandon Belt on the Dodgers' free-spending binge: “All I can say is,” he told Comcast's Andrew Baggarly, “you can't buy chemistry.” Suppose not, though I understand the Smithsonian Mega Science Lab makes for a mean chemistry starter set. Now there is chemistry that turns Peter Parker into a web crawler, chemistry that makes the opposing sex go weak in the knees, and presumably, the kind that brings teams together so they can go out and conquer the sporting world.

It was an odd thing for the coach of Team Dysfunction to say. His star players have repeatedly exchanged angry glances and gestures, a 7-footer has griped about being misused, a reserve has openly complained about not being used at all … and somehow none of it explains the Lakers being three games under .500? "I understand it a little bit," Lakers Coach Mike D'Antoni said of his team's chemistry concerns before things worsened with a 112-105 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Sunday at Staples Center, "but everybody has a job to do. The only thing we can ask players is to play as hard as they can. Whether you're happy or not doesn't really matter if you are playing as hard as you can. " D'Antoni unfortunately had more to say. "You don't have to love each other," he said.