If different types of vegetables and fruits are stored together, they influence each other in the ripening process. This is due to ethylene, which is emitted by some plant-based foodstuff and accelerates ripening. To prevent excessive food waste due to accelerated ripening Empa and ETH Zurich researchers are developing a new catalyst that degrades ethylene into water and carbon dioxide.
Cornell structural biologists took a new approach to using a classic method of X-ray analysis to capture something the conventional method had never accounted for: the collective motion of proteins. And they did so by creating software to painstakingly stitch together the scraps of data that are usually disregarded in the process.
After reconstructing the ancient forms of two cellular proteins, scientists discovered the earliest known instance of a complex form of protein regulation.
A forthcoming N = 126 Factory will investigate one of the great questions in physics and chemistry: how were the heavy elements from iron to uranium created?
In the past, biologically-active peptides – small proteins like neurotoxins and hormones that act on cell receptors to alter physiology – were purified from native sources like venoms and then panels of variants were produced in bacteria, or synthesized, to study the structural basis for receptor interaction. A new technique called zombie scanning renders these older processes obsolete.
Researchers have reported a new material, pliable enough to be woven into fabric but imbued with sensing capabilities that can serve as an early warning system for injury or illness.
Cornell chemists can demonstrate how to make high-density polyethylene with better control over polymer chain lengths, which allows for improvement over physical properties such as processability and strength, according to research published Dec. 27, 2019, in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Cells depend on signaling to regulate most life processes, including cell growth and differentiation, immune response and reactions to various stresses.
A team of researchers from the University of Minnesota, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Delaware, and University of California Santa Barbara have invented oscillating catalyst technology that can accelerate chemical reactions without errors. The groundbreaking technology can be incorporated into hundreds of industrial chemical technologies to reduce waste by thousands of tons each year while improving the performance and cost-efficiency of materials production.
A review of recent work in biophysics highlights efforts in cellular engineering, ranging from proteins to cellular components to tissues grown on next-generation chips. Author Ngan Huang said the fast pace of development prompted her and her colleagues to take stock of promising areas in the field as well as hurdles researchers can expect in coming years. They discuss their work in this week’s APL Bioengineering.
An international team of scientists and engineers have made a discovery that could further advance the use of ultra-thin zeolite nanosheets, which are used as specialized molecular filters. The discovery could improve efficiency in the production of gasoline, plastics, and biofuels.
In a study, the researchers used a machine learning algorithm to classify more than 110 types of plastics, including commercial and lab-made varieties, to better understand how they might degrade in the ocean.
Turning adhesion on and off is what makes a glue smart. Inspired by nature, catechols are synthetic compounds that mimic the wet-but-still-sticky proteins found in mussel feet and offer promise for underwater glue, wound dressings, prosthetic attachments or even making car parts and in other manufacturing. A Michigan Tech team has used electricity for the first time to deactivate a catechol-containing adhesive in salt water.
Laser-induced melting occurs nonuniformly in polycrystalline gold thin films—a finding that may be important for precision part micromachining.
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee achieved a rare look at the inner workings of polymer self-assembly at an oil-water interface to advance materials for neuromorphic computing and bio-inspired technologies.
Sugars are the body’s primary energy source, but they also play signaling roles in the cell by acting as tags on proteins and lipids. NIGMS grantee and Presidential award recipient Michael Boyce discusses the importance of these sugar tags and their role in disease, as well as his efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion in the scientific workforce.
With hybrid cars and plug-in hybrids, cold starts occur more frequently when the internal combustion engine stops and the electric motor pushes the car through town. How quickly can the catalytic converter be preheated so that it can still clean exhaust gases well? What would be the method of choice? A team of Empa researchers is investigating.
A comparison of normal and germ-free mice revealed that as much as 70 percent of a mouse’s gut chemistry is determined by its gut microbiome. Even in distant organs, such as the uterus or the brain, approximately 20 percent of molecules were different in the mice with gut microbes.
Columbia University researchers announced that they have discovered a new way to control the phase of light using 2D materials--atomically thin materials, ∼ 0.8 nanometer, or 1/100000 the size of a human hair--without changing its amplitude, at extremely low electrical power dissipation.
In a study in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, researchers estimated that shopping at brick-and-mortar stores for personal/home care products produces less greenhouse gas than one type of online shopping, but more than another.
Researchers at Penn State and Purdue University have developed new materials for improved single-atom catalysis and future electronics.
Valentino Cooper of Oak Ridge National Laboratory uses theory, modeling and computation to improve fundamental understanding of advanced materials for next-generation energy and information technologies.
Canadian chemists discover a natural process to control the shape of "macrocycles," molecules of large rings of atoms, for use in pharmaceuticals and electronics.
Chemists at Iowa State may have solved a puzzle of forensic science: How do you determine the age of a fingerprint? The chemists used mass spectrometry tools to analyze fingerprints and found clues in the fatty oils within the prints. And that could help tie a suspect to a crime scene.
Nanoscale photocatalysts are small, man-made particles that harvest energy from sunlight to produce liquid fuels and other useful chemicals. But even within the same batch, the particles tend to vary widely in size, shape and surface composition. That makes it hard for researchers to tell what’s really doing the work.
Supplies of the cobalt are adequate in the short term, but shortages could develop down the road if refining and recycling aren’t ramped up or made more efficient, according to research published in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology.
Karen Lewis, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Texas State University, has received a $460,000 competitive grant renewal from the National Institutes of Health to study the RNA-to-protein translation process that is controlled by La-Related Proteins (LaRPs).
Michael Dorff (Brigham Young University) and George C. Shields (Furman University) are the latest Fellows of the Council on Undergraduate Research to be honored for their leadership and service as role models for those involved in undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activities.
Renowned scientists including Nobel laureates, research pioneers and celebrated educators will convene at the Experimental Biology (EB) 2020 meeting, to be held April 4–7 in San Diego. Bringing together more than 12,000 life scientists in one interdisciplinary community, EB showcases the latest advances in anatomy, biochemistry, molecular biology, investigative pathology, pharmacology and physiology.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego developed an ultrasound-emitting device that brings lithium metal batteries, or LMBs, one step closer to commercial viability. Although the research team focused on LMBs, the device can be used in any battery, regardless of chemistry.
The University of Redlands Mortar Board Honor Society has named Rebecca Lyons as Professor of the Year. Lyons, a chemistry professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been teaching at the University of Redlands for nine years.
More than half of all cancer patients undergo radiation therapy and the dose is critical. Too much and the surrounding tissue gets damaged, too little and the cancer cells survive.
Argonne scientists won a 2019 R&D 100 award for collaborating with Kairos Power to create software that simulates entire nuclear power plants.
Scientists have created new inorganic crystals made of stacks of atomically thin sheets.
Researchers at the University of Bath have developed a revolutionary desalination process that has the potential to be operated in mobile, solar-powered units.
Researchers have developed a new method that could one day replace conventional pressure treating as a way to make lumber not only fungal-resistant but also nearly impervious to water – and more thermally insulating.
A team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University has gained insight into how electric fields affect the way energy from light drives molecular motion and transformation in a protein commonly used in biological imaging.
Cryogenic electron microscopy can in principle make out individual atoms in a molecule, but distinguishing the crisp from the blurry parts of an image can be a challenge. A new mathematical method may help.
A team of Florida State University researchers from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry found that a natural product from the fungus Fusicoccum amygdali stabilizes a family of proteins in the cell that mediate important signaling pathways involved in the pathology of cancer and neurological diseases.
An interdisciplinary team led by Penn State has received a five-year $3.7 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation’s new program on convergence research. The grant is in two phases, depending on successful completion of phase one milestones.
Using aerosols as ground truth, researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a deep learning method that accurately simulates chaotic trajectories — from the spread of poisonous gas to the path of foraging animals.
Individuals who suffer from migraine headaches appear to have a hyper-excitable visual cortex researchers at the Universities of Birmingham and Lancaster suggest.
Rutgers biomedical engineers have developed a “bio-ink” for 3D printed materials that could serve as scaffolds for growing human tissues to repair or replace damaged ones in the body. Their study was published in the journal Biointerphases.
The Protein Data Bank archive, which contains more than 160,000 3D structures for proteins, DNA, and RNA, this month released a new Coronavirus protease structure following the recent coronavirus outbreak, an ongoing viral epidemic primarily affecting mainland China that now threatens to spread to populations in other parts of the world.
University of Texas at Dallas researchers are breathing new life into an old MRI contrast agent by attaching it to a plant virus and wrapping it in a protective chemical cage. The novel strategy is aimed at developing a completely organic and biodegradable contrast agent.
Back in 1972, NASA sent their last team of astronauts to the Moon in the Apollo 17 mission.
Clumps of proteins inside cells are a common thread in many neurodegenerative diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease. These clumps, or solid aggregates of proteins, appear to be the result of an abnormality in the process known as liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), in which individual proteins come together to form a liquid-like droplet.
Photosensitizers are molecules that absorb sunlight and pass that energy along to generate electricity or drive chemical reactions. A SLAC study looked at how an inexpensive photosensitizer, iron carbene, stores energy from sunlight, and why it’s not better at its job.
Methanol is a versatile and efficient chemical used as fuel in the production of countless products. Carbon dioxide (CO2), on the other hand, is a greenhouse gas that is the unwanted byproduct of many industrial processes. Converting CO2 to methanol is one way to put CO2 to good use. In research published today in Science, chemical engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute demonstrated how to make that conversion process from CO2 to methanol more efficient by using a highly effective separation membrane they produced. This breakthrough, the researchers said, could improve a number of industry processes that depend on chemical reactions where water is a byproduct.
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