"Blue whirls" -- small, spinning blue flames that produce almost no soot when they burn -- have attracted great interest since their discovery in 2016, in part because they represent a potential new avenue for low-emission combustion.
Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, unveiled its annual “Talented 12” list of early-career researchers in the chemical sciences who are fearlessly tackling difficult global problems.
From oil refining to automobile pollution-control devices to the bulk of pharmaceuticals, platinum-group metals are the go-to choice for facilitating chemical reactions. It’s been that way for decades. But a new review article in the August 14 issue of the journal Science, led by first author Morris Bullock of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, provides a road map toward greater use of Earth-abundant metals, which would reduce cost and environmental impact.
A group of researchers have demonstrated that, from seven methods commonly used to test for viruses in untreated wastewater, an adsorption-extraction technique can most efficiently detect SARS-CoV-2. This gives us another tool to detect the presence and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide risk being lost into the atmosphere due to tropical forest soils being significantly more sensitive to climate change than previously thought.
Better understanding of the surface chemistry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is needed to reduce transmission and accelerate vaccine design.
In our series, The ECS Community Adapts and Advances, Alex Peroff spoke to us from his home office. Whereas travel used to be the largest part of his job, now he focuses on developing content and meaningful communication. Alex joined Pine Research Instrumentation, Inc. as an Electroanalytical Scientist in 2016 after completing a PhD at Northwestern University.
The pandemic sent shockwaves through the academic community. Some institutions are weathering the storm better than others. At Lewis University (LU), Professor Jason Keleher and his students, Carolyn Graverson, Abigail “Abby” Linhart, and Katie Wortman-Otto, are optimistic. In our series, The ECS Community Adapts and Advances, they share their COVID-19 experiences and hopes for the future.
For the first time, a team of chemists has unveiled the mechanics involved in the mysterious interplay between sunlight and molecules in the atmosphere known as “roaming reactions.” The research could lead to more accurate modeling of climate change and other atmospheric phenomena.
Imagine plugging in to your brick house. Red bricks — some of the world’s cheapest and most familiar building materials — can be converted into energy storage units that can be charged to hold electricity, like a battery, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis.Brick has been used in walls and buildings for thousands of years, but rarely has been found fit for any other use.
Nanoparticles are actively employed in medicine as contrast agents as well as for diagnosis and therapy of various diseases. However, the development of novel multifunctional nanoagents is impeded by the difficulty of monitoring their blood circulation. Researches from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of RAS, Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, Prokhorov General Physics Institute of RAS, and Sirius University have developed a new noninvasive method of nanoparticle measurement in the bloodstream that boasts a high time resolution. This technique has revealed the basic parameters that affect particle lifetime in the bloodstream, which may potentially lead to discovery of new, more effective nanoagents to be used in biomedicine.
A team of chemists from HSE University and the Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry used molecular modelling to find out that two medications that have been known for a long time can be used to fight SARS-CoV-2.
UC San Diego researchers formulated polyurethane foams, made from algae oil, to meet commercial specifications for midsole shoes and the foot-bed of flip-flops. Their latest result, in a series of recent research publications, offers a complete solution to the plastics problem—at least for polyurethanes.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed a method combining sticky nanoparticles with high-precision protein measurement to capture and analyze a common marker of heart disease to reveal details that were previously inaccessible.
UPTON, NY--The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $40M in funding over five years for a new research center aimed at developing hybrid photoelectrodes for converting sunlight into liquid fuels. Chemists from DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory will be key partners in this effort, dubbed the Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE), which will be led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and includes additional collaborators at Emory University, North Carolina State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.
Scientists at Berkeley Lab and the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) have gained important new insight into how the performance of a promising semiconducting thin film can be optimized at the nanoscale for renewable energy technologies such as solar fuels.
A fast-acting antidote to mitigate the effects of organophosphate poisoning requires a reactivator that can effectively and efficiently cross the blood-brain barrier, bind loosely to the enzyme, chemically snatch the poison and then leave quickly. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is using neutron diffraction data towards improving a novel reactivator design.
University reports a new electrocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide and water into ethanol with very high energy efficiency, high selectivity for the desired final product and low cost.
Irvine, Calif., Aug. 5, 2020 – When the coronavirus pandemic hit, almost everyone at the University of California, Irvine – and colleges across the nation – had to abandon campus. But James Nowick, professor of chemistry, was not a part of that exodus. That’s because his lab, which designs and constructs chemical molecules, had the right equipment to help in the global push to find treatments for COVID-19.
A notable characteristic of several neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, is the formation of harmful plaques that contain aggregates--also known as fibrils--of amyloid proteins.
Real-time measurements captured by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory provide missing insight into chemical separations to recover cobalt, a critical raw material used to make batteries and magnets for modern technologies.
Scientists do not fully understand the mechanisms that plants use to extract phosphorus from soil and incorporate it into their biomass. Now, researchers have developed a new technique to visualize the activity and distribution of enzymes that mobilize phosphate around plant roots.
Massive compressive shearing forces generated by the tidal pull of Jupiter-like planets on their rocky ice-covered moons may form a natural reactor that drives simple amino acids to polymerize into larger compounds. These extreme mechanical forces strongly enhance molecule condensation reactions, opening a new arena of possibilities for the chemical origins of life on Earth and other rock planets, according to new research from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Bacteria have the ability to adapt to their environment to survive the host's immune defense.
Life on Earth manages to exist in the Mariana Trench and deep below the ocean floor, where extreme conditions create large effects on the behavior of biological molecules. At the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, a facility dedicated to high-pressure biological X-ray scattering is available for use to explore those deep ocean molecules. Richard Gillilan will describe the main capabilities of BioSAXS and call for scientific use of the facility at the 70th Annual Meeting of the American Crystallographic Association.
In a paper published this week in the journal Physical Review A, the researchers lay out a theoretical scenario in which two players, playing cooperatively against the dealer, can better coordinate their strategies using a quantumly entangled pair of systems.
A current problem for a wide range of chemists is when stirring a solution in the laboratory there is a need to check the properties of the solution and monitor how they change.
Today, Clinical Reference Laboratory (CRL), one of the largest privately held clinical testing laboratories in the U.S., announced that it received FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and is scaling up capacity for CRL Rapid Response™, a saliva-based COVID-19 RT-PCR test that can be self-collected at home, work or any other setting.
Missouri S&T has received a $1.5 million award from the National Science Foundation to develop a new, state-of-the-art, rotational microwave spectrometer on its campus in Rolla.The instrument will be used by several universities to collect some of the most detailed information available about the structure of gas phase molecules.
Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics announced that seven scientists have been selected for the 2020-2021 cohort of Eagleton Science and Politics Fellows. Over the next year, the Eagleton Science Fellows will serve as full-time science advisors in New Jersey state government and will assist in the development and implementation of state policy for issues ranging from COVID-19 response, clean energy, education, mental health, and others.
University of Minnesota researchers have electrically transformed the abundant and low-cost non-magnetic material iron sulfide, also known as “fool’s gold,” into a magnetic material that could be the first step in creating valuable new materials for more energy-efficient computer memory devices.
A new microchip that enables continuous monitoring of pH and chlorine levels in swimming pools will vastly improve water safety and hygiene for more than 2.7 million Australians as new research shows it can deliver consistent and accurate pool chemistry for reliable pool management.
A PNNL-developed technology that can quickly detect explosive vapors, deadly chemicals and illicit drugs with unparalleled accuracy has been named the 2020 Innovation of the Year by GeekWire, the Seattle-based technology news company.
Scientists at Argonne and the University of Chicago have developed a method paving the way to using quantum computers to simulate realistic molecules and complex materials. They tested the method on a quantum simulator and IBM quantum computer.
A new survey of U.S. clinical laboratories conducted by AACC has found that nearly half of all responding labs still do not have the supplies they need to run COVID-19 tests. AACC presented these findings to the White House Coronavirus Task Force today in a letter that calls on the federal government to take a more active role in alleviating this problem, so that labs can increase their testing capacity in the midst of the virus’s latest surge.
When the Shewanella oneidensis bacterium “breathes” in certain metal and sulfur compounds anaerobically, the way an aerobic organism would process oxygen, it produces materials that could be used to enhance electronics, electrochemical energy storage, and drug-delivery devices. The ability of this bacterium to produce molybdenum disulfide — a material that is able to transfer electrons easily, like graphene — is the focus of research published in Biointerphases by a team of engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
A principal research scientist in The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research (CSPAR) has been awarded a $750,000 grant from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) for low temperature plasma (LTP).
Dr. Grenache addresses the growing push for COVID-19 antibody testing, bringing much-needed clarity to the question of what these tests can—and can’t—do.
Ning Xu of the Actinide Analytical Chemistry group at Los Alamos has been selected as a member of the 2020 class of Fellows of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
In a new study, a team led by researchers at Argonne National Laboratory has made discoveries concerning a potential new, higher-capacity anode material, which would allow lithium-ion batteries to have a higher overall energy capacity.
Creating biofuels from plant material requires ionic liquids (ILs) to break down plant cells. We also need microbes such as yeast to convert the resulting plant material into biofuel. However, ILs often keep microbes from growing. Scientists have now learned how one strain of yeast strengthens its membranes and holds up better to ILs.
Dr. Wiley gives an overview of PCR testing, which is the most common type of test for COVID-19 and the one that patients are currently most likely to encounter.
Taking a bottom-up approach to synthetic biology, UC San Diego chemists and physicists show that lipid sponge droplets can be programmed to internally concentrate specific proteins, host and accelerate biochemical transformations and control enzymatic reactions.
Copper, a metal commonly used throughout history for its antibacterial properties, is being utilized by researchers at IUPUI to solve a problem very relevant today: making reusable face masks safer and more comfortable for daily use.
Now that lab experts are developing COVID-19 antigen tests, Dr. Wiley explains how these tests work.
As the Covid-19 shutdowns and stay-at-home orders brought much of the world's travel and commerce to a standstill, people around the world started noticing clearer skies as a result of lower levels of air pollution.
NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 – The Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences announced today a molecular biophysicist, an organic chemist and an astrophysicist as the Laureates of the 2020 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. Each will receive $250,000, the largest unrestricted scientific prize offered to America’s most-promising, young faculty-level scientific researchers.
Need a robot with a soft touch? A team of Michigan State University engineers has designed and developed a novel humanoid hand that may be able to help.
A growing number of chemicals in pesticides, flame retardants, and certain plastics have been linked to widespread health problems including infertility, diabetes, and impaired brain development, a set of reviews of hundreds of studies concludes.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right