Feature Channels: Chemistry

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Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM)—which enables the visualization of viruses, proteins, and other biological structures at the molecular level—is a critical tool used to advance biochemical knowledge. Now Berkeley Lab researchers have extended cryo-EM’s impact further by developing a new computational algorithm instrumental in constructing a 3-D atomic-scale model of bacteriophage P22 for the first time.

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Scientists at the University of Southampton working with colleagues at the University of Liverpool have developed a new method which has the potential to revolutionise the way we search for, design and produce new materials.

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The University of Adelaide has today announced the appointment of an international leader in engineering, Professor Anton Middelberg, as its new Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences.

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Since a couple of decades, metal-containing drugs have been successfully used to fight against certain types of cancer. The lack of knowledge about the underlying molecular mechanisms slows down the search for new and more efficient chemotherapeutic agents. An international team of scientists, led by Leticia González from the University of Vienna and Jacinto Sá from the Uppsala University, have developed a protocol that is able to detect how metal-based drugs interact with DNA.

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Berkeley Lab researchers have successfully added thread-level parallelism on top of MPI-level parallelism in the planewave density functional theory method within the popular software suite NWChem. An important step to ensuring that computational chemists are prepared to compute efficiently on next-generation exascale machines.

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Polystyrene has a glass transition temperature of about 100 C -- at room temperature it behaves like a solid material. But as its temperature approaches the glass transition temperature, polystyrene’s mechanical properties change drastically. This makes the ability to approximate glass transitions for confined geometries in polymers highly desirable. And now, as researchers report in this week's issue of The Journal of Chemical Physics, they’ve developed a simple formula to do just that.

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Standard antidepressant medications don’t work for everyone, and even when they do they are slow to kick in. In an effort to find better depression treatments, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine discovered that inhibiting an enzyme called Glyoxalase 1 (GLO1) relieves signs of depression in mice. Moreover, inhibiting GLO1 worked much faster than the conventional antidepressant Prozac.

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A multi-institutional team of researchers from Canada and the US has demonstrated steady state lasing with solution-processed nanoparticles called “colloidal quantum dots,” an important step on the path to improving laser tools for fiber optics, video projectors and more accurate medical testing technology. The work is reported today in a paper for the journal Nature.

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University of Utah engineers have discovered a new material made from a combination of the chemical elements calcium, cobalt and terbium that can create an efficient, inexpensive and bio-friendly material that can generate electricity through a thermoelectric process involving heat and cold air.

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UPTON, NY—Even plants have to live on an energy budget. While they’re known for converting solar energy into chemical energy in the form of sugars, plants have sophisticated biochemical mechanisms for regulating how they spend that energy. Making oils costs a lot. By exploring the details of this delicate energy balance, a group of scientists from the U.

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Writing in the March 17 issue of the journal Science, Missouri University of Science and Technology researchers say they have developed a way to “grow” thin layers of gold on single crystal wafers of silicon, remove the gold foils, and use them as substrates on which to grow other electronic materials.

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An algorithm based on levels of metabolites found in a blood sample can accurately predict whether a child is on the Autism spectrum of disorder (ASD), based upon a recent study.

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BGSU photochemist Dr. Alexis Ostrowski and her lab are venturing into a whole new world of materials with properties as yet unknown, but that offer the promise of beneficial applications in health, industry, agriculture and other fields.

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A team of researchers has developed a groundbreaking one-step, crystal growth process for making ultra-thin layers of material with molecular-sized pores. Researchers demonstrated the use of the material, called zeolite nanosheets, by making ultra-selective membranes for chemical separations. These new membranes can separate individual molecules based on shape and size, which could improve the energy-efficiency of chemical separation methods used to make everything from fuels to chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

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An international team of researchers found that fossil-like objects grew in natural spring water abundant in the early stages of the planet. But, they were inorganic materials that resulted from simple chemical reactions.

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A discovery, several years in the making, by University at Buffalo researchers proves that adult skin cells can be converted into neural crest cells (a type of stem cell) without any genetic modification, and that these stem cells can yield other cells that are present in the spinal cord and the brain. The applications could be significant, from studying genetic diseases in a dish to generating possible regenerative cures from the patient’s own cells.

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A new energy-efficient separation of rare earth elements could provide a new domestic source of critical materials.

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A team of NYU chemists has created self-assembled, three-dimensional DNA crystals that can bind a separate, dye-bearing strand—a breakthrough that enhances the functionality of these tiny building blocks.

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Results of tests provide evidence that exposure to a chemical mixture can disturb thyroid hormone signalling. The authors say that this adds weight to the suggestion that similar exposures can adversely affect brain development in unborn children.