Feature Channels: Chemistry

• share
• favorite_border

More than a hundred years ago, Ivan Pavlov conducted what would become one of the most famous and influential psychology studies — he conditioned dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell. Now, scientists are able to see in real time what happens in the brains of live animals during this classic experiment with a new technique. Ultimately, the approach could lead to a greater understanding of how we learn, and develop and break addictions.

• share
• favorite_border

At the grocery store, most foods — meats, breads, cheeses, snacks — come wrapped in plastic packaging. Not only does this create a lot of non-recyclable, non-biodegradable waste, but thin plastic films are not great at preventing spoilage. And some plastics are suspected of leaching potentially harmful compounds into food. To address these issues, scientists are now developing a packaging film made of milk proteins — and it is even edible.

• share
• favorite_border

What does one need to strengthen or toughen concrete? A lot of nothing. Or something.

• share
• favorite_border

Coatings or paints are materials applied to different surfaces basically for decorative and protective purposes. Yet today the market for these materials is being subjected to increasingly tougher specifications. In addition to being decorative and protective, today's coatings must have additional properties such as, for example, low microorganism-adherence, ease of cleaning or self-repair properties. The development of materials of this type, known as "functional coatings", calls for the control not only of their physical properties (mainly to do with their morphology) but also of the chemical ones of the surfaces produced.

• share
• favorite_border

New research suggests that it is possible to create a new form of light by binding light to a single electron, combining the properties of both.

• share
• favorite_border

Fire tornados, or 'fire whirls,' pose a powerful and essentially uncontrollable threat to life, property, and the surrounding environment in large urban and wildland fires. But now, a team of researchers in the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering say their discovery of a type of fire tornado they call a 'blue whirl' could lead to beneficial new approaches for reducing carbon emissions and improving oil spill cleanup.

• share
• favorite_border

Galectin-3, a well-known lectin protein that binds with sugars, could have a number of interactions with other sugar-seeking proteins, which may complicate the biological processes that drive cancer growth, neural growth and white blood cell activities.

• share
• favorite_border

One- and two-year-old children are at the highest risk of burning their eyes with chemicals, despite the long held belief that working-age adults were the most at risk from this type of severe eye injury, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health-led research suggests.

• share
• favorite_border

American Chemical Society (ACS) President Donna J. Nelson, Ph.D., will emphasize her theme of build­ing communities in chemistry at the ACS 252nd National Meeting & Exposition, August 21 to 25, in Philadelphia. The presidential events, which will also include other subjects of broad interest, will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center and the Philadelphia Marriott. All times listed are in EDT.

• share
• favorite_border

Schizophrenia goes hand in hand with brain chemicals out of kilter, and treatment options for a major symptom aren't great. Biomedical engineers data-mined the collective scientific knowledge about working memory disturbance to build a brain chemistry simulator that lets researchers and doctors test out treatment ideas accurately.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists built enzymes that efficiently produce hydrogen, one half of the "holy grail" of splitting water to make hydrogen to fuel cars.

• share
• favorite_border

Research announced today at the 68th AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo demonstrates that a first-of-its-kind next-generation sequencing test can detect HIV drug resistance mutations that conventional tests fail to identify. This test could play a critical role in helping clinicians to optimize HIV treatment regimens, while also helping public health initiatives to minimize the development of global resistance to antiretroviral drugs.

• share
• favorite_border

In work that aims to protect soldiers, a team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have created a material that is highly breathable yet protective from biological agents. This material is the first key component of futuristic smart uniforms that also will respond to and protect from environmental chemical hazards.

• share
• favorite_border

New research at Michigan State University and published in the current issue of Nature Communications shows how Geobacter bacteria grow as films on electrodes and generate electricity - a process that's ready to be scaled up to industrial levels.

• share
• favorite_border

Concrete is everywhere -- a ubiquity owed to its strength as a building material. Despite its strength, however, it has a pernicious but inescapable tendency to “creep,” or deform progressively under mechanical stress, which leads to crumbling bridges and cracked roads. Despite the obvious relevance this holds for the safety of infrastructure, however, the physical origin of the mechanism has remained poorly understood, and even scientifically contested.

• share
• favorite_border

AutoSorter™ 1200 is Yaskawa Motoman’s newest high-speed sorting instrument for pre- and post-analytic specimen processing. Leveraging the previous model’s excellent record for reliability and speed, AutoSorter 1200 raises the bar on throughput at up to 1,200 tubes/hr.

• share
• favorite_border

Yaskawa Motoman’s AutoSorter™ 2000BB bulk sorter has a new configuration available that can maintain frozen specimens in a -20°C environment during the sorting process. This enables automated sorting of most frozen specimens which previously required labor-intensive and error-prone manual handling.

• share
• favorite_border

The 68th AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo is where the future of laboratory medicine and patient care comes into view. This year, late-breaking sessions will deliver insights into the latest advances that are transforming healthcare, including gene editing with CRISPR, the use of drones to transport patient samples in remote areas, and efforts to end the hepatitis C epidemic.

• share
• favorite_border

eAcademy aims to make high quality educational modules available to Laboratory professionals and will provide a resource for individuals in their training, as well as for those involved in the planning and organisation of educational programmes.

• share
• favorite_border

At the 68th AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo—the premier global conference and exhibit for laboratory medicine—visionaries in the field will illuminate the pioneering research and technology paving the way for better clinical testing and patient care. From July 31–August 4 in Philadelphia, the meeting will feature more than 200 talks on a broad range of timely healthcare topics. Highlights of these include plenaries that explore the latest research on cannabis use, reducing premature death worldwide, and innovations such as the programmable bio-nano-chip and “intelligent” surgical knife.