Chemistry News - October 2009 Archives

Start-up company prepares to commercialize novel detector for medical, military applications (10/30/2009)

PAIR Technologies, a start-up company established by University of Delaware researchers and a former DuPont scientist, is preparing to commercialize a high-precision detector -- a planar array infrared spectrograph -- that can identify biological and chemical agents in solids, liquids and gases, in quantities as small as an atom, and in less than a second. ...> Full Article

Scientist shines laser light on methane in pursuit of clean fuel (10/28/2009)

Rochester Institute of Technology professor Roger Dube is exploring a novel technique using laser light that could someday convert methane to liquid fuel and prevent the potent greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere. ...> Full Article

Researchers make key step towards turning methane gas into liquid fuel (10/28/2009)

Scientists take an important step in converting methane gas to a liquid, giving the potential of making it more useful as a fuel and as a source for making other chemicals. ...> Full Article

Seeing previously invisible molecules for the first time (10/27/2009)

A team of Harvard chemists led by X. Sunney Xie has developed a new microscopic technique for seeing, in color, molecules with undetectable fluorescence. The room-temperature technique allows researchers to identify previously unseen molecules in living organisms and offers broad applications in biomedical imaging and research. ...> Full Article

Synthetic cells shed biological insights while delivering battery power (10/27/2009)

A new paper from researchers at Yale University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology describes a highly simplified model cell that not only sheds light on the way certain real cells generate electric voltages, but also acts as a tiny battery that could offer a practical alternative to conventional solid-state energy-generating devices. ...> Full Article

Checkered history of mother and daughter cells explains cell cycle differences (10/26/2009)

New research reveals that regulatory differences between mother and daughter cells during cell division are directly linked to how they prepare for their next split. ...> Full Article

New molecules have wide applications (10/26/2009)

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have successfully created in the laboratory a class of carbenes used to make catalysts. Until now, chemists believed these carbenes, called "abnormal N-heterocyclic carbenes" or aNHCs, were impossible to make. The aNHCs are stable at room temperature both in the solid state and in solution, which means their application as metal-free catalysts is extremely wide, greatly benefiting industry by making possible scores of new chemical reactions. ...> Full Article

New artificial enzyme safer for nature (10/25/2009)

Breakthrough for man-made enzymes.Perilous and polluting industrial processes can be made safer with enzymes. But only a short range of enzymes have been available for the chemical industry. Recently a group of researchers at University of Copenhagen succeeded in producing an artificial enzyme that points the way to enzymes tailor-made for any application. News of this is published in the European journal ChemBioChem under the title "Cyclodextrin Aldehydes are Oxidase Mimics." ...> Full Article

New material could boost data storage, save energy (10/24/2009)

North Carolina State University engineers have created a new material that would allow a fingernail-size computer chip to store the equivalent of 20 high-definition DVDs or 250 million pages of text, far exceeding the storage capacities of today's computer memory systems. ...> Full Article

0.2 second test for explosive liquids (10/23/2009)

Research published today, Tuesday, Oct. 20, in IOP Publishing's Superconductor Science and Technology explains how a new form of spectroscopy, a scientific method that uses electromagnetic radiation to identify materials, and a novel nanoelectronic device to detect signals, can identify explosive liquids, or liquid components for the fabrication of explosives, in usual plastic bottles almost instantly. ...> Full Article

Designer molecule detects tiny amounts of cyanide, then glows (10/23/2009)

A small molecule designed to detect cyanide in water samples works quickly, is easy to use, and glows under ultraviolet or "black" light. Although the fluorescent molecule is not yet ready for market, its Indiana University Bloomington creators report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (now online) that the tool is already able to sense cyanide below the toxicity threshold established by the World Health Organization. ...> Full Article

Chemists discover recipe to design a better type of fuel cell (10/22/2009)

University of Calgary chemists Jeff Hurd and George Shimizu have taken the science behind a specific type of fuel cell towards a higher level of design. They have discovered a new material that allows a PEM fuel cell, known as a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell, to work at a higher temperature. This discovery is extremely important in terms of increasing the efficiency and decreasing the cost of PEM fuel cells. ...> Full Article

Major advance in organic solar cells (10/21/2009)

Professor Guillermo Bazan and a team of postgraduate researchers at UC Santa Barbara's Center for Polymers and Organic Solids today announced a major advance in the synthesis of organic polymers for plastic solar cells. ...> Full Article

Super sticky barnacle glue cures like blood clots (10/20/2009)

Barnacles are a major problem for the shipping industry. Working out how they stick to boat hulls is of major economic importance. On Oct. 16, 2009, Dan Rittschof from Duke University publishes his amazing discovery that barnacle glue cures in the same way that blood clots. "Barnacle glue polymerization is a specialized form of wound healing," says Rittschof. ...> Full Article

The future of electricity may be found in environmentally-friendly, thermoelectric cells (10/19/2009)

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation are funding research that may result in a military turbine aircraft that for the first time ever will produce its own electricity from exhaust heat generated from thermo electricity. ...> Full Article

Scientists use math modeling to predict unknown biological mechanism of regulation (10/18/2009)

A team of scientists, led by a biomedical engineer at The University of Texas at Austin, have demonstrated ? for the first time ? that mathematical models created from data obtained by DNA microarrays, can be used to correctly predict previously unknown cellular mechanisms. This brings biologists a step closer to one day being able to understand and control the inner workings of the cell as readily as NASA engineers plot the trajectories of spacecraft today. ...> Full Article

Ion Tiger fuel cell unmanned air vehicle completes 23-hour flight (10/17/2009)

The Naval Research Laboratory's Ion Tiger, a hydrogen-powered fuel cell unmanned air vehicle, has flown 23 hours and 17 minutes, setting an unofficial flight endurance record for a fuel-cell powered flight. ...> Full Article

Some color shades offer better protection against sun?s ultraviolet rays (10/17/2009)

Economy-minded consumers who want protection from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays -- but rather not pay premium prices for sun-protective clothing -- should think blue and red, rather than yellow. Scientists in Spain are reporting that the same cotton fabric dyed deep blue or red provide greater UV protection than shades of yellow. Their study is scheduled for the Nov. 4 issue of ACS' Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, a bi-weekly journal. ...> Full Article

Powerhouses in the cell dismantled (10/16/2009)

All of life is founded on the interactions of millions of proteins. These are the building blocks for cells and form the molecular mechanisms of life. The problem is that proteins are extremely difficult to study, particularly because there are so many of them and they appear in all sizes and weights. Now, Kris Gevaert from VIB/Ghent University and colleagues from the universities of Freiburg and Bochum have achieved a breakthrough in protein research. ...> Full Article

Small ... smaller ... smallest? Researchers create molecular diode (10/16/2009)

Recently, at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, N.J., Tao and collaborators have found a way to make a key electrical component on a phenomenally tiny scale. Their single-molecule diode is described in this week's online edition of Nature Chemistry. ...> Full Article

Micropatterned material surface controls cell orientation (10/15/2009)

Stripe-micropatterned surfaces have recently been a unique tool to study cell orientation. This paper employs the photolithographic transfer technique to generate cell-adhesive gold microstripes on cell-adhesion-resistant polyethylene glycol hydrogels. 3T3 fibroblasts were cultured on Au-microstripe surfaces to observe cell adhesion and orientation. Five statistical parameters were defined and used to describe cell orientation on micropatterns. The combination of the five statistical parameters represented well the cell orientation behaviors semi-quantitatively. ...> Full Article

Researchers identify mechanism that helps bacteria avoid destruction in cells (10/14/2009)

Infectious diseases currently cause about one-third of all human deaths worldwide, more than all forms of cancer combined. Advances in cell biology and microbial genetics have greatly enhanced understanding of the cause and mechanisms of infectious diseases. Researchers from Thomas Jefferson University, the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and Yale University reported in PLoS ONE, a way in which intracellular pathogens exploit the biological attributes of their hosts in order to escape destruction. ...> Full Article

Developing enzymes to clean up pollution by explosives (10/13/2009)

Researchers at the University of York have uncovered the structure of an enzyme that can be used to reverse the contamination of land by RDX explosive. ...> Full Article

Toward better solar cells: Chemists gain control of light-harvesting paths (10/12/2009)

University of Florida chemists have pioneered a method to tease out promising molecular structures for capturing energy, a step that could speed the development of more efficient, cheaper solar cells. ...> Full Article

New aluminum-water rocket propellant promising for future space missions (10/11/2009)

Researchers are developing a new type of rocket propellant made of a frozen mixture of water and "nanoscale aluminum" powder that is more environmentally friendly than conventional propellants and could be manufactured on the moon, Mars and other water-bearing bodies. ...> Full Article

Fill 'er up - with algae (10/10/2009)

Imagine filling up your car with fuel that comes from inexpensive algae that grow quickly, don't use up freshwater supplies and can be cultivated in areas where they won't compete with traditional food crops, such as corn or soybeans. Researchers at North Carolina State University are working to make that a reality, with a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation. ...> Full Article

Bacterium helps formation of gold (10/10/2009)

Australian scientists have found that the bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans catalyzes the biomineralization of gold by transforming toxic gold compounds to their metallic form using active cellular mechanism. ...> Full Article

Renewable hydrogen production becomes reality at winery (10/9/2009)

The first demonstration of a renewable method for hydrogen production from wastewater using a microbial electrolysis system is underway at the Napa Wine Company in Oakville. The refrigerator-sized hydrogen generator will take winery wastewater, and using bacteria and a small amount of electrical energy, convert the organic material into hydrogen, according to a Penn State environmental engineer. ...> Full Article

Potential leap forward in electron microscopy (10/8/2009)

MIT electrical engineers have proposed a new scheme that can overcome a critical limitation of high-resolution electron microscopes: they cannot be used to image living cells because the electrons destroy the samples. The researchers suggest using a quantum mechanical measurement technique that allows electrons to sense objects remotely without ever hitting the imaged objects, thus avoiding damage. ...> Full Article

Come on in: Nuclear barrier less restrictive than expected in new cells (10/7/2009)

When it comes to the two basic types of cells, prokaryotes and eukaryotes, compartmentalization is everything. Prokaryotes are evolutionarily ancient cells that only have a membrane surrounding their outer boundary, while the more complex eukaryotes have an outer membrane and membrane bound compartments within the cell. Perhaps most notable is the double layered membrane that surrounds the nucleus, the cellular compartment which houses the cell's genetic material. ...> Full Article

Understanding a cell's split personality aids synthetic circuits (10/7/2009)

As scientists work toward making genetically altered bacteria create living "circuits" to produce a myriad of useful proteins and chemicals, they have logically assumed that the single-celled organisms would always respond to an external command in the same way. ...> Full Article

Tracing ultra-fine dust (10/6/2009)

Limit values for fine dust emissions are based on total particle weight. It is the ultra-fine particles, however, that are particularly harmful to health. A new technique separates them by size and identifies their composition -- directly where they arise. ...> Full Article

Researchers looking for catalyst that allows plants to produce hydrocarbons (10/4/2009)

Iowa State University researchers are working to understand how a catalyst allows certain plants and algae to create simple hydrocarbons that could be a new source of liquid fuels. The project is supported by a four-year, $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation's Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation. ...> Full Article

New material could expand applications and lower costs for solid oxide fuel cells (10/3/2009)

A new ceramic material described in this week's issue of the journal Science could help expand the applications for solid oxide fuel cells -- devices that generate electricity directly from a wide range of liquid or gaseous fuels without the need to separate hydrogen. ...> Full Article

Novel chemistry for ethylene and tin (10/2/2009)

New work by chemists at UC Davis shows that ethylene, a gas that is important both as a hormone that controls fruit ripening and as a raw material in industrial chemistry, can bind reversibly to tin atoms. ...> Full Article

New findings could help hybrid, electric cars keep their cool (10/1/2009)

Understanding precisely how fluid boils in tiny "microchannels" has led to formulas and models that will help engineers design systems to cool high-power electronics in electric and hybrid cars, aircraft, computers and other devices. ...> Full Article