Chemistry News Archives Page 3

'Green' method decontaminates deadly nerve agents (4/13/2008)

Research by two scientists has resulted in an exciting new method for rapidly and safely destroying toxic agents such as chemical weapons and pesticides. ...> Full Article

Money Doesn't Grow on Trees, But Gasoline Might (4/12/2008)

Researchers make breakthrough in creating gasoline from plant matter, with almost no carbon footprint ...> Full Article

A New Take on Microbrewing (4/11/2008)

Researchers have crafted the world's tiniest alcohol still to concentrate scant amounts of micromolecules for easier detection ...> Full Article

Biophysicist Develops Computer Model To Study Cell Membrane Dynamics (4/10/2008)

Computer model provides a new approach to simulating and observing membrane dynamics at a relatively large scale - hundreds of nanometers. ...> Full Article

Gut reaction: Cow stomach holds key to turning corn into biofuel (4/9/2008)

An enzyme from a microbe that lives inside a cow's stomach is the key to turning corn plants into fuel ...> Full Article

Nuclear scientists eye future landfall on a second 'island of stability' (4/8/2008)

New genre of superheavy chemical elements sought for more than three decades ...> Full Article

Fueling Ethanol Production While Protecting Water Quality (4/7/2008)

Scientists evaluate the unintended consequences of ethanol production on water quality ...> Full Article

Study Finds Concerns with Biofuels (4/6/2008)

Impact of Biofuels on Biodiversity Explored ...> Full Article

Chloroform provides clue to the enigma of general anaesthesia (4/5/2008)

One of the earliest general anaesthetics to be used by the medical profession, chloroform, has shed light on a mystery that's puzzled doctors for more than 150 years - how such anaesthetics actually work ...> Full Article

Finding a needle in a haystack? No problem for the Montana Analytical Lab (4/4/2008)

Lab able to find contaminants at one part in a trillion ...> Full Article

Fire without smoke (4/3/2008)

Flameless turbo power ...> Full Article

Algae could one day be major hydrogen fuel source (4/2/2008)

As gas prices continue to soar to record highs, motorists are crying out for an alternative that won't cramp their pocketbooks. ...> Full Article

Researchers test find near-zero emissions for BMW Hydrogen 7 (3/31/2008)

Independent tests conducted by engineers on the mono-fueled version of the BMW Hydrogen 7 prototype have found that the car's hydrogen-powered engine surpasses the super-ultra low-emission vehicle (SULEV) level, the most stringent emissions performance standard to date. ...> Full Article

Scientists launch first comprehensive database of human oral microbiome (3/30/2008)

Scientists know more today than ever before about the microbes that inhabit our mouths. They know so much, in fact, that gathering all of the relevant bits of information into one place when designing experiments can be a job in itself. Now, grantees of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their international colleagues intend to solve this problem with the launch of the first comprehensive database of the oral microbiome, or the approximately 600 distinct microorganisms currently known to live in the mouth. ...> Full Article

Femtogram-level chemical measurements now possible (3/29/2008)

Finding a simple and convenient technique that combines nanoscale structural measurements and chemical identification has been an elusive goal. With current analytical instruments, spatial resolution is too low, signal-to-noise ratio too poor, sample preparation too complex or sample size too large to be of good service. ...> Full Article

Statistics are insufficient for study of proteins' signal system (3/28/2008)

Ten years ago great attention was attracted by the discovery that it was possible to demonstrate signal transfer in proteins using statistical methods. ...> Full Article

Scientists succeed in designing artificial enzymes that also undergo 'evolution in a test tube' (3/27/2008)

>Mankind triumphed in a recent 'competition' against nature when scientists succeeded in creating a new type of enzyme for a reaction for which no naturally occurring enzyme has evolved. This achievement opens the door to the development of a variety of potential applications in medicine and industry. ...> Full Article

Artificial Photosynthesis Moves a Step Closer (3/27/2008)

Scientists synthesise stable catalyst for water oxidation ...> Full Article

Researchers unravel the secrets of spider silk's strength (3/26/2008)

The strength of a biological material like spider silk lies in the specific geometric configuration of structural proteins, which have small clusters of weak hydrogen bonds that work cooperatively to resist force and dissipate energy ...> Full Article

Researchers Sharpen Search for New Marine Medicines with Novel Techniques (3/24/2008)

Scientists develop new 'map' within sea creatures to help pinpoint source of potent compounds promising to treat diseases ...> Full Article

Chemists Find Important Contributor to Smog (3/23/2008)

Chemists have discovered that a chemical reaction in the atmosphere above major cities long assumed to be unimportant in urban air pollution is in fact a significant contributor to urban ozone-the main component of smog. ...> Full Article

'Designer enzymes' created by chemists (3/22/2008)

Chemists have succeeded in creating "designer enzymes," a major milestone in computational chemistry and protein engineering. ...> Full Article

Findings Could Improve Fuel Cell Efficiency (3/21/2008)

Researchers have developed a membrane that allows fuel cells to operate at low humidity and theoretically at higher temperatures. ...> Full Article

Scientists Develop Sensor for Homemade Bombs (3/20/2008)

A team of chemists and physicists have developed a tiny, inexpensive sensor chip capable of detecting trace amounts of hydrogen peroxide, a chemical used in the most common form of homemade explosives. ...> Full Article

Boron chemistry pays off (3/19/2008)

A University of Alberta organic chemist has won one of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowships for his work into making more efficient synthetic chemistry. ...> Full Article

Human Proteinpedia, a portal to share human protein data among the scientific community (3/18/2008)

Storage and integration of information on human protein sequences ...> Full Article

Marine bacteria's mealtime dash is a swimming success (3/18/2008)

Goldfish in an aquarium are able to dash after food flakes at mealtime, reaching them before they sink or are eaten by other fish. Researchers at MIT recently proved that marine bacteria, the smallest creatures in the ocean, behave in a similar fashion at mealtime, using their swimming skills to reach tiny food patches that appear randomly in the ocean blue. ...> Full Article

X-rays shed light on magnetic bacteria to improve cancer therapy (3/17/2008)

Scientists have identified that certain naturally occurring bacteria are able to create tiny magnets that could be intensified and developed for use in cancer treatments. ...> Full Article

Researchers devise new cell-sorting system (3/17/2008)

Process could yield low-cost tool for diagnosing cancer, other diseases ...> Full Article

Quasicrystal mystery unraveled with computer simulation (3/16/2008)

The method to the madness of quasicrystals has been a mystery to scientists. Quasicrystals are solids whose atoms aren't arranged in a repeating pattern, as they are in ordinary crystals. Yet they form intricate patterns that are technologically useful. ...> Full Article