Chemistry

There is a little miracle of science happening in your body right now. As you read this, a minuscule 5 grams of a high-energy molecule called adenosine triphosphate - ATP - is causing all kinds of reactions in order to give you the energy to sit at your computer. In total, 8 ounces of ATP is being recycled hundreds of times each day, so many times that a human can use their body weight - 200 pounds of ATP in my case – every 24 hours.  ATP is not stored and summoned as needed, it is created on the go. This science miracle happens in tiny energy factories called mitochondria. Mitochondria…

 An 'organic cage molecule' called CC3 has been found to separate krypton, radon and xenon from air at concentrations of only a few parts per million.  Gases such as radon, xenon and krypton all occur naturally in the air but in minute quantities – typically less than one part per million. As a result they are expensive to extract for use in industries such as lighting or medicine and, in the case of radon, the gas can accumulate in buildings. In the US, radon accounts for around 21,000 lung cancer deaths a year. Previous methods for extracting these elements have involved…

At a secret enclave in the San Francisco metropolitan area, synthetic biologists and DIYBio tinkerers have been hacking nature up to fix the one thing about the vegan diet that would be difficult for many Americans: going without cheese. iGEM - the 10th international Genetically Engineered Machine competition - is tackling expressing casein proteins in yeast to make cheese. Not a cheese substitute, real cheese, without milk from a cow or a goat.   Upside for vegans - the cheese really is vegan. Downside for vegans - instead of milk, it uses strands of human DNA. The human proteins (other…

A new assay is inexpensive, simple, and can tell whether or not one of the primary drugs being used to treat malaria is genuine – an enormous and deadly problem in the developing world. The World Health Organization has estimated that up to 200,000 lives a year may be lost due to the use of counterfeit anti-malarial drugs. When commercialized, the new technology may be able to help address that problem by testing drugs for efficacy at a cost of a few cents. The "colorimetric" assay can be used to tell whether or not people are getting the medication they paid for – artesunate - which is by…

Liquid water is essential for almost every biological process so understanding liquid water is crucial for understanding biology - including some of its exceptional behavior.   According to classical understanding, when water contacts other water, it will spread out and finally both mix together, i.e., water always completely wets water due to the hydrogen bonds formed among water molecules. But in 2005, an ice monolayer that did not completely wet ice on metal Pt(111) surfaces was observed at extremely low temperatures. Until recently, this phenomenon had not been expected to be…

For quite a few years, one of the most popular chemicals for scientific inquiry has been bisphenol A (BPA).  Scientists around the world have been conducting a diverse array of studies aimed at understanding whether BPA poses a risk to human health.  Based on the weight of evidence from these many studies, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently answered the question “Is BPA safe?” with a simple and unambiguous answer - “Yes.” By far, the majority of the studies conducted on BPA provide information on potential hazards, which are intrinsic properties of the chemical.…

A new pressure cell makes it possible to simulate chemical reactions deep in the Earth's crust. The cell allows researchers to perform nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements on as little as 10 microliters of liquid at pressures up to 20 kiloBar. The new device allows researchers for the first time to study chemical reactions in liquid water under pressure, without it freezing into a solid. Geochemists want to know what kind of chemistry is happening deep in the Earth's crust, beyond the reach of boreholes. These chemical reactions could affect water and minerals that eventually migrate…

The warm beauty of amber has been captivating and inspiring people since ancient times. Even today, some secrets remain locked inside the fossilized tree resin. Some of the oldest recovered samples predate the rise of dinosaurs — and could outlast even the most advanced materials that science can make today. That extreme durability has made amber's internal structure so difficult to understand.  Millions of years ago, this resin exuded from trees and then fossilized over time and techniques to probe the inner molecular architecture of amber seemed to destroy evidence of certain…

Computer technology has transformed the way we live but that is all old news 35 years into the computer revolution. Today, consumers expect ever more from their devices - smaller size and faster speeds - and that means designers have to worry about heat. Writing in Industrial  &  Engineering Chemistry,  researchers report that liquids containing nanoparticles could help devices stay cool and keep them running. Rahman Saidur and colleagues point out that consumers demand a lot out of their gadgets. But that puts a huge strain on the tiny parts that whir away inside desktops…

Research into mitigating potential global warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide usually involves three areas: Developing alternative energy sources, capturing and storing greenhouse gases, and repurposing excess greenhouse gases. Carbon storage will never happen, we can't even store nuclear waste in what science determined was the safest place on earth, but those other two are still possible. Liquid Light Inc. of Monmouth Junction, N.J., got together with Andrew Bocarsly, a Princeton professor of chemistry, to devise an efficient method for harnessing sunlight to convert carbon…