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This false-color image shows the dwarf planet Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Planetary Researchers Probe Origin of Complex Organics on Ceres

Oct 17, 2023 by News Staff

How aliphatic organic compounds originated on the dwarf planet Ceres has been the subject of intensive research since their discovery by NASA’s Dawn...

Researchers Find Surprising Mix of Toxic Pigments in Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa

Oct 12, 2023 by News Staff

An international team of scientists from France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom has found a singular mixture of strongly saponified oil with high...

$The structure of boron monoxide was a longstanding problem, dating back to 1940. Solving it required developing new NMR methods as well as applying x-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), x-ray photo electron spectroscopy (XPS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Image credit: U.S. Department of Energy Ames National Laboratory.$

Chemists Finally Determine Structure of Boron Monoxide

Jul 19, 2023 by News Staff

Boron monoxide, a binary compound of boron and oxygen, was first reported in the 1940s. However, scientists were unable to determine the structure of the...

This image taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera shows a part of the Orion Nebula known as the Orion Bar. It is a region where energetic ultraviolet light from the Trapezium Cluster -- located off the upper-left corner -- interacts with dense molecular clouds. The energy of the stellar radiation is slowly eroding the Orion Bar, and this has a profound effect on the molecules and chemistry in the protoplanetary disks that have formed around newborn stars here. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / M. Zamani / PDRs4All ERS Team.

Webb Detects Crucial Carbon Molecule in Protoplanetary Disk

Jun 26, 2023 by News Staff

The vital role of a carbon molecule called methyl cation (CH3+) in interstellar carbon chemistry was predicted in the 1970s, but the unique capabilities...

An artist’s impression of the early Earth. Image credit: NASA.

Energetic Particles from Young Sun May Have Kickstarted Life on Early Earth

May 2, 2023 by News Staff

Life most likely started during the Hadean Eon (4.5 to 4 billion years ago). However, the environmental conditions which contributed to the complexity...

Experimentally determined crystal structure of the K9N56 compound at 61 GPa. Image credit: Laniel et al., doi: 10.1038/s41557-023-01148-7.

Chemists Form First Known Compound Containing Aromatic Nitrogen Rings

Mar 7, 2023 by News Staff

A team of chemists from Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and China has synthesized the potassium nitrogen compound K9N56 — composed of 520 atoms...

The oxidation of ferrocenyl-substituted boranes and boronic esters allows for the straightforward synthesis of strong boron-centered Lewis superacids. Image credit: Köring et al., doi: 10.1002/anie.202216959.

Chemists Develop New Technique to Synthesize Lewis Superacids

Feb 27, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Lewis superacids are very special catalysts that can be used to break strong chemical bonds in non-biodegradable fluorinated hydrocarbons and climate-damaging...

Differences between 3D, 2D, and 1D corrosion: (a) schematic drawing of a typical bulk bicontinuous dealloying corrosion morphology; (b) schematic drawing of a typical pitting corrosion morphology with the volume set as transparent; the grain boundaries (GBs) were not displayed because both intergranular and intragranular pitting can occur; (c) schematic drawing of a typical intergranular corrosion morphology with the volume set as opaque; the sides of the cube display the cross-sectional views; (d) schematic drawing of 1D wormhole corrosion in a polycrystalline material; the upper half is a cross-sectional view showing discontinuous dots (i.e., voids filled by molten salt) along the GBs; the bottom half is a volumetric cutaway along the GBs where the 1D percolating network of tunnels on the grain surfaces is clearly shown in red; the dark blue color in (a) to (c) indicates free space such as cracks, voids, crevices etc., while the red color in (d) indicates wormholes filled with molten salt; (e) a representative false-colored SEM image showing the cross-section of Ni-20Cr after corrosion; (f) FIB-SEM 3D reconstruction of the volume shown in (e). Image credit: Yang et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-36588-9.

New Form of Corrosion Discovered: One Dimensional Wormhole Corrosion

Feb 24, 2023 by News Staff

Corrosion is a ubiquitous failure mode of materials. Often, the progression of localized corrosion is accompanied by the evolution of porosity in materials...

The surface of Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view; image scale is 1.6 km per pixel; north on Europa is at right. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SETI Institute.

Planetary Scientists Create Two New Forms of Extraterrestrial Ice

Feb 21, 2023 by News Staff

University of Washington researcher Baptiste Journaux and colleagues believe the newly-created substances could form at the surface and bottom of deep...

$X-ray powder diffraction mapping at multiple length scales revealed the unusual presence of lead(II) formate in several areas of The Night Watch. Image credit: Gonzalez et al., doi: 10.1002/anie.202216478.$

Unusual Lead Compound Detected in Rembrandt’s Most Famous Painting

Jan 31, 2023 by News Staff

The Night Watch, painted in 1642 and on view in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, is considered Rembrandt’s most famous work. In new research, scientists...

The concept of direct air electrolysis for hydrogen production: (a) a schematic diagram of the direct air electrolysis module with a water harvesting unit made of porous medium soaked with the hygroscopic ionic solution; (b) a schematic diagram of the cross-section of the direct air electrolysis module, showing the electrodes are isolated from the air feed, and the absorbed water are transported to the electrode by capillaries of the sponge. Image credit: Guo et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32652-y.

Scientists Demonstrate Novel Method of Direct Hydrogen Production from Air

Sep 6, 2022 by News Staff

To overcome the water shortage problem in the case of widespread deployment of hydrogen production, a team of researchers from Australia, the United Kingdom...

High concentrations of OH radicals were found when people were exposed to ozone in a climate-controlled chamber, and were a product of a reaction with the skin-oil squalene. Image credit: Richard Duijnstee.

Human Body’s Exposure to Ozone Generates Highly Reactive Hydroxyl Radicals, Study Shows

Sep 2, 2022 by News Staff

Hydroxyl radicals are highly reactive chemical species that attack most of the organic molecules. High concentrations of OH radicals were found when people...

Zuber et al. observed a new type of molecular ion based on the interaction between a neutral Rydberg atom and a charged ion with a bond length of several micrometers. Image credit: Zuber et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04577-5.

Physicists Observe New Type of Molecular Bond

Jul 7, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Rydberg atoms — atoms with a highly excited electron — can form unusual types of molecular bonds. These bonds differ from the well-known ionic...

SEM image of the carbon crystals in the Chelyabinsk meteoritic dust. Image credit: Taskaev et al., doi: 10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-02768-7.

Scientists Find Exotic Carbon Microcrystals in Chelyabinsk Meteoritic Dust

Jun 28, 2022 by Natali Anderson

When a space body enters Earth’s atmosphere, its surface is exposed to high pressure and temperatures. The airflow tears off small droplets from the...

Hackmanite turns purple under UV irradiation, and the color fades back to white in a few minutes under regular white light. Image credit: Mika Lastusaari.

Natural Aluminosilicate Minerals Change Color Under UV Light

Jun 22, 2022 by News Staff

Hackmanite, tugtupite, and scapolite change their color from white to purple, pink, and blue, respectively, under UV irradiation, according to a team of...

Machine learning guided predictions improve enzyme performance across PETase scaffolds. Image credit: Lu et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04599-z.

Scientists Engineer New Plastic-Eating Enzyme

Apr 28, 2022 by News Staff

Plastic waste poses an ecological challenge and enzymatic degradation offers one, potentially green and scalable, route for polyesters waste recycling....

Use of the reverse phosphorolysis action of acholetin phosphorylase (AchP) provides an efficient method to enzymatically synthesize acholetin, which is a new biodegradable polymeric material. Image credit: Macdonald et al., doi: 10.1021/acscentsci.1c01570.

Scientists Create New Type of Biodegradable Polymeric Material

Mar 16, 2022 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of British Columbia and elsewhere has identified a bacterial enzyme that can make a new type of polysaccharide,...

Magnesium-18. Image credit: S.M. Wang / Fudan University & Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Michigan State University.

Physicists Create New Isotope of Magnesium

Dec 24, 2021 by News Staff

Magnesium-18 (18Mg) is the lightest isotope of magnesium, which is element 12 on the periodic table. Magnesium-18. Image credit: S.M. Wang / Fudan University...

A valley in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Image credit: S. McMurtrey / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Iodine from Desert Dust Decreases Ozone Air Pollution, New Study Shows

Dec 23, 2021 by News Staff

Iodine, the same chemical added as a nutrient to table salt, is an atmospheric trace element emitted from oceans that efficiently destroys ozone. Low ozone...

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