Chemistry News

LEGO Bricks Could Survive in Ocean for as Many as 1,300 Years

Turner et al estimated a LEGO brick could survive in the ocean for as many as 1,300 years. Image credit: Turner et al, doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.114299.
Mar 17, 2020 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of Plymouth, Rame Peninsula Beach Care and the Lego Lost at Sea Project examined the extent to which classic LEGO bricks, constructed of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, were worn down in the marine environment. By measuring the mass of individual bricks found on beaches against equivalent unused pieces and the age of blocks obtained from storage, the scientists estimated that the items could endure for anywhere...

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Durian fruits (Durio zibethinus). Image credit: Truthseeker08.

Researchers Find Rare Amino Acid in Durian

Mar 3, 2020 by News Staff

A rare amino acid called ethionine is present in the pulp of the durian (Durio zibethinus), a fruit called the ‘king of all fruits,’ and plays a key...

The synthetic bioplastic developed by Kainulainen et al. Image credit: University of Oulu.

Novel Synthetic Bioplastic Protects against UV Radiation

Feb 20, 2020 by News Staff

A team of researchers in Sweden has developed a new bioplastic that, unlike traditional carbon-based plastics or other bioplastics, provides protection...

A tiny grain of lunar soil brought back by Apollo 17, magnified under a scanning electron microscope. Image credit: Jennika Greer, Field Museum.

Researchers Find New Way to Analyze Chemistry of Lunar Soil

Feb 7, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of planetary scientists and geochemists from the United States and Switzerland has demonstrated that a technique called atom probe...

A 3D view of the Au20 cluster. Image credit: Li et al, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aay4289.

Gold Atoms Take on Pyramidal Shape

Jan 8, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of researchers has presented strong evidence that individual clusters of twenty gold atoms (Au20) take on a pyramidal shape. A 3D...

Schematic of the team’s ultracold chemistry apparatus; ground-state KRb molecules at 500 nK are trapped by a crossed optical dipole trap: (A) absorption image of KRb molecules; the color bar indicates the optical depth of the KRb cloud; CCD - charge-coupled device; (B) the trapped molecules are surrounded by velocity-map imaging (VMI) ion optics , which consist of a series of disk-shaped electrodes; the researchers use a pulsed UV laser to photoionize the molecules; B - magnetic field; (C) example time of flight (TOF) spectrum; (D) for each species identified in the mass spectrum, the scientists also obtain a velocity-map image from which the momentum distribution can be inferred. Image credit: Hu et al, doi: 10.1126/science.aay9531.

Chemists Directly Observe Coldest Ever Chemical Reaction

Dec 2, 2019 by News Staff

When two diatomic molecules collide, they can sometimes swap partners. For instance, two potassium-rubidium (KRb) molecules can produce K2 and Rb2. The...

Chen & van Breemen found drugs in blood supply used for research. Image credit: Allinonemovie.

Researchers Find Caffeine, Other Chemicals in Donor Blood Serum

Nov 28, 2019 by News Staff

In new research, Oregon State University scientists worked with biomedical suppliers to purchase and analyze 18 batches of human blood serum pooled from...

A model of the molecular structure of ribose and an image of the Murchison meteorite. Image credit: Yoshihiro Furukawa.

Researchers Find Extraterrestrial Sugars in Meteorites

Nov 20, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of scientists from Japan and the United States has found ribose and other bioessential sugars in two primitive meteorites, NWA 801...

The moons of our Solar System are brimming with unusual landscapes. However, sometimes they look a little more familiar, as in this new radar image from the Cassini orbiter. The image shows dark streaks carved into dunes reminiscent of those we might find on a beach on Earth, or raked with flowing lines in a Japanese Zen garden — but this scene is actually taking place on Saturn’s moon Titan. While our sand is composed of silicates, the ‘sand’ of these alien dunes is formed from grains of organic materials about the same size as particles of our beach sand. The small size and smoothness of these grains means that the flowing lines carved into the dunes show up as dark to the human eye. While previous images have spotted these eerily familiar patterns on Titan's dunes, this new image (colorized) shows them in greater detail. The image was obtained by Cassini's radar mapper on July 10, 2013. The vertical seam near the center is an artifact of radar image data processing. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Sci-News.com.

Researchers Unravel Origin and Chemical Composition of Titan’s Mysterious Dunes

Oct 22, 2019 by News Staff

Vast longitudinal dunes up to 330 feet (100 m) in height in the equatorial deserts of Saturn’s moon Titan are the Solar System’s most monumental surface...

A plutonium dioxide nanoparticle. Image credit: Kristina Kvashnina.

Physicists Create Unexpected New Form of Plutonium

Oct 21, 2019 by News Staff

Physicists using the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility have created a new compound of plutonium (Pu) with an unexpected, pentavalent oxidation state...

Cyclo[18]carbon. Image credit: Kaiser et al.

Cyclocarbon: New Form of Carbon Synthesized

Aug 16, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of Oxford and IBM Research-Zürich has, for the first time, synthesized and characterized a ring of 18 carbon...

This electron microscope (colorized) image shows the arrangement of electrons on the gold particle. Image credit: Ye et al, doi: 10.1002/advs.201900911.

Researchers Create World’s Thinnest Gold Sheets Ever, Just Two Atoms Thick

Aug 12, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers at the University of Leeds, UK, has created gold nanosheets with a thickness of only 0.47 nm (two atomic layers thick) — the...

Hindley et al created artificial cells that sense calcium ions and respond by fluorescing. Image credit: Zehua Hu / Imperial College London.

Scientists Create Artificial Cells Capable of Sensing and Responding to Changes in Their Environment

Aug 5, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers at Imperial College London, UK, has created micromachines that sense and respond to external chemical signals through activation...

Pericosine A did not cause skin or eye irritation and was highly effective at deodorizing skunk-spray secretions when formulated to include adjunctive cosmetic ingredients. Image credit: Skeeze.

Natural Compound Safely and Effectively Neutralizes Skunk Spray Odor

Jul 29, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas at San Antonio has found that a fungal-derived compound called pericosine...

Vibrational motions of N-methyl morpholine. Image credit: Brown University.

Scientists Observe Molecular Motions in Real Time

Jul 17, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of researchers led by Brown University has used ultra-high-speed X-ray pulses to image subtle motions of a molecule of N-methyl morpholine. Vibrational...

Soft pretzels have a uniform brown crust color and elicit a characteristic aroma that is clearly different from those of other small types of bread. Image credit: Kerstin Riemer.

Chemists Identify Key Aroma Compounds in Pretzels

Jun 26, 2019 by News Staff

A team of scientists at the Technische Universität München in Germany has identified the key compounds that give soft pretzels their distinctive scent. Soft...

Zhang et al studied catalytic pyrolysis of waste plastics over activated carbon catalyst. Image credit: Zhang et al, doi: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.113337.

Scientists Find Way to Turn Waste Plastics into Jet Fuel-Range Hydrocarbons

Jun 4, 2019 by News Staff

In experiments described in the journal Applied Energy, a team of researchers from China and the U.S. melted plastic waste at high temperature with activated...

Zhang et al explained the enigmatic phenomenon of triboelectricity and why it occurs. Image credit: Alexandre Dulaunoy / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Researchers Uncover Cause of Triboelectric Charging

Apr 26, 2019 by News Staff

A team of scientists from Curtin University, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales has demonstrated that the breaking...

The St Andrews periodic table chart is thought to be the oldest in the world. Image credit: University of St Andrews.

Researchers Find World’s Oldest Classroom Periodic Table

Jan 21, 2019 by News Staff

Scientists at the University of St Andrews, UK, believe they have found the earliest surviving example of a classroom periodic table. The St Andrews periodic...

Infrared lamp. Image credit: Bernd Marczak.

Newly-Developed Chemical Process Converts Infrared into Visible Light

Jan 16, 2019 by News Staff

A group of researchers has succeeded in developing a chemical process to convert infrared into visible light. The technology, described in the journal...

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