chemistry&Technology

Computational chemistry shows the way to safer biofuels

2011-08-03T08:06:00.000+02:00

New plastics can conduct electricity !!!

2011-03-14T15:10:00.000+02:00

A newly discovered technique makes it possible to create a whole new array of plastics with metallic or even superconducting properties.

Plastics usually conduct electricity so poorly that they are used to insulate electric cables but, by placing a thin film of metal onto a plastic sheet and mixing it into the polymer surface with an ion beam, Australian researchers have shown that the method can be used to make cheap, strong, flexible and conductive plastic films.

The research has been published in the journal ChemPhysChem by a team led by Professor Paul Meredith and Associate Professor Ben Powell, both at the University of Queensland, and Associate Professor Adam Micolich of the UNSW School of Physics. This latest discovery reports experiments by former UQ Ph.D. student, Dr Andrew Stephenson.

Ion beam techniques are widely used in the microelectronics industry to tailor theconductivity of semiconductors such as silicon, but attempts to adapt this process to plastic films have been made since the 1980s with only limited success – until now.

"What the team has been able to do here is use an ion beam to tune the properties of a plastic film so that it conducts electricity like the metals used in the electrical wires themselves, and even to act as a superconductor and pass electric current without resistance if cooled to low enough temperature," says Professor Meredith.

To demonstrate a potential application of this new material, the team produced electrical resistance thermometers that meet industrial standards. Tested against an industry standard platinum resistance thermometer, it had comparable or even superior accuracy.

"This material is so interesting because we can take all the desirable aspects of polymers - such as mechanical flexibility, robustness and low cost - and into the mix add good electrical conductivity, something not normally associated with plastics," says Professor Micolich. "It opens new avenues to making plastic electronics."

Andrew Stephenson says the most exciting part about the discovery is how precisely the film’s ability to conduct or resist the flow of electrical current can be tuned. It opens up a very broad potential for useful applications.

"In fact, we can vary the electrical resistivity over 10 orders of magnitude – put simply, that means we have ten billion options to adjust the recipe when we're making the plastic film. In theory, we can make plastics that conduct no electricity at all or as well as metals do – and everything in between,” Dr Stephenson says.

These new materials can be easily produced with equipment commonly used in the microelectronics industry and are vastly more tolerant of exposure to oxygen compared to standard semiconducting polymers.

Combined, these advantages may give ion beam processed polymer films a bright future in the on-going development of soft materials for plastic electronics applications – a fusion between current and next generation technology.

physorg

New method for studying molecule reactions a breakthrough in organic chemistry

2011-03-14T15:07:00.001+02:00

Good chemists are passive-aggressive -- they manipulate molecules without actually touching them.

In a feat of manipulating substances at the nanoscale, UCLA researchers and colleagues demonstrated a method for isolating two molecules together on a substrate and controlling how those two molecules react when excited with ultraviolet light, making detailed observations both before and after the reaction.

Their research is published today in the journal Science.

"This is one step in measuring and understanding the interactions between light and molecules, which we hope will eventually lead to more efficient conversion of sunlight to electrical and other usable forms of energy," said lead study author Paul S. Weiss, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry who holds UCLA's Fred Kavli Chair in Nanosystems Sciences. "Here, we used the energy from the light to induce a chemical reaction in a way that would not happen for molecules free to move in solution; they were held in place by their attachment to a surface and by the unreactive matrix of molecules around them."

Weiss is also director of UCLA's California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) and a professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Two molecules are placed in proximity in "cutouts" in self-assembled monolayers. When excited with ultraviolet light, they are constrained to react along a pathway different than they would if they could reorient in solution.

Controlling exactly how molecules combine in order to study the resulting reactions is called regioselectivity. It is important because there are a variety of ways that molecules can combine, with varying chemical products. One way to direct a reaction is to isolate molecules and to hold them together to get regioselective reactions; this is the strategy used by enzymes in manybiochemical reactions.

"The specialized scanning tunneling microscope used for these studies can also measure the absorption of light and charge separation in molecules designed for solar cells," Weiss said. "This gives us a new way to optimize these molecules, in collaboration with synthetic chemists. This is what first brought us together with our collaborators at the University of Washington, led by Prof. Alex Jen."

Alex K-Y. Jen holds the Boeing-Johnson Chair at the University of Washington, where he is a professor of materials science and engineering and of chemistry. The theoretical aspects of the study were led by Kendall Houk, a UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry who holds the Saul Winstein Chair in Organic Chemistry. Houk is a CNSI researcher.

The study's first author, Moonhee Kim, a graduate student in Weiss' lab, managed to isolate and control the reactions of pairs of molecules by creating nanostructures tailored to allow only two molecules fit in place. The molecules used in the study are photosensitive and are used in organic solar cells; similar techniques could be used to study a wide variety of molecules. Manipulating the way molecules in organic solar cells come together may also ultimately lead to greater efficiency.

To isolate the two molecules and align them in the desired — but unnatural — way, Kim utilized a concept similar to that of toddler's toys that feature cutouts in which only certain shapes will fit.

She created a defect, or cutout, in a self-assembled monolayer, or SAM, a single layer of molecules on a flat surface — in this case, gold. The defect in the SAM was sized so that only two organic reactant molecules would fit and would only attach with the desired alignment. As a guide to attach the molecules to the SAM in the correct orientation, sulfur was attached to the bottoms of the molecules, as sulfur binds readily to gold.

"The standard procedure for this type of chemistry is to combine a bunch of molecules in solution and let them react together, but through random combinations, only 3 percent of molecules might react in this way," UCLA's Houk said. "Our method is much more targeted. Instead of doing one measurement on thousands of molecules, we are doing a range of measurements on just two molecules."

After the molecules were isolated and trapped on the substrate, they still needed to be excited with light to react. In this case, the energy was supplied by ultraviolet light, which triggered the reaction. The researchers were able to verify the proper alignment and the reaction of the molecules using the special microscope developed by Kim and Weiss.

physorg

New phosphor for flat screen displays

2011-03-14T15:04:00.001+02:00

The triangle and quadrangle show
the typical and enlarged colour
range for FED phosphors, respectively

Materials chemists in China have developed a compound that they believe should improve the quality of field emission displays (FEDs), bringing applications a step closer. FEDs have, for a number of years, been a promising technology for flat panel displays, but progress has been hampered by the display quality.

Jun Lin at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, and colleagues developed a phosphor with promising colour properties for FED applications. Phosphors are materials that emit light of a particular wavelength when struck by an electron. They have long been used in cathode ray tubes, and have more recently found application in FEDs. These work by a very similar principle to cathode ray tubes, but instead of a single electron source, a grid of tiny electron sources is used, making flat-panel displays possible.

FEDs have numerous advantages over other flat panel technologies, such as the plasma and liquid crystal displays commonly used in TVs and computer monitors. These advantages include lower energy consumption, wide viewing angle, good contrast ratio and wide working temperature range. However, the phosphors for FEDs need to work at lower voltages than those in cathode ray tubes, and developing low voltage phosphors with suitable colour characteristics has hindered uptake of the technology.

The phosphor developed by Lin's team is based on Mg₂SnO₄, previously known as a good base material for phosphors. By doping it with Mn²⁺ and Ti⁴⁺, they created a phosphor with a pure blue colour that works at low voltages. Lin says that the colour emitted is out of the range of the FED phosphors developed so far, giving it 'potential to increase the display quality of full-colour FEDs'. Importantly, he adds, the colour could be adjusted from green to blue simply by changing the concentrations of the two dopants.

Lin concludes that 'FEDs have been recognised as one of the most promising technologies in the flat panel display market,' and that improvements such as theirs will 'make the technology more viable in the future'.

Markku Leskelä, an inorganic chemist at the University of Helsinki, Finland, says that 'blue colour is one of the limiting factors in fabrication of full-color field emission displays, and this is an interesting new material, which has potential.' However, he also notes that the stability would need to be improved for practical applications. 'The 8 per cent decrease in intensity observed over one hour would be a problem in real devices.

rsc

International Year of Chemistry launches across the world

2011-02-18T05:09:00.000+02:00

Over 1000 people from more than 60 countries helped to launch the International Year of Chemistry (IYC2011) at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) headquarters in Paris, France, on 27-28 January.

The year-long celebration of all things chemistry has been assigned to 2011 by Unesco because this year marks the centenaries of both Marie Curie's Nobel prize in chemistry and the founding of the International Association of Chemical Societies, the forerunner of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (Iupac).

The goals are to increase the public appreciation of chemistry in meeting world needs, to encourage interest in chemistry among young people and to generate enthusiasm for the creative future of chemistry under the unifying theme of 'Chemistry - our life, our future'.

The two day launch event started with the inauguration address from several dignitaries, including the Unesco director general and the president of Iupac, before moving on to a programme of keynote speeches from chemistry luminaries.

At a press conference for the event, Unesco and Iupac representatives described how change might be effected.

Gretchen Kalonji, Unesco assistant director general for natural sciences said that female and male chemists pursue careers in research for different reasons. According to Kalonji, focussing research on sustainability (one of the IYC2011 topics) will help because 'targeting science towards practical outcomes increases the number of women in science'. Nicole Moreau, president of Iupac, added that she hopes IYC2011 activities will help to demystify chemistry, not just for the general public but also for the political establishment.

'If politicians are not afraid of chemistry, they will become more involved and engaged' she told Chemistry World.

Political will ::::

IYC2011 has already created excitement in other countries. The RSC held a launch at the UK Houses of Parliament two days before the Paris event, where science minister David Willetts showed that he was not afraid of the chemical sciences by taking part in a public demonstration.

'Science is not just a theoretical subject but also a practical subject,' said Willetts. It is important that we celebrate 'practical mastery of procedures in the lab and a willingness to experiment' as well as 'extraordinary theoretical advancements' he added.

In Brussels, an IYC2011 launch event was attended by the Belgian prime minister, while, in Berlin, German chancellor Angela Merkel gave out awards to school pupils and interviewed them about their work for competition called 'Formula One', involving building chemical batteries to power toy cars'.

And, on 1 February, at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, US, the US launch event featured a panel discussion on chemistry-based solutions to global challenges.

Daniel Nocera, professor of chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and chair of the discussion, described humanity as 'living healthily on a dying planet' and asked what chemistry could do to correct this. Echoing the messages from the Paris event, the discussion highlighted as a priority the need for chemistry to be used to harness solar energy. Meanwhile, Rita Colwell, former director of the US National Science Foundation, urged chemists to focus on simple solutions that can be used in the developing world.

Education ::::

Paris was used to promote the Global Experiment, described as the 'biggest chemistry experiment ever'. Called 'Water: A Chemical Solution', the project invites school pupils from around the world to investigate the water quality in their area and how water can be purified so that clean drinking water can be supplied.

In addition, pupils might be inspired by a video launched at the event. 'Chemistry, it's all about you' was sponsored by the European Petrochemical Association and is intended to show 'the importance of chemistry in our daily lives' to students aged between 16 and 20. There was a positive reaction to the video in Paris.
...
But some doubt whether it will engage audiences. 'What it lacks is a compelling story' says Jonathan Sanderson, who runs StoryCog, a communications consultancy that has made films for the Royal Institution and National Stem Centres.

RSC

Adding floids to thicken up runny liquids

2011-02-18T05:06:00.000+02:00

The transition from weakly elastic, fluid-like behaviour to highly

Adding a small amount of an immiscible fluid to a suspension - solid particles dispersed in a fluid - tunes the consistency of the suspension. The method could be used to create low-calorie foods, say the researchers in Germany.

Controlling the flow or viscosity of suspensions is necessary to make various products including building materials, paints, and even food. Traditionally, surfactants or polymers are added which bind the particles together to stabilise suspensions. However, these can have environmental implications and add complexity and expense to the overall manufacturing process.

A cleaner approach is to add an immiscible fluid to the suspension to produce a gel-like consistency - the secondary fluid preferentially wets the suspended particles causing capillary forces to create networked clusters of particles connected by pendular bridges. Erin Koos and Norbert Willenbacher at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, in Germany, have now found that only very small amounts of a secondary immiscible fluid are required to achieve this.

The team first dispersed hydrophilic glass beads in an organic solvent, diisononyl phthalate, and then added one weight per cent of water as a secondary fluid. By stirring the mixture, the viscous suspension changed to a gel-like liquid, confirming that the secondary fluid preferentially wets the particles.

They then repeated the experiment with hydrophobic glass beads, preventing the secondary fluid preferentially wetting the beads. Even when a secondary fluid does not preferentially wet the particles, capillary action still caused the suspension to become more gel-like. 'We would think of a non-wetting fluid pushing the particles farther apart rather than together, but the agglomeration of particles around the preferentially non-wetting fluid is quite strong and energetically favourable,' says Koos.

'It further confirms that such particle and immiscible liquid mixtures are rich arenas for intriguing phenomena and novel applications,' comments Wilson Poon who investigates colloids at the University of Edinburgh, in the UK. 'Since it is very difficult and expensive to eliminate moisture entirely from oil-based systems, or oily impurities from aqueous systems, it is possible that the kind of 'minority-component effects' presented here are generic and widespread.'

Koo is now working to see how the technique could be applied to create low-calorie foods by replacing oils in food with water using just a small amount of oil to stabilise the mixture. 'Not only would this potentially make it a lower calorie food, but it would make the formulation a lot more natural by allowing us to add fewer emulsifiers to our foods or other products.' Koos adds.

RSC

Standardising nanomaterials NOW!!

2011-02-18T05:02:00.000+02:00

The repository will initially hold 25 types of industrially

relevant materials like carbon nanotubes and various nanoparticles

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) has launched the world's first reference repository for nanomaterials, which will be used for safety assessment testing by national and international standardisation bodies.

The repository, developed and administered by the JRC's Institute for Health and Consumer Protection in Ispra, Italy, is starting out with 25 types of reference nanomaterials - such as carbon nanotubes, silver nanoparticles, titanium dioxide, cerium oxide, and bentonite - that are widely used in industrial applications, according to Christoph Klein, a scientific officer at the institute focusing on nanomaterials.

The original collection were supplied as bulk loads directly from industry, such as makers of cosmetics or paints, and the intention is that more will be added in time.

While acknowledging that there are currently hundreds of nanomaterials in use, Klein tells Chemistry World that the initial goal is to offer a 'selection of types that represent industrial use and availability.' Each sample vial is numbered and can be tracked around the world, he says, 'For the first time, we have introduced reliability to the process.'

The repository has already shipped vials of nanomaterials to national standardisation authorities across the EU as well as in the US, China and Japan, he says.

He adds that it will enable researchers to produce comparable test results and reliable data on the chemical and physical identities of nanomaterials that can then be used for policy and regulatory decision making, comparable to those developed within the Reach (registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals) framework.

'The repository is a very welcome step for nanomaterials research, especially for people who need to calibrate instruments, validate new protocols and experiments, or develop new instruments,' says Alexandre Cuenat, lead scientist for nanomaterials metrology at the National Physical Laboratory in Middlesex, UK. 'We expect to use these materials regularly.'

RSC

a new class of magic atomic clusters called superhalogens discovered!

2011-02-14T08:58:00.000+02:00

An international team of researchers has discovered a new class of magnetic superhalogens – a class of atomic clusters able to exhibit unusual stability at a specific size and composition, which may be used to advance materials science by allowing scientists to create a new class of salts with magnetic and super-oxidizing properties not previously found.

The discovery, which was published Feb. 10 in the Early View issue of the international chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, was based on theoretical work by researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University, McNeese State University, and Peking University in China, and experimental work at Johns Hopkins University.

Unlike conventional superhalogens that are composed of a metal atom at the core and surrounded by halogen atoms, the magnetic superhalogens discovered by this team are composed of stoichiometric metal-halogen moieties at the core to which an additional halogen is attached.

The new chemical species known as magnetic superhalogens mimic the chemistry of halogens which are a class of elements from the periodic table, namely, iodine, astatine, bromine, fluorine and chlorine. The word halogen means "salt-former," and when one of the elements above combines with sodium, they can form a salt.

Specifically, the cluster is Mn_xCl_2x+1, where x = 1, 2, 3, and so on, have manganese and chlorine atoms as a core to which only one chlorine atom is attached. The manganese atoms carry a large magnetic moment and therefore make these superhalogens magnetic.

"One can now design and synthesize yet unknown magnetic superhalogens by changing the metal atom from manganese to other transition metal atoms and changing chlorine to other halogen atoms. In addition to their use as oxidizing agents, being magnetic opens the door to the synthesis a new class of salts," said lead investigator Puru Jena, Ph.D., distinguished professor of physics at VCU.
According to Jena, superhalogens are like halogens, in the sense they form negative ions, but their affinity to attract electrons is far greater than those of any halogen atoms. Negative ions are useful as oxidizing agents, for purification of air and in serotonin release for uplifting mood.

"Superhalogens can do the same thing as halogens can do, only better," said Jena. "The ability of superhalogens to carry large quantities of fluorine and chlorine can be used for combating biological agents as well."

"In addition, superhalogens, due to their large electron affinity, can involve inner core electrons of metal atoms in chemical reaction, thus fundamentally giving rise to new chemistry," said Jena.

In October, Jena and his colleagues reported the discovery of a new class of highly electronegative chemical species called hyperhalogens, which use superhalogens as building blocks around a metal atom. The chemical species may have application in many industries.
physorg

First purely organic phosphor

2011-02-14T01:59:00.001+02:00

The organic phosphors being excited by UV light

Scientists in the US have made a major advance in the development of novel light-emitting materials by designing the first purely organic phosphorescent compound. The finding could open the way for a new generation of materials for electronic displays and lighting, exploiting the relatively low cost and chemical versatility of systems based on organic molecules.

Currently, phosphorescence - the slow release of energy from a compound in the form of light - is essentially confined to inorganic or organometallic systems.

The phenomenon relies on photons exciting electrons to a so-called triplet state. This means that the electrons, as well as being shunted to a higher energy level, must reverse or decouple their spins. While this can be achieved in a small selection of metal-free organic systems, the organic structure absorbs the energy as it is re-emitted, with little if any emerging as light. Metal ions provide an electronic environment that is much more conducive to the formation of the triplet state and hence more efficient phosphorescence.

Now, Jinsang Kim and colleagues from the University of Michigan have developed a metal-free organic phosphor from halogenated aromatic carbonyl molecules. The carbonyl group provides electrons that can be excited to the required triplet state, while the halogen - most efficiently bromine - performs two roles.

Firstly it acts in a similar way to a metal ion, producing a so-called heavy atom effect and promoting the necessary spin decoupling of the excited electrons and secondly produces close, strong non-covalent interactions between the molecules that further enhance the heavy atom effect. With these properties combined, crystals of the material glow when excited by light.

'By making small changes to the structure of the molecule we can tune the system to emit different colours of light,' Kim says. 'While the efficiencies are not as high as organometallic systems, this is the first system that has achieved significant phosphorescence without metals.'

'This is very exciting,' says Paolo Coppo, of the Centre for Phosphors and Display Materials at Brunel University in the UK. 'Organic phosphorescence has been the holy grail in the OLED [organic light emitting diode] research community for the last two decades. It appears we are one step closer to realising that dream'

Now:Light Can Control Electrical Properties of Graphene

2011-01-16T14:48:00.000+02:00

New research published January 10, shows how light can be used to control the electrical properties of graphene, paving the way for graphene-based optoelectronic devices and highly sensitive sensors.

This year's Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded for research into graphene, recognising its potential for many applications in modern life, from high-speed electronics to touchscreen technology. The UK's National Physical Laboratory, along with a team of international scientists, have further developed our understanding of graphene by showing that when this remarkable material is combined with particular polymers, its electrical properties can be precisely controlled by light and exploited in a new generation of optoelectronic devices. The polymers keep memory of light and therefore the graphene device retains its modified properties until the memory is erased by heating.

Light-modified graphene chips have already been used at NPL in ultra-precision experiments to measure the quantum of the electrical resistance.

In the future, similar polymers could be used to effectively 'translate' information from their surroundings and influence how graphene behaves. This effect could be exploited to develop robust reliable sensors for smoke, poisonous gases, or any targeted molecule.

Graphene is an extraordinary two-dimensional material made of a single atomic layer of carbon atoms. It is the thinnest material known to man, and yet is one of the strongest ever tested.

Graphene does not have volume, only surface -- its entire structure is exposed to its environment, and responds to any molecule that touches it. This makes it in principle a very exciting material for super-sensors capable of detecting single molecules of toxic gases. Polymers can make graphene respond to specific molecules and ignore all others at the same time, which also protects it from contamination.

The research team included scientists from the National Physical Laboratory (UK), Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), University of Copenhagen (Denmark), University of California Berkeley (USA), Linköping University (Sweden) and Lancaster University (UK).

sciencedaily

Fully Biodegradable and Recyclable Synthetic Resin produced

2011-01-16T14:45:00.001+02:00

Modern synthetic resins are made from fossil sources, are not biodegradable and can only be burned under strict precautions due to the release of toxic substances. Prof. Gadi Rothenberg and Dr. Albert Alberts of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) have discovered a range of new thermoset resins made from renewable raw materials which are fully biodegradable, non-toxic and non-hazardous.

Most plastic products for domestic or construction use consist of three-dimensional networks of cross-linked polymers. These are thermosetting plastics. A classic example is the Bakelite resin produced from the reaction of phenol with formaldehyde. This material is still used to bind wood fibers in pressed wood such as medium density fiberboard (MDF) and formica. Synthetic resins are widely used in the construction industry. The resin of urea / formaldehyde is used in Medium Density Overlay (MDO), a combination of concrete and plywood, used in concrete molds.

Completely biodegradable bioplastics

By selecting the right raw materials and process conditions for the cross-linking reaction the scientists, who work for the UvA'sHeterogeneous Catalysis and Sustainable Chemistry research group, were able to make a range of bio-plastics ranging from hard foam material to flexible thin sheet materials. These are non-toxic and biodegradable. The process requires no toxic ingredients and no harmful substances are released from combustion. Moreover, the raw materials are readily available at competitive prices on the world market.

The new plastic could replace polyurethane and polystyrene in the construction and packaging industries. This also applies to the epoxy resins used for panels such as MDF. The follow-up research will focus on new applications and process development and upscaling.

sciencedaily

Omega-3 may help protect brain from injury

2011-01-12T14:01:00.000+02:00

Studies in animals suggest fish body oils -- believed protective for the heart -- may help protect against traumatic brain injury, U.S. researchers suggest.

Dr. Julian E. Bailes of West Virginia University in Morgantown says in the experiment, rats were treated with omega-3 fatty acid docosahexanoic acid -- known as DHA and found in fish body oils -- at varying doses, equivalent to those used in humans taking DHA supplements.

After one month of treatment, tissue and behavioral responses to induced traumatic brain injury were compared between groups of treated animals.

The study, scheduled to be published in the February issue of Neurosurgery, says the tissue damage caused by traumatic brain injury was significantly reduced in rats taking the highest dose of DHA: 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.

In addition, cellular findings included a significant reduction in expression of a protein -- beta amyloid protein -- associated in the development of Alzheimer's disease, the study says.

The DHA supplement used in the study was isolated from algae species, Bailes says.

"The essential concept of daily dietary supplementation with DHA, so that those at significant risk may be preloaded to provide protection against the acute effects of traumatic brain injury, has tremendous public health implications," Bailes says in a statement.

However, the researchers say more research will be needed to determine the true benefits, if any, of preventive treatment with DHA.

UPI

Moon water came from comets

2011-01-12T13:56:00.000+02:00

The moon has had water throughout its history, some supplied externally, some internally, researchers from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville reported.

While testing their theory that lunar water may have originated from comets crashing into the moon soon after it formed, Larry Taylor, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and other researchers analyzed rocks brought back from the first Apollo mission, measuring "water signatures" that tell the water's possible origin, the university said Tuesday in a news release. The researchers discovered water on Earth and the moon came from different sources.

"This discovery forces us to go back to square one on the whole formation of the Earth and moon," Taylor said. "Before our research, we thought the Earth and moon had the same volatiles after the 'giant impact,' just at greatly different quantities. Our work brings to light another component in the formation that we had not anticipated -- comets."

Scientists believe the moon was formed by a giant impact of the still-forming Earth with a Mars-sized object that caused a great explosion, creating the moon. Taylor's research theorizes there was a great flux of comets, or "dirty icebergs," striking the Earth and moon systems. Since the moon was dry, it acquired much of its water supply from these comets.

"The water we are looking at is internal," said Taylor. "It was put into the moon during its initial formation, where it existed like a melting pot in space, where cometary materials were added in at small yet significant amounts."
The study is included in the online version of the scientific journal, Nature Geoscience.

Researcher developing bio-based polymers that heal cracks

2011-01-10T15:58:00.000+02:00

Michael Kessler has worked with polymers that repair themselves when they crack. And he's worked with polymers made from vegetable oils. Now he's working to combine the two technologies.

Kessler, an Iowa State University associate professor of materials science and engineering and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, is researching and developing biorenewable polymers capable of healing themselves as they degrade and crack.

"If successful, the results of this research will provide biorenewable alternatives to petroleum-based resins," says a summary of Kessler's research project. Successfully developing the concept "should have a huge impact economically and environmentally."

Kessler's research project is supported by a five-year, $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Program.

Kessler started working with self-healing materials as a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was part of a research team that in February 2001 published an article in the journal Nature that helped launch the field.

The technology has evolved into a system that embeds catalysts and microcapsules containing a liquid healing agent within a composite. As cracks develop in the composite, they rupture the microcapsules and release the healing agent. The healing agent contacts the catalyst and reacts by forming 3-D polymer chains that fill the cracks. That increases material lifetimes and reduces maintenance.

Visit his office, and Kessler will pull out a little container half filled with what looks like fine yellow powder. Those are the hollow microcapsules that make the self-healing process work, he said.

When Kessler joined Iowa State and the Ames Laboratory in 2005, he started working with Richard Larock, a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and associate of the Ames Laboratory, to develop biorenewable polymers from vegetable oils.

Larock has invented and patented a process for producing various bioplastics from inexpensive natural oils, which make up 40 percent to 80 percent of the plastics. Larock has said the plastics have excellent thermal and mechanical properties and are very good at dampening noises and vibrations. They're also very good at returning to their original shapes when they're heated.

But can they be developed into a self-healing material?

Early results show there's laboratory work to do. Kessler's research has found that a healing agent for a polymer based on tung oil works too fast. Kessler and Peter Hondred, an Iowa State graduate student in materials science and engineering, are working to slow the agent for better healing.

The researchers are also working to develop encapsulating techniques that work with biorenewable polymers. And they're working to develop bio-based healing agents.

Despite the challenges, Kessler thinks there is potential to develop self-healing, biorenewable materials. He said the big question is whether researchers can push the healing efficiency of biorenewable polymers close to the 90 percent of standard composites.

Iowa State University

DNA can predict hair color...!!

2011-01-04T14:06:00.000+02:00

Dutch researchers say crime-scene DNA can be used to predict a person's likely hair color, allowing police to search for a suspect with a particular color.

In research to be published in the journal Human Genetics, Researches at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam say it is possible, on the basis of DNA information, to determine with an accuracy of more than 90 percent whether a person has red hair, with a similarly high accuracy whether a person has black hair, and with an accuracy of more than 80 percent whether a person's hair color is blond or brown, a Springer journals release said Monday.

The necessary DNA for such a determination can be taken from blood, sperm, saliva or other biological materials relevant in forensic case work, researchers say.

"That we are now making it possible to predict different hair colors from DNA represents a major breakthrough because, so far, only red hair color, which is rare, could be estimated from DNA," said Manfred Kayser of the Department of Forensic Molecular Biology at Erasmus MC. "For our research we made use of the DNA and hair color information of hundreds of Europeans and investigated genes previously known to influence the differences in hair color. We identified 13 'DNA markers' from 11 genes that are informative to predict a person's hair color."

The researchers, who previously published articles on predicting eye color and estimating age on the basis of DNA material, say a DNA test for hair color should be available soon for forensic research.

UPI

Bacteria study could improve antibiotics

2011-01-02T14:57:00.001+02:00

A study of one of nature's most primitive immune systems might lead to new, more effective antibiotics, a U.S. researcher says.

Thomas Wood, professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University, is studying how bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics over millions of years by co-opting the DNA of their natural enemies, viruses.

Viruses attempt to replicate by invading bacteria cells and integrating themselves into the chromosomes of the bacteria. When a bacterium makes a copy of its chromosome, which includes the virus particle, the virus can later replicate itself and kill the bacterium, like a ticking time bomb,

Wood says.

But when random, abundant mutations occur within the chromosome of the bacterium, the virus, having integrated itself into the chromosome, is subject to mutation as well, and some of these mutations, Wood says, render the virus unable to replicate.

A mutated bacterium not only overcomes the virus' lethal intentions but is then better equipped to survive, he says.

"Over millions of years, this virus becomes a normal part of the bacterium," Wood says. "It brings in new tricks, new genes, new proteins, new enzymes, new things that it can do.

"With this new viral DNA that has been trapped over millions of years in the chromosome, the cell has created a new immune system," Wood says. "It has developed new proteins that have enabled it to resists antibiotics.

"If we can figure out how the cells are more resistant to antibiotics because of this additional DNA, we can perhaps make new, effective antibiotics,"

UPI

Synthetic dyes could increase energy

2011-01-02T14:50:00.000+02:00

U.S. chemists say newly developed photosensitizing dyes could greatly increase the efficiency of light-driven systems that produce green energy.

Chemists at the University at Buffalo in New York who've synthesized a new class of the dyes say the advancement could form the basis of cost-effective technologies to power everything from household appliances to hydrogen vehicles, a university release said Friday.

The researchers say the synthetic dyes, when used in solar cells and hydrogen fuel cells, absorb light more intensely and transfer their electrons more efficiently than conventional dyes.

The work could lead to the development of better commercial technologies for producing solar electricity and hydrogen on demand, one researcher said.

"Sunlight in 1 hour could power the world for a year but we don't

tap into it for either electricity or for making solar fuels," UB professor Michael Detty said.

"Plants use sunlight to make their own fuels. Humans don't. We use oil. So if we want to have energy independence it will come from solar."

UPI

How to examine earthquakes??

2010-12-28T14:47:00.000+02:00

Without warning the ground begins to shake. Buildings topple, crushing or burying those inside; gas and water mains fracture and erupt; the telephone system, overwhelmed by panicked calls, collapses. Down in the park on the shore of the Sea of Marmara people taking a stroll in the spring air have but a moment to register the tsunami about to overwhelm them. By the end of the day 35,000 people are dead and 200,000 injured, and some 80,000 buildings lie in ruins. Others, like the great Blue Mosque, survive but with marks that will serve as a reminder for decades to come of the great earthquake of 2017 - the one everyone knew was coming but did little to prepare for.

It may never be like this - it may never happen - or it could be worse. Man may have sent probes to the furthest reaches of the Solar System and gazed towards the edge of the visible universe but he is still woefully ill-informed about the caprices of his own planet. Some of the most ill-informed people are in most danger, those whose homes straddle the faultlines, fractures in the earth’s crust caused by the grinding of tectonic plates. Like the North Anatolian Fault, at its nearest 10 miles from Istanbul.

The attitude of people living alongside these fissures varies greatly, from fear to fatalism to simple ignorance of their presence. It was with this in mind that Tamsin Davies and her sister Serena, together with their friend Adam Whitaker, decided to explore the faultlines of Europe, from Iceland to Italy and Greece, and then eastwards into Turkey. The Faultine Living Expedition is backed jointly by the Royal Geographical Society and Land Rover. Each year the bodies choose one proposal for an expedition to a remote corner of the world to examine societies that live, literally and fuguratively, on the edge. Landrover provides the expedition vehicle and £10,000 under its Go Beyond The Everyday sponsorship scheme.

"If you look at a faultline map there are hundreds of them, and any one can produce an earthquake,” says Serena, a documentary maker. “And we don’t know enough about them. A headline we read the other day summed it up: ‘Scientists can’t predict earthquakes but toads might be able to’.”

The Daily Telegraph caught up with the expedition in Izmit, a town to the east of Istanbul devastated by an earthquake in August 1999. Some 18,000 people died in that quake, a product of the same fault that may one day spell disaster for Istanbul. Serif Baris, a professor of geophysics who keeps an eye on the North Anatolian Fault, explains: “In 1999, after the earthquake, it was predicted that the chance of another, measuring 7.5 on the Richter Scale, hitting Istanbul within 30 years was 65 per cent. And now ten years have gone by.”

The casualty figures quoted in the scenario for 2017, along with the number of buildings destroyed, are those expected by Professor Baris.

“Most people know the risk but when you ask if they are prepared less than 20 per cent would say they are ready. In Japan they train their children for earthquakes in kindergarten. In Turkey there is often a kind of fatalism. Some people think buildings are so badly built that they will collapse and they will die anyway, so why bother with training drills.”

The reactions of earthquake survivors vary greatly, from relief at one’s survival to guilt for not helping others, and fear that it will happen again.

The team interviewed one man caught in the 1999 quake who could not get over the fact that in his rush to escape what appeared to be his toppling home he had abandoned his wife and children. Then there was Mehmet Koc, a 36 year-old belt maker. He lived in Avcilar, one of the districts of Istanbul hit by the 1999 quake.

“I was unable to sleep for 2 years after that day,” he said. “I couldn’t have a proper sleep for that time.

“I go on, I survive. I’m afraid of the second one – not now as afraid as I was. I would say it is a normal fear.”

Nuran Altiparmak, 45, a shop assistant from Istanbul, lost her hair, so great was her trauma.

“It ruined my psychology,” she said. “Still I receive psychological treatment. The nerves in my legs are damaged. My husband lost his job and we lost money. We almost divorced because of the stress. So many things - not only psychological.

“My heart beats so fast when I think about a second earthquake because there are so many wounds. I don’t’ know how to put it into words.”

The expedition began in Iceland, a dynamic landscape sculpted by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the legacy of its position astride the fault separating the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. There are benefits to faultline status. A quarter of that country’s total power needs are provided by geothermal energy, and 87 per cent of its domestic heating.

Iceland, though, is a sparsely-populated place. In Italy the team saw how a once prosperous, densely-populated area can be laid low for years by movements in faults that have remained ignored for centuries.

Last year, the town of L’Aquila in central Italy was hit by a 6.3 earthquake which killed 308 people, injured some 1,500 and left 65,000 people homeless. The town, built on an old lake bed which amplifies seismic waves, was last struck by an earthquake in 1706, three years after a more powerful quake killed some 5,000 people. Despite its history, there was general ignorance in the town of the dangers.

“People in these zones often fail to understand the risks,” says Serena. “There is a barrier between them and the information they need. There is the attitude that, ‘We had our earthquake a hundred years ago so we’re fine now. Among the older generation, particularly, there is also a fatalistic approach.”

The centre of L’Aquila is still a no-go area.

“It is a beautiful medieval centre that is completely dead,” says Adam. “The buildings have not collapsed but they are uninhabitable because no-one knows how unsafe they are.”

L’Aquila is where the toads come in. Days before the quake struck, zoologists studying a colony of toads some 50 miles from the epicenter observed that 96 per cent of the males suddenly got up and left. Human predictive skills are some way off. The devastating earthquake in Haiti in January of this year has been attributed to a previously undiscovered fault.

Even here, in seismically sleepy Britain, we should not be too complacent. The British Geological Survey warned recently that the earthquake threat to London is greater than generally appreciated. Not the devastating quakes of abroad but tremors capable of inflicting real damage and some deaths.

A quake of Magnitude 5 or above occurs every century or so in Britain. In April 1580, a tremor centred on the Dover Strait damaged a large number of buildings in London and killed two people.

“The same earthquake happening tomorrow will impact far more people than was the case in the 16th Century,” explained Roger Musson of the BGS. “The size of London in terms of population is about 50 times more today. So if two people were killed in London in 1580, you can imagine for yourself what sort of scaling up that could mean for a contemporary earthquake of the same size.”

The threat to Tehran, the expedition’s next destination, is rather more pressing – about the same as that facing Istanbul. There is talk there of one day moving the capital to a less dangerous location.

On the whole, though, humanity tends to adopt a fatalistic attitude to the occasionally lethal temper tantrums of its home planet.

Interviewed by the Faultine team, Soffia Sigurdardottir, a member of the search and rescue team in the town of Selfoss, southern Iceland, explained: “This is normal life. You make these precautions, and when a strong earthquake comes you wait for 10 seconds; and if you’re still alive, you’re still alive.”

telegraph

Scientists made mice that sing like birds

2010-12-28T14:40:00.001+02:00

A team of researchers at the University of Osaka created the animal in their Evolved Mouse Project, in which they use genetically modified mice that are prone to mutations.

"Mutations are the driving force of evolution. We have crossbred the genetically modified mice for generations to see what would happen," the lead researcher, Arikuni Uchimura said.

"We checked the newly born mice one by one ... One day we found a mouse that was singing like a bird," he said, noting that the "singing mouse" was born by chance but that the trait will be passed on to future generations.

"I was surprised because I had been expecting mice that are different in physical shape," he said.

The laboratory, directed by professor Takeshi Yagi at the Osaka University's Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences in western Japan, now has more than 100 "singing mice" for further research.

The team hopes they will provide clues on how human language evolved, just as researchers in other countries study songbirds such as finches to help them understand the origins of uman language.

Scientists have found that birds use different sound elements, put them together into chunks like words in human languages and then make strings of them to sing "songs", that are subject to certain linguistic rules.

"Mice are better than birds to study because they are mammals and much closer to humans in their brain structures and other biological aspects," Mr Uchimura said.

"We are watching how a mouse that emits new sounds would affect ordinary mice in the same group ... in other words if it has social connotations," he said, adding that ordinary mice squeak mainly under stress.

Considering that mutant mice tweet louder when put in different environments or when males are put together with females, Mr Uchimura said their chirps "may be some sort of expressions of their emotions or bodily conditions."

telegraph

Fossil Finger DNA Points to New Type of Human

2010-12-25T12:48:00.001+02:00

Continued study of an approximately 40,000 year old finger bone from Siberia has identified a previously unknown type of human — one that may have interbred with the ancestors of modern-day Melanesian people.

The fossil scrap — just the tip of a juvenile female’s finger — was discovered in 2008 during excavations of Denisova cave in Siberia’s Altai Mountains. Anatomically, it looks like it could have belonged to a Neanderthal or a modern human. But, in an initial announcement published in April in Nature, a team of scientists led by geneticist Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology concluded the bone belonged to a distinct population of humans that last shared a common ancestor with Neanderthals and our species about a million years ago.

The new study, published by Pääbo and colleagues Dec. 22 in Nature, provides further evidence that Denisova cave was home to unique humans. The researchers analyzed genetic sequences recovered from the nuclei of cells, which offer better resolution of relationships than the mitochondrial samples used in the previous research. The Denisova DNA sequences were closest to the Neanderthals, indicating they shared a more recent common ancestor with Neanderthals than with us.

The new genetic data suggests the ancestors of the Neanderthals and Denisovans left Africa between 300,000 to 400,000 years ago and rapidly diverged. But this estimate is based on models of the rates that genes typically mutate and could be off the mark.

“The Neanderthal and Denisova population history may be roughly twice the length suggested in [the Nature] paper,” said University of Wisconsin — Madison anthropologist John Hawks, who was not involved with this study. “The ancestors [of the Denisovans] might be the original “Homo erectus” dispersal from Africa.”

The big question, however, is whether the Denisovans are a new species of human.

They were genetically distinct from other humans, and an upper molar tooth (above) found at the same excavation hints that these people were similar to earlier species like Homo erectus.

But this is not enough to declare a new species, especially since the same team of researchers recently found that Neanderthals likely interbred with populations of our species that moved outside Africa. Between 1 and 4 percent of the genes of non-Africans match those found in Neanderthals, making it difficult to draw the species line.

An unexpected discovery about the Denisovans further complicates the picture: Some modern-day people carry Denisovan genes. Through genetic comparisons Pääbo’s team found that some people from Melanesia — an assemblage of islands off Australia’s east coast, including New Guinea — share 4 to 6 percent of their genomes with the Denisovans. This probably indicates that the Denisovans interbred with anatomically modern humans despite the split between our lineages over a million years ago.

The authors of the new paper didn’t go as far as calling the Denisovans a new species, and “on a biological species concept,” says Hawks, “there’s really no reason to regard this as a different species.”

WIRED

Images: 1) The molar from the Denisova cave, as seen from above and the side. Credit: David Reich et al., Nature. 2) A map of human migrations. The triangles and circles represent sampling locations of Neanderthal remains of present-day human genomes, respectively. The blue arrows trace major migration routes of anatomically modern humans out of Africa. The yellow box and star denote the correspondence between the Denisova DNA samples and the genomes of people from Melanesia. From Bustamante & Henn, Nature.

A robot with finger-tip sensitivity

2010-12-25T12:41:00.000+02:00

With great care, a robot picks up a gear wheel in one hand, a housing in the other, and places the two together. When they don't immediately engage, it breaks off its movement.
Slowly, it twists the gear wheel round a little and tries again. This time the wheel slots easily into its mounting.
The robot smiles, and places the correctly assembled part on the conveyor belt.

The pi4-workerbot is capable of making many more movements than a normal robot and is the jewel in the crown of the EU-funded PISA research project, which aims to introduce greater flexibility into industrial mass production by using robots in assembly processes. All manufacturers operating in Germany need technology that can be adapted for and cope with a variety of product versions and fluctuating volumes.

And because workforce requirements also change in line with orders on company books, the idea is that manufacturers should even be able to lease these robots as and when necessary.

Dr.-Ing. Dragoljub Surdilovic, head of the working group at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK in Berlin, says: "We developed the workerbot to be roughly the same size as a human being." Which means it can be employed at any modern standing or sitting workstation in an industrial manufacturing environment. The robot is equipped with three cameras.

A state-of-the-art 3D camera in its forehead captures its general surroundings, while the two others are used for inspection purposes. The workerbot can perform a wide range of tasks. Matthias Krinke, Managing Director of pi4-Robotics, the company that is bringing the workerbot onto the market, explains: "It can measure objects or inspect a variety of surfaces." To give an example, the robot can identify whether or not the chromium coating on a workpiece has been perfectly applied by studying how light reflects off the material.

Krinke adds: "If you use two different cameras, it can inspect one aspect with its left eye, and another with its right." Moreover, the workerbot is also capable of inspecting components over a continuous 24-hour period – an important advantage when precision is of the utmost importance, such as in the field of medical technology, where a defective part can, in the worst case scenario, endanger human life.

Another distinctive feature of the pi4-workerbot is that it has two arms. "This allows it to carry out new kinds of operations," says Surdilovic. "These robots can transfer a workpiece from one hand to the other." Useful, for instance, for observing complex components from all angles.

The Fraunhofer researcher continues: "Conventional robotic arms generally only have one swivel joint at the shoulder; all their other joints are articulated. In other words, they have six degrees of freedom, not seven like a human arm." However, as well as the swivel joint at its shoulder, the workerbot has an additional rotation facility which corresponds to the wrist on a human body.

Surdilovic's working group developed the control system for the workerbot. He recalls: "Programming the two arms to work together – for example, to inspect a workpiece or assemble two components – was a real challenge. It requires additional sensor systems."

The researchers also endowed the robot with finger-tip sensitivity. "If you set the strength of the grip correctly, it will take hold of an egg without cracking it," says Surdilovic. And it even has a variety of facial expressions.

If its work is going smoothly, it will smile happily. If it looks bored, it's waiting for work, and the production manager knows the production process can be speeded up.Esciencenews

NASAONext Mars rover will carry a laserO

2010-12-25T12:36:00.000+02:00

NASA says its next Mars rover will be equipped with a rock-zapping laser able to analyze the chemical composition of rocks and soil from more than 20 feet away.

The Chemistry and Camera instrument being installed on the rover Curiosity can hit rocks with a laser powerful enough to turn a pinhead-size sample into a glowing, ionized gas that the instrument will observe through a telescope and, by analyzing the spectrum of light in the gas, identify the chemical elements in the target, ScienceDaily.com reported Thursday.

This will help the rover science team survey the rover's surroundings and choose which targets to drill into, or scoop up and collect for additional analysis by other instruments inside the rover, NASA says.

Curiosity will launch in late 2011 to land on the surface of Mars in August 2012.
An American and French team led by geochemist Roger Wiens with the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory proposed the instrument during NASA's 2004 open competition for participation in the Mars Science Laboratory project.

"The trick is very short bursts of the laser," Wiens said. "You really dump a lot of energy onto a small spot -- megawatts per square millimeter -- but just for a few nanoseconds."
The pinhead-size spot hit by ChemCam's laser gets as much power focused on it as a million light bulbs, for five one-billionths of a second, Wiens said.

Testing of the instrument is ongoing at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in preparation for the launch between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011.
UPI

Device creates fuel from sunlight..!!!!

2010-12-25T12:29:00.001+02:00

U.S. and Swiss researchers say they've developed a solar device that can turn the energy of the sun into fuel.

The apparatus focuses the sun's rays onto a metal oxide called ceria to break down water into hydrogen, which can be stored and transported, the BBC reported Thursday.

Ceria has a natural property of emitting oxygen as it heats up and absorbing it as it cools down. If water or carbon dioxide are pumped into the device while the ceria is cooling down the ceria will strip the oxygen from

them, liberating either hydrogen or carbon monoxide, the researchers say.

The hydrogen produced could be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells in cars, while hydrogen mixed with carbon monoxide can create "syngas" fuels.

The prototype is very inefficient, harnessing only between 0.7 and 0.8 percent of the solar energy taken into the vessel, but researchers say they're confident improvements could bring that up to an efficiency of 19 percent, enough for a commercially viable device.

The device could be said to mimic plants, which also use carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to create energy as part of the process of photosynthesis, but one researcher says the analogy is a bit over-simplistic.

"Yes, the reactor takes in sunlight, we take in carbon dioxide and water and we produce a chemical compound, so in the most generic sense there are these similarities, but I think that's pretty much where the analogy ends," Sossina Haile of the California Institute of Technology says.

UPI

New molecule could mean better rocket fuel

2010-12-23T14:41:00.001+02:00

Swedish scientists say they've discovered a molecule that could lead to new rocket fuels that are 20 percent to 30 percent more efficient than now.

Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) discovered the new molecule in the nitrogen oxide group and dubbed it trinitramid, a release from the Swedish Research Council reported Wednesday.

More efficient fuels translate into bigger rocket payloads, the researchers said.

"A rule of thumb is that for every 10 percent increase in efficiency for rocket fuel, the payload of the rocket can double," Tore Brinck, professor of physical chemistry at KTH, said. "What's more, the molecule consists only of nitrogen and oxygen, which would make the rocket fuel environmentally friendly.

"This is more than can be said of today's solid rocket fuels, which entail the emission of the equivalent of 550 tons of concentrated hydrochloric acid for each launch of the space shuttle."

"As mentioned, what is specific to this molecule is that it contains only nitrogen and oxygen. Only eight such compounds were previously known, and most of them were discovered back in the 18th century," he said.

The scientists have managed to produce enough of the compound in a test tube for it to be detectable and subject to analysis.

UPI

New solar cells could even work at night!!!!

2010-12-21T09:07:00.000+02:00

U.S. researchers say they've developed a new kind of solar cell that can generate energy even at night, promising a new form of renewable energy.

The key is their ability to harvest infrared radiation as well as visible light, Steven Novack at the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls says.
Almost half of the available energy in the spectrum of solar radiation resides in the infrared band, and infrared is re-emitted as heat by the Earth's surface after the sun has gone down, meaning the cells can even capture some energy during the night, he says.

Novack estimates a complete system using the new cells would have an overall efficiency of 46 percent, whereas the most efficient current silicon solar cells top out at about 25 percent.
Also, currently solar cells can only produce their top output in a narrow range of conditions. For example, if the sun is in the wrong position, sunlight is reflected off a silicone solar cell instead of being absorbed to create energy.

The new cells can absorb radiation at a variety of angles, the researchers say.

UPI

chemistry&Technology

Computational chemistry shows the way to safer biofuels

New plastics can conduct electricity !!!

New method for studying molecule reactions a breakthrough in organic chemistry

New phosphor for flat screen displays

International Year of Chemistry launches across the world

Adding floids to thicken up runny liquids

Standardising nanomaterials NOW!!

a new class of magic atomic clusters called superhalogens discovered!

First purely organic phosphor

Now:Light Can Control Electrical Properties of Graphene

Fully Biodegradable and Recyclable Synthetic Resin produced

Omega-3 may help protect brain from injury

Moon water came from comets

Researcher developing bio-based polymers that heal cracks

DNA can predict hair color...!!

Bacteria study could improve antibiotics

Synthetic dyes could increase energy

How to examine earthquakes??

Scientists made mice that sing like birds

A team of researchers at the University of Osaka created the animal in their Evolved Mouse Project, in which they use genetically modified mice that are prone to mutations.

Fossil Finger DNA Points to New Type of Human

A robot with finger-tip sensitivity

NASA*O*Next Mars rover will carry a laser*O*

Device creates fuel from sunlight..!!!!

New molecule could mean better rocket fuel

New solar cells could even work at night!!!!

NASAONext Mars rover will carry a laserO