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Category: chemistry – Page 121

Researchers at the University of Cordoba, in collaboration with other institutions, have developed a new type of battery using hemoglobin as a catalyst in zinc-air batteries. This biocompatible battery can function for up to 30 days and offers several advantages, such as sustainability and suitability for use in human body devices. Despite its non-rechargeable nature, this innovation marks a significant step towards environmentally friendly battery alternatives, addressing the limitations of current lithium-ion batteries. (Artist’s Concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com.

Researchers at the Chemical Institute for Energy and the Environment (IQUEMA) at the University of Cordoba have developed a battery that employs hemoglobin to facilitate electrochemical reactions, maintaining functionality for approximately 20 to 30 days.

Hemoglobin is a protein present in red blood cells and is responsible for conveying oxygen from the lungs to the different tissues of the body (and then transferring carbon dioxide the other way around). It has a very high affinity for oxygen and is fundamental for life, but, what if it were also a key element for a type of electrochemical device in which oxygen also plays an important role, such as zinc-air batteries?

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A new study reported that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, can infect dopamine neurons in the brain and trigger senescence—when a cell loses the ability to grow and divide. The researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons suggest that further research on this finding may shed light on the neurological symptoms associated with long COVID, such as brain fog, lethargy, and depression.

The findings, published in Cell Stem Cell on Jan. 17, show that dopamine neurons infected with SARS-CoV-2 stop working and send out chemical signals that cause inflammation. Normally, these neurons produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a role in feelings of pleasure, motivation, memory, sleep, and movement. Damage to these neurons is also connected to Parkinson’s disease.

“This project started out to investigate how various types of cells in different organs respond to SARS-CoV-2 infection. We tested lung cells, heart cells, pancreatic beta cells, but the senescence pathway is only activated in dopamine neurons,” said senior author Dr. Shuibing Chen, director of the Center for Genomic Health, the Kilts Family Professor Surgery and a member of the Hartman Institute for Therapeutic Organ Regeneration at Weill Cornell Medicine. “This was a completely unexpected result.”

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MKUltra is not referenced explicitly on Stranger Things — the popular Netflix show — but the series seems to be inspired by the controversial CIA program. In the show, a government laboratory is conducting illegal experiments on a young girl and other persons, torturing them, and harnessing their special abilities for their own purposes. This is similar to the goals of the CIA human experimentation project, which was started 70 years ago.

Controversial and unethical experiments were conducted on human subjects by the Agency for the MKUltra project, including the use of mind control techniques and the administration of drugs such as LSD and other chemicals. Electroshock, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, verbal and sexual abuse, and other forms of torture were also part of the non-consensual experiments, which were created because the CIA was convinced that communists had discovered a way to control human minds. Its activities — which were hidden and classified before their files being destroyed after an investigation — remain a subject of concern and investigation to this day.

MKUltra was a CIA program involving the research and development of chemical and biological agents. According to official documents, it was “concerned with the research and development of chemical, biological and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior.”

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Steamy World Could Be a Sample of Water-Rich Planets Throughout Our Galaxy The search for life in space goes hand-in-hand with the search for water on planets around other stars. Water is one of the most common molecules in the universe, and all life on Earth requires it. Water functions as a solvent by dissolving substances and enabling key chemical reactions in animal, plant, and microbial cells. It is much better at this than other liquids.

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Tunneling is a fundamental process in quantum mechanics, involving the ability of a wave packet to cross an energy barrier that would be impossible to overcome by classical means. At the atomic level, this tunneling phenomenon significantly influences molecular biology. It aids in speeding up enzyme reactions, causes spontaneous DNA mutations, and initiates the sequences of events that lead to the sense of smell.

Photoelectron tunneling is a key process in light-induced chemical reactions, charge and energy transfer, and radiation emission. The size of optoelectronic chips and other devices has been close to the sub-nanometer atomic scale, and the quantum tunneling effects between different channels would be significantly enhanced.

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Measuring the amount of precipitation that falls in a specific location is simple if that location has a device designed to accurately record and transmit precipitation data. In contrast, measuring the amount and type of precipitation that falls to Earth in every location is logistically quite difficult. Importantly, this information could provide a wealth of data for characterizing and predicting Earth’s water, energy and biogeochemical cycles.

Scientists from the China Meteorological Administration developed and launched a satellite created to measure Earth precipitation with radar while orbiting in space.

This is the first of two precipitation missions planned by the team to accurately measure the occurrence, type and intensity of any precipitation across the world, including over oceans and complex terrain. Specifically, the FY-3G satellite is designed to assess the 3-dimensional (3D) form of rainfall and other precipitation for weather systems at Earth’s middle and lower latitudes.

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A University of Massachusetts Amherst team has made a major advance toward modeling and understanding how intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) undergo spontaneous phase separation, an important mechanism of subcellular organization that underlies numerous biological functions and human diseases.

IDPs play crucial roles in cancer, neurodegenerative disorders and infectious diseases. They make up about one-third of proteins that human bodies produce, and two-thirds of cancer-associated proteins contain large, disordered segments or domains. Identifying the hidden features crucial to the functioning and self-assembly of IDPs will help researchers understand what goes awry with these features when diseases occur.

In a paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, senior author Jianhan Chen, professor of chemistry, describes a novel way to simulate separations mediated by IDPs, an important process that has been difficult to study and describe.

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