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Category: chemistry – Page 2

Fast but error-prone AI assists in solving a decades-old fluid mechanics problem in five weeks

An AI assistant helped University of Colorado Boulder researchers solve a mathematical problem that had challenged their lab for a year and a half, though it made subtle errors along the way. The breakthrough could improve how scientists study nanoparticles—tiny particles about 1,000 times thinner than a human hair—but it reveals both the promise and limitations of AI as a scientific research partner.

The new study, published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, details the solution to a decades-old fluid mechanics problem and explains how researchers combined AI with human expertise to reach the answer.

The research was led by Ankur Gupta, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, and his graduate student, Arkava Ganguly, who spent a year and a half working on the problem. With help from Anthropic’s Claude AI, they discovered that changing a nanoparticle’s shape, such as by stretching it from a circle to a football shape, changes how fast it moves in an electric field, while adding finer features, such as bumps or ripples, does not.

This New Molecule Could Transform How We Recover Gold From Electronic Waste

A new extraction molecule uses electricity to recover metals while sharply reducing the need for chemical reagents.

Recovering valuable metals from discarded electronics, mining streams, and industrial waste usually depends on large amounts of chemical reagents. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a molecule that could allow electricity to replace much of that chemistry, potentially making metal recovery cleaner, simpler, and more energy efficient.

The findings, led by chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Xiao Su, were published in ACS Energy Letters.

AI designs new antibodies that pass blinded laboratory tests

Researchers affiliated with UTHealth Houston, competing under the team name Novamab AI, placed among the top five teams in the international AIntibody Challenge, a blinded, prospective benchmark published in Nature Biotechnology.

The study, “A blinded, prospective benchmark of in-silico antibody discovery anchored to experimental affinity and developability,” evaluates artificial intelligence platforms for therapeutic antibody design through laboratory synthesis and experimental characterization.

Unlike retrospective computational benchmarks that evaluate models against historical data sets, the AIntibody Challenge required participating teams to design entirely new antibody sequences. The designs were independently synthesized and experimentally evaluated for binding affinity and developability—key physical and chemical traits required for clinical drug candidates.

Scientists Reveal How Cells Tame One of Biology’s Most Dangerous Metals

Polyamines may protect cells from toxic iron buildup by keeping reactive iron under control.

Iron keeps cells alive, but when too much of it remains chemically reactive, the same metal can become destructive. Excess free iron can drive reactions that damage DNA, proteins, and cell membranes, creating a problem cells must constantly control.

Whitehead Institute Member Ankur Jain, former postdoc Whitney Henry, and graduate student Pushkal Sharma have identified an unexpected part of that protective system: small molecules known as polyamines.

Machine learning method uncovers hidden patterns in DNA methylation

In a study recently published in Nature Communications, researchers from Berlin, Potsdam, and Jena present a new method for analyzing the epigenome. The machine-learning method identifies differentially methylated DNA regions without sample labels—a prerequisite for many existing algorithms. This makes it possible to identify previously hidden biological patterns as well as new subgroups of cells or diseases.

The activity of our genes is not determined by DNA sequence alone. The attachment of small chemical compounds—known as methyl groups—influences which genes are active and which remain silenced. DNA methylation is thus a central component of the epigenome.

Changes to the epigenome play a crucial role in the development of our bodies, influence the aging process and are relevant to numerous diseases, such as cancer. To understand such changes, researchers specifically search for differentially methylated DNA regions (DMRs). However, existing methods usually require samples under investigation to be assigned to known groups—such as healthy or diseased tissue. With complex clinical datasets, however, this information is often unknown.

Stress gene ‘stuck on’ in the brains of people with schizophrenia, study finds

Experts at the University of Sydney have found that a gene involved in regulating the body’s response to stress switches on more easily in the brains of people who live with schizophrenia.

The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry and carried out in collaboration with researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, looked at the FKBP5 gene and the corresponding FKBP51 protein, which help regulate how strongly the body responds to stress hormones such as cortisol.

Using donated brain tissue, the researchers found that for people with schizophrenia, the chemical tags that normally keep the FKBP5 gene in check had been stripped away. This change was linked to higher activity of the FKBP5 gene, opening up the possibility of developing new treatments that target it.

Chemical physicists quantitatively model electron interactions in real quantum materials

A team of scientists from Caltech and Yale University has shown for the first time how to accurately quantify an important quantum phenomenon in metals, called the Kondo effect, for specific real materials. Unlike previous approaches, which for decades have relied on simplified models to qualitatively describe the effect, the new work uses the actual atomic and electronic structures of materials to solve the problem directly.

The work represents a step toward simulations of important quantum materials such as high-temperature superconductors, in which the motions of individual electrons depend so sensitively on what other electrons are doing at any moment that they cannot be averaged together.

The team describes the new technique and results in a paper published in Science. The lead authors are Linqing Peng (Ph. D.) and Tianyu Zhu of Yale University. Both Peng and Zhu started working on the project in the lab of Garnet Chan, Bren Professor of Chemistry and director of the Rudolph A. Marcus Center for Theoretical Chemistry at Caltech.

Meet Orexin, The Brain Chemical Behind Staying Motivated

Motivation (or a lack of it) shapes our lives in ways large and small every day: From changing careers to changing TV channels, we’re guided by what motivates us and what we find rewarding.

In a new study published in PNAS, researchers led by a team from Nagoya University in Japan have identified neurons that produce the chemical orexin as playing an important role in food-reward motivation in rats.

These neurons are located in the brain’s hypothalamus and have previously been linked to wakefulness, energy expenditure, and indeed motivation. The researchers behind this latest study wanted to look more closely at that link to motivation.

Molecular trick opens the door to a new generation of glass

Researchers at TU Dortmund University, Paderborn University, the University of Duisburg-Essen, and the University of Oxford have developed a new method for selectively modifying the internal structure of specific types of glass. The study, published in the journal Nature Materials, shows how adding an organic molecule during melting causes the chemical bonds in the material to rearrange. The process reduces the required processing temperature, prevents the substance from decomposing, and allows the magnetic and optical properties to be precisely tuned. These specialized glasses are used, among other things, in gas storage, batteries, optical applications and catalysis.

“We have found a way to chemically modify the structure of glasses derived from so-called metal-organic framework compounds—or MOFs for short—right during the manufacturing process,” explains Dr. Sebastian Henke from TU Dortmund University, who led the study.

To achieve this, the experts used 1,10-phenanthroline. The molecule lowers the melting point while simultaneously altering how the metal atoms in the glass are bonded together. The major advantage is that researchers could develop glasses with magnetic or light-emitting properties that were previously impossible to achieve without destroying the material through extreme heat.

Testing finds 85% of everyday personal care products contain unlabeled chemicals with suspected health hazards

A new study of sunscreens, baby lotions, shampoos, soaps and other everyday products found that nearly all contained chemicals not disclosed on their labels. Most contained at least one unlabeled chemical with known or suspected health hazards, and one in four contained a chemical that contradicted claims on the package, including “phthalate-free” products that contained phthalates. The research is published in Environment & Health.

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