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Category: chemistry – Page 330

Free radicals—atoms and molecules with unpaired electrons—can wreak havoc on the body. They are like jilted paramours, destined to wander about in search of another electron, leaving broken cells, proteins and DNA in their wakes.

Hydroxyl radicals are the most chemically aggressive of the free radicals, surviving for only trillionths of a second. They form when water, the most abundant molecule in cells, is hit with radiation, causing it to lose an electron. In previous research, a team led by Linda Young, a scientist at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, observed the ultrafast birth of these , a process with great significance in fields such as sunlight-induced biological damage, , , and space travel.

Now her team, including researchers from DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, has teased out a unique chemical fingerprint of the hydroxyl, which will help scientists track chemical reactions it instigates in complex biological environments. They published their results in Physical Review Letters in June.

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Developed in the 1970s, rare-earth magnets are the strongest type of permanent magnets made today. The more common type are neodymium alloys made with iron and boron, while the other group is samarium-cobalt magnets. The occurrence and production of these chemical elements raise both political and environmental concerns, so to find a more sustainable solution, the UK’s Office of Low Emission Vehicles is funding a nine-partner study called OCTOPUS (Optimised Components, Test and simulatiOn, toolkits for Powertrains which integrate Ultra high-speed motor Solutions). With Bentley joining for the next three years, the program will aim for real-world applications by 2026. Coincidentally, Bentley’s first full EV is also due that year.

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As the world’s most popular shoe, flip-flops account for a troubling percentage of plastic waste that ends up in landfills, on seashores and in our oceans. Scientists at the University of California San Diego have spent years working to resolve this problem, and now they have taken a step farther toward accomplishing this mission.

Sticking with their chemistry, the team of researchers formulated , made from algae oil, to meet commercial specifications for midsole shoes and the foot-bed of flip-flops. The results of their study are published in Bioresource Technology Reports and describe the team’s successful development of these sustainable, consumer-ready and .

The research was a collaboration between UC San Diego and startup company Algenesis Materials—a and technology company. The project was co-led by graduate student Natasha Gunawan from the labs of professors Michael Burkart (Division of Physical Sciences) and Stephen Mayfield (Division of Biological Sciences), and by Marissa Tessman from Algenesis. It is the latest in a series of recent research publications that collectively, according to Burkart, offer a complete solution to the plastics problem—at least for polyurethanes.

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In COVID-19, the sense of smell can diminish, vanish, or oddly skew, for weeks or months. The loss usually starts suddenly and is more than the temporarily dulled chemical senses of a stuffy nose from the common cold. As researchers followed up mounting reports of loss of olfaction, a surprising source of perhaps the longest-lasting cases emerged: stem cells in the olfactory epithelium.

A Common Symptom

Facebook groups may be ahead of the medical literature in providing vivid descriptions of the loss of olfaction as people swap advice and compare how long they’ve been unable to smell. The experiences can be bizarre, but at the same time, shared.

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Imagine tiny crystals that “blink” like fireflies and can convert carbon dioxide, a key cause of climate change, into fuels.

A Rutgers-led team has created ultra-small dioxide crystals that exhibit unusual “blinking” behavior and may help to produce methane and other fuels, according to a study in the journal Angewandte Chemie. The crystals, also known as nanoparticles, stay charged for a long time and could benefit efforts to develop quantum computers.

“Our findings are quite important and intriguing in a number of ways, and more research is needed to understand how these exotic crystals work and to fulfill their potential,” said senior author Tewodros (Teddy) Asefa, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. He’s also a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering in the School of Engineering.

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face_with_colon_three yay closer to foglet bodies: 3.

Is the T-1000 no longer science fiction?

It is a human dream to realize a robot with automatic mechanical functions similar to the robots presented in several science-fiction movies and series such as “Ex Machina”, “Black Mirror”, “The Terminator”, etc.

More specifically, the idea of a liquid-metal-based robot able to transform its structure from solid to liquid, slip through narrow channels, and self-repair from any physical damage has always fascinated the scientific community engaged in cutting-edge technological discoveries. Beside the science-fiction background, micromachines able to gain energy from chemical reactions are attracting lots of attention as they emerged as ideal candidates for microrobots used in the field of microfabrication, detection/sensing, and personalized drug delivery.

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Scientists are ramping up their efforts in the search for signs of alien life.

Experts at the SETI Institute, an organization dedicated to tracking extraterrestrial intelligence, are developing state-of-the-art techniques to detect signatures from space that indicate the possibility of extraterrestrial existence.

These so-called “technosignatures” can range from the chemical composition of a planet’s atmosphere, to laser emissions, to structures orbiting other stars, among others, they said.

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Circa 2011

Gravity is no obstacle for this climbing robot. It scales vertical walls—even those made of smooth materials like glass. Jeff Krahn, an engineer from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, created this gecko-inspired tank of a robot, which he detailed in a paper in the journal Smart Materials and Structures this week.

Like a gecko, which can hang on to sheer glass with just one toe, the climbing bot uses what physicists call Van der Waals forces to stick to the wall. Its tanklike tracks are covered in a dry adhesive, a polymer resembling silicon that allows adhesion without chemicals or added energy. The molecules that make up this substance are temporary dipoles; they have a positively charged side and a negatively charged side. The charged sides of the molecules are attracted to their corresponding opposites on the wall the robot is climbing: negative to positive, positive to negative. Given enough surface area for these attractions to take place, Van der Waals forces can keep a pretty substantial weight stuck to a vertical wall. The climbing bot, for example, weighs in at half a pound.

To boost the climbing bot’s stickiness, Krahn needed to increase the surface area of its tracks, which allows more molecular interactions. So the tracks are covered with small bumps shaped like mushroom caps, each about the size of a human red blood cell. These bumps also allow the bot to cling to microscopic bumps and cracks in the surface of whatever it’s climbing. However, Krahn’s creation can’t scale a surface that’s too rough; the texture of concrete, for example, wouldn’t provide enough surface area for its tracks to get the proper grip, Krahn says.

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Washington State University researchers have made a key advance in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) that could make the highly energy-efficient and low-polluting technology a more viable alternative to gasoline combustion engines for powering cars.

Led by Ph.D. graduate Qusay Bkour and Professor Su Ha in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, the researchers have developed a unique and inexpensive nanoparticle catalyst that allows the to convert logistic liquid fuels such as gasoline to electricity without stalling out during the electrochemical process. The research, featured in the journal, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, could result in highly efficient gasoline-powered cars that produce low carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.

“People are very concerned about energy, the environment, and global warming,” said Bkour. “I’m very excited because we can have a solution to the energy problem that also reduces the emissions that cause global warming.”

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Hundreds of thousands of years ago, our ancestors evolved a simple trick that could have helped thwart a major infectious disease. It probably saved our skins, but the change was far from a perfect solution.

New research has uncovered evidence that mutations arising between 600,000 and 2 million years ago were part of a complex of adaptations that may have inadvertently made us prone to inflammatory diseases and even other pathogens.

An international team of researchers compared around a thousand human genomes with a few from our extinct cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, to fill in missing details on the evolution of a family of chemicals that coat the human body’s cells.

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