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A team of scientists has created a chiral assembly by blending inorganic polyoxometalates and organic cyclodextrin molecules.

Polyoxometalates (POMs) are a class of nanomaterials with many useful applications. However, using polyoxometalates as building blocks to construct chiral POM-based frameworks has been a long-standing challenge for researchers. The team produced a 3D framework in this research, constructed by coordination assembly. The resulting framework features an interlaced organic-inorganic hybrid layer.

The team has published their work in the journal Polyoxometalates.

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The Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, employs advanced construction techniques designed to withstand wind, seismic activity, and its own massive weight. Among these techniques is the “Meta Column System,” which plays a pivotal role by strategically positioning large columns to resist lateral forces, thereby facilitating the construction of such a towering structure.

What if these advanced architectural techniques could be applied to material design?

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are porous materials formed by the combination of metal ions and organic ligands, resulting in structures similar to rebar in buildings. The design principle underlying MOFs closely resembles architectural planning.

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Iodine is a crucial element in various industries, but it is one of the least abundant nonmetallic elements on Earth. Although seawater holds around 70% of the world’s iodine reserves, its low concentrations—approximately 60 ppb—make extraction challenging. Additionally, radioactive iodine, which is released during nuclear accidents, presents significant long-term risks to marine ecosystems and human health. Therefore, there is an urgent need for effective strategies to both extract iodine from seawater and address radioactive iodine pollution.

Now, a team at Hainan University has developed a supramolecular organic (SOF) for iodine capture from . This framework has demonstrated the ability to remove 79% of iodine pollution in a simulated contaminated environment. In natural seawater, it achieves an ultrahigh iodine adsorption capacity of 46 mg g−1 within a 20-day extraction period. The research is published in the journal Research.

“The sustainable extraction of iodine from seawater is not only vital to meet the increasing global demand but also essential for mitigating the ecological risks posed by pollution,” said senior author Ning Wang. “Innovative materials can contribute to the field by enhancing the selectivity and capacity for iodine extraction from seawater. Our findings showcase an effective strategy for fabricating multi-dimensional 3D SOF materials and also present a promising material for iodine capture from seawater.”

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Unsubstituted π-electronic systems with expanded π-planes are highly desirable for improving charge-carrier transport in organic semiconductors. However, their poor solubility and high crystallinity pose major challenges in processing and assembly, despite their favorable electronic properties. The strategic arrangement of these molecular structures is crucial for achieving high-performance organic semiconductive materials.

In a significant breakthrough, a research team led by Professor Hiromitsu Maeda from Ritsumeikan University, including Associate Professor Yohei Haketa from Ritsumeikan University, Professor Shu Seki from Kyoto University, and Professor Go Watanabe from Kitasato University, has synthesized a novel organic electronic system incorporating gold (AuIII) and benzoporphyrin molecules, enabling enhanced solubility and conductivity.

The findings of the study were published online in Chemical Science.

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Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been gaining attention as promising carbon-neutral porous materials, thanks to their high performance in gas storage, separation, and conversion. The geometric building blocks of MOFs, metal clusters and organic linkers, allow chemists to predict and synthesize new structures like assembling LEGO. However, finding new metal building blocks is still a daunting challenge due to the complex nature of metal ions in synthesis.

A research team, led by Professor Wonyoung Choe at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea, was inspired by the molecular metal clusters previously synthesized before realized in porous materials. This implies one can predict future MOFs by looking closely at their metal building blocks.

The research team compared zirconium metal clusters found in both MOFs and molecules. Zirconium-based MOFs are one of the representative metal-organic porous materials with remarkable stability and a broad range of applications. The researchers identified seven types of zirconium building blocks in MOFs and discovered additional fourteen types of potential metal building blocks.

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From a very young age, we’re socialized to view the world as being made up of “goodies” and “baddies.” When you’re a child fooling around with your friends in the playground, nobody ever wants to be the baddy. And when it comes to dressing up, everybody wants to be Luke Skywalker—not Darth Vader.

This oversimplified way of viewing the world as being made up of right and wrong or good people and bad people doesn’t dissipate as we grow older. If anything, it tends to solidify as we form the that define who we are in adult life.

This is particularly the case when it comes to our political identities and, specifically, the partisan identities and loyalties that individuals attach themselves to.

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People think that Harry Potter, Spiderman and Gandalf would vote the same way they do, whereas Darth Vader, Cruella de Vil and Joffrey Baratheon would vote for the rival party.

New research from the University of Southampton shows how people in the UK and U.S. believe that they admire would share their voting preferences, while those they dislike would vote the other way.

The paper “Heroes and villains: motivated projection of political identities” is published in Political Science Research & Method.

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Li and colleagues used a technique called distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), which, while new to the world of seismology, is already used to monitor pipelines and power cables for defects. The method involves sending laser light pulses over optical fibers and measuring the intensity of the signals reflected back from imperfections in the fiber. Slight stretching or contracting of the fiber (say, from an) can change the reflected signals.

Based on the pulse’s time of return, you can pinpoint when and where along the cable the disturbance occurred. Because light gets reflected from thousands of imperfection points along fibers, a kilometers-long stretch of cable can act as thousands of seismometers. This means significantly more seismic data, leading to higher resolution, which allows pinpointing the location of smaller seismic activity.

The Caltech researchers have converted preexisting optical cables into a DAS array. Telecom companies usually lay down more fiber than they need, and the research team taps into some of this “dark” unused fiber. With permission from the California Broadband Cooperative, the team set up a DAS transceiver at one end of a length of fiber-optic cable along the border between California and Nevada.

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