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Archive for the ‘chemistry’ category: Page 109

Aug 31, 2022

Making Computer Chips Act More like Brain Cells

Posted by in categories: biological, chemistry, neuroscience, supercomputing

The human brain is an amazing computing machine. Weighing only three pounds or so, it can process information a thousand times faster than the fastest supercomputer, store a thousand times more information than a powerful laptop, and do it all using no more energy than a 20-watt lightbulb.

Researchers are trying to replicate this success using soft, flexible organic materials that can operate like biological neurons and someday might even be able to interconnect with them. Eventually, soft “neuromorphic” computer chips could be implanted directly into the brain, allowing people to control an artificial arm or a computer monitor simply by thinking about it.

Like real neurons — but unlike conventional computer chips — these new devices can send and receive both chemical and electrical signals. “Your brain works with chemicals, with neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. Our materials are able to interact electrochemically with them,” says Alberto Salleo, a materials scientist at Stanford University who wrote about the potential for organic neuromorphic devices in the 2021 Annual Review of Materials Research.

Aug 31, 2022

Excessive blue light from our gadgets may accelerate the aging process

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, computing, mobile phones, neuroscience

Too much screen use has been linked to obesity and psychological problems. Now a new study has identified a new problem—a study in fruit flies suggests our basic cellular functions could be impacted by the blue light emitted by these devices. These results are published in Frontiers in Aging.

“Excessive exposure to blue light from everyday devices, such as TVs, laptops, and phones, may have detrimental effects on a wide range of cells in our body, from skin and , to ,” said Dr. Jadwiga Giebultowicz, a professor at the Department of Integrative Biology at Oregon State University and senior author of this study. “We are the first to show that the levels of specific metabolites—chemicals that are essential for cells to function correctly—are altered in exposed to blue light.”

“Our study suggests that avoidance of excessive blue light exposure may be a good anti-aging strategy,” advised Giebultowicz.

Aug 31, 2022

Long-wave infrared detector enables non-contact human-machine interaction

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry

The thermal radiation emitted by the human body is predominantly in the long-wave infrared region (8–14 μm), which is characterized by low photon energy and low power intensity.

Recently, a research team led by Associate Prof. Lu Xiaowei, Prof. Jiang Peng and Prof. Bao Xinhe from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) designed a highly sensitive long-wave infrared detector that enables low-power non-contact human-machine interaction.

This study was published in Advanced Materials on July 11.

Aug 30, 2022

Optical detection of multiple bacterial species using nanometer-scaled metal-organic hybrids

Posted by in categories: chemistry, food, nanotechnology, particle physics

Osaka Metropolitan University scientists have developed a simple, rapid method to simultaneously identify multiple food poisoning bacteria, based on color differences in the scattered light by nanometer-scaled organic metal nanohybrid structures (NHs) that bind via antibodies to those bacteria. This method is a promising tool for rapidly detecting bacteria at food manufacturing sites and thereby improving food safety. The findings were published in Analytical Chemistry.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every year food poisoning affects 600 million people worldwide—almost 1 in every 10 people—of which 420,000 die. Bacterial tests are conducted to detect food poisoning bacteria at food manufacturing factories, but it takes more than 48 hours to obtain results due to the time required for a bacteria incubation process called culturing. Therefore, there remains a demand for rapid testing methods to eliminate food poisoning accidents.

Responding to this need, the research team led by Professor Hiroshi Shiigi at the Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka Metropolitan University, utilized the optical properties of organic metal NHs—composites consisting of polyaniline particles that encapsulate a large number of metal nanoparticles—to rapidly and simultaneously identify food poisoning-inducing bacteria called enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (E. coli O26 and E. coli O157) and Staphylococcus aureus.

Aug 30, 2022

Pulses from an atom-sharp tip enable researchers to break and form chemical bonds at will

Posted by in categories: chemistry, particle physics

Chemical reactions often produce messy mixtures of different products. Hence, chemists spend a lot of time coaxing their reactions to be more selective to make particular target molecules. Now, an international team of researchers has achieved that kind of selectivity by delivering voltage pulses to a single molecule through an incredibly sharp tip.

“Controlling the pathway of a chemical reaction, depending on the voltage pulses used, is unprecedented and very alluring to chemists,” says KAUST’s Shadi Fatayer.

The team used an instrument that combines scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and (AFM). Both techniques can map out the positions of atoms within individual molecules using a tip that may be just a few atoms wide. But the voltage can also be used to break bonds within a molecule, potentially allowing new bonds to form.

Aug 28, 2022

Scientists Discover “Superworms” Capable of Munching Through Plastic Waste

Posted by in categories: chemistry, economics

According to the American Chemistry Council, in 2018 in the United States, 27.0 million tons of plastic ended up in landfills compared to just 3.1 million tons that were recycled. Worldwide the numbers are similarly bad, with just 9% of plastic being recycled according to a recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report.

The statistics are even worse for certain types of plastic. For example, out of 80,000 tons of styrofoam (polystyrene.

Polystyrene was discovered by accident in 1,839 by Eduard Simon, an apothecary from Berlin, Germany. As one of the most widely used plastics in the world, polystyrene is used for bottles, containers, packaging, disposable cutlery, packing peanuts, and more. It can be solid or foamed (Styrofoam is a brand name of closed-cell extruded polystyrene foam).

Aug 28, 2022

Simple Gene Circuits Hint at How Stem Cells Differentiate

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, chemistry, mathematics

Mathematical models suggest that with just a few more genes, it might be possible to define hundreds of cellular identities, more than enough to populate the tissues of complex organisms. It’s a finding that opens the door to experiments that could bring us closer to understanding how, eons ago, the system that builds us was built.

The Limits of Mutual Repression

Developmental biologists have illuminated many tipping points and chemical signals that prompt cells to follow one developmental pathway or another by studying natural cells. But researchers in the field of synthetic biology often take another approach, explained Michael Elowitz, a professor of biology and bioengineering at Caltech and an author of the new paper: They build a system of cell-fate control from scratch to see what it can tell us about what such systems require.

Aug 25, 2022

Polymorphism in metal halide perovskites

Posted by in categories: chemistry, engineering

Circa 2020 This shape changing metal discovery can lead us closer to foglet machines.


Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Received 25th August 2020, Accepted 16th November 2020.

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Aug 25, 2022

Why a Group of Scientists Plan to Search for Alien Technology with Avi Loeb

Posted by in categories: alien life, chemistry, information science, robotics/AI

Why we should be performing interstellar archaeology and how Avi Loeb and his team at the Galileo Project plan to recover an interstellar object at the bottom of the ocean.

“Any chemically-propelled spacecraft sent by past civilizations into interstellar space, like the five we had sent so far (Voyager 1 & 2, Pioneer 10 & 11, and New Horizons), remained gravitationally bound to the Milky Way long after these civilizations died. Their characteristic speed of tens of kilometers per second is an order of magnitude smaller than the escape speed out of the Milky Way. These rockets would populate the Milky Way disk and move around at similar speeds to the stars in it.

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Aug 24, 2022

How Vultures Can Eat Rotting Flesh Without Getting Sick

Posted by in category: chemistry

Circa 2014 😗


Vultures’ faces and large intestines are covered with bacteria that is toxic to most other creatures, but these birds of prey have evolved a strong gut that helps them not get sick from feasting on rotting flesh, according to a new study.

In the first analysis of bacteria living on vultures, the study’s researchers found that these scavengers are laden with flesh-degrading Fusobacteria and poisonous Clostridia. As bacteria decompose a dead body, they excrete toxic chemicals that make the carcass a perilous meal for most animals. But vultures often wait for decay to set in, giving them easy access to dead animals with tough skins.