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Category: chemistry – Page 2

A new route to synthesize multiple functionalized carbon nanohoops

The field of nanomaterials is witnessing a transformative shift at the intersection of organic chemistry and molecular engineering. Among the most promising molecular structures are carbon nanohoops, of which [n]cycloparaphenylenes ([n]CPPs) are a representative example.

These ring-shaped structures represent the smallest possible slices of carbon nanotubes, which themselves are a widely renowned material of the 21st century.

Given that their structures can, in principle, be precisely tuned at the atomic level, nanohoops hold great potential as molecular components for next-generation optoelectronic devices, including high-resolution displays, photonic circuits, and responsive sensing materials.

When scientists build nanoscale architecture to solve textile and pharmaceutical industry challenges

Scientists from the CSIR-Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI), Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the S N Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences have collaborated to develop a new class of highly precise filtration membranes.

Ultra-precise “POMbranes” sieve out larger molecules (red) while allowing only 1-nanometer-sized species (green) to pass through its pores, enabling sharp molecular sorting. (Image: Central Salt and Marine Chemical Research Institute)

Imperfect Turing patterns: Diffusiophoretic assembly of hard spheres via reaction-diffusion instabilities

Natural patterns are rarely perfect. We couple classical Turing patterns in chemical gradients to cell motion via diffusiophoresis, showing that this interplay naturally yields textured and multiscale patterns. The patterns are dependent on parameters such as cell size distribution, Péclet number, volume fraction, and cell-cell interactions. These insights bridge idealized theory with real systems and point to routes for programmable materials, surfaces, and soft robotics.

Watching atoms roam before they decay

Together with an international team, researchers from the Molecular Physics Department at the Fritz Haber Institute have revealed how atoms rearrange themselves before releasing low-energy electrons in a decay process initiated by X-ray irradiation. For the first time, they have gained detailed insights into the timing of the process—shedding light on related radiation damage mechanisms. Their research is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

High-energy radiation, for example in the X-ray range, can cause damage to our cells. This is because energetic radiation can excite atoms and molecules, which then often decay—meaning that biomolecules are destroyed and larger biological units can lose their function. There is a wide variety of such decay processes, and studying them is of great interest in order to better understand and avert radiation damage.

In the study, researchers from the Molecular Physics Department, together with international partners, investigated a radiation-induced decay process that plays a key role in radiation chemistry and biological damage processes: electron-transfer-mediated decay (ETMD). In this process, one atom is excited by irradiation. Afterward, this atom relaxes by stealing an electron from a neighbor, while the released energy ionizes yet another nearby atom.

Recently, variable length dystrophin constructs have been characterized in models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)

Here, Hichem Tasfaout & team describe a new method for using proteomics to evaluate the efficacy of three dystrophin-replacement approaches using AAV vectors.

1Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, University of Minnesota — Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

2Department of Neurology.

3Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Specialized Research Center, and.

4Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, USA.

Enzyme as Maxwell’s Demon: Steady-State Deviation from Chemical Equilibrium by Enhanced Enzyme Diffusion

NoteL This is elegant theoretical physics showing an intriguing possibility, not a confirmed biological mechanism. It’s a “what if” scenario that could change how we view enzymes, but only if the controversial premise (EED) turns out to be real.

Enhanced enzyme diffusion (EED), in which the diffusion coefficient of an enzyme transiently increases during catalysis, has been extensively reported experimentally, although its existence remains under debate. In this Letter, we investigate what macroscopic consequences would arise if EED exists. Through numerical simulations and theoretical analysis, we demonstrate that such enzymes can act as Maxwell’s demons: They use their enhanced diffusion as a memory of the previous catalytic reaction, to gain information and drive steady-state chemical concentrations away from chemical equilibrium. Our theoretical analysis identifies the conditions under which this process could operate and discusses its possible biological relevance.

Scientists just overturned a 100-year-old rule of chemistry, and the results are “impossible”

Chemists at UCLA are showing that some of organic chemistry’s most famous “rules” aren’t as unbreakable as once thought. By creating bizarre, cage-shaped molecules with warped double bonds—structures long considered impossible—the team is opening the door to entirely new kinds of chemistry.

Off-the-shelf kitchen chemistry could make Li–S batteries thinner

Demand is booming for batteries that are faster, thinner and cheaper. We want electric cars and bikes that travel further, devices that last longer, charge quicker and cost less. Today, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) set the benchmark. But after decades of research, this technology is approaching its limits, and each new gain is harder to achieve.

Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries are a promising next-generation technology. They store far more energy than LIBs by weight and are made from cheap, readily available materials.

But here’s the catch. Current Li–S batteries take up around 1.5 to 2.0 times more space than LIBs. In other words, their volumetric capacities are much lower. That’s a serious bottleneck because in many real-world applications, space matters more than weight. From portable electronics, electric vehicles to aerospace systems, every inch of space matters.

Biology-based brain model matches animals in learning, enables new discovery

A new computational model of the brain based closely on its biology and physiology not only learned a simple visual category learning task exactly as well as lab animals, but even enabled the discovery of counterintuitive activity by a group of neurons that researchers working with animals to perform the same task had not noticed in their data before, says a team of scientists at Dartmouth College, MIT, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Notably, the model produced these achievements without ever being trained on any data from animal experiments. Instead, it was built from scratch to faithfully represent how neurons connect into circuits and then communicate electrically and chemically across broader brain regions to produce cognition and behavior. Then, when the research team asked the model to perform the same task that they had previously performed with the animals (looking at patterns of dots and deciding which of two broader categories they fit), it produced highly similar neural activity and behavioral results, acquiring the skill with almost exactly the same erratic progress.

“It’s just producing new simulated plots of brain activity that then only afterward are being compared to the lab animals. The fact that they match up as strikingly as they do is kind of shocking,” says Richard Granger, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth and senior author of a new study in Nature Communications that describes the model.

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