The findings provide insight into the chemical processes taking place on Mars and will help aid future quests for evidence of ancient or modern Martian life.
Carbon in some Martian meteorites came from Mars but not from life on Mars, according to new research from an international team that includes a University of Arizona geoscientist.
Molecules containing large chains of carbon and hydrogen – the building blocks of all life on Earth – have been the targets of missions to Mars from Viking to the present day.
Scientists have disagreed about how the organic carbon found in meteorites from Mars was formed and whether or not it came from Mars. (more…)
University research advance inspired by UD Nobel Prize winner Richard Heck
A chemical reaction reported by University of Delaware assistant professor Donald Watson and his laboratory group has set the chemistry world abuzz for its creativity and potential utility.
Watson and his team in the UD Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry have developed a chemical reaction that converts carbon-hydrogen bonds to carbon-silicon bonds using the metal palladium as a catalyst, yielding an important new tool for building molecules. The potential industrial applications are broad, ranging from the manufacture of medicines to plastics. (more…)
PASADENA, Calif. – Drastic reductions in Arctic sea ice in the last decade may be intensifying the chemical release of bromine into the atmosphere, resulting in ground-level ozone depletion and the deposit of toxic mercury in the Arctic, according to a new NASA-led study.
The connection between changes in the Arctic Ocean’s ice cover and bromine chemical processes is determined by the interaction between the salt in sea ice, frigid temperatures and sunlight. When these mix, the salty ice releases bromine into the air and starts a cascade of chemical reactions called a “bromine explosion.” These reactions rapidly create more molecules of bromine monoxide in the atmosphere. Bromine then reacts with a gaseous form of mercury, turning it into a pollutant that falls to Earth’s surface. (more…)
Physicists at Yale University have taken another significant step in the development of quantum computing, a new frontier in computing that promises exponentially faster information processing than the most sophisticated computers of today.
In research published online this month in the journal Nature, the Yale physicists demonstrate the most basic form of quantum error correction — a way to compensate for quantum computing’s intrinsic susceptibility to errors. Developing technology to correct these errors on the fly is a necessary step for fully realizing quantum computers. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Imagine if doctors could spot Parkinson’s disease at its inception and treat the protein that triggers it before the disease can sicken the patient.
A team of researchers led by Basir Ahmad, a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University, has demonstrated that slow-wriggling alpha-synuclein proteins are the cause of aggregation, or clumping together, which is the first step of Parkinson’s. The results are published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)
*Berkeley Lab scientists push chemistry to the edge, testing plans for a new generation of light sources*
For Ali Belkacem of Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division, “What is chemistry?” is not a rhetorical question.
“Chemistry is inherently dynamical,” he answers. “That means, to make inroads in understanding – and ultimately control – we have to understand how atoms combine to form molecules; how electrons and nuclei couple; how molecules interact, react, and transform; how electrical charges flow; and how different forms of energy move within a molecule or across molecular boundaries.” The list ends with a final and most important question: “How do all these things behave in a correlated way, ‘dynamically’ in time and space, both at the electron and atomic levels?” (more…)
*Proprotein convertases are enzymes that activate many essential proteins, but they are also implicated in many processes that cause disease. In a research review in the New England Journal of Medicine, Andrew Artenstein and Steven Opal argue that proprotein convertases are potentially rich targets for developing therapies.*
Most people have never heard of proprotein convertases, but the enzymes activate many proteins that are essential for life. Unfortunately, their fundamental role puts them in the middle of many processes that cause disease – not just cancer or athlerosclerosis, but both of those and Alzheimer’s and anthrax and the flu and an amazing variety of other maladies.
In a research review article appearing Dec. 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine, Andrew Artenstein, physician-in-chief in the Department of Medicine at Memorial Hospital, and Steven Opal, chief of infectious diseases at Memorial Hospital, argue that proprotein convertases (PCs) are potentially rich targets for developing therapies. Artenstein, who with Opal is on the faculty of the Warren Alpert School of Medicine, explained PCs to David Orenstein. (more…)
Researchers from North Carolina State University, Sandia National Laboratories, and the University of California, San Diego have developed new technology that uses microneedles to allow doctors to detect real-time chemical changes in the body – and to continuously do so for an extended period of time.
“We’ve loaded the hollow channels within microneedles with electrochemical sensors that can be used to detect specific molecules or pH levels,” says Dr. Roger Narayan, co-author of a paper describing the research, and a professor in the joint biomedical engineering department of NC State’s College of Engineering and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (more…)
