News 2019

Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered a new genetic defect which causes a form of intellectual disability; a finding that will improve screening programmes and help to end a 'diagnostic odyssey' for families across the globe. 'X-linked syndromal intellectual disability' (XLID) affects around 3% of the global population with underlying genetic mutations being carried and passed on by unaffected females via their X-chromosome (human females possess two copies of the X chromosome, while males only have one).

New process makes the production of pharmaceuticals more efficient and sustainable. In the near future, fossil raw materials can be replaced in the production of two important anticancer drugs. An interuniversity team with researchers from UAntwerp and KU Leuven developed a process that starts from ..

The first-of-its-kind nanogenerator designed by UCLA researchers and colleagues also acts as a weather station Stuart Wolpert UCLA researchers and colleagues have designed a new device that creates electricity from falling snow. The first of its kind, this device is inexpensive, small, thin and flexible like a sheet of plastic.

The molecule responsible for the cork taste in wine can now be clearly detected: With the newly developed sensor, the most common wine defect can already be detected in traces. Other potential applications include the detection of pesticides and explosives. This is shown in a recently published study by researchers at the University of Freiburg with the support of the University of Bordeaux.

Like humans and animals, plants defend themselves against pathogens with the help of their immune system. But how do they activate their cellular defenses' Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now discovered that receptors in plant cells identify bacteria through simple molecular building blocks.

Share This Article Electrons accelerated by SLAC's linear accelerator enter the LCLS undulator hall and run a gauntlet of 32 powerful undulators. Each undulator contains 224 magnets whose alternating poles force the electrons to zigzag violently and radiate X-rays. By the time they leave the undulator hall, the X-ray laser pulses are a billion times brighter than beams from traditional synchrotron X-ray sources, opening a new realm of possible experiments and discoveries.

Could turning the periodic table on its head make some important aspects easier to understand and enthuse more people to study chemistry? This question is posed in an article published today by chemists and psychologists at the University of Nottingham and Manchester and Liverpool universities. 2019 marks the 150 th anniversary of the first publication of Mendeleev's periodic table, which has become the accepted way of arranging the elements and of predicting new ones - but is there a better way of presenting this information for a new and in particular a young audience?

A promising alternative to conventional power plants, solid oxide fuel cells use electrochemical methods that can generate power more efficiently than existing combustion-based generators. But fuel cells tend to degrade too quickly, eating up any efficiency gains through increased cost. Now, in an advance that could help lead the way toward longer-lived green energy devices, engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have revealed new insights about the chemical reactions that power fuel cells.

Chemical engineers at EPFL have synthesized a biologically-derived metal-organic framework on which the hydrogen bonding that forms the DNA double helix can be mimicked and studied like never before.

By Christoph Pelzl Researchers at TU Graz describe the effects which occur upon evaporation of vanadium compounds in Chemical Science. Improvements for the development of SCR catalysts may be based on their results. Researchers at the Institute of Experimental Physics at TU Graz have investigated the detailed structure and thermodynamic behaviour of nano-cluster structures since 2012.

Human cells have a sophisticated regulatory system at their disposal: labeling proteins with the small molecule ubiquitin. In a first, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has succeeded in marking proteins with ubiquitin in a targeted manner, in test tubes as well as in living cells.

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and ETH Zurich have discovered a special phenomenon of magnetism in the nano range. It enables magnets to be assembled in unusual configurations. This could be used to build computer memories and switches to increase the performance of microprocessors. The results of the work have now been published in the journal Science .

In toothpaste, Teflon, LEDs and medications, it shows its sunny side - but elemental fluorine is extremely aggressive and highly toxic. Attempts to determine the crystal structure of solid fluorine using X-rays ended with explosions 50 years ago. A research team has now clarified the actual structure of the fluorine using neutrons from the Heinz Maier Leibnitz Research Neutron Source (FRM II).

As air quality improves, the invisible chemistry happening in the air around us is changing. Skies should clear up as emissions drop, but recent results suggested that declining nitrogen oxides can create an environment where airborne carbon-containing compounds more easily convert into small particles that harm human health.

How did bioscience engineers at KU Leuven manage to convert water vapour directly into hydrogen gas, with record efficiency? And does their hydrogen panel signal the end of fossil fuels' We asked Johan Martens and Tom Bosserez from the Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis for the answers. Professor Johan Martens and his team have had some pretty hectic weeks.

03/22/2019 Direct coupling of two molecules of nitrogen: chemists from Würzburg and Frankfurt have achieved what was thought to be impossible. This new reaction is reported and opens new possibilities for one of the most inert molecules on earth. Constituting over 78 % of the air we breathe, nitrogen is the element found the most often in its pure form on earth.

Researchers from the University of Washington and Microsoft have demonstrated the first fully automated system to store and retrieve data in manufactured DNA - a key step in moving the technology out of the research lab and into commercial data centers. In a simple proof-of-concept test, the team successfully encoded the word "hello" in snippets of fabricated DNA and converted it back to digital data using a fully automated end-to-end system, which is described in a new paper published March 21 in Nature Scientific Reports.

Ofer Levy '88, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children's Hospital, can trace his lifelong interest in infectious diseases to the research he did at Yale under the mentorship of I. George Miller, Jr. , the John F. Enders Professor of Pediatrics.

In order for the heart to work properly, it must exert muscular force. This involves the coordinated contraction of numerous sarcomeres, the smallest contractile units of heart muscle. Muscle contraction is brought about by the activity of conventional motor proteins, which pull on thin filaments to shorten sarcomeres.