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Biodegradable shoes meet commercial standards for products needed to help eradicate tons of plastic waste As the world's most popular shoe, flip-flops account for a troubling percentage of plastic waste that ends up in landfills, on seashores and in our oceans. Scientists at the University of California San Diego have spent years working to resolve this problem, and now they have taken a step further toward accomplishing this mission.

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International research team discovers unusual molecular structures The periodic system contains 118 chemical elements. However, only a few of them, such as hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and silicon, are of major importance in our daily lives. But things become really exciting from a chemical point of view when less well-known elements are involved.

Using chemistry and advanced data analysis for mapping demography In a paper recently published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, Dr Saer Samanipour of the Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (HIMS) reports on the chemical analysis of municipal wastewater as a predictor for population socioeconomics.

By Christoph Pelzl Simulations at Graz University of Technology refute earlier theories on long-range charge transfer between organic and inorganic materials. Oliver Hofmann and his research group at the Institute of Solid State Physics at TU Graz are working on the optimization of modern electronics.

A powerful new computational tool to identify the most promising pharmacological compounds and thus allow a much faster "screening". That is what has been developed thanks to the research carried out by Prof. Vittorio Limongelli's group of USI Faculty of Biomedical Sciences in collaboration with Prof. Siewert Marrink's group of University of Groningen (Netherlands).

The giant sarsen stones that form the primary architecture of Stonehenge originate from West Woods on the edge of Wiltshire's Marlborough Downs, according to new research involving UCL. While the smaller 'bluestones' near the centre of the monument have been traced to Wales, the origin of the sarsen stones used to construct Stonehenge around 2,500 BC have remained a mystery for over four centuries.

By Christoph Pelzl "Core-shell" clusters pave the way for new efficient nanomaterials that make catalysts, magnetic and laser sensors or measuring devices for detecting electromagnetic radiation more efficient. Additional can be found at the end of the message Whether in innovative high-tech materials, more powerful computer chips, pharmaceuticals or in the field of renewable energies, nanoparticles - smallest portions of bulk material - form the basis for a whole range of new technological developments.

Biologists have known for some time that RNA interference can silence genes in far-off cells. They suspected that a messenger substance "transmits" RNA interference. Now, ETH researchers have definitively shown that these messengers in plants are short double-stranded RNA fragments. In most organisms, small bits of RNA play a key role in gene regulation by silencing gene expression.

Metal-organic frameworks are highly porous, making them ideal for absorbing gases and liquids. This graphic shows the interior of a MOF based on the metal magnesium (green balls), and has added molecules - tetraamines (blue & gray) - added to the pores to more efficiently absorb carbon dioxide from power plant emissions.

New method for producing thermoset plastics allows them to be broken down more easily after use. Thermosets, which include epoxies, polyurethanes, and rubber used for tires, are found in many products that have to be durable and heat-resistant, such as cars or electrical appliances. One drawback to these materials is that they typically cannot be easily recycled or broken down after use, because the chemical bonds holding them together are stronger than those found in other materials such as thermoplastics.

New battery technology developed at Berkeley Lab could give flight to electric aircraft and supercharge safe, long-range electric cars In the pursuit of a rechargeable battery that can power electric vehicles (EVs) for hundreds of miles on a single charge, scientists have endeavored to replace the graphite anodes currently used in EV batteries with lithium metal anodes.

Fatty acids, the compounds that give a diet rich in leafy greens and fish its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits, are now also heralded for their versatility as raw materials in bioenergy production. Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center scientists are enamored with one particular kind of long chain fatty acid, called furan fatty acid, because it could substitute for petroleum-based products including fuel, engine lubricant, medicines and food additives.

Scientists from the Coordination Chemistry Laboratory and Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems, both of the CNRS, recently developed molecular films that can measure the operating temperature of electronic components on a nanometric scale. These patented temperature-sensitive molecules have the distinctive quality of being extremely stable, even after millions of uses.

They say it's better to have had something special and lost it than to have never had it at all. Who would have thought that sentiment holds true for metal oxide catalysts? According to scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Caltech, copper that was once bound with oxygen is better at converting carbon dioxide into renewable fuels than copper that was never bound to oxygen.

Imperial has co-developed the first synthetic membrane to separate crude oil and crude oil fractions, which could help reduce carbon emissions. Crude oil is refined to create fuels like diesel, petrol and jet fuel, as well as lubricants and plastics. However, the processes used to create these byproducts are a major source of pollutants to the air, water, and soil.

Chemists at the University of Münster develop a bioinspired strategy for the controlled synthesis of polyenes / Study published in "Science" They occur in nature, are reactive and play a role in many biological processes: polyenes. It is no wonder that chemists have for a long time been interested in efficiently constructing these compounds - not least in order to be able to use them for future biomedical applications.

Gels occur everywhere in our everyday life, but the precise way in which they form is not very well understood. Combining experimental observations and numerical models, physicists from the universities of Amsterdam and Cambridge and from Unilever have now shown that gel formation is closely related to another well-known physical process: percolation.

Scientists estimate that the Earth's mantle holds as much water as all the oceans on the planet, but understanding how this water behaves is difficult. Water in the mantle exists under high pressure and at elevated temperatures, extreme conditions that are challenging to recreate in the laboratory. That means many of its physical and chemical properties-relevant to understanding magma production and the Earth's carbon cycle-aren't fully understood.

The Solid Electrolyte Interphase (SEI) inside both lithium-ion and lithium metal batteries is indispensable for successful battery cell operation and at the same time an analytical challenge. Up to now, its analysis has only been possible to a limited extent; knowledge about formation, composition, growth or reactions is incomplete.