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Gold could be discovered and extracted more quickly and recycled more efficiently, thanks to research into "nugget-producing" bacteria. Professor Gordon Southam from The University of Queensland's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences led the study, which gained insights into gold's biogeochemical cycle.

Gold could be discovered and extracted more quickly and recycled more efficiently, thanks to research into "nugget-producing" bacteria. Professor Gordon Southam from The University of Queensland's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences led the study, which gained insights into gold's biogeochemical cycle.

EPFL scientists have combined 3D-printing with electroplating to easily produce high-quality metal electrodes that can be used as a molecular beam-splitter. Many measurement techniques, such as spectroscopy, benefit from the ability to split a single beam of light into two in order to measure changes in one of them.

It may not seem like a material as thin as an atom could hide any surprises, but a research team led by scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) discovered an unexpected magnetic property in a two-dimensional material. The scientists found that a 2-D van der Waals crystal, part of a class of material whose atomically thin layers can be peeled off one by one with adhesive tape, possessed an intrinsic ferromagnetism.

A common insect larva that eats beeswax has been found to break down chemical bonds in the plastic used for packaging and shopping bags at uniquely high speeds. Scientists say the discovery could lead to a biotechnological approach to the polyethylene waste that chokes oceans and landfills.

Plastic, rubber, and many other useful materials are made of polymers - long chains arranged in a cross-linked network. At the molecular level, these polymer networks contain structural flaws that weaken them. Several years ago, MIT researchers were the first to measure certain types of these defects, called 'loops,' which are caused when a chain in the polymer network binds to itself instead of another chain.

ESA Space in Images The stellar views from the International Space Station are not the only things to take an astronaut's breath away: devices like this are measuring astronauts' breath to determine the health of their lungs. ESA astronaut Tim Peake took part in the Airway Monitoring experiment during his Principia mission in 2016.

The way that nanoparticles behave in the environment is extremely complex. There is currently a lack of systematic experimental data to help understand them comprehensively, as ETH environmental scientists have shown in a large overview study. A more standardised approach would help to advance the research field.

Asphalt does not last forever. At some point, it ages and starts to crumble. This has to do with the bitumen, the sticky binding agent, which holds and keeps the rock content in the asphalt. Bitumen is a petroleum product consisting of several organic components, which undergo a chemical change over time.

Researchers from the Department of Pharmacy & Pharmacology have made an important discovery that might lead to novel therapies to combat chronic inflammation. The work, jointly funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Wellcome Trust, is published in the Journal of Immunology and focuses on so-called danger signals such as reactive oxygen species that are released by damaged or dying cells during wounding or infection, and their impact on the subsequent immune response.

Cornell University researchers have produced for the first time an image of P2X7, a receptor associated with chronic pain. Visualizing the shape of the receptor has also allowed them to make a second groundbreaking discovery: They observed that five painkiller molecules they tested did not bind the receptor at the place they expected, which could explain why these painkillers lack efficacy in human patients.

Berkeley, California, has a reputation for doing things differently, so it seems fitting that the element named after this city would stand out among its peers in some unusual way. Using several spectroscopic techniques, scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) found that the element berkelium breaks form with its heavy element peers by taking on an extra positive charge when bound to a synthetic organic molecule.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded biochemist Ed Hurt a highly endowed ERC Advanced Grant for outstanding research leaders in Europe. The researchers in Prof. Hurt's team want to study the largely unexplored processes that take place in the initial phase of the manufacture of these cellular protein factories.

The ephemeral electron movements in a transient state of a reaction important in biochemical and optoelectronic processes have been captured and, for the first time, directly characterized using ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

For News Media FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  CONTACT: George Huber, gwhuber [at] wisc (p) edu, (608) 263-0346 × A team of chemical and biological engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has found a way to produce from biomass a valuable compound used in plastic production that they estimate could lower the cost of ethanol produced from plant material by more than two dollars per gallon.

ANN ARBOR'A self-healing, water-repellent, spray-on coating developed at the University of Michigan is hundreds of times more durable than its counterparts. It could enable waterproofing of vehicles, clothing, rooftops and countless other surfaces for which current waterproofing treatments are too fragile.

Combining computer science and chemistry, researchers show how an advanced form of machine learning that works off small amounts of data can be used to solve problems in drug discovery. Artificially intelligent algorithms can learn to identify amazingly subtle information, enabling them to distinguish between people in photos or to screen medical images as well as a doctor.

An international team of researchers led by chemists from ETH Zurich have developed a method for depositing single magnetisable atoms onto a surface. This is especially interesting for the development of new miniature data storage devices. The idea is intriguing: if only a single atom or small molecule was needed for a single unit of data (a zero or a one in the case of binary digital technology), massive volumes of data could be stored in the tiniest amount of space.

Recently, astronomers announced the discovery that a star called TRAPPIST-1 is orbited by seven Earth-size planets. Three of the planets reside in the "habitable zone," the region around a star where liquid water is most likely to exist on the surface of a rocky planet. Other potentially habitable worlds have also been discovered in recent years, leaving many people wondering: How do we find out if these planets actually host life?

Using sunlight to drive chemical reactions, such as artificial photosynthesis, could soon become much more efficient thanks to nanomaterials. This is the conclusion of a study published today led by researchers in the Department of Physics at Imperial College London, which could ultimately help improve solar energy technologies and be used for new applications, such as using sunlight to break down harmful chemicals.