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"Nature" Reports on Powerful Carbohydrate Analytics for Sequencing and Quality Control / WITH PRESS PHOTOS A team of researchers from Berlin succeeded in an effort to fundamentally improve carbohydrate analysis. With the new method, developed by Prof. Kevin Pagel (Freie Universität Berlin and Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society) and Prof. Peter Seeberger (Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and Freie Universität Berlin), complex glycans, building blocks of life such as DNA and proteins, can now be sequenced.

Cloaking urban areas and wildfire zones, tiny smoke particles suspended in the atmosphere have a sizeable effect on our climate. response to drought. "The new measurements resolve carbon particles that are of several types, each with its own effect on climate," said project leader Manvendra Dubey of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

LMU chemists have developed novel porous materials called "covalent organic frameworks", which provide a basis for the design of polymeric photocatalysts with tunable physical, chemical and electronic properties. Chemical systems that are capable of generating hydrogen gas by light-activated scission of water molecules (often termed artificial photosynthesis) represent a promising technology for the efficient storage of solar energy.

AUSTIN, Texas -  Inspired by a naturally occurring material found in marine mussels, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have created a new flame retardant to replace commercial additives that are often toxic and can accumulate over time in the environment and living animals, including humans.

A new study found that a nutrient-rich, balanced diet is beneficial to corals during stressful thermal events. The research led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and the Centre Scientifique de Monaco concluded that the particular nutrient balance in seawater is what matters most.

What colour were the animals that roamed the Earth 50 million years ago? For the first time, the original colour of a fossil mammal has been described by scientists from the University of Bristol, UK and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, US. The researchers combined morphological, experimental and chemical techniques to determine the colour of two species of bat, which lived in the Eocene Epoch, 56-33.9 million years ago.

Scientists at the University of Birmingham have discovered evidence of carbonaceous aerosols - organic dust - transported from Asia and deposited in the Arctic over the last 450 years, according to research published today (28th September) Scientific Reports. They have also found that increased levels of dust were being deposited during warmer periods when the Arctic Oscillation - changes in the prevailing wind direction centred on the Atlantic - was at its strongest.

Researchers at Yale have developed a sunscreen that doesn't penetrate the skin, eliminating serious health concerns associated with commercial sunscreens. Most commercial sunblocks are good at preventing sunburn, but they can go below the skin's surface and enter the bloodstream. As a result, they pose possible hormonal side effects and could even be promoting the kind of skin cancers they're designed to prevent.

LMU researchers, together with colleagues based in Berlin, have developed a rapid and efficient technique for targeted chemoenzymatic functionalization of proteins. The new method has a wide range of potential therapeutic applications. Selective intermolecular recognition is at the heart of all biological processes.

An estimated 80,000 chemical substances currently find their way into our environment through industrial and agricultural waste, as well as through food additives, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and personal care products. But even as companies continue to produce new chemical compounds at a rapid clip, toxicologists and state and federal regulators agree that conventional approaches to testing chemical safety have significant limitations.

New Queensland research is indicating that green turtles living near urban and farming areas are absorbing possibly thousands of chemicals. University of Queensland researcher Associate Professor Caroline Gaus said many of the chemicals were associated with industry and agriculture. "There used to be a theory that the ocean was so huge it would dilute contaminants to such an extent that it remained a relatively healthy environment for marine creatures," Dr Gaus said.

Yale University scientists may have cracked a part of the chemical code for one of the most basic, yet mysterious, processes in the natural world - nature's ability to transform nitrogen from the air into usable nitrogen compounds. The process is called nitrogen fixation, and it occurs in microorganisms on the roots of plants.

Researchers have developed a coating technique in the laboratory conditions that could raise the efficiency of fuel cells.

Physical chemistry students given most course content outside of the classroom scored 12% higher on exams than counterparts in more traditional classes where students listened to lectures, a new study by researchers at the Yale Center for Teaching and Learning and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (U-Mass) shows.

A team of researchers based at LMU and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics has developed an infrared laser that can be used to identify and quantify molecules in complex mixtures with high specificity and sensitivity. The new laser system developed at LMU emits ultrashort pulses of infrared light at a repetition rate of 100 million per second.

Mary Scott and Jianwei (John) Miao/UCLA The scientists were able to plot the exact coordinates of nine layers of atoms with a precision of 19 trillionths of a meter. Atoms are the building blocks of all matter on Earth, and the patterns in which they are arranged dictate how strong, conductive or flexible a material will be.

Graham Ladds, lecturer in pharmacology, discusses the controversy around a group of drugs used to treat Type 2 diabetes. We should continue to evaluate and investigate this treatment as new information about its interaction with the body emerges Graham Ladds Nearly all medications have some sort of side effects , some more unpleasant and dangerous than others.

Yale University chemists have created a new process for synthesizing an organic, nitrogen-based compound that inhibits HIV. The process represents a fundamentally different approach to synthesizing alkaloids, which are naturally occurring compounds that contain nitrogen. The new approach uses a set of starting materials that do not require the usual tempering of nitrogen's reactive tendencies.

Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) have figured out how a platinum catalyst works. Its remarkable properties are not just due to the platinum, the iron-oxide substrate beneath also plays a role. Left: Tiny platinum nanoparticles on an iron oxide surface. center: H2 gas leads to trenches in the surface.

Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) have found the size and shape of orchids play a big part in their act of sexual deception to get male wasps to pollinate their flowers. Until now it had been thought many orchids need only produce floral scent, or chemicals that mimic female insect sex pheromones, to deceive male insects into pollinating their flowers.