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Press Release from Umeå University The structure of graphite oxide surprisingly expands when cooled in methanol or ethanol. Also, graphite oxide selectively absorbs methanol from water-methanol mixtures. Two new studies by physicists at Umeå University in Sweden, published in ACS Nano and J. Phys.

New technique pinpoints protein locations, helping scientists figure out their functions. To get a clear picture of what's happening inside a cell, scientists need to know the locations of thousands of proteins and other molecules. MIT chemists have now developed a technique that can tag all of the proteins in a particular region of a cell, allowing them to more accurately map those proteins.

Two unusual space rocks that survived their fiery falls through Earth's atmosphere have ended up in the Urey Hall chemistry laboratory of Mark Thiemens, whose group identified one as a new class of Martian meteorite that likely originated from the Red Planet's crust. "This meteorite is extremely interesting because it suggests that what we knew about the composition of Mars and how it came to be needs a major adjustment," said Thiemens, dean of the Division of Physical Sciences and a professor of chemistry and biochemistry.

Using the unique capabilities of ESA's Herschel space observatory, astronomers have accurately 'weighed' a star's disc, finding it still has enough mass to spawn 50 Jupiter-sized planets, several million years after most other stars have already given birth. Proto-planetary discs contain all the raw ingredients for building planets.

To learn how something works in biology, it pays to start really small. Take this research for example: A team that includes Berkeley Lab scientists has identified and mapped the locations of many of the proteins that compose a hair bundle, which is an organelle that sprouts from hair cells in the inner ear.

Wear is a fact of life. As surfaces rub against one another, they break down and lose their original shape. With less material to start with and functionality that often depends critically on shape and surface structure, wear affects nanoscale objects more strongly than it does their macroscale counterparts.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Sight would dramatically alter a blind man's understanding of an elephant, according to the old story. Now, a look directly at a cell surface is changing our understanding of cell membrane organization. Using a completely new approach to imaging cell membranes, a study by researchers from the University of Illinois, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the National Institutes of Health revealed some surprising relationships among molecules within cell membranes.

Molecular vibrations, rather than molecular shape, give substances their distinct smell according to a new study by UCL scientists. In a study designed to find out how smell is written into a molecule's structure, scientists tested whether changing how a molecule vibrates on a nano-scale changes its smell.

Posted under: Engineering , News Releases , Research , Science , Technology , Uncategorized At the heart of computing are tiny crystals that transmit and store digital information's ones and zeroes. Today these are hard and brittle materials. But cheap, flexible, nontoxic organic molecules may play a role in the future of hardware.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. While working out the structure of a cell-killing protein produced by some strains of the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis , researchers stumbled on a bit of unusual biochemistry. They found that a single enzyme helps form distinctly different, three-dimensional ring structures in the protein, one of which had never been observed before.

When it comes to high-temperature superconductors, a class of materials called cuprates is king, and it is science's ongoing quest to determine their exact physical subtleties. Cornell physicists and materials scientists have now verified that cuprates respond differently when adding electrons versus removing them, resolving a central issue about the compounds' most fundamental properties.

Safety fears about carbon nanotubes, due to their structural similarity to asbestos, have been alleviated following research showing that reducing their length removes their toxic properties. In a new study, published today in the journal Angewandte Chemie, evidence is provided that the asbestos-like reactivity and pathogenicity reported for long, pristine nanotubes can be completely alleviated if their surface is modified and their effective length is reduced as a result of chemical treatment.

Scientists at the Universities of Leeds and York have discovered that the majority of ozone-depleting iodine oxide observed over the remote ocean comes from a previously unknown marine source. The research team found that the principal source of iodine oxide can be explained by emissions of hypoiodous acid (HOI) – a gas not yet considered as being released from the ocean – along with a contribution from molecular iodine (I2).

It is generally appreciated that frogs and salamanders have remarkable regenerative capacities, in contrast to mammals, including humans. For example, if a tadpole loses its tail a new one will regenerate within a week. For several years Enrique Amaya and his team at The Healing Foundation Centre in the Faculty of Life Sciences have been trying to better understand the regeneration process, in the hope of eventually using this information to find new therapies that will improve the ability of humans to heal and regenerate better.

Writing , the scientists, working with colleagues from Aix-Marseille University , have created a device which potentially can see one molecule though a simple optical system and can analyse its components within minutes. This uses plasmonics - the study of vibrations of electrons in different materials.

A very special clock that can measure time on the basis of the mass of a single atomic or even subatomic particle holds promise not only for ultraprecise measurements of mass and time, but also for such exotic applications as testing Einstein's general theory of relativity, or the effects of gravity on antimatter.

Its ability to identify the composition of the scanned object could radically improve security screening at airports, medical imaging, aircraft maintenance, industrial inspection and geophysical exploration. The X-Ray system developed by Robert Cernik and colleagues from The School of Materials can identify chemicals and compounds such as cocaine, semtex, precious metals or radioactive materials even when they're contained inside a relatively large object like a suitcase.

Conventional wisdom holds that genes determine the shape and structure (morphology) of animals, but something else may be at play. A new study shows that a roundworm ( P. pacificus) regulates its offspring's morphology by using a potent cocktail of small-molecule signals. Exposure to trace quantities of these chemically unusual molecules can turn genetically identical juveniles into very different types of adults.

Scientists have identified molecular signals that control whether embryos are accepted by the womb, and that appear to function abnormally in women who have suffered repeated miscarriages. The research, carried out at Imperial College London and the University of Warwick , suggests these signals could be targets for drugs that would help prevent miscarriage in women who are particularly vulnerable.

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified two molecules that play an important role in the survival and production of nerve cells in the brain, including nerve cells that produce dopamine. The discovery, which is published Chemical Biology, may be significant in the long term for the treatment of several diseases, such as Parkinson's disease.