news 2008

Chemistry - Physics/Astronomy - 17.05
In chemical reactions, water adds speed without heat
An international team of researchers has discovered how adding trace amounts of water can tremendously speed up chemical reactions-such as hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis-in which hydrogen is one of the reactants, or starting materials.

Chemistry - Life Sciences - 14.05
Microbe That Can Handle Ionic Liquids
In the search for technology by which economically competitive biofuels can be produced from cellulosic biomass, the combination of sugar-fermenting microbes and ionic liquid solvents looks to be a winner save for one major problem: the ionic liquids used to make cellulosic biomass more digestible for microbes can also be toxic to them.

Physics/Astronomy - Chemistry - 8.05
UCLA life scientists unlock mystery of how ’handedness’ arises
The overwhelming majority of proteins and other functional molecules in our bodies display a striking molecular characteristic: They can exist in two distinct forms that are mirror images of each other, like your right hand and left hand.

Life Sciences - Chemistry - 4.05
Separating signal from noise in living cells
A mathematician from the University of Bristol has teamed up with a biologist from the University of Edinburgh to address a major problem in molecular biology.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Chemistry - 26.04
Research breakthrough for drugs via the skin
A research team at Karolinska Institutet has succeeded in describing the structure and function of the outermost layer of the skin - the stratum corneum - at a molecular level. This opens the way not only for the large-scale delivery of drugs via the skin, but also for a deeper understanding of skin diseases.

Chemistry - Environmental Sciences - 25.04
New study sheds light on debate over organic vs. conventional agriculture
Researchers at McGill, Univ. of Minnesota call for combining best of both approaches Can organic agriculture feed the world? Although organic techniques may not be able to do the job alone, they do have an important role to play in feeding a growing global population while minimizing environmental damage, according to researchers at McGill University and the University of Minnesota.

Life Sciences - Chemistry - 22.04
Perfumed plants allure beneficial bacteria to their roots
Perfumed plants allure beneficial bacteria to their roots Scientists have discovered maize crops emit chemical signals to attract growth promoting microbes to their roots which boosts performance and could combat world food shortages.

Earth Sciences - Chemistry - 18.04
Evidence for a geologic trigger of the Cambrian explosion
The oceans teemed with life 600 million years ago, but the simple, soft-bodied creatures would have been hardly recognizable as the ancestors of nearly all animals on Earth today. Then something happened.

Chemistry - Life Sciences - 16.04
Compounds in worms may lead to parasite treatment
Worms are important decomposers in soil and are great for fishing, but in humans, the slimy wrigglers spell trouble. Hookworms, whipworms, Ascaris, Guinea worms and trichina worms are just a few parasitic nematodes that infect some 2 billion people.

Life Sciences - Chemistry - 12.04
Determining a Stem Cell’s Fate
What happens to a stem cell at the molecular level that causes it to become one type of cell rather than another? At what point is it committed to that cell fate, and how does it become committed? The answers to these questions have been largely unknown.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Chemistry - 3.04
Scientists use PET to predict increased survival in cancer patients after first chemo cycle
Researchers from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have found that by administering a PET scan to individuals with soft-tissue sarcomas after just a single cycle of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, they can predict increased survival in these patients.

Chemistry - Earth Sciences - 29.03
Discovery shakes beliefs of Earth to the core
For a century, scientists have assumed that the Earth has same chemical make-up as the sun. But this belief has been challenged by scientists at The Australian National University. Professors Ian Campbell and Hugh O'Neill from the Research School of Earth Sciences at ANU said their research shakes up our understanding of the Earth's chemistry - right to the core.

Physics/Astronomy - Chemistry - 28.03
UC San Diego Physicists Find Patterns in New State of Matter
Physicists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered patterns which underlie the properties of a new state of matter. the scientists describe the emergence of "spontaneous coherence," "spin textures" and "phase singularities" when excitons - the bound pairs of electrons and holes that determine the optical properties of semiconductors and enable them to function as novel optoelectronic devices - are cooled to near absolute zero.

Physics/Astronomy - Chemistry - 21.03
New technique lets scientists peer within nanoparticles, see atomic structure in 3-D
UCLA researchers are now able to peer deep within the world's tiniest structures to create three-dimensional images of individual atoms and their positions. Their research, published March 22 , presents a new method for directly measuring the atomic structure of nanomaterials.

Physics/Astronomy - Chemistry - 20.03
Penn Works With Columbia Engineers to Increase Speed of Single-Molecule Measurements
As nanotechnology becomes ever more ubiquitous, researchers are using it to make medical diagnostics smaller, faster and cheaper in order to better diagnose diseases, learn more about inherited traits and more.