http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (Phys.org) —Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulfur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today's electronics. http://phys.org/news289665748.html Chemistry Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:00:03 EST news289665748 Although the double benzene molecule tried to reveal its structure in experiments in 1993, chemists at the time were unable to find an explanation for the spectral peaks they saw. Now, 20 years later, Nijmegen theoretical chemist Prof. Ad van der Avoird has come up with a theory that exactly describes the position of two benzene rings in relation to one another and their possible motion. Together with colleague Prof. Gerard Meijer and an experimental group in Berlin, he will publish the model in a 'Very Important Paper' in Angewandte Chemie International Edition on April 15. http://phys.org/news285322770.html Chemistry Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:19:46 EST news285322770 A team of Virginia Tech researchers has discovered a way to extract large quantities of hydrogen from any plant, a breakthrough that has the potential to bring a low-cost, environmentally friendly fuel source to the world. http://phys.org/news284232231.html Chemistry Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:23:59 EST news284232231 (Phys.org)—The adsorption of ions in microporous materials governs the operation of technologies as diverse as water desalination, energy storage, sensing and mechanical actuation. Until now, however, researchers attempting to improve the performance of these technologies haven't been able to directly and unambiguously identify how factors such as pore size, pore surface chemistry and electrolyte properties affect the concentration of ions in these materials as a function of the applied potential. http://phys.org/news281259376.html Physics Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:36:37 EST news281259376 It would be a terrible thing if laboratories striving to grow graphene from carbon atoms kept winding up with big pesky diamonds. http://phys.org/news278852902.html Nanotechnology Thu, 31 Jan 2013 11:20:01 EST news278852902 (Phys.org)—Researchers employing a century-old observational technique have determined the precise configuration of humulones, substances derived from hops that give beer its distinctive flavor. http://phys.org/news278686996.html Chemistry Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:03:26 EST news278686996 Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found an easier way to perform one of the most fundamental tasks in molecular biology. Their new method allows scientists to add a marker to certain cells, so that these cells may be easily located and/or selected out from a larger cell population. http://phys.org/news276878224.html Chemistry Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:37:11 EST news276878224 (Phys.org)—Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed an ultrasensitive method for detecting sugar molecules – or glycans – coming from living organisms, a breakthrough that will make possible a more detailed understanding of cellular functions than either genetic or proteomic (the study of proteins) information can provide. The researchers hope the new technique will revolutionize the study of glycans, which has been hampered by an inability to easily detect and identify minute quantities of these molecules. http://phys.org/news270991315.html Chemistry Thu, 01 Nov 2012 12:22:07 EST news270991315 For the first time, an assembly of thousands of nano-machines capable of producing a coordinated contraction movement extending up to around ten micrometers, like the movements of muscular fibers, has been synthesized by a CNRS team from the Institut Charles Sadron. This innovative work, headed by Nicolas Giuseppone, professor at the Université de Strasbourg, and involving researchers from the Laboratoire de Matière et Systèmes Complexes (CNRS/Université Paris Diderot), provides an experimental validation of a biomimetic approach that has been conceptualized for some years in the field of nanosciences. http://phys.org/news270227495.html Nanotechnology Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:12:24 EST news270227495 (Phys.org)—Excitement around the potential for targeted nanoparticles (NPs) that can be controlled by stimulus outside of the body for cancer therapy has been growing over the past few years. More specifically, there has been considerable attention around near-infrared (NIR) light as an ideal method to stimulate nanoparticles from outside the body. NIR is minimally absorbed by skin and tissue, has the ability to penetrate deep tissue in a noninvasive way and the energy from NIR light can be converted to heat by gold nanomaterials for effective thermal ablation of diseased tissue. http://phys.org/news269794843.html Nanotechnology Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:00:52 EST news269794843 (Phys.org)—Platinum works well as a catalyst in hydrogen fuel cells, but it has at least two drawbacks: It is expensive, and it degrades over time. Brown chemists have engineered a cheaper and more durable catalyst using graphene, cobalt, and cobalt-oxide—the best nonplatinum catalyst yet. Their report appears in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. http://phys.org/news269672823.html Chemistry Wed, 17 Oct 2012 06:07:10 EST news269672823 The latest advance in solid-state nanopore sensors – devices that are made with standard tools of the semiconductor industry yet can offer single-molecule sensitivity for label-free protein screening – expands their bag of tricks through bionanotechnology. Researchers at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen have enhanced the capabilities of solid-state nanopores by fitting them with cover plates made of DNA. These nanoscale cover plates, with central apertures tailored to various "gatekeeper" functions, are formed by so-called DNA origami – the art of programming strands of DNA to fold into custom-designed structures with specified chemical properties. http://phys.org/news254023144.html Nanotechnology Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:59:34 EST news254023144 By combining a nanoparticle that is readily visible in X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans with a molecule that targets tumor lymph vessels and other tumor tissues, a research team from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute has developed a new imaging agent that provides high-fidelity CT images of tumors and their edges. This work, led by Michael Sailor of UCSD and Erkki Ruoslahti of the Burnham Institute, was published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. http://phys.org/news246272987.html Nanotechnology Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:50:01 EST news246272987 Banana, mango or apricot - telling these smells apart is no problem for the human nose. How the olfactory organ distinguishes such similar smells has been uncovered by an interdisciplinary team of German researchers at the RUB. http://phys.org/news242993741.html Chemistry Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:15:51 EST news242993741 (PhysOrg.com) -- Rice University chemists have found a way to load more than 2 million tiny gold particles called nanorods into a single cancer cell. The breakthrough could speed development of cancer treatments that would use nanorods like tiny heating elements to cook tumors from the inside. http://phys.org/news240659274.html Nanotechnology Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:48:07 EST news240659274 (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Michigan colleagues Adam Matzger and Onas Bolto have devised a means for making the transport and use of the highly explosive material CL-20 more stable. They describe in their paper published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, how mixing it in just the right way with TNT, creates something called a cocrystal that can be transported relatively safely. http://phys.org/news234780859.html Chemistry Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:30:03 EST news234780859 A Los Alamos National Laboratory research team has harnessed neutrons to view for the first time the critical role that an elusive molecule plays in certain biological reactions. The effort could aid in treatment of peptic ulcers or acid reflux disease, or allow for more efficient conversion of woody waste into transportation fuels. http://phys.org/news232025599.html Chemistry Mon, 08 Aug 2011 12:34:14 EST news232025599 (PhysOrg.com) -- You can't see them, or smell them or taste them. They can be in our water and in our food, multiplying so rapidly that conventional testing methods for detecting pathogens such as E.coli, salmonella and listeria come too late for the tens of thousands of Canadians who suffer the ill effects of these deadly bacteria. http://phys.org/news221813332.html Chemistry Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:49:06 EST news221813332 (PhysOrg.com) -- A material’s properties are a critical factor in the way that material can be used for practical applications. Magnetism is one such property, and magnetic switches are key components for advances in data storage and for displays in computers and cell phones. These properties are normally adjusted (or "tuned") by changing the "recipe" during preparation. http://phys.org/news210584725.html Physics Fri, 03 Dec 2010 08:50:01 EST news210584725 (PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of researchers has discovered a new class of highly electronegative chemical species called hyperhalogens, which use superhalogens as building blocks around a metal atom. The new chemical species may have application in many industries. http://phys.org/news205769219.html Chemistry Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:09:29 EST news205769219