Selenium might hold key to mystery of crib-biting in horses
Crib-biting in horses – a distressing compulsive disorder – might be related to a lack of trace element selenium in their diets, according to new research.
Crib-biting in horses – a distressing compulsive disorder – might be related to a lack of trace element selenium in their diets, according to new research.
Plants & Animals
Nov 14, 2017
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A Loughborough University Ph.D. student has helped shed light on a solar panel puzzle that could lead to more efficient devices being developed.
Energy & Green Tech
May 14, 2019
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A new Duke University study has found high levels of selenium in fish in three North Carolina lakes receiving power plants' coal ash waste.
Environment
Feb 7, 2017
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1190
(Phys.org)—Scientists have discovered that a solar cell consisting of two or three layers of quantum dots, with each layer tuned to a different part of the solar spectrum, has an efficiency that is 40-60% higher than the ...
Throughout the past 600 million years there have been five major mass extinction events that devastated life on Earth. While some of these events are very well studied, such as the killer asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 5, 2015
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77
(PhysOrg.com) -- Superconductivity is a rare physical state in which matter is able to conduct electricity -- maintain a flow of electrons -- without any resistance. This phenomenon can only be found in certain materials ...
Superconductivity
Feb 22, 2012
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Thermoelectric materials can be used to turn waste heat into electricity or to provide refrigeration without any liquid coolants, and a research team from the University of Michigan has found a way to nearly double the efficiency ...
Nanomaterials
May 5, 2013
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Solar cells based on cadmium and tellurium could move closer to theoretical levels of efficiency because of some sleuthing by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Energy & Green Tech
Aug 3, 2016
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331
Call it the anti-sunscreen. That's more or less the description of what many solar energy researchers would like to find -- light-catching substances that could be added to photovoltaic materials in order to convert more ...
Nanomaterials
Aug 3, 2010
6
1
Selenium is an essential micronutrient obtained from dietary sources such as cereals. The selenium content of foodstuffs largely depends on concentrations in the soil: previous studies have shown that low selenium concentrations ...
Environment
Feb 20, 2017
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348
Selenium (pronounced /səˈliːniəm/) is a chemical element with the atomic number 34, represented by the chemical symbol Se, an atomic mass of 78.96. It is a nonmetal, chemically related to sulfur and tellurium, and rarely occurs in its elemental state in nature.
Isolated selenium occurs in several different forms, the most stable of which is a dense purplish-gray semi-metal (semiconductor) form that is structurally a trigonal polymer chain. It conducts electricity better in the light than in the dark, and is used in photocells (see allotropes section below). Selenium also exists in many non-conductive forms: a black glass-like allotrope, as well as several red crystalline forms built of eight-membered ring molecules, like its lighter chemical cousin sulfur.
Selenium is found in economic quantities in sulfide ores such as pyrite, partially replacing the sulfur in the ore matrix. Minerals that are selenide or selenate compounds are also known, but all are rare. The chief commercial present uses for selenium are in glassmaking and in chemicals and pigments. Electronic uses for selenium, once important, have been supplanted by silicon semiconductor devices.
Selenium salts are toxic in large amounts, but trace amounts of the element are necessary for cellular function in most, if not all, animals, forming the active center of the enzymes glutathione peroxidase and thioredoxin reductase (which indirectly reduce certain oxidized molecules in animals and some plants) and three known deiodinase enzymes (which convert one thyroid hormone to another). Selenium requirements in plants differ by species, with some plants apparently requiring none.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA