New process transforms wood, crop waste into valuable chemicals

Scientists today disclosed a new method to convert lignin, a biomass waste product, into simple chemicals. The innovation is an important step toward replacing petroleum-based fuels and chemicals with biorenewable materials, ...

Caged blue mussels as environmental detectives

Two researchers in a boat loaded with thousands of blue mussels, collected from a mussel farm in Lillesand. The boat heads out the Kristiansand fjord, and the researchers deploy the blue mussels in the sea. Why are they doing ...

New catalyst to create chemical building blocks from biomass

University of Tokyo researchers have developed a novel selective catalyst that allows the creation of several basic chemicals from biomass instead of petroleum. This discovery may lead to the use of plant biomass as a basic ...

Is underground transit worse for your health?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 90 percent of the 4.5 million workers in the Los Angeles area spend an average of 60 minutes each day commuting on a roadway or railway. When USC researchers from the Viterbi School ...

Did comet impacts jump-start life on Earth?

Comets screaming through the atmosphere of early Earth at tens of thousands of miles per hour likely contained measurable amounts of protein-forming amino acids. Upon impact, these amino acids self-assembled into significantly ...

Scientists help unravel life's cosmic beginnings

Knowledge about the early forms of life in the universe that may have led to the development of life on Earth remains largely unknown. However, a group of scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa are attempting ...

page 10 from 31