Study could help improve nuclear waste repositories

(Phys.org) —Here's the question faced by a team of Sandia National Laboratories researchers: How fast will iodine-129 released from spent nuclear fuel move through a deep, clay-based geological repository?

Salk scientists add new bond to protein engineering toolbox

Proteins are the workhorses of cells, adopting conformations that allow them to set off chemical reactions, send signals and transport materials. But when a scientist is designing a new drug, trying to visualize the processes ...

Tiny tweezers allow precision control of enzymes

Tweezers are a handy instrument when it comes to removing a splinter or plucking an eyebrow. In new research, Hao Yan and his colleagues at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute describe a pair of tweezers shrunk ...

Tiny nanocubes help scientists tell left from right

(Phys.org) —In chemical reactions, left and right can make a big difference. A "left-handed" molecule of a particular chemical composition could be an effective drug, while its mirror-image "right-handed" counterpart could ...

Ancient Earth crust stored in deep mantle

Scientists have long believed that lava erupted from certain oceanic volcanoes contains materials from the early Earth's crust. But decisive evidence for this phenomenon has proven elusive. New research from a team including ...

Random walks on DNA

Scientists have revealed how a bacterial enzyme has evolved an energy-efficient method to move long distances along DNA. The findings, published in Science, present further insight into the coupling of chemical and mechanical ...

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