In nature, organic molecules are either left- or right-handed, but synthesizing molecules with a specific "handedness" in a lab is hard to do. Make a drug or enzyme with the wrong "handedness," and it just won't work. Now ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jan 10, 2024
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100
In China children are taught to steer clear of this plant. The plant, Thunder god vine (Chinese: 雷公藤), which in China has earned the nickname "Seven Steps to Death," is so poisonous that a person risks death only a ...
Biotechnology
Jan 10, 2024
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17
Be fast, avoid light, and roll through a curvy ramp: This is the recipe for a pioneering experiment proposed by theoretical physicists in a recent paper published in Physical Review Letters. An object evolving in a potential ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 10, 2024
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100
Laser-based absorption spectroscopy is an important method for determining the concentration of gas components in a sample. Modern devices are highly specialized for detecting very specific gases, such as trace gases in the ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 9, 2024
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35
Feldspar is a ubiquitous mineral and makes up about half of the Earth's crust. In the Earth's atmosphere, feldspars play a surprisingly important role. Fine powder carried by air influences cloud formation. Water molecules ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jan 9, 2024
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46
Hold your hands out in front of you, and no matter how you rotate them, it's impossible to superimpose one over the other. Our hands are a perfect example of chirality—a geometric configuration by which an object cannot ...
Soft Matter
Jan 8, 2024
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25
A research team led by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed an optical plasmonic tweezer-controlled Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) platform that utilizes on-and-off control ...
Bio & Medicine
Jan 4, 2024
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1
Proteins are the workhorses of the cell, carrying out functions to keep everything running smoothly. Some proteins work on their own, but in other cases many proteins assemble together to create a complex machine. These proteins ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 3, 2024
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28
Identifying new ways to target proteins involved in human diseases is a priority for many researchers around the world. However, discovering how to alter the function of these proteins can be difficult, especially in live ...
Biochemistry
Jan 2, 2024
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77
Aptamers, nucleic acids capable of selectively binding to viruses, proteins, ions, small molecules, and various other targets, are garnering attention in drug development as potential antibody substitutes for their thermal ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 2, 2024
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