Stanford researchers have devised a way to generate hydrogen fuel using solar power, electrodes and saltwater from San Francisco Bay.
The findings, published March 18 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate a new way of separating hydrogen and...
A famous experiment in 1953 showed that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could have formed spontaneously under the atmospheric conditions of early Earth. However, just because molecules could form doesn't mean that the process was likely. Now,...
A Purdue University physicist has observed a butterfly Rydberg molecule, a weak pairing of two highly excitable atoms that he predicted would exist more than a decade ago.
Rydberg molecules are formed when an electron is kicked far from an...
Many foods produced on an industrial scale include raw ingredients mixed together in enormous stainless steel machines that can be difficult to clean. With repeated use, equipment surfaces get minute scratches and grooves, providing bacteria and biofilms the perfect...
Hypersaline brines—water that contains high concentrations of dissolved salts and whose saline levels are higher than ocean water—are a growing environmental concern around the world. Very challenging and costly to treat, they result from water produced during oil and...
Researchers at the University of Liverpool have unlocked new possibilities for the future development of sustainable, clean bioenergy. The study, published in Nature Communications, shows how bacterial protein 'cages' can be reprogrammed as nanoscale bioreactors for hydrogen production.
The carboxysome is...
With a light-spinning device inspired by the Japanese art of paper cutting, University of Michigan researchers have detected microscopic twists in the internal structure of plant and animal tissue without harmful X-rays.
The approach is the first that can fully...
Harvesting sunlight to make energy is a complex reaction that plants do naturally, but isn't well understood.
A research team led by a Washington State University professor has developed a new tool to study how lipids interact with proteins in...
Ultraviolet light endangers the integrity of human genetic information and may cause skin cancer. For the first time, researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have demonstrated that DNA damage may also occur far away from the point of...
Scientists at the University of Würzburg have chemically modified the enzyme levansucrase using a new method. The enzyme can now produce sugar polymers that are exciting for applications in the food industry and medicine.
Enzymes are tools of nature that...
Researchers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum have discovered why bioelectrodes containing the photosynthesis protein complex photosystem I are not stable in the long term. Such electrodes could be useful for converting light energy into chemical energy in an environmentally friendly...
