Achromatium oxaliferum containing large calcite bodies, small sulfur droplets and green-fluorescing DNA spots.
Credit: Heribert Cypionka
Achromatium oxaliferum is the largest (known) freshwater bacterium in the world. It is 30,000 times larger than its "normal" counterparts that live in water and...
How life arose from non-living chemicals more than 3.5 billion years ago on Earth is a still-unanswered question. The RNA world hypothesis assumes that RNA biomolecules were key players during this time as they carry genetic information and act...
As a non-noble metal, copper oxidizes more easily to a positive valence (Cu+ or Cu2+) than same-family elements Au or Ag. In general, this chemical property is mainly determined by electron structure. Can we change the chemical properties of...
The nervous system is loaded with encoded information: thoughts, emotions, motor control. This system in our bodies is an enigma, and the more we can do to understand it, the more we can do to improve human life. Brain-machine...
A new chemical compound created by researchers at West Virginia University is lighting the way for renewable energy.
The compound is a photosensitizer, meaning it promotes chemical reactions in the presence of light. It has many potential applications for improving...
Researchers have developed a powerful, low-cost method for recycling used cooking oil and agricultural waste into biodiesel, and turning food scraps and plastic rubbish into high-value products.
The method harnesses a new type of ultra-efficient catalyst that can make low-carbon biodiesel...
Researchers have cleared one hurdle toward environmental cleanup of certain contaminants with a newly designed synthetic enzyme that reduces the compound sulfite to sulfide—a notoriously complex multistep chemical reaction that has eluded chemists for years.
In the journal Science, chemists...
By focusing light down to the size of an atom, scientists at the University of California, Irvine have produced the first images of a molecule's normal modes of vibration—the internal motions that drive the chemistry of all things, including...
Trihydrogen, or H3+, is acknowledged by scientists as the molecule that made the universe. In recent issues of Nature Communications and the Journal of Chemical Physics, Michigan State University researchers employed high-speed lasers to shine a spotlight on the mechanisms that are...
Since element 99 -- einsteinium -- was discovered in 1952 at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) from the debris of the first hydrogen bomb, scientists have performed very few experiments with it because it...
Although robotic devices are used in everything from assembly lines to medicine, engineers have a hard time accounting for the friction that occurs when those robots grip objects -- particularly in wet environments. Researchers have now discovered a new...
