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Category: chemistry

High-energy cosmic rays have proven elusive… but we may have found their source.

Thanks to new research led by the University of Nagoya, scientists have quantified the number of cosmic rays produced in a supernova remnant for the first time. This research has helped resolve a 100-year mystery and is a major step towards determining precisely where cosmic rays come from.

While scientists theorize that cosmic rays originate from many sources — our Sun, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and active galactic nuclei (sometimes called quasars) — their exact origin has been a mystery since they were first discovered in 1912. Similarly, astronomers have theorized that supernova remnants (the after-effects of supernova explosions) are responsible for accelerating them to nearly the speed of light.

As they travel through our galaxy, cosmic rays play a role in the chemical evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM). As such, understanding their origin is critical to understanding how galaxies evolve.

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Earlier this year, researchers found a deposit of rare-earth minerals off the coast of Japan that could supply the world for centuries, according to a study.

The study, published in the journal Nature in April 2,018 says the deposit contains 16 million tons of the valuable metals.

Rare-earth minerals are used in everything from smartphone batteries to electric vehicles. By definition, these minerals contain one or more of 17 metallic rare-earth elements (for those familiar with the periodic table, those are on the second row from the bottom).

These elements are actually plentiful in layers of the Earth’s crust, but are typically widely dispersed. Because of that, it is rare to find any substantial amount of the elements clumped together as extractable minerals, according to the USGS.

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Dr. The book launch will happen on September 4th, at 3 p.m. (Pacific Time) in Book Passage Ferry Building Store in San Francisco, California!
Please come to have an in-person chat with Dr. Katcher.

Dr. Harold Katcher is one of the discoverers of the human breast cancer gene (BRCA1), and has thousands of citations in the scientific literature, with publications ranging from protein structure to bacteriology, biotechnology, bioinformatics and biochemistry. He was the Academic Director for Natural Sciences for the Asian Division of the University of Maryland Global Campus, and nowadays is Chief Scientific Officer at Yuvan Research Inc., which is working on the development of rejuvenation treatments.

https://www.bookpassage.com/event/harold-katcher-illusion-knowledge-ferry-building-store.
https://www.ntzplural.com/harold-katcher-launches-book.
https://www.facebook.com/events/553354852782737?ref=newsfeed.

#haroldkatcher #sanfrancisco #california #booklaunch #biotechnology #rejuvenation #aging.

Created with the voices from LOVO @ www.lovo.ai.

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The device offers a far simpler way of monitoring how various chemical compounds form during reactions than the methods currently available to scientists, and the team that built the “camera” says it’s already using it to improve the technology behind solar cells.

Controlling the specific order and process of molecular assembly is notoriously difficult, especially at such tiny scales. Thankfully, the scientists realized that they merely had to plunk its components into room-temperature water — along with whatever molecules they wanted to study — and it would piece itself together automatically.

“We were surprised how powerful this new tool is, considering how straightforward it is to assemble,” first study author and Cambridge chemist Kamil Sokolowski said in a press release.

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University of Houston researchers are reporting a breakthrough in the field of materials science and engineering with the development of an electrochemical actuator that uses specialized organic semiconductor nanotubes (OSNTs).

Currently in the early stages of development, the actuator will become a key part of research contributing to the future of robotic, bioelectronic and .

“Electrochemical devices that transform to mechanical energy have potential use in numerous applications, ranging from soft robotics and micropumps to autofocus microlenses and bioelectronics,” said Mohammad Reza Abidian, associate professor of biomedical engineering in the UH Cullen College of Engineering. He’s the corresponding author of the article “Organic Semiconductor Nanotubes for Electrochemical Devices,” published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, which details the discovery.

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Researchers have made a tiny camera, held together with ‘molecular glue’ that allows them to observe chemical reactions in real time.

The device, made by a team from the University of Cambridge, combines tiny semiconductor nanocrystals called and gold nanoparticles using molecular glue called cucurbituril (CB). When added to water with the molecule to be studied, the components self-assemble in seconds into a stable, powerful tool that allows the real-time monitoring of chemical reactions.

The camera harvests light within the semiconductors, inducing electron transfer processes like those that occur in photosynthesis, which can be monitored using incorporated gold nanoparticle sensors and spectroscopic techniques. They were able to use the camera to observe which had been previously theorized but not directly observed.

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In a new review article in Nature Photonics, scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory assess the status of research into colloidal quantum dot lasers with a focus on prospective electrically pumped devices, or laser diodes. The review analyzes the challenges for realizing lasing with electrical excitation, discusses approaches to overcome them, and surveys recent advances toward this objective.

“Colloidal quantum dot lasers have tremendous potential in a range of applications, including integrated optical circuits, wearable technologies, lab-on-a-chip devices, and advanced medical imaging and diagnostics,” said Victor Klimov, a senior researcher in the Chemistry division at Los Alamos and lead author of the cover article in Nature Photonics. “These solution-processed quantum dot present unique challenges, which we’re making good progress in overcoming.”

Heeyoung Jung and Namyoung Ahn, also of Los Alamos’ Chemistry division, are coauthors.

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The chernobyl special industrial zone — ecosystem restoration, remediation, and the development of energy and chemical byproducts — mykola tolmachov, chernobyl-51 industrial cluster.

The Chernobyl disaster / nuclear accident, occurred on April 26th, 1,986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of Ukraine.

The initial emergency response, together with later decontamination of the environment, ultimately involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated US$68 billion, adjusted for inflation.

The current Chernobyl Exclusion Zone covers an area of approximately 2,600 km2 (1,000 sq mi) in Ukraine, immediately surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, where radioactive contamination is highest and public access and inhabitation are restricted.

The Exclusion Zone’s purpose is to restrict access to hazardous areas, reduce the further spread of radiological contamination, and conduct radiological and ecological monitoring activities.

Today, the Exclusion Zone is still one of the most radioactively contaminated areas in the world and draws significant scientific interest for the high levels of radiation exposure in the environment, as well as increasing interest from tourists.

Despite the extremely high radioactivity of the region, the zone has become a thriving sanctuary with natural flora and fauna with some of the highest biodiversity and thickest forests in all of Ukraine.

On this episode of our show, we are joined by Mykola Tolmachov, of the Chernobyl-51 Industrial Cluster, discussing their novel public-private partnership for both ecosystem restoration and the production of both energy and chemical byproducts, in the exclusion zone.

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A hair-like protein hidden inside bacteria serves as a sort of on-off switch for nature’s “electric grid,” a global web of bacteria-generated nanowires that permeates all oxygen-less soil and deep ocean beds, Yale researchers report in the journal Nature. “The ground beneath our feet, the entire globe, is electrically wired,” said Nikhil Malvankar, assistant professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at the Microbial Sciences Institute at Yale’s West Campus and senior author of the paper. “These previously hidden bacterial hairs are the molecular switch controlling the release of nanowires that make up nature’s electrical grid.”

Almost all living things breathe oxygen to get rid of excess electrons when converting nutrients into energy. Without access to oxygen, however, living deep under oceans or buried underground over billions of years have developed a way to respire by “breathing minerals,” like snorkeling, through tiny protein filaments called .

Just how these soil bacteria use nanowires to exhale electricity, however, has remained a mystery. Since 2,005 scientists had thought that the nanowires are made up of a protein called “pili” (“hair” in Latin) that many bacteria show on their surface. However, in research published 2019 and 2020, a team led by Malvankar showed that nanowires are made of entirely different proteins. “This was a surprise to everyone in the field, calling into question thousands of publications about pili,” Malvankar said.

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Mitochondrial DNA diseases are common neurological conditions caused by mutations in the mitochondrial genome or nuclear genes responsible for its maintenance. Current treatments for these disorders are focused on the management of the symptoms, rather than the correction of biochemical defects caused by the mutation. Now, scientists at Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Science (iCeMS) in Japan report a new approach where mutant DNA sequences inside cellular mitochondria can be eliminated using a bespoke chemical compound. The approach may lead to better treatments for mitochondrial diseases.

Their findings are published in the journal Cell Chemical Biology in a paper titled, “Targeted elimination of mutated mitochondrial DNA by a multi-functional conjugate capable of sequence-specific adenine alkylation.”

“Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cause mitochondrial diseases, characterized by abnormal mitochondrial function,” the researchers wrote. “Although eliminating mutated mtDNA has potential to cure mitochondrial diseases, no chemical-based drugs in clinical trials are capable of selective modulation of mtDNA mutations. Here, we construct a class of compounds encompassing pyrrole-imidazole polyamides (PIPs), mitochondria-penetrating peptide, and chlorambucil, an adenine-specific DNA-alkylating reagent.”

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