Subscribe:
RSS feed
"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler", Albert Einstein
Browsing All Posts filed under »Chemistry«
The NEW Periodic Table Song (In Order)
Lyrics There’s Hydrogen and Helium Then Lithium, Beryllium Boron, Carbon everywhere Nitrogen all through the air With Oxygen so you can breathe And Fluorine for your pretty teeth Neon to light up the signs Sodium for salty times Magnesium, Aluminium, Silicon Phosphorus, then Sulfur, Chlorine and Argon Potassium, and Calcium so you’ll grow strong Scandium, […]
Building the Smallest Possible Ice Crystal
September 21, 2012
It may sound like a Zen koan, but it’s a serious scientific question: How many molecules of water does it take to make the smallest possible ice crystal? Because crystals are defined by a repeated, three-dimensional arrangement of molecules, you can’t necessarily take any small group of bonded-together molecules and call them a crystal. That’s […]
Further proof of extraterrestrial origin of quasicrystals
August 13, 2012
An international team of researchers has found nine new samples of naturally occurring quasicrystals. The work also provides further proof that quasicrystals were delivered to the Earth by a meteorite. The team’s discovery challenges our understanding of both crystallography and solar-system formation. Conventional crystal structures are made of atoms, or clusters of atoms, that repeat […]
New chemical bonds possible in extreme magnetic fields
July 21, 2012
In the extreme magnetic fields of white dwarves and neutron stars, a third type of chemical bonding can occur. That is the finding of theoretical chemists in Norway, who have used computer simulations to show that as-yet-unseen molecules could form in magnetic fields much higher than those created here on Earth. High-school chemistry students are […]
‘Olympic rings’ molecule olympicene in striking image
May 28, 2012
Scientists have created and imaged the smallest possible five-ringed structure. A collaboration between the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the University of Warwick and IBM Research – Zurich has allowed the scientists to bring a single molecule to life in a using a combination of clever synthetic chemistry and state-of-the-art imaging techniques http://youtu.be/dFp8Eoh_Vqo Read more: […]
The Single Theory That Could Explain Emergence
May 7, 2012
Organisation And The Origin of Life Biochemists have long imagined that autocatalytic sets can explain the origin of life. Now a new mathematical approach to these sets has even broader implications One of the most puzzling questions about the origin of life is how the rich chemical landscape that makes life possible came into existence. […]
Proton Grease: An Acid Accelerated Molecular Rotor
April 12, 2012
A molecular rotor was designed that rotates 7 orders of magnitude faster upon protonation. The quinoline rotor is based on a rigid N-arylimide framework that displays restricted rotation due to steric interaction between the quinoline nitrogen and imide carbonyls. At rt (23 °C), the rotor rotates slowly (t1/2 = 26 min, ΔG‡ = 22.2 kcal/mol). However, upon addition […]
H3+: the Molecule that Made the Universe
April 11, 2012
In a study that pushed quantum mechanical theory and research capabilities to the limit, UA researchers have found a way to see the molecule that likely made the universe – or at least the hot and fiery bits of it. Lurking in the vast, chilly regions between stars, the unassuming molecule known as a triatomic […]
Red Wine, Tartaric Acid And The Secret Of Superconductivity
March 22, 2012
Last year, physicists discovered that red wine can turn certain materials into superconductors. Now they’ve found that Beaujolais works best and think they know why Last year, a group of Japanese physicists grabbed headlines around the world by announcing that they could induce superconductivity in a sample of iron telluride by soaking it in red […]
A Surprising New Kind of Proton Transfer
March 19, 2012
Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues have discovered an unsuspected way that protons can move among molecules – revealing new opportunities for research in biology, environmental science, and green chemistry When a proton – the bare nucleus of a hydrogen atom – transfers from one molecule to another, or moves within a molecule, the result […]
Image or mirror image?
March 9, 2012
Chiral recognition by femtosecond laser It is not always easy to distinguish between images and mirror images of molecules, but this knowledge is important when one image of a molecule is a drug and the mirror image is toxic. One new approach to this may be chiral recognition in the gas phase. This involves using […]
The chemistry of exploding stars
January 20, 2012
Meteorite contains evidence of formation of sulfur molecules derived from the ejecta of a supernova explosion Fundamental chemical processes in predecessors of our solar system are now a bit better understood: An international team led by Peter Hoppe, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, has now examined dust inclusions of the […]
Nobel prizewinning quasicrystal fell from space
January 3, 2012
A Nobel prizewinning crystal has just got alien status. It now seems that the only known sample of a naturally occurring quasicrystal fell from space, changing our understanding of the conditions needed for these curious structures to form…. Read more: newscientist.com Read also: The quasicrystal from outer space
‘New metal type’ at Earth’s core
December 20, 2011
The composition of the Earth’s core remains a mystery. Scientists know that the liquid outer core consists mainly of iron, but it is believed that small amounts of some other elements are present as well. Oxygen is the most abundant element in the planet, so it is not unreasonable to expect oxygen might be one […]
Mystery of car battery’s current solved
December 19, 2011
Chemists have solved the 150 year-old mystery of what gives the lead-acid battery, found under the bonnet of most cars, its unique ability to deliver a surge of current. Lead-acid batteries are able to deliver the very large currents needed to start a car engine because of the exceptionally high electrical conductivity of the battery […]
Early Black Holes Grew Big Eating Cold, Fast Food
December 12, 2011
PITTSBURGH — Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Bruce and Astrid McWilliams Center for Cosmology have discovered what caused the rapid growth of early supermassive black holes – a steady diet of cold, fast food. Computer simulations, completed using supercomputers at the National Institute for Computational Sciences and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and viewed using GigaPan […]
Single molecule nanocar takes its first spin
November 9, 2011
THE tiniest car in the world has gone for a drive. Made of a single molecule, the “vehicle” has four wheel-like paddles that rotate in the same direction when zapped with a beam of electrons. “The molecule is autonomous,” says Syuzanna Harutyunyan, a chemist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who worked on […]
Pumpkin Chemistry
November 1, 2011
So Halloween is over, what to do with all those pumpkins rotting on your doorstep? Three chemists do their best to destroy pumpkins using all the tricks up their lab coat sleeves! http://youtu.be/O2799XSIlZM
New Thermodynamic Paradigm of Chemical Equilibria
October 31, 2011
B. Zilbergleyt The paper presents new thermodynamic paradigm of chemical equilibrium, setting forth comprehensive basics of Discrete Thermodynamics of Chemical Equilibria (DTd). Along with previous results by the author during the last decade, this work contains also some new developments of DTd. Based on the Onsager’s constitutive equations, reformulated by the author thermodynamic affinity and […]
Astronomers discover complex organic matter in the universe
October 26, 2011
In today’s issue of the journal Nature, astronomers report that organic compounds of unexpected complexity exist throughout the Universe. The results suggest that complex organic compounds are not the sole domain of life but can be made naturally by stars. Prof. Sun Kwok and Dr. Yong Zhang of the University of Hong Kong show that […]
Ergodic theorem passes the test
October 20, 2011
For more than a century scientists have relied on the “ergodic theorem” to explain diffusive processes such as the movement of molecules in a liquid. However, they had not been able to confirm experimentally a central tenet of the theorem – that the average of repeated measurements of the random motion of an individual molecule […]
Watching electrons in molecules
October 14, 2011
A research group led by ETH Zurich has now, for the first time, visualized the motion of electrons during a chemical reaction. The new findings in the experiment are of fundamental importance for photochemistry and could also assist the design of more efficient solar cells. In 1999, Ahmed Zewail was awarded the nobel prize in […]
Physicists turn liquid into solid using an electric field
October 11, 2011
Physicists have predicted that under the influence of sufficiently high electric fields, liquid droplets of certain materials will undergo solidification, forming crystallites at temperature and pressure conditions that correspond to liquid droplets at field-free conditions. This electric-field-induced phase transformation is termed electrocrystallization The study, performed by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology, appears online […]
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011
October 5, 2011
2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be announced within the hour! Watch the live webcast here (update) http://youtu.be/QiT00AUwQl8 This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been won by Daniel Shechtman – Technion Department of the Faculty of Materials Engineering – in Israel, for the discovery of quasicrystals http://youtu.be/EZRTzOMHQ4s Nobel win for crystal discovery The Nobel prize […]
Chemists devise means to use bacteria to encode secret messages
September 27, 2011
In the endless search to develop newer and cooler ways to send messages between people without other’s intercepting them, chemists from Tufts University working together have figured out a way to use a strain of bacteria to encode a message on a paper-like material that can then later be de-coded by the receiver. Manuel Palacios […]
Making matter come alive
September 13, 2011
Before life existed on Earth, there were just atoms and molecules…inorganic “dead stuff.” How improbable is it that life arose? Could it use a different type of chemistry than our familiar carbon-based chemistry? Before life existed on Earth, there were just atoms and molecules…inorganic “dead stuff.” How improbable is it that life arose? Could it […]
World’s smallest electric motor made from a single molecule
September 4, 2011
Chemists at Tufts University have developed the world’s first single molecule electric motor, which may potentially create a new class of devices that could be used in applications ranging from medicine to engineering. The molecular motor was powered by electricity from a state of the art, low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope. This microscope sent an electrical […]
Microscopy, quantum-style: Atomic stacks imaged in real space
September 1, 2011
Since the first optical microscopes appeared in the late 1600s – an exact date and original inventor elude precise identification – microscopy has evolved dramatically. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and (although not generally recognized as an established method) point contact microscopy (PCM) allow scientists to view objects inaccessible to optical microscopes, […]
How To Make Viagra
August 30, 2011
By Enrico Uva Wizards exist in real life, beyond the films and books of Harry Potter. They cook willow bark extract in car battery acid and wood alcohol and convert it into a pleasant-smelling component of candy or of a rubbing compound. In their glassware, petroleum products turn into life-saving medicines. The vastly underrated wizards […]
Characterize the Behavior of Individual Electrons
August 16, 2011
An international collaboration of researchers is working on a new method of understanding what happens during chemical reactions. The approach is extremely complex, as it involves tracking the behavior of individual electrons as this happens. Doing so is a monumentally difficult task, considering that the elementary particle completes a full orbit around an atomic nucleus […]
A Single Molecule of Water Encapsulated in Fullerene C-60
August 7, 2011
Kei Kurotobi, Yasujiro Murata Water normally exists in hydrogen-bonded environments, but a single molecule of H2O without any hydrogen bonds can be completely isolated within the confined subnano space inside fullerene C60. We isolated bulk quantities of such a molecule by first synthesizing an open-cage C60 derivative whose opening can be enlarged in situ at 120°C […]
Chemists transform acids into bases
July 29, 2011
Chemists at the University of California, Riverside have accomplished in the lab what until now was considered impossible: transform a family of compounds which are acids into bases. As our chemistry lab sessions have taught us, acids are substances that taste sour and react with metals and bases (bases are the chemical opposite of acids). […]
Argon
June 24, 2011
Argon is a rare hermit among the many reactive and bond-forming elements Argon is element number 18 and has the atomic symbol Ar – renamed in 1959 from its original atomic symbol, which was simply A. As you can see in the image above, argon gas produces a lovely bluish-purple colour when excited with electricity. Argon is the […]
Chlorine
June 17, 2011
A powerfully reactive element that is very beneficial as well as causing great harm Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/jun/17/1?CMP=twt_fd
Measuring Fundamental Constants with Methanol
June 14, 2011
Key to the astronomical modeling process by which scientists attempt to understand our universe, is a comprehensive knowledge of the values making up these models. These are generally measured to exceptionally high confidence levels in laboratories. Astronomers then assume these constants are just that – constant. This generally seems to be a good assumption since models […]
Superatoms With Magnetic Shells
June 10, 2011
A team of Virginia Commonwealth University scientists has discovered a new class of ‘superatoms’ — a stable cluster of atoms that can mimic different elements of the periodic table — with unusual magnetic characteristics….. Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110608153544.htm
Chemistry and the Universe
June 9, 2011
Chemistry, the study of the intricate dances and bondings of low-energy electrons to form the molecules that make up the world we live in, may seem far removed from the thermonuclear heat in the interiors of stars and the awesome power of supernovas. Yet, there is a fundamental connection between them. To illustrate this connection, […]
May 18, 2013
0