News
This "Living" Plastic Comes With a Built-in Kill Switch
1+ hour, 16+ min ago (317+ words) A team of scientists in China recently demonstrated this somewhat comically idealistic solution, reporting their findings in a recent paper published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials. This new "living" plastic, as the team describes it, contains plastic-degrading microbes that activate…...
Why is liquid hydrogen so challenging. .. ?
2+ mon, 2+ week ago (815+ words) James Cobban Space Nerd since 19569h Why is liquid hydrogen so challenging to handle when fueling rockets, and what special techniques are used to prevent leaks? An old joke: Doctor, it hurts when I do this. Then don't do that! Liquid…...
Germany's Chemical Reckoning: How Europe is Dismantling its Industrial Core
3+ mon, 2+ day ago (464+ words) BASF plant in Ludwigshafen, 1881. The Industry That Built Modern Germany and the World Chemical manufacturing is among the most energy-intensive activities known to modern economies. Natural gas is not merely a fuel; it is a feedstock, a reagent and an…...
Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Surface of Titan from Huygens
5+ mon, 6+ day ago (285+ words) Explanation: If you could stand on Titan -- what would you see? The featured color view from Titan gazes across an unfamiliar and distant landscape on Saturn's largest moon. The scene was recorded by ESA's Huygens probe in 2005 after a 2. 5-hour…...
New Catalyst Design Solves a Decades-Old Chemical Challenge
5+ mon, 2+ week ago (215+ words) Researchers have created an iron-based catalyst that controls methane's extreme reactivity, opening the door for natural gas to serve as a sustainable feedstock for high-value chemicals, including pharmaceuticals. In a key demonstration, the Ci QUS team produced the bioactive compound…...
Scientists Are Generating Clean Electricity From" Chicken Feathers'And It Actually Works
6+ mon, 1+ day ago (538+ words) Scientists have unlocked a surprising clean energy breakthrough using an unlikely source from the poultry industry. In a potential breakthrough for green energy technology, scientists at ETH Zurich and Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU) have developed a membrane for hydrogen…...
Scientists Create an Artificial "Leaf" That Turns CO" Into Useful Products
6+ mon, 2+ day ago (660+ words) Their non-toxic "semi-artificial leaf" can run continuously and efficiently, producing pharmaceutical compounds with high purity. The discovery could help replace fossil fuels in chemical manufacturing and spark a new era of green chemistry. Scientists have found a sustainable new method…...
Nobel Prize in chemistry goes to discovery that could trap C02 and bring water to deserts
6+ mon, 3+ week ago (252+ words) The chairperson of the committee that made the award compared the structures called metal-organic frameworks to the seemingly bottomless magical handbag carried by Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" series. Another example might be Mary Poppins" enchanted carpet bag. These…...
This Creamy Pasta Trick Just Earned Scientists an Ig Nobel Prize
6+ mon, 3+ week ago (315+ words) Physicists discovered the secret to flawlessly creamy cacio e pepe, and it earned them the Ig Nobel Prize. Shutterstock A team of physicists won the Ig Nobel Prize for cracking the code to perfect cacio e pepe. Their clever study…...
New Sodium Battery Design Works Even at Subzero Temperatures
7+ mon, 6+ day ago (479+ words) A new technique stabilizes a metastable form of sodium solid electrolyte, enabling all-solid-state sodium batteries to maintain performance even at subzero temperatures. All-solid-state batteries are considered a safe and powerful option for running electric vehicles, electronics, and even storing energy…...