Actin is a highly abundant protein that controls the shape and movement of all our cells. Actin achieves this by assembling into filaments, one actin molecule at a time. The proteins of the formin family are pivotal partners in this process: positioned at the filament end, formins recruit new actin subunits and stay associated with the end by ‘stepping’ with the growing filament. There are as many as 15 different formins in our cells that drive actin filament growth at different speeds and for different purposes. Yet, the exact mechanism of action of formins and the basis for their different ..read more

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed experiments to replicate the chemical reactions of the Interstellar Medium, using techniques like laser cooling and mass spectrometry to observe interactions between ions and molecules. While it may not look like it, the interstellar space between stars is far from empty. Atoms, ions, molecules, and more reside in this ethereal environment known as the Interstellar Medium (ISM). The ISM has fascinated scientists for decades, as at least 200 unique molecules form in its cold, low-pressure environment. It’s a subject that ties tog ..read more

In a study recently published in Nature, researchers from the Max Born Institute in Berlin, Germany, and the Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching have unveiled a new technique for deciphering the properties of matter with light, that can simultaneously detect and precisely quantify many substances with a high chemical selectivity. Their technique interrogates the atoms and molecules in the ultraviolet spectral region at very feeble light levels. Using two optical frequency combs and a photon counter, the experiments open up exciting prospects for conducting dual-comb spectroscop ..read more

Scientists in Cambridge University suggest molecules, vital to the development of life, could have formed from a process known as graphitization. Once verified in the laboratory, it could allow us to try and recreate plausible conditions for life’s emergence. How did the chemicals required for life get there? It has long been debated how the seemingly fortuitous conditions for life arose in nature, with many hypotheses reaching dead ends. However, researchers at the University of Cambridge have now modeled how these conditions could occur, producing the necessary ingredients for life in subst ..read more

For the first time, scientists have managed to create sheets of gold only a single atom layer thick. The material has been termed goldene. According to researchers from Linköping University, Sweden, this has given the gold new properties that can make it suitable for use in applications such as carbon dioxide conversion, hydrogen production, and production of value-added chemicals. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Synthesis. Scientists have long tried to make single-atom-thick sheets of gold but failed because the metal’s tendency to lump together. But researchers from Link ..read more

Cannabinol (CBN) is a chemical found in cannabis that exhibits milder psychoactive properties than most cannabis chemicals, though research pertaining to its medical applications remains limited. Now, a team of researchers led by The Salk Institute for Biological Studies have published a study in Redox Biology that addresses the potential for CBN to serve as a method for neurological disorders, including traumatic brain injuries, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. For the study, the researchers produced four CBN analogs that exhibited greater neuroprotective capabilities compared t ..read more

Does Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, have the necessary ingredients for life as we know it, or even as we don’t know it? This is what NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft mission hopes to address as the space agency recently announced that the Dragonfly team can proceed to the final phases of design, construction, and testing, with a scheduled launched date of 2028. This comes after Dragonfly was selected by NASA in June 2019 and could help scientists better understand the origins of life beyond Earth. “The Dragonfly mission is an incredible opportunity to explore an ocean world in a way that we have ne ..read more

For centuries, goldsmiths have sought ways to flatten gold into ever finer forms. An approach based in modern chemistry has finally created a gold material that literally can’t get any thinner, consisting of a single layer of atoms. Sticking to the naming conventions of materials science, researchers have named this new two-dimensional material ‘goldene’, and it has some interesting properties not seen in the three-dimensional form of gold. “If you make a material extremely thin, something extraordinary happens – as with graphene,” explains materials scientist Shun Kashiwaya of Linköping Univ ..read more

Production of ethylene is one of the most important chemical processes used today, with about 300 million metric tons of the tiny chemical produced each year. Ethylene gas is used to create everyday items like shopping bags and plastic film packaging. Read more ..read more

For the first time, scientists have managed to create sheets of gold only a single atom layer thick. The material has been termed goldene. According to researchers from Linköping University, Sweden, this has given the gold new properties that can make it suitable for use in applications such as carbon dioxide conversion, hydrogen production, and production of value-added chemicals. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Synthesis. Scientists have long tried to make single-atom-thick sheets of gold but failed because the metal’s tendency to lump together. But researchers from Link ..read more