http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/chemistry-blog.html Chemistry blog from networlddirectory, the place for information. Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT en-us http://www.networlddirectory.com/images/blogs/chemistry-blog.jpg http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/chemistry-blog.html 128 86 http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/extreme-makeover-chemistry-style.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/extreme-makeover-chemistry-style.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT In revisiting a chemical reaction that's been in the literature for several decades and adding a new wrinkle of their own, scientists with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow a number of of today's petrochemical products, including plastics, to instead be made from biomass........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/chemists-synthesize-herbal-alkaloid.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2009/chemists-synthesize-herbal-alkaloid.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT The club moss Lycopodium serratum is a creeping, flowerless plant used in homeopathic medicine to treat a wide variety of ailments. It contains a potent brew of alkaloids that have attracted considerable scientific and medical interest. However, the plant makes a number of of these compounds in extremely low amounts, hindering efforts to test their therapeutic value........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2008/dancing-atoms-now-understood.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2008/dancing-atoms-now-understood.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT In developing a model to explain the motion of atoms in a magnetic field, researchers have overcome a decades-old obstacle to understanding a key component of magnetic resonance. The new understanding may eventually lead to better control of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and higher resolution MRI diagnoses........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2008/new-mechanism-for-superconductivity.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2008/new-mechanism-for-superconductivity.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT Laboratory scientists have posited an explanation for superconductivity that may open the door to the discovery of new, unconventional forms of superconductivity. In a November 20 Nature letter, research led by Tuson Park and Joe D. Thompson describes a new explanation for superconductivity in non-traditional materials-one that describes a potentially new state of matter in which the superconducting material behaves simultaneously as a nonmagnetic material and a magnetic material........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/10-2008/scientists-store-and-retrieve-data-inside-an-atom.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/10-2008/scientists-store-and-retrieve-data-inside-an-atom.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT Another step towards quantum computing - the Holy Grail of data processing and storage - was achieved when an international team of researchers that included scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) were able to successfully store and retrieve information using the nucleus of an atom........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/10-2008/gold-nanostars-outshine-the-competition.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/10-2008/gold-nanostars-outshine-the-competition.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT Novel nanoparticles being tested at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have scientists seeing stars. In a recent paper,* NIST researchers used surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to demonstrate that gold nanostars exhibit optical qualities that make them superior for chemical and biological sensing and imaging. These uniquely shaped nanoparticles may one day be used in a range of applications from disease diagnostics to contraband identification........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2008/as-good-as-it-gets.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2008/as-good-as-it-gets.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT AAlbert Einstein once quipped, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." The famous scientist might have added that the illusion of reality shifts over time. As per a new Brandeis University study in the recent issue of Psychological Science, age influences how we perceive the future. When thinking about the future, some people seem pessimistic, while others' optimism seems to border on fantasy. Whether a person is naturally a pessimist or an optimist, the study suggests there are other factors at work in determining the way people consider how satisfying their future lives may be........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2008/maths-aids-mayonnaise-production.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2008/maths-aids-mayonnaise-production.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT The subject of 'gas bubbles in liquids' has a number of applications in industry. Examples include separating oil from water in the oil industry, how ink drops behave in printers and the manufacture of products in the food industry, such as mayonnaise. 'This subject of course also applies to natural processes such as rainfall and boiling water,' PhD student Jok Tang adds........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2008/disorder-in-magnetic-sensors.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2008/disorder-in-magnetic-sensors.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT University of Chicago researchers have discovered how to make magnetic sensors capable of operating at the high temperatures that ceramic engines in cars and aircraft of the future will require. The key to fabricating the sensors involves slightly degrading samples of a well-known semiconductor material, called indium antimonide, which is valued for its purity. Chicago's Thomas Rosenbaum and associate Jingshi Hu, now of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have published their formula in the recent issue of the journal Nature Materials....... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2008/proteins-have-controlled-motions.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2008/proteins-have-controlled-motions.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT Iowa State University researcher Robert Jernigan believes that his research shows proteins have controlled motions. Most biochemists traditionally believe proteins have a number of random, uncontrolled movements. Research conducted by Jernigan, director of the L.H. Baker Center for Bioinformatics and Biological Statistics together with Guang Song, an assistant professor in computer science and graduate student Lei Yang, over a 10-year period shows that not only are protein motions more restricted, but also that these restricted, controlled motions are part of the function of the proteins........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2008/the-periodic-table-of-videos.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2008/the-periodic-table-of-videos.html Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:42:49 GMT Tables charting the chemical elements have been around since the 19th century - but this modern version has a short video about each one.

The Periodic Table Of Videos is an experiment by Professor Martyn Poliakoff of the University of Nottingham, UK. ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2008/creating-unconventional-metals.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2008/creating-unconventional-metals.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:32:27 GMT The semiconductor silicon and the ferromagnet iron are the basis for much of mankind's technology, used in everything from computers to electric motors. In this week's issue of the journal Nature (August 21st) an international group of scientists, including academic and industrial scientists from the UK, USA and Lesotho, report that they have combined these elements with a small amount of another common metal, manganese, to create a new material which is neither a magnet nor an ordinary semiconductor. The paper goes on to show how a small magnetic field can be used to switch ordinary semiconducting behaviour (such as that seen in the electronic-grade silicon which is used to make transistors) back on........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2008/radicals-shake-up-molecules.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2008/radicals-shake-up-molecules.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:32:27 GMT Until now, it was usually thought that colliding molecules get the shakes as the result of energy transfer solely from the smashing of the molecules, but some new research adds a second means by which colliding molecules become vibrationally excited--it is being called the "Tug o' War Mechanism". The new experiment, transforming the textbook story, waccording toformed in the lab of Richard Zare, chair of the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University. This work on energy transferring, or inelastic, collisions is featured in the July 3, 2008 issue of the journal Nature........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/physicists-create-millimeter-sized-bohr-atom.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/physicists-create-millimeter-sized-bohr-atom.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:32:27 GMT HOUSTON -- June 30, 2008 -- Nearly a century after Danish physicist Niels Bohr offered his planet-like model of the hydrogen atom, a Rice University-led team of physicists has created giant, millimeter-sized atoms that resemble it more closely than any other experimental realization yet achieved. The research is available online in Physical Review Letters....... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/quantum-computing-breakthrough.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/quantum-computing-breakthrough.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:32:27 GMT The odd behavior of a molecule in an experimental silicon computer chip has led to a discovery that opens the door to quantum computing in semiconductors. In a Nature Physics journal paper currently online, the scientists describe how they have created a new, hybrid molecule in which its quantum state can be intentionally manipulated - a mandatory step in the building of quantum computers........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/online-mathematics-reference.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/online-mathematics-reference.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:32:27 GMT The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a five-chapter preview of the much-anticipated online Digital Library of Mathematical Functions (DLMF). In development for over a decade, the DLMF is designed to be a modern successor to the 1964 "Handbook of Mathematical Functions," a reference work that is the most widely distributed NIST publication (with over a million copies in print) and one of the most cited works in the mathematical literature (still receiving over 1,600 yearly citations in the research literature). The preview of the new DLMF is a fully functional beta-level release of five of the 36 chapters........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/lost-reds-in-homer-painting.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/lost-reds-in-homer-painting.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:32:27 GMT More than 30 years ago, when Northwestern University chemist Richard Van Duyne developed a powerful new sensing technique, he never thought he would be using it to learn more about treasures in the Art Institute of Chicago's collection -- including a watercolor recently featured in the museum's exhibition "Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light"........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/prototype-hydrogen-storage-tank.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2008/prototype-hydrogen-storage-tank.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:32:27 GMT A cryogenic pressure vessel developed and installed in an experimental hybrid vehicle by a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory research team can hold liquid hydrogen for six days without venting any of the fuel. Unlike conventional liquid hydrogen (LH2 tanks in prototype cars, the LLNL pressure vessel was parked for six days without venting evaporated hydrogen vapor........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2008/new-process-could-cause-titanium-price-to-tumble.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2008/new-process-could-cause-titanium-price-to-tumble.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:32:27 GMT Whether for stopping cars or bullets, titanium is the material of choice, but it has always been too expensive for all but the most specialized applications. That could change, however, with a non-melt consolidation process being developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and industry partners. The new processing technique could reduce the amount of energy mandatory and the cost to make titanium parts from powders by up to 50 percent, making it feasible to use titanium alloys for brake rotors, artificial joint replacements and, of significant interest now, armor for military vehicles........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2008/improved-ion-mobility-is-key-to.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2008/improved-ion-mobility-is-key-to.html Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:32:27 GMT A materials scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has deciphered the structure of a new class of materials that can store relatively large quantities of hydrogen within its crystal structure for later release. The new analysis* may point to a practical hydrogen storage material for automobile fuel cells and similar applications........ ]]>