chemicals
WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 2009 -- Deep in Africa's Kalahari Desert lies the "Devil's claw," a plant that may hold the key to effective treatments for arthritis, tendonitis and other illnesses that affect millions each year.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 2009 -- Attention all smokeless tobacco users! It's time to banish the comforting notion that snuff and chewing tobacco are safe because they don't burn and produce inhalable smoke like cigarettes.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A team of MIT chemists has devised a new way to add fluorine to a variety of compounds used in many drugs and agricultural chemicals, an advance that could offer more flexibility and potential cost-savings in designing new drugs.
The cancer stem cells that drive tumor growth and resist chemotherapies and radiation treatments that kill other cancer cells aren't invincible after all. Researchers reporting online on August 13th in the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, have discovered the first compound that targets those cancer stem cells directly.
An insulator can now be transformed to conduct electricity by an ordinary camera flash.
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered that the circadian rhythms or biological "clocks" in some insects can make them far more susceptible to pesticides at some times of the day instead of others.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new calibration technique that will improve the reliability and stability of one of NIST's most versatile technologies, the microhotplate.
New York University chemists have discovered how to make molecules with a twist -- the molecules fold in to twisted helical shapes that can accelerate selected chemical reactions.
In a groundbreaking study, civil engineering researchers in the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology have discovered that certain industries may be a significant source of plant-based estrogens, called phytoestrogens, in surface water.
Mars may not be as dormant as scientists once thought. The 2004 discovery of methane means that either there is life on Mars, or that volcanic activity continues to generate heat below the martian surface. ESA plans to find out which it is. Either outcome is big news for a planet once thought to be biologically and geologically inactive.
Japanese research group led by Prof. Makoto Tominaga and Dr. Takaaki Sokabe (National Institute for Physiological Sciences: NIPS), and Prof. Masayuki Takeda, Dr. Isao Araki and Dr. Tsutomu Mochizuki (Yamanashi Univ.), found that bladder urothelial cells have a sensor for stretch stimulation. Their finding was reported in the Journal of Biological Chemistry published on Aug 7, 2009.
HOUSTON -- (Aug. 6, 2009) -- Rice University physicists have written the next chapter in an innovative approach for studying the forces that shape proteins -- the biochemical workhorses of all living things.
PASADENA, Calif. -- A previously unrecognized player in the process by which gases produced by trees and other plants become aerosols -- microscopically small particles in the atmosphere -- has been discovered by a research team led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- -- Our cells are controlled by billions of molecular "switches" and chemists at UC Santa Barbara have developed a theory that explains how these molecules work. Their findings may significantly help efforts to build biologically based sensors for the detection of chemicals ranging from drugs to explosives to disease markers.
Flasks, beakers and hot plates may soon be a thing of the past in chemistry labs. Instead of handling a few experiments on a bench top, scientists may simply pop a microchip into a computer and instantly run thousands of chemical reactions, with results -- literally shrinking the lab down to the size of a thumbnail.
