Hints from hemoglobin lead to better carbon monoxide storage

18-Sep-2017 - Carbon monoxide is an insidious poison because it loves the iron in our blood; it pushes oxygen out of iron-based hemoglobin, leading to painful asphyxiation. This affinity for iron comes in handy in a newly created material that can absorb carbon monoxide far better than other materials, with ...

Beware doping athletes! This sensor may be your downfall

02-Aug-2017 - Scientists searching for traces of drugs, bomb-making components and other chemicals often shine light on the materials they're analyzing. This approach is known as spectroscopy, and it involves studying how light interacts with trace amounts of matter. One of the more effective types of ...

New microscopic technique could help detect, diagnose metastatic melanomas

08-May-2017 - The fight against skin cancer just got a new weapon. For years, melanoma researchers have studied samples that were considered uniform in size and color, making them easier to examine by more conventional means. But melanomas don't always come in the same shape and hue; often, melanomas are ...

Multi-organ platform for risk assessment of nanomaterials

Multimodular microchip platform for predicting the behaviour of nanomaterials in the body

25-Nov-2016 - Nanomaterials are already part of everyday life in our modern society. New applications, along with continuously rising quantities being produced, have led to an increased exposure to nanomaterials for both people and the environment. Predicting the behaviour of nanomaterials in organisms and ...

A new form of light

Scientists have discovered a method to create fluorescent light that may have promising applications

06-Oct-2016 - Glow-in-the-dark stickers, weird deep-sea fish, LED lightbulbs -- all have forms of luminescence. In other words, instead of just reflecting light, they make their own. Now a team of scientists from the University of Vermont and Dartmouth College have discovered a new way that some molecules can ...

Nanofur for oil spill cleanup

Hairy plant leaves are highly oil-absorbing

22-Aug-2016 - Some water ferns can absorb large volumes of oil within a short time, because their leaves are strongly water-repellent and, at the same time, highly oil-absorbing. Researchers of KIT, together with colleagues of Bonn University, have found that the oil-binding capacity of the water plant results ...

Sugar-based carbon hollow spheres that mimic moth eyes

07-Jan-2016 - Antireflective coatings are used to cut surface glare in everything from eyeglasses and camera lenses to solar cells, TV screens and LED devices. Now researchers from Research Institute for Nuclear Problems of Belarusian State University in Belarus and Institut Jean Lamour-Université de Lorraine ...

Quantum mechanics explains efficiency of photosynthesis

14-Jan-2014 - Light-gathering macromolecules in plant cells transfer energy by taking advantage of molecular vibrations whose physical descriptions have no equivalents in classical physics, according to the first unambiguous theoretical evidence of quantum effects in photosynthesis published in the journal ...

A well-matched couple

A new setup for hybrid photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging with optical ultrasound detection provides perfectly co-registered dual-modality section images

14-Jun-2013 - Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a method to visualize structures with optical contrast in biological tissue. Despite the strong optical scattering in tissue, high resolution images in the visible and near infrared spectral range can be obtained. The method is based on sound waves which are ...

Broccoli’s cancer protection activated by bacteria in lower gut

25-Oct-2010 - Bacteria in the lower gut are responsible for breaking down the major cancer fighting chemical in broccoli to release its bioactive form. Of all the components present in crucifer vegetables, such as antioxidants and flavonoids, a molecule called glucoraphanin (GRP) is believed to play a major ...