It all adds up: Study finds forever chemicals are more toxic as mixtures

Research also finds that PFOA and PFOS are major contributors to toxicity

08-Oct-2024 - A first-of-its-kind study has measured the toxicity of several types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), better known as “forever chemicals,” when mixed together in the environment and in the human body. The good news: Most of the tested chemicals’ individual cytotoxicity and ...

Chemists use the blockchain to simulate over 4 billion chemical reactions essential to the origins of life

“If you asked me two years ago, I’d be thinking we’d need years for this type of work”

26-Jan-2024 - Cryptocurrency is usually “mined” through the blockchain by asking a computer to perform a complicated mathematical problem in exchange for tokens of cryptocurrency. But in research appearing in the journal Chem on January 24, a team of chemists have repurposed this process, asking computers to ...

The fountain of life: Water droplets hold the secret ingredient for building life

Chemists discover key to early Earth chemistry, which could unlock ways to speed up chemical synthesis for drug discovery

05-Oct-2022 - Purdue University chemists have uncovered a mechanism for peptide-forming reactions to occur in water — something that has puzzled scientists for decades. “This is essentially the chemistry behind the origin of life,” saidGraham Cooks, theHenry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Analytical ...

Targeting PFOA threat to drinking water

12-Jun-2017 - A highly toxic water pollutant, known as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), last year caused a number of U.S. communities to close their drinking water supplies. Because of its historical use in Teflon production and other industrial processes as well as its environmental persistence, PFOA ...

Silver nanoparticle concentration too low to be harmful in water supply

17-Oct-2016 - Silver nanoparticles have a wide array of uses, one of which is to treat drinking water for harmful bacteria and viruses. But do silver nanoparticles also kill off potentially beneficial bacteria or cause other harmful effects to water-based ecosystems? A new paper from a team of University of ...

Microbes may consume far more oil-spill waste than earlier thought

Study near Gulf of Mexico spill site finds surprisingly high methane uptake by microbes

22-Oct-2010 - Microbes living at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico may consume far more of the gaseous waste from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill than previously thought, according to research carried out within 100 miles of the spill site. A paper on that research, conducted before the Deepwater Horizon rig ...

NC State wins ARPA-E grant to study extremophile production of biofuels

04-May-2010 - The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) has awarded a grant for more than $2.7 million to North Carolina State University to support research into the creation of biofuels using microbial organisms, called extremophiles, that live in high-temperature ...

New visible light photocatalyst kills bacteria, even after light turned off

22-Jan-2010 - In the battle against bacteria, researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a powerful new weapon – an enhanced photocatalytic disinfection process that uses visible light to destroy harmful bacteria and viruses, even in the dark. Based upon a new catalyst, the disinfection process ...

Paper strips can quickly detect toxin in drinking water

12-Jan-2010 - A strip of paper infused with carbon nanotubes can quickly and inexpensively detect a toxin produced by algae in drinking water. Engineers at the University of Michigan led the development of the new biosensor. The paper strips perform 28 times faster than the complicated method most commonly ...

Biodegradable particles can bypass mucus, release drugs over time

06-Jan-2010 - Johns Hopkins University researchers have created biodegradable nanosized particles that can easily slip through the body's sticky and viscous mucus secretions to deliver a sustained-release medication cargo. The researchers say these nanoparticles, which degrade over time into harmless ...