Category: 6. Chemistry

The world record for the thinnest pasta has been shattered, though the new, narrow noodles are better suited to wound dressings than the dinner table.

From white flour, researchers made starch-rich nanofibers that are about 370…

Roughly one-third of Americans could be exposed to a long-sought, newly identified breakdown product of some chlorine-based water treatments.

Although the toxicity of the by-product, an electrically charged molecule, is yet to be…

One enzyme has a key role in determining whether parrots’ rainbow plumage emerges in vibrant reds, yellows or greens, a new study shows.

Parrot feathers flaunt an array of colors, with yellow, red and orange hues made possible by…

Humans are by no means alone in the search for more sustainable materials. Nature, too, has been “working” on the problem of sustainability, and it’s been at it for a great deal longer. In a new study, researchers at the Weizmann Institute…

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries don’t last forever. Over time, they hold onto less charge, eventually transforming from power sources to bricks. One reason: hidden, leaky hydrogen, new research suggests.  

Unwanted hydrogen…

One of the world’s richest biodiversity hot spots is Peru’s Madre de Dios, a region of the Amazon nestled at the base of the Andes mountains. When biogeochemist Jacqueline Gerson first traveled there in 2017, she found herself on a…

Electric vehicles promise to help wean us off of fossil fuels, but they introduce a new problem: how to get enough of the lithium that EV batteries require (SN: 5/7/19).

Materials scientist Chong Liu of the University of Chicago has…

Weizmann Institute of Science researchers were thrilled when they managed to observe the birth of a protein made by a single DNA molecule: No one had previously seen this event outside a cell. That excitement, however, was only the beginning. The…

The ceramic produced in Prof. Igor Lubomirsky’s lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science seemed too good to be true. It belongs to a class of materials that are the backbone of many essential technologies but that unfortunately also create an…