News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

New sensors developed by Professor Otto Gregory, of the College of Engineering at the University of Rhode Island, and chemical engineering doctoral student Peter Ricci, are so powerful that they can detect threats at the molecular level.

Scientists have uncovered the exact mechanism that causes new solar cells to break down, and suggest a potential solution.

High-precision noble gas analyses indicate that solar wind particles from our primordial Sun were encased in the Earth's core over 4.5 billion years ago. Researchers from Heidelberg University have concluded that the particles made their way into the overlying rock mantle over millions of years. The scientists found solar noble gases in an iron meteorite they studied. Because of their chemical composition, such meteorites are often used as natural models for the Earth's metallic core.

A new method to analyse the blood thinning drug Heparin has been developed that can pinpoint contaminants more accurately and quickly, providing greater quality control and safety.

Quantum mechanics is famous for its indeterminism, but we can usually use probabilities to quantify our uncertainty about future observations. However, a team of researchers at the University of Vienna, the IQOQI Vienna (Austrian Academy of Sciences) and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical physics have recently shown that in certain extreme quantum scenarios it is not possible to make such probabilistic predictions, provided that certain key assumptions of quantum mechanics hold true.

A research team led by professor YU Shuhong at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) has reported a new class of heteronanostructures they term axial superlattice nanowires (ASLNWs), which allow large lattice-mismatch tolerance and thus vast material combinations. The research article entitled "One-Dimensional Superlattice Heterostructure Library" was published in Journal of the American Chemical Society on May 12th.

The international scientific community agrees that the latest findings of an FAU research team will revolutionise the entire chemistry of magnesium. The research team have discovered magnesium, which usually has a double positive charge in chemical compounds, in the elemental zero-oxidation state. They have published their ground-breaking findings in the journal Nature.