NEWS RELEASES

In a major breakthrough, a team at the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI) found a new way to acccelerate plant bioengineering using robots. Researchers deployed a biofoundry – a laboratory integrating robotics, computer-aided design, and informatics – to make genetically engineered plants and used it to boost oil production in plant cells and whole plants. This fast, automated, scalable, high-throughput pipeline for plant bioengineering, or FAST-PB, can help scientists quickly improve valuable plant traits, such as increased oil production or photosynthesis, to build better bioenergy crops.

Water molecules flip their orientation before splitting into hydrogen and oxygen. These acrobatics require significant energy, leading to the reaction’s inefficiency. Researchers quantified the precise energy costs of flipping. Efficiency is significantly affected by the water’s pH levels.

A Northwestern University-led international team of scientists has, for the first time, directly observed catalysis in-action at the atomic level. In mesmerizing new videos, single atoms move and shake during a chemical reaction that removes hydrogen atoms from an alcohol molecule. By viewing the process in real time, the researchers discovered several short-lived intermediate molecules involved in the reaction as well as a previously hidden reaction pathway.

Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University have shown that particles produced in collimated sprays called jets retain information about their origins in subatomic particle smashups.

A web platform developed at Emory University uses a chatbot to enable any chemist — including undergraduate chemistry majors — to configure and execute complex quantum mechanical simulations through chatting.

From seat cushions to mattresses to insulation, foam is everywhere — even if we don’t always see it. Now, researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas have fused chemistry with technology to create a 3D-printed foam that is more durable and more recyclable than the polymer foam found in many everyday products.