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Category: chemistry

Chang’e mission samples reveal how exogenous organic matter evolves on the moon

Elements essential to life, such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, were “delivered” to Earth and the moon during the early stages of the solar system via asteroids and comets impacting their surfaces. These exogenous materials may have provided the chemical building blocks necessary for the origin and early evolution of life on Earth. But extensive geological activity and biological processes on Earth have largely erased the direct records of these early inputs on our planet.

In contrast, the moon, with its relatively limited geological activity, serves as a natural “time capsule,” making it easier to unravel the history and evolution of extraterrestrial organic matter.

A recent study has, for the first time, systematically identified multiple nitrogen-bearing organic species on the surfaces of lunar soil grains returned by China’s Chang’e-5 and Chang’e-6 missions. The research further reveals an evolutionary pathway defined by exogenous delivery, impact modification, and continuous solar wind processing.

Scientists discover f-block metals yield new oxygen-binding chemistry

Iron and oxygen bind together throughout the body. Most famously, iron binds dioxygen, or two oxygens paired with each other, in hemoglobin that transports oxygen through blood. But iron-oxo compounds, as they’re called, are found in many other places throughout the body. For example, the highly reactive iron-oxo is used in liver enzymes that metabolize drugs.

Rice University chemist Raúl Hernández Sánchez was interested in how oxygen could react with other types of metals—ones that reside on the lowest section of the periodic table, known as f-block metals, with lanthanides on the upper row and actinides on the lower.

If lanthanides could bind with oxygen, he theorized, it would form a highly reactive lanthanide-oxo compound that potentially could be used as a synthetic replacement for iron-oxo, opening up a new toolbox for small molecule chemists interested in studying these biological reactions.

How bromoform wrecks ozone: Ultrafast ‘roaming’ step captured in 150 femtoseconds

The halomethane compound bromoform (CHBr3) has devastating effects on the ozone layer. In the upper layers of the atmosphere, bromoform reacts with UV radiation, releasing bromine molecules which destroy ozone molecules. This reaction, however, has long puzzled scientists; the molecules involved seem to wander relative to each other in a way that energetically does not make sense. Scientists at European XFEL have now revealed structural evidence for this roaming mechanism for the first time, establishing it as a universal characteristic of photochemical reactions.

The study, published in Nature Communications, provides key insights into the field of atmospheric photochemistry and how halomethane compounds such as bromoform impact the ozone layer.

The ozone layer envelops Earth some 15–30 km above the planet’s surface. Ozone gas absorbs ultraviolet light as it enters the atmosphere, thereby protecting life on Earth from the effects of the harmful radiation. Ozone, however, reacts readily with other compounds also found in the stratosphere, leading to ozone depletion, and ultimately the creation of the ozone hole.

Specific Gravity Made Easy | Float, Sink & Hydrometer Explained

In this Easy Peasy Chemistry lesson, we break down Specific Gravity in a simple and clear way!

After learning about density, it’s time to understand how substances compare to water. Why do some objects float while others sink? What does a hydrometer reading like 1.25 actually mean?

In this video, you’ll learn:

• What specific gravity really means
• How it is different from density
• Why water is used as the reference
• How floating and sinking are related
• How a hydrometer measures specific gravity
• Why specific gravity has no units.

This lesson is perfect for high school, college, pre-med, nursing, and engineering students.

Watch till the end to fully understand how scientists measure and compare densities in the lab.

Continue reading “Specific Gravity Made Easy | Float, Sink & Hydrometer Explained” | >

Tau mutation drives autophagy-lysosome dysfunction

The researchers studied a specific mutation in a brain protein called tau that causes the protein to become misfolded and alter its normal function. In general, when tau proteins become misfolded, they build up inside neurons and contribute to various forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s dementia and frontotemporal dementia, a neurodegenerative disease similar to Alzheimer’s that often strikes earlier — in middle age — and typically involves significant changes in personality and behavior that precede cognitive decline.

In this new study, the researchers studied neurons that had been reprogrammed from skin cells sampled from patients with frontotemporal dementia who carried the tau mutation. In the neurons, the mutated tau proteins caused waste-recycling centers called lysosomes, which are involved in autophagy, to become dysfunctional, allowing cellular waste to accumulate in the lysosomes, which may contribute to neuronal death. The researchers found that enhancing autophagy with an analog of the chemical compound G2 improved clearance of the garbage, reduced tau levels in the lysosomes and prevented cellular toxicity and death.

G2 was discovered in 2019 via screening experiments seeking drugs that could reduce the accumulation of an aggregation-prone protein in a C. elegans model of alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency, which can cause severe liver disease. The compound was later shown to boost autophagy function in mammalian cell model systems.

The researchers also have shown that G2 can protect brain cells from death in cells modeling Huntington’s disease, a fatal inherited neurodegenerative disease caused by a genetic mutation present at birth. In the cellular model of Huntington’s disease, the compound prevented the buildup of a harmful RNA molecule. ScienceMission sciencenewshighlights.

New research adds to growing evidence that helping brain cells break down and eliminate their own cellular waste is a promising treatment strategy for a variety of neurodegenerative diseases. In lab experiments, the researchers found that exposure to a novel compound can clear a harmful protein from human neurons modeling frontotemporal dementia — a devastating and ultimately fatal condition — and prevent those neurons from dying.

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Continue reading “Tau mutation drives autophagy-lysosome dysfunction” | >

Hydroxyl radicals in UV-exposed water reveal surprising reaction pathway

How do radicals form in aqueous solutions when exposed to UV light? This question is important for health research and environmental protection. For example, with regard to the overfertilization of water bodies by intensive agriculture. A team at BESSY II has now developed a new method of investigating hydroxyl radicals in solution. By using a clever trick, the scientists gained surprising insights into the reaction pathway. The findings are published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Hydroxyl radicals (OH·) are found everywhere, from the troposphere to the cells of the human body. There, they cause oxidative stress and accelerate the aging process. They are also increasingly present in rivers and lakes, where they are formed by the photolysis of nitrogen oxides that have entered the water from over-fertilized soils. When UV radiation from sunlight strikes nitrogen oxides, hydroxyl radicals and a range of other radicals are generated. The chemistry of these radicals is extremely difficult to characterize accurately, as they react very quickly.

A team led by Professor Alexander Föhlisch of the HZB has investigated the chemistry of hydroxyl radicals formed from nitrogen oxides in water using X-ray absorption spectroscopy at the BESSY II X-ray source.

AI diffusion models tailor drug molecules to custom-fit protein targets, speeding drug development and evaluation

University of Virginia School of Medicine scientists have developed a bold new approach to drug development and discovery that could dramatically accelerate the creation of new medicines. UVA’s Nikolay V. Dokholyan, Ph.D., and colleagues have developed a suite of artificial intelligence-powered tools, called YuelDesign, YuelPocket and YuelBond, that work together to transform how new drugs are created. The centerpiece, YuelDesign, uses a cutting-edge form of AI called diffusion models to design new drug molecules tailored to fit their protein targets exactly, even accounting for the way proteins flex and shift shape during binding.

A companion tool, YuelPocket, identifies exactly where on a protein a drug can attach, while YuelBond ensures the chemical bonds in designed molecules are accurate. Together, the approach is poised to improve both how new drugs are designed and how quickly and efficiently existing drugs can be evaluated for new purposes.

“Think of it this way: Other methods try to design a key for a lock that’s sitting perfectly still, but in your body, that lock is constantly jiggling and changing shape. Our AI designs the key while the lock is moving, so the fit is much more realistic,” said Dokholyan, of UVA’s Department of Neurology. “This could make a real difference for patients with cancer, neurological disorders and many other conditions where we desperately need better drugs targeting these wiggly proteins but keep hitting dead ends.”

How surface chemistry impacts the performance of malaria nets

Insecticide-treated bed nets remain one of the most effective tools in malaria prevention, acting both as a physical barrier and as an insecticidal surface that kills or disables mosquitoes before they can transmit disease. New research by a multidisciplinary research team from the University of Liverpool and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) uses surface science to assess how well malaria nets perform.

Published in Science Advances, the focus of the study was the phasing out of PFAS coatings, a group of synthetic fluorinated coating chemicals that have been valued for stability and performance. However, their environmental persistence and potential health risks have made their removal an important priority. The paper is titled “Multimodal platform for ITN efficacy: Surface chemistry, bioavailability, and mosquito behavior.”

To understand the impact of removing PFAS, the team developed a novel multimodal evaluation platform combining chemical analysis, advanced surface imaging, and mosquito behavioral tracking.

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