Lifeboat Foundation

There’s a good chance you owe your existence to the Haber-Bosch process.

This industrial chemical reaction between hydrogen and nitrogen produces ammonia, the key ingredient in synthetic fertilizers that supply much of the world’s food supply and enabled the population explosion of the last century.

It may also threaten the existence of future generations. The process consumes about 2% of the world’s total energy supply, and the hydrogen required for the reaction mostly comes from fossil fuels.

Different types of cancer have distinct molecular “fingerprints” that can be identified in the early stages of the disease with remarkable accuracy. Small, portable scanners can detect these fingerprints within just a few hours, according to a study published today in Molecular Cell.

Researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona made this breakthrough, paving the way for non-invasive diagnostic tests that could identify various types of cancer more quickly and at earlier stages than current methods allow.

The study centers around the ribosome, the protein factories of a cell. For decades, ribosomes were thought to have the same blueprint across the human body. However, researchers discovered a hidden layer of complexity – tiny chemical modifications which vary between different tissues, developmental stages, and diseases.

A team of University of Melbourne researchers from the Caruso Nanoengineering Group has created an innovative drug delivery system with outstanding potential to improve drug development.

The team has pioneered a drug delivery system that is a coordination network composed of only metal ions and biomolecules, known as metal–biomolecule network (MBN). This system eliminates the need for complicated drug “carriers,” making it potentially more useful in a range of applications.

The research has been published in Science Advances and was led by Melbourne Laureate Professor and NHMRC Leadership Fellow Frank Caruso, from the Department of Chemical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, with Research Fellows Dr. Wanjun Xu and Dr. Zhixing Lin joint first authors.

Research utilizing AI tool AlphaFold has revealed a new protein complex that initiates the fertilization process between sperm and egg, shedding light on the molecular interactions essential for successful fertilization.

Genetic research has uncovered many proteins involved in the initial contact between sperm and egg. However, direct proof of how these proteins bind or form complexes to enable fertilization remained unclear. Now, Andrea Pauli’s lab at the IMP, working with international collaborators, has combined AI-driven structural predictions with experimental evidence to reveal a key fertilization complex. Their findings, based on studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, were published in the journal Cell.

Continue reading “AI Protein Discovery Unlocks Secrets of Life’s Beginning” »

Researchers have used a chemical compound to light up treatment-resistant cancers on imaging scans, in a breakthrough that could help medical professionals better target and treat cancer.

The authors at King’s College London say that using the radiotracer—an injected compound used in PET scans—could help inform doctors that a patient’s aggressive cancer will not respond to chemotherapy before treatment is given. This would prevent patients receiving unnecessary treatment and provide them with alternative options that will give them the best chance of beating the disease.

The paper, “Imaging NRF2 activation in non-small cell lung cancer with positron emission tomography” published in Nature Communications, shows therapy-resistant non-small cell lung cancer tumors “lit up like a Christmas tree” on PET scans when the radiotracer was injected.

Researchers at MIT are developing innovative agricultural technologies such as stress-signaling plants, microbial fertilizers, and protective seed coatings to adapt farming to climate change and enhance food security.

With global temperatures on the rise, agricultural practices must adapt to new challenges. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of droughts, and some land may no longer be arable. Additionally, it is becoming increasingly difficult to feed an ever-growing population without expanding the production of fertilizer and other agrochemicals, which have a large carbon footprint that is contributing to global warming.

Continue reading “Glowing Plants and Silk-Coated Seeds: How MIT Is Developing the Future of Farming” »

Gases are essential for many chemical reactions, and bubbles are one way for these gases to be held in solution. When compared to larger bubbles, nanobubbles have increased stability—meaning that they can remain in a solution longer without popping. Due to their increased stability, they allow for higher availability of gases in solution, allowing more time for chemical reactions to occur.

Led by Dr. Hamidreza Samouei, researchers at Texas A&M University are advancing their understanding of what makes nanobubbles—bubbles with diameters smaller than a single strand of hair—so stable and what factors play a role in their stability. Their findings appear in a recent issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry.

“When we inject gas at the industrial scale, we don’t want to waste that gas. We want to maximize its use for chemical reactions,” said Samouei, a research assistant professor in the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering. “That’s the main purpose, to keep the gas in solution for a very, very long time, ideally infinite time; to keep the gas in solution without bursting.”

A review of chemical exposures across 38 countries finds common plastic products are linked to millions of cases of heart disease and thousands of strokes.

By Grace Wade

A pair of geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, has created a model that shows Earth’s subsurface may hold up to 5.6 × 10⁶ million metric tons of natural hydrogen. In their study, published in the journal Science Advances, Geoffrey Ellis and Sarah Gelman added factors to a geological model to produce estimates regarding the likely amount of hydrogen in parts of the Earth.

Prior research has shown that hydrogen can be produced artificially by applying electricity to water molecules to break them apart, leaving oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen is also produced naturally, via chemical reactions between rocks when they come into contact with one another. But until relatively recently, it was thought that very little hydrogen was made this way.

When geologists found huge natural reservoirs of hydrogen gas in Albania and West Africa, that thinking changed. Now, researchers believe that there are huge stores of hydrogen below our feet—the question remains, however, how to find it.