Chemistry
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
You can help fight the coronavirus. All you need is a computer
With Folding@home, people can donate computing time on their home computers to the search for a chemical Achilles’ heel in the coronavirus.
- Chemistry
Thirdhand smoke wafting off moviegoers hurts air quality in theaters
Nonsmoking theaters can still get exposed to cigarette-related pollutants carried in on audience members’ bodies and clothing.
- Chemistry
Evaporating mixtures of two liquids create hypnotic designs
Through the magic of surface tension, mixtures of two liquids form fingerlike protrusions and other patterns as droplets evaporate.
- Materials Science
The containers the U.S. plans to use for nuclear waste storage may corrode
The different components of a nuclear waste storage unit start to corrode each other when wet, new lab experiments show.
- Chemistry
How to brew a better espresso, according to science
To make more consistent and affordable espresso shots, use fewer beans and grind them more coarsely, a new study says.
- Space
Phosphorus, a key ingredient of life, has been found in a newborn star system
Astrochemists map phosphorus-bearing molecules in a star-forming cloud, giving clues to how this vital element may have arrived on Earth.
- Chemistry
A dance of two atoms reveals chemical bonds forming and breaking
Two rhenium atoms approach and retreat from one another in an electron microscope video.
- Planetary Science
Ribose, a sugar needed for life, has been detected in meteorites
Samples of rocks that fell to Earth contain a key molecular ingredient of RNA, part of life’s genetic machinery.
- Materials Science
Lead becomes stronger than steel under extreme pressures
Lead is a soft metal, easily scratched with a fingernail. But that changes dramatically when the metal is compressed under high pressures.
- Chemistry
Molecular jiggling may explain why some solids shrink when heated
Scientists may have figured out how scandium fluoride crystals shrink as temperature rises, possibly leading to new insights into superconductors.
- Chemistry
American whiskeys leave unique ‘webs’ when evaporated
If you don’t have a sophisticated palate, it turns out you can distinguish among bourbons with a microscope.
- Chemistry
The development of the lithium-ion battery has won the chemistry Nobel Prize
Three scientists have won the 2019 Nobel Prize in chemistry for helping create lithium-ion batteries, which power everyday devices from smartphones to electric cars.
