Chemistry
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Chemistry
Were Viking landers blind to life?
The Viking landers may have missed potential signs of life when they explored Mars in 1976.
- Chemistry
Unnatural success
Chemists report the first synthesis of a promising antibiotic that other researchers recently discovered in nature.
- Chemistry
Back on the Table? Element 118 is served up again
A team of nuclear chemists from the United States and Russia have announced the brief reappearance of element 118.
- Chemistry
Pretty in Pictures: Details of molecular machinery gain Nobel
This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to a researcher who determined the structure, in atomic detail, of RNA polymerase taken from yeast cells.
- Chemistry
Cell-Surface Stories
The latest generation of microelectrodes is reaching into biological realms to detect the ebbs and flows of chemicals at the surfaces of cells.
- Chemistry
Catalyst cleans up
A new chemical catalyst can remove the pollutant perchlorate from water.
- Chemistry
Altering ant uniforms
The chemical coat that an invasive ant species relies upon to recognize its kin may someday serve to turn family into foe.
- Chemistry
Compounds pass the smell test
A vile-smelling but versatile class of compounds may find a role in more chemistry laboratories with the introduction of easily made, inoffensive versions. Isonitriles, chemicals characterized by a triple bond between a carbon and a nitrogen atom, are useful in many reactions. But many chemists have shunned them because of their pungency, says Michael C. […]
- Chemistry
Better protection
A new molecular catalyst shortens a widely used reaction into a one-step process, with a bonus: It makes the reaction’s products into one of two possible mirror-image forms. When chemists synthesize compounds, they often add a protective group of atoms to a specific site on a molecule to prevent that site from reacting in subsequent […]
- Chemistry
Target Practice
As they study the biochemical processes that make Mycobacterium tuberculosis tick, researchers are finding new targets to exploit to combat the microbe.
- Chemistry
Lacy molecular order
A lacy honeycomb arrangement of molecules on copper suggests the possibility of creating useful nanoscale patterns on surfaces by fine-tuning intermolecular forces.
- Chemistry
Protection from poisons
An Alzheimer's disease drug could be protective against the deadly effects of two nerve agents.
