Many socks, towels and other textiles are treated with silver nanoparticles to kill germs and odors. When the silver washes out, it can pollute waterways. Two chemists propose a way to collect it from wastewater.
Pharmaceutical companies focus on small molecules they’ve devised – and can easily patent. But nature’s already come up with many antibacterial compounds that drug designers could use to make medicines.
Will blue packets replace pink ones soon?
Aleksandra Berzhets/Shutterstock.com
Dust can be instructive. The analysis of those collected around the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko provided new information on the history of the solar system.
The ingredients of incense were detailed in the Old Testament.
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The four ingredients for holy incense are listed in the Old Testament, but there was much debate over the origin of one of them – onycha. Scientists think they’ve now confirmed the source.
‘Fast liquor’, aged in months rather than decades, is the holy grail for distillers who are trying techniques ranging from using special barrels to blasting their brew with ultrasound.
The technique is helping scientists to look for drugs against the Zika virus.
Cryo-electron microscopy resolution continues to improve.
Veronica Falconieri, Sriram Subramaniam, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health
The 2017 Nobel Prize in chemistry goes to three scientists who revolutionized biochemistry by inventing a technology that can image the molecules of life without destroying them.
Processed foods often contain additives with intimidating chemical names or numbers. But many of these are derived from or based on chemicals that are found in nature.
Boron is often ignored, but it’s got a lot of important qualities.
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