Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

The researcher’s model of a yeast cell (magenta) with semiconductor nanoparticles (purple) attached to its surface (left) corresponds with their SEM analysis of the completed biohybrid system (right). The semiconductors capture electrons from light and hand them over to the cell where they drive the shikimic acid metabolic pathway.
Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Scientists presents a highly adaptable solution to creating yeast biohybrids with enhanced metabolism driven by light energy. Genetically engineered microbes such as bacteria and yeasts have long been used as living factories to produce drugs and fine chemicals...

Led by scientists at Rice University, researchers have created an epoxy-graphene foam compound that is tough and conductive without adding significant weight. The material is suitable for applications like electromagnetic shielding.
Credit: Rouzbeh Shahsavari Group/Rice University

Scientists combine graphene foam, epoxy into tough, conductive composite but as light as pure epoxy. Rice University scientists have built a better epoxy for electronic applications. Epoxy combined with “ultrastiff” graphene foam invented in the Rice lab of chemist James Tour is substantially tougher than pure epoxy and far more conductive than other epoxy composites while retaining the material’s low density...

Tractor spraying a wheat field. Credit: © Dusan Kostic / Fotolia

Use of organophosphates has lessened, but risks to early brain development still too high. Public health experts have found there is sufficient evidence that prenatal exposure to widely used insecticides known as organophosphates puts children at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders.

In a scientific review and call to action published in PLOS Medicine, the researchers call for immediate government intervention to phase out all organophosphates...

Researchers demonstrating the ability of aluminum to repel oil underwater.
Courtesy of the researchers

A new method can greatly extend the life of inexpensive, compact, lightweight metal-air batteries. Metal-air batteries are one of the lightest and most compact types of batteries available, but they can have a major limitation: When not in use, they degrade quickly, as corrosion eats away at their metal electrodes. Now, MIT researchers have found a way to substantially reduce that corrosion, making it possible for such batteries to have much longer shelf lives.

While typical rechargeable lithium-ion batteries only lose about 5% of their charge after a month of storage, they are too costly, bulky, or heavy for many applications...