Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

VitB3 3D model

It will allow for novel drug development for obesity, diabetes type II and related metabolic diseases. A small molecule N1-methylnicotinamide prevents metabolic complications caused by a high-fat diet.

“Our laboratory investigates the metabolic effects of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide [NAD+], a metabolite derived from a form of vitamin B3 called nicotinamide,” explained assistant Prof Pavlos Pissios. NAD+ is central to intermediary metabolism, the intracellular process by which food is converted into cellular components in the body.

“Like reservatrol, which is found in red wine, NAD+ boosts the effects of the protein sirtuin 1 [Sirt1], which is known to provide many health benefits,” said Pissios...

A rock fulgurite revealed that lightning strikes alter quartz’s crystal structure on the atomic level.

Researchers once believed only meteorites could do so. At a rock outcropping in southern France, a jagged fracture runs along the granite. The surface in and around the crevice is discolored black, as if wet or covered in algae. But the real explanation for the rock’s unusual features is more dramatic: a powerful bolt of lightning.

Using extremely high-resolution microscopy, Prof Gieré et al found that not only had the lightning melted the rock’s surface, resulting in a distinctive black “glaze,” but had transferred enough pressure to deform a thin layer of quartz crystals beneath the surface, resulting in distinct atomic-level structures called shock lamellae...

Gold compounds can surpass nickel and palladium-based catalysts in common reactions + often demonstrate novel types of reactivity compared to well-established catalysts. This allowed chemists to discover new chemical reactions and predetermined a fascinating boom in gold catalysis that we have observed in the recent years.

Professor Ananikov’s team introduced gold into well-known catalytic system which led to dramatic change of the reactivity and furnished the formation of novel gold-containing complexes. They appeared to be air stable and were isolated in the individual state. A single crystal Xray diffraction study ascertained the existence of a unique structural motif in the molecule, which cannot be explained within a conventional mechanistic framework.

The study used both theoretic...

Approaching its 3rd anniversary of Mars landing, the rover has found a target unlike anything it has studied before – bedrock with surprisingly high levels of silica. Silica is a rock-forming compound containing silicon and oxygen, commonly found on Earth as quartz. This area lies just downhill from a geological contact zone the rover has been studying near “Marias Pass” on lower Mount Sharp.

>>Curiosity team decided to back up the rover 151 feet from the geological contact zone to investigate the high-silica target dubbed “Elk.” The decision was made after they analyzed data from 2 instruments, the laser-firing Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN), which show elevated amounts of silicon and hydrogen, respectively...