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Plot twist: Straightening Single-molecule Conductors Improves their Performance

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Highly Planar and Completely Insulated Oligothiophenes: Effects of π-Conjugation on Hopping Charge Transport

Researchers have synthesized Nanowires made of a single molecule of oligothiophene up to 10 nanometers in length. By forcing the molecular chain to adopt a planar conformation, they were able to significantly its electrical conductivity.The findings may allow for a new generation of inexpensive high-tech devices, including smartphone screens and photovoltaics.

Carbon-based polymers, which are long molecular chains made of repeating units, can be found everywhere, from the rubber in the soles of your shoes to the proteins that make up your body...

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Site of Biggest ever Meteorite Collision in the UK discovered

Illustration of meteors streaking through Earth’s atmosphere (stock image).
Credit: © JohanSwanepoel / Adobe Stock

Scientists believe they have discovered the site of the biggest meteorite impact ever to hit the British Isles. Evidence for the ancient, 1.2 billion years old, meteorite strike, was first discovered in 2008 near Ullapool, NW Scotland by scientists from Oxford and Aberdeen Universities. The thickness and extent of the debris deposit they found suggested the impact crater – made by a meteorite estimated at 1km wide – was close to the coast, but its precise location remained a mystery.

In a paper published today in Journal of the Geological Society, a team led by Dr Ken Amor from the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University, show how they have identified the cr...

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How Old are your Organs? To scientists’ surprise, organs are a mix of Young and Old Cells

Anatomy model with internal organs (stock image).
Credit: © Alexander Borisenko / Adobe Stock

Scientists discover cellular structures with extreme longevity, leading to insights for age-associated diseases. Scientists once thought that neurons, or possibly heart cells, were the oldest cells in the body. Now, Salk Institute researchers have discovered that the mouse brain, liver and pancreas contain populations of cells and proteins with extremely long lifespans – some as old as neurons. The team’s methods could be applied to nearly any tissue in the body to provide valuable information about lifelong function of non-dividing cells and how cells lose control over the quality and integrity of proteins and important cell structures during aging.

“We were quite surprised to find cellu...

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Mass Anomaly Detected under the Moon’s Largest Crater

Illustration of far side of the moon (stock image).
Credit: © dottedyeti / Adobe Stock

Discovery may contain metal from asteroid crash, Baylor University researcher says. A mysterious large mass of material has been discovered beneath the largest crater in our solar system – the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin – and may contain metal from the asteroid that crashed into the Moon and formed the crater, according to a Baylor University study.

“Imagine taking a pile of metal five times larger than the Big Island of Hawaii and burying it underground. That’s roughly how much unexpected mass we detected,” said lead author Peter B. James,

Ph.D., assistant professor of planetary geophysics in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences...

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