Tag Archives: Chemistry
CRISPR gene editing pioneers win the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The World’s Brightest Fluorescent Material Gives Us SMILES
If you really want to stand out at a rave, you dress up in fluorescent colors and then stand under the black lights. But if you want to take your illumination to 11, there’s a new material that could up your visibility even more.
A team of chemists from Indiana University, the University of Copenhagen , and the University of Southern Mississippi have developed a unique material they claim is the brightest fluorescent substance on the planet.
Known as SMILES (small-molecule ionic isolation lattices), the material is made by creating a crystalline powder, then spinning it into a thin film or incorporating it into a synthetic polymer. While there are lots of highly fluorescent dyes out there, what makes this accomplishment special is that it’s really hard to maintain their fluorescence in solid materials because their molecules stick too closely together, diminishing their brightness. By engineering a special donut-shaped molecule, the scientists were able to find a way to keep them further apart, resulting in a much brighter material. According to their research, SMILES is 30 times brighter than cadmium selenide quantum dots, a fluorescent material used in medical imaging.
If commercialized, the technology could help to improve medical lasers, solar cells, 3D displays, and more. I’m not sure if rave accessories are on the list though. For more information on the SMILES research project, you can find their full paper over on Chem.
[via TechEBlog]
Pioneers of lithium-ion batteries win the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists credited with the invention of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery. John B Goodenough of the University of Texas at Austin, M Stanley Whittingham of Binghamton University and...
NASA finally found evidence of the universe’s earliest molecule
Scientists have long suspected that, around 100,000 years after the big bang, helium and hydrogen combined to form the first molecule, helium hydride. That helped the universe begin to cool and led to the formation of stars. But, despite decades of s...
Drink Some Beer, Develop Some Film with It
Meet Dogfish Head SuperEIGHT, a Gose beer created in collaboration with Kodak. Why would Kodak be involved with beer you ask? Well, this beer has the perfect pH to develop film when you add some ingredients.
If you happen to be in need of developing some Super 8 film, you can now drink and develop to your heart’s content. The beer is brewed with eight ingredients that include prickly pear, mango, boysenberry, blackberry, raspberry, elderberry, kiwi juices, toasted quinoa and an ample addition of red Hawaiian sea salt. And that’s how it gets its vibrant red color.
By combining the beer with vitamin C, baking soda, and a couple of Kodak development chemicals, it’s able to develop Super 8 film just fine. Just be careful not to drink the beer after developing the film. You can check out a video right here of a trip to Philadelphia that was processed with the beer.
Is there anything that beer can’t do? And my second question is why this needed to be invented. Who thought of this? Are Super 8 film photographers drunk? I have no idea. I think I’ll just stick to Photoshop, and pretend that the beer in my hand is actually helping my project.
[via Laughing Squid via Geekologie]
Light waves allow scientists to 3D print with multiple materials
3D printing can already create sensors for NASA rovers, rocket engines, safer football helmets, dentures. Name it, and it seems like it can be 3D printed. But the technology is still pretty limited, partly because most 3D printing systems can only ma...
‘Robot chemist’ could use AI to speed up medical breakthroughs
Scientists can only do so much to discover new chemical reactions on their own. Short of happy accidents, it can take years to find new drugs that might save lives. They might have a better way at the University of Glasgow, though: let robots do the...
Amazon backs Marie Curie biopic starring Rosamund Pike
Amazon's latest Prime Video production won't just rely on star power to reel you in -- it should also appeal to science fans. The internet giant is teaming with France's Studiocanal on Radioactive, a biopic covering the work and romance of pioneerin...
3D printers could let you produce your own drugs
You might imagine that drug production only happens at gigantic pharma corporations with millions of dollars worth of equipment. However, researchers at the University of Glasgow have unveiled a new process of building "reactionware," or small reacto...