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Latest news from laboratory, environment, chemistry, life science and quality control

• Monitor the metabolism in the bacteria by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy
  Bacteria are masters in adapting to their environment. This adaptability contributes to the bacteria's survival inside their host. Researchers at the Vetmeduni Vienna now demonstrated that the bact...
• Analytik Jena launched new mass spectrometers with ICP-MS technology
  Analytik Jena AG expands its product range: only half a year after the acquisition of the ICP-MS business of the Bruker Corporation in September 2014, Analytik Jena introduces two new ICP-MS produc...
• Cheap solar cells made from shrimp shells
  Researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have successfully created electricity-generating solar-cells with chemicals found the shells of shrimps and other crustaceans for the first tim...
• Combination of MRI and MALDI mass spectrometry improves diagnostics
  Scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technische Universität München have succeeded in a breakthrough for the further development of contrast agents and consequently improved diagno...
• Capabilities of biogas-producing microorganisms are underestimated
  Researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering in Potsdam, Germany, have shown that anaerobic microorganisms can use complex organic pollutants for biogas production. Phenols, fu...
• Atmospheric abundance of new ozone-destroying gases is growing rapidly
  Study lead author Dr Ryan Hossaini, from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, said: "'very short-lived substances' (VSLS) can have both natural and industrial sources. In...
• Some of UV radiation absorbing chemicals in sunscreens considered to be harmful to health
  Researchers at ETH Zurich asked consumers in German-speaking Switzerland how often they used sunscreens and other personal care products. The collected data make for interesting reading: part of th...
• Magnitude of plastic waste going into the ocean
  A plastic grocery bag cartwheels down the beach until a gust of wind spins it into the ocean. In 192 coastal countries, this scenario plays out over and over again as discarded beverage bottles, fo...
• Researchers observe protein degradation in intact brain cells
  Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Huntington's or Parkinson's are caused by defect and aggregated proteins accumulating in brain nerve cells that are thereby paralyzed or even killed. In...
• New technique enables nanoscale-resolution microscopy of large biological specimens
  Beginning with the invention of the first microscope in the late 1500s, scientists have been trying to peer into preserved cells and tissues with ever-greater magnification. The latest generation o...
• Van Gogh's yellow stays - Petition banning cadmium in artist's paints finds no support
  Paul Gauguin used it, so did William Turner, Vincent van Gogh, Auguste Renoir, Max Slevogt, the series could go on. Cadmium yellow in artist's paints has been used in painting since 1829, cadmium r...
• Mini synthetic organism instead of test animals
  In medical research, animal-based experiments have thus far been a necessary evil. Fraunhofer researchers have developed a highly promising alternative, however: They are developing a mini-organism...
• New approach for characterization of cells could revolutionize diagnosis of diseases
  Cells, like any other material, have mechanical properties that can serve for their characterization. For example, cancer cells are characteristically more deformable than healthy cells. These mech...
• Finding valuable materials in metallurgical dumps
  Since metallic raw materials are scarce in Germany, it is reliant on imports. Yet some of these valuable materials are lying around unnoticed in dumps. Fraunhofer researchers are now compiling a Ge...
• Hydrogens detected by subatomic resolution protein crystallography
  X-ray crystallography is still the method of choice to determine the atomic structure of large biological macromolecules. One of the major drawbacks of the method is that hydrogens are difficult to...
• Structure and function of highly active bacterial enzyme elucidated
  A team of microbiologists from the TU Darmstadt and biochemists from the University of Freiburg, Germany, have jointly succeeded in determining the high-resolution crystal structure of a sulfite-re...
• Nitrogen doped diamond crystals open up many possibilities
  Diamonds - highly desirable lumps of carbon. But while their use to jewellers is well known, their hidden secrets are being revealed by the DIADEMS project. By modifying the structure of a diamond ...
• Real-Time observation of nonclassical protein crystallization kinetics
  A major hurdle in structural biology and pharmacology is growing crystals to determine the structure of the biomolecules and pharmaceuticals under study. Researchers at the University of Tübingen, ...
• Holes in valence bands of nanodiamonds discovered
  Researchers hope that their properties might be altered to permit nanodiamonds to be used as catalysts for generating hydrogen from sunlight. Nanodiamonds are tiny crystals only a few nanometres...
• Size dependence of phase transitions in aerosol nanoparticles
  Whether tiny particles in the air, so-called aerosol nanoparticles, are solid or liquid, is of great importance to atmospheric and climate scientists. The phase state determines if and how fast suc...