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

• Simple method of binding pollutants in water
  It was not until January 2015 that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) lowered the threshold value for bisphenol A in packaging. The hormonally active bulk chemical is among other things a ba...
• First measurements of halogenated coolants and foaming agents in the atmosphere
  4th generation halogenated coolants and foaming agents have only been in use for a few years. They have replaced persistent greenhouse gases such as R134a, which were used in (car) air conditioning...
• Bioelectrochemical processes have the potential to one day replace petrochemistry
  Researchers at Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ), Germany, and the University of Queensland (UQ), Australia, have found that the electrification of the white biotechnology is not me...
• Predicting pesticide loads more accurately
  Researchers of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME have developed software for Germany that calculates the concentration of pesticides/plant protection products i...
• Temperature-controlled catalyst allows synthesis of molecular mirror images
  Many chemical compounds exist as an image and a mirror image: they differ in their spatial orientation, like the left and right hand. The properties of these so-called chiral molecules are also oft...
• Researchers increase energy density of lithium storage materials
  An interdisciplinary team of researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and KIT-founded Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU) pushes the further development of lithium ion batteries: The resear...
• How water molecules activate proteins
  An international team of researchers from the CEA, the CNRS, the Institut Laue-Langevin, the Forschungszentrum Jülich, the University of California Irvine, the Australian Institute of Science and T...
• Newly developed brewer's yeast helps optimizing cocoa fermentation process
  The Barry Callebaut Group, VIB (Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) and KU Leuven (University of Leuven), with the support of IWT (Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology-Flanders), manag...
• Higher tumor rates through exposure to electromagnetic fields
  Electromagnetic fields stimulate the growth of tumors in mice. This is the result of a new study by researchers from Jacobs University, which was commissioned by the Federal Office for Radiation Pr...
• Microbial soil cleanup of leaked radioactive strontium and caesium ions at Fukushima
  Proteins from salt-loving, halophilic, microbes could be the key to cleaning up leaked radioactive strontium and caesium ions from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant incident in Japan. The ...
• Plumbonacrite revealed as intermediate in degradation of red lead
  Red lead is most familiar to us in orange-red rustproof paint. Artists have treasured the brilliant color of this pigment for their paintings since ancient times. However, various ageing processes ...
• Mid-IR frequency combs enable high resolution spectroscopy for sensitive gas sensing
  A frequency comb source is a light source with a spectrum containing thousands of laser lines. The development of these sources has been revolutionary for fundamental science. It has allowed the co...
• Semi-artificial chloroplasts to manufacture biotechnologically relevant products
  An international research team wants to create semi-artificial chloroplasts for the manufacture of biotechnologically relevant products. For this purpose, they aim to modify the photosynthetic proc...
• Recycling of rare-earth elements from fluorescent and energy saving lamps
  KU Leuven Chemists have developed an innovative process, based on ionic liquid technology, for the recycling of the metals europium and yttrium from collected fluorescent and energy saving lamps. T...
• Successful recording of current in membrane channels of contracting cardiac cells
  For the first time, scientists have succeeded in recording the current in membrane channels of contracting cardiac cells. To do this, the scientists combined an atomic force microscope with a widel...
• Electron micrographs show that bacteria exchange nutrients via nanotubes
  It is well-known that bacteria can support each others' growth and exchange nutrients. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, and their colleagues at the univ...
• Reducing animal testing for skin allergies
  The JRC has validated and recommended a new method which is not based on animal testing, to identify chemicals that can trigger skin allergies, estimated to affect already 20% of the population in ...
• Untangling DNA with a droplet of water, a pipet and a polymer
  There are two ways to decode DNA: DNA sequencing and DNA mapping. In DNA sequencing, short strings of DNA are studied to determine the exact order of nucleotides - the bases A, C, G and T - within ...
• Real-time observation of bond formation by using Femtosecond X-ray liquidography
  The research team of the Center for Nanomaterials and Chemical Reactions at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) has successfully visualized the entire process of bond formation in solution by usi...
• Agricultural insecticides pose a global risk to surface water bodies
  Streams within approx. 40% of the global land surface are at risk from the application of insecticides. These were the results from the first global map to be modelled on insecticide runoff to surf...
• Losing one electron switches magnetism on in dichromium
  An international team of scientists from Berlin, Freiburg and Fukuoka has provided the first direct experimental insight into the secret quantum life of dichromium. Whereas in its normal state the ...
• Researchers developed a cost-effective and efficient rival for platinum
  A challenge that comes with the increased use of renewable energy is how to store electric energy. Platinum has traditionally been used as the electrocatalyst in electrolysers that store electric e...