During thousands of years of burial, cereals from ancient artifacts are degraded and consumed, but ergot fungi produce a fingerprint of lipids that we can use to trace them.
Category: General Interest
Monitoring Glucose Levels in Sweat with a Wearable Sensor
Measuring blood sugar levels by pricking your finger is painful and inconvenient. Learn about a new wearable device that measures your glucose levels with just your sweat!
Scanning for Skin Cancer
The idea that a full body scan can give comprehensive medical prognosis may be closer than we realize. Scanning mass spectrometry has been used to differentiate between healthy and cancerous skin cells. We can literally scan a person for skin cancer!
Computational Chemistry > Computers + Chemistry
Computational chemistry is much more than computers and chemistry! Let’s have a brief tour in the world of computational chemistry!
Using Erasable Codes to Stop Fake Medical Tests
Fake medical tests are a huge problem in many poorer countries. Let’s learn about a way to print erasable codes on these devices so they can’t be counterfeited!
Can Chemists Cure the Common Cold?
Although getting the common cold is not a nice experience, it is only a relatively minor misfortune for most people. But the consqeuences of a cold can be severe. This paper describes a significant step towards a cure!
Can the sea help solve climate change?
The sea can sequestrate carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and some rocks can help to enhance this phenomenon! But which ones? and how?
Charges that challenge scientists!
Rub a ruler with a wool and hold it towards paper bits, then you’d find the ruler attracts papers. This may sound a common sense to you – the two surfaces have opposite charges.
But now, researchers find that not all materials behave the same and the reason is still a mystery.
Let’s take a look at the charges that challenges scientists!
Making surfaces oil repelling with a coating of tannic acid!
Making surfaces that oil can’t stick to is important for cleaning up oil spills and other pollution. Let’s find out about a new way to coat surfaces that makes them repel oil!
Capturing a new form of DNA: i-motif DNA structures and where to find them
A new form of DNA was found in vivo. It can be a way to regulate the DNA replication and thus prevent the replication of tumor cells.
Separating Left- and Right-Handed Molecules With A Magnetic Field
Today’s Chembite looks at a remarkable new way of separating enantiomers – using a magnetic field.
Controlling Adhesives with Light!
Let’s learn about a new material that can be made sticky or not sticky with just light!
Algal Blooms Impact Air Quality in Great Lake Regions
Algal blooms aren’t the most aesthetically pleasing plant in a lake region, but did you know their emissions can impact air quality and human health?
The shape of supercooled water
Water is a really special liquid: its characteristics allow the existence of life as it is. But It can still amaze us: a new form of liquid water has just been discovered at -80 °C.
Seeing the unseen – the first aromatic molecule identified in space!
Outer space has lots of radiation. But there’s one kind, a faint infrared glow, that has appeared as a mystery to many scientists.
By following this mysterious light, scientists have now made a great discovery – seeing an aromatic molecule for the first time in the galaxies!
Evolving Proteins to Make Tiny Carbon Rings
Learn how researchers at Caltech artificially evolved proteins to synthesize some of the most challenging tiny molecules in organic chemistry!
Sniffing Sensors to Save Entrapped Humans
Human odors and skin oils can be detected by hand-held sensors in order to aid in urban search and rescue efforts.
Using lasers to make graphene on the surface of food!
Graphene is a wonder-material that is nearly indestructible, conducts electricity, and flexible enough to be worn. Let’s learn how to make it with lasers on the surface of carbon-based materials!
Why Scientists Are Putting Barcodes on Worms
Find out what “photochemical barcodes” are and how they might help us understand complex biological processes.
Halogen bonding with astatine: insights into a mysterious element.
How much do you look beyond the top few rows of elements in the periodic table? Prepare to do just that in today’s chembite as we explore some astatine chemistry!
Turn on the lights and get your 3D printouts!
Printing is cool, but 3D printing is cooler! Instead of words on a page, you can print spoons and forks and even houses! And today, you’ll see the coolest 3D printing – printing chains of molecules, simply with light!
Targeting Cancer Cells with Different Drugs…in the Same Pill!
Tailoring treatment for a specific patient is the future of medicine. Let’s learn about making tiny pills that are “smart” enough to know where to dissolve in the body!
Household Chemical Products Contribute to Poor Air Quality
Is your deodorant contributing to air pollution and human health risks? Find out here!
Shining Light on Aldehyde Synthesis
Photoredox catalysis is at it again! This time it is used to synthesize polysubstituted aldehydes – highly useful building blocks – from readily available styrenes and vinyl ethers.
Flexible iPhones and Wearable Touch Screens: Transparent Conductors with Silver Nanowires
Flexible touch screens and see-through electronics could be closer than you think! Let’s learn about a new way to make transparent conductors with silver nanowires!