Organic Chemistry News

June 13, 2025

Top Headlines

Guest Molecules Ride Perfect Waves in Dna droplets—A Breakthrough for Synthetic Biology

June 13, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered a previously unknown type of molecular motion inside DNA-based droplets: instead of spreading randomly, guest molecules advance in an organized wave. This surprising ...

An Iron Oxide 'Oxygen Sponge' for Efficient Thermochemical Hydrogen Production

May 29, 2025 — As the world shifts toward sustainable energy sources, 'green hydrogen' - hydrogen produced without emitting carbon - has emerged as a leading candidate for clean power. Scientists have now developed ...

Cryo-Em Freezes the Funk: How Scientists Visualized a Pungent Protein

May 27, 2025 — Most people have witnessed -- or rather smelled -- when a protein enzyme called sulfite reductase works its magic. This enzyme catalyzes the chemical reduction of sulfite to hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide is the rotten egg smell that can occur ...

An Artificial Protein That Moves Like Something Found in Nature

May 22, 2025 — Proteins catalyze life by changing shape when they interact with other molecules. The result is a muscle twitching, the perception of light, or a bit of energy extracted from food. The ability to engineer shapeshifting proteins opens new avenues for ...

'Green' Ammonia Powered by Sunlight

May 22, 2025 — Ammonia is a chemical essential to many agricultural and industrial processes, but it's mode of production comes with an incredibly high energy cost. Various attempts have, and are, being made to produce ammonia more efficiently. For the first time, ...

Assembly Instructions for Enzymes

May 23, 2025 — In biology, enzymes have evolved over millions of years to drive chemical reactions. Scientists have now derived universal rules to enable the de novo design of optimal enzymes. As an example, they considered the enzymatic reaction of breaking a ...

A New Approach Could Fractionate Crude Oil Using Much Less Energy

May 22, 2025 — Engineers developed a membrane that filters the components of crude oil by their molecular size, an advance that could dramatically reduce the amount of energy needed for crude oil ...

New Atom-Swapping Method Applied to Complex Organic Structures

May 22, 2025 — Chemists have developed an efficient skeletal editing method for frequently used heteroaromatic structures. The technique could serve as a means to chemically modify biologically active ...

A Smarter Way to Make Sulfones: Using Molecular Oxygen and a Functional Catalyst

May 9, 2025 — As a recent leap in green chemistry, scientists have unveiled a new catalyst that enables high yields of sulfones using molecular oxygen -- at close to room temperature. By fine-tuning the structure ...

How Membranes May Have Brought About the Chemistry of Life on Earth

May 20, 2025 — A team of researchers studied the properties of membranes to understand how these cellular structures influenced the chemistry of life on Earth as it ...

Cool Science: Researchers Craft Tiny Biological Tools Using Frozen Ethanol

May 20, 2025 — Imagine drawing on something as delicate as a living cell -- without damaging it. Researchers have made this groundbreaking discovery using an unexpected combination of tools: frozen ethanol, electron beams and purple-tinted microbes. By advancing a ...

More Donor Hearts by Extending the Preservation Time

May 19, 2025 — A new discovery could mean more donor hearts are available for heart transplant, giving more people a second chance at ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:37pm EDT

Researchers Find CRISPR Is Capable of Even More Than We Thought

May 16, 2025 — Newly discovered weapons of bacterial self-defense take different approaches to achieving the same goal: preventing a virus from spreading through the bacterial ...

A Novel Hybrid Charge Transfer Crystal With Reversible Color-Changing Property

May 15, 2025 — Charge transfer, or the movement of electrons, can occur either within a molecule or between two molecules. Combining the two types of charge ...

New Catalyst Boosts Efficiency of CO2 Conversion

May 14, 2025 — Researchers have developed an encapsulated cobalt-nickel alloy that significantly improves the efficiency and durability of high-temperature CO2 conversion, a promising technology for carbon ...

Enzymes from Scratch

May 13, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new workflow for designing enzymes from scratch, paving the way toward more efficient, powerful and environmentally benign chemistry. The new method allows designers to ...

Harnessing Protein Power to Deliver Medicine

May 8, 2025 — New research has revealed the potential of engineered proteins to more precisely deliver drugs within the ...

Urine, Not Water for Efficient Production of Green Hydrogen

May 9, 2025 — Researchers have developed two unique energy-efficient and cost-effective systems that use urea found in urine and wastewater to generate hydrogen. The unique systems reveal new pathways to ...

A Pipette That Can Activate Individual Neurons

May 7, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new type of pipette that can deliver ions to individual neurons without affecting the sensitive extracellular milieu. Controlling the concentration of different ions can ...

Viruses Under the Super Microscope: How Influenza Viruses Communicate With Cells

May 7, 2025 — Influenza viruses are among the most likely triggers of future pandemics. A research team has developed a method that can be used to study the ...

New Roadmap Advances Catalytic Solutions to Destroy 'Forever Chemicals'

May 7, 2025 — Researchers have outlined a bold new roadmap for harnessing heterogeneous catalysis to destroy per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the so-called 'forever chemicals' that have contaminated ...

Study of Velvet Worm Slime Could Revolutionize Sustainable Material Design

May 6, 2025 — A new discovery about the slime ejected by velvet worms could revolutionize sustainable material design. The findings outline how a naturally occurring protein structure, conserved across species ...

Accelerating Drug Discovery With a Single Carbon Atom

May 6, 2025 — A research team has pioneered a groundbreaking method that could accelerate drug discovery and reduce pharmaceutical development costs. Their work introduces a safe, sustainable way to insert a ...

Rare Earth Element Extraction Bolstered by New Research

Apr. 30, 2025 — A more efficient and environmentally friendly approach to extracting rare earth elements that power everything from electric vehicle batteries to smartphones could increase domestic supply and ...

Viewing Organs in 3D

Apr. 28, 2025 — It is now possible to obtain three-dimensional, high-resolution images of enzyme activity in tissue samples or whole organs -- thanks to probe molecules that anchor fluorescent dyes within tissue as ...

Breakthrough Extends Fuel Cell Lifespan Beyond 200,000 Hours, Paving the Way for Clean Long-Haul Trucking

Apr. 28, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new catalyst design capable of pushing the projected fuel cell catalyst lifespans to 200,000 hours. The research marks a significant step toward the widespread adoption ...

This Injected Protein-Like Polymer Helps Tissues Heal After a Heart Attack

Apr. 25, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new therapy that can be injected intravenously right after a heart attack to promote healing and prevent heart failure. The therapy both prompts the immune system to ...

Trawling-Induced Sediment Resuspension Reduces CO2 Uptake

Apr. 24, 2025 — When bottom trawls are dragged across the seafloor, they stir up sediments. This not only releases previously stored organic carbon, but also intensifies the oxidation of pyrite, a mineral present in ...

Plant-Based Calamari That Rivals Real Seafood in Texture

Apr. 24, 2025 — Plant-based seafood alternatives should have similar flavors, textures and nutritional content to the foods they mimic. And recreating the properties of fried calamari rings, which have a neutral ...

New Porous Crystal Catalyst Offers Durable, Efficient Solution for Clean Hydrogen Production

Apr. 23, 2025 — A new catalyst structure offers a potential pathway toward more cost-effective hydrogen production via water electrolysis. The material centers on mesoporous single-crystalline Co3O4 doped with ...

New Model Predicts a Chemical Reaction's Point of No Return

Apr. 23, 2025 — Researchers developed a machine-learning model that can predict the structures of transition states of chemical reactions in less than a second, with high accuracy. Their model could make it easier ...

Crystal Clear Design for High-Performance Flexible Thermoelectric Semiconductor

Apr. 23, 2025 — Researchers have identified a new material which could be used as a flexible semiconductor in wearable devices by using a technique that focuses on the manipulation of spaces between atoms in ...

Activity Stabilizes Mixtures

Apr. 22, 2025 — Asymmetric interactions between molecules may serve as a stabilizing factor for biological systems. A new model reveals this regulatory role of non-reciprocity. The scientists aim to understand the ...

A Light-Activated Probe Reveals TB Immune System Evasion Mechanisms

Apr. 21, 2025 — Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that kills more than a million people worldwide every year. The pathogen that causes the disease, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is deadly in part because of ...

A New Take on the Abilities of Hydrogen Binding Energy for Use in Single Atom Catalysts

Apr. 17, 2025 — Conventional thinking holds that the metal site in single atom catalysts (SACs) has been a limiting factor to the continued improvement of the design and, therefore, the continued improvement of the ...

Green Hydrogen: A Cage Structured Material Transforms Into a Performant Catalyst

Apr. 17, 2025 — Clathrates are characterized by a complex cage structure that provides space for guest ions too. Now a team has investigated the suitability of clathrates as catalysts for electrolytic hydrogen ...

Corn Leads to Improved Performance in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Apr. 15, 2025 — Researchers have demonstrated a way to use corn protein to improve the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries, a finding that holds promise for expanding the use of the high-energy, lighter-weight ...

Making Desalination More Eco-Friendly: New Membranes Could Help Eliminate Brine Waste

Apr. 15, 2025 — Desalination plants, a major and growing source of freshwater in dry regions, could produce less harmful waste using electricity and new ...

Researchers May Have Solved Decades-Old Mystery Behind Benzodiazepine Side Effects

Apr. 14, 2025 — Identifying a key protein's role could improve the common mental health medications and point to new treatments for inflammation-related diseases, a medicinal chemist ...

Reshaping Quantum Dots Production Through Continuous Flow and Sustainable Technologies

Apr. 11, 2025 — Researchers have developed a pioneering, sustainable method for producing cadmium-based quantum dots (QDs) in water using a biocompatible chalcogen source. This fully aqueous, continuous flow process ...

Researchers Watch a Live Catalytic Event in Real Time

Apr. 11, 2025 — A team of scientists has directly observed catalysis in-action at the atomic level. In mesmerizing new videos, single atoms move and shake during a chemical reaction that removes hydrogen atoms from ...

Scalable Graphene Membranes: A Leap for Carbon Capture

Apr. 11, 2025 — Scientists have developed a scalable method to produce porous graphene membranes that efficiently separate carbon dioxide. The breakthrough could significantly reduce the cost and footprint of carbon ...