Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: chemistry – Page 277

Columbia researchers engineer first technique to exploit the tunable symmetry of 2D materials for nonlinear optical applications, including laser, optical spectroscopy, imaging, and metrology systems, as well as next-generation optical quantum information processing and computing.

Nonlinear optics, a study of how light interacts with matter, is critical to many photonic applications, from the green laser pointers we’re all familiar with to intense broadband (white) light sources for quantum photonics that enable optical quantum computing, super-resolution imaging, optical sensing and ranging, and more. Through nonlinear optics, researchers are discovering new ways to use light, from getting a closer look at ultrafast processes in physics, biology, and chemistry to enhancing communication and navigation, solar energy harvesting, medical testing, and cybersecurity.

Columbia Engineering researchers report that they developed a new, efficient way to modulate and enhance an important type of nonlinear optical process: optical second harmonic generation — where two input photons are combined in the material to produce one photon with twice the energy — from hexagonal boron nitride through micromechanical rotation and multilayer stacking. The study was published online on March 32021, by Science Advances.

Read more | >

Researchers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) have developed a wearable health monitor that may bring us one step closer to the dream of Star Trek’s famous tricorder.

The monitor, a stretchy skin patch, can do it all: measuring blood pressure and heart rate, your glucose levels, as well as one of alcohol, caffeine, or lactate levels.

According to UCSD’s press release, the patch is the first device to demonstrate measuring multiple biochemical and cardiovascular signals at the same time.

Read more | >

An innovative study has confirmed that quantum mechanics plays a role in biological processes and causes mutations in DNA.

Quantum biology is an emerging field of science, established in the 1920s, which looks at whether the subatomic world of quantum mechanics plays a role in living cells. Quantum mechanics is an interdisciplinary field by nature, bringing together nuclear physicists, biochemists and molecular biologists.

In a research paper published by the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, a team from Surrey’s Leverhulme Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre used state-of-the-art computer simulations and quantum mechanical methods to determine the role proton tunneling, a purely quantum phenomenon, plays in spontaneous mutations inside DNA.

Read more | >

The Future Of Food And Beverage Innovation And Venturing — Dr. Ellen De Brabander, Ph.D. — Senior Vice President, R&D, PepsiCo

Dr. Ellen de Brabander, is Senior Vice President, Research and Development, at PepsiCo, the American multinational food, snack, and beverage company.

Dr. de Brabander has broad set of responsibilities at Pepsico and currently leads their global R&D functions including the Food Safety, Quality, Strategy & Portfolio Management, and their Sensory and Regulatory Affairs teams. She also leads their R&D Digital Transformation initiatives to transform the innovation process to bring new, innovative products to the market.

Continue reading “Dr. Ellen de Brabander — SVP, R&D, PepsiCo — The Future Of Food And Beverage Innovation” | >

A large international team of scientists from various research organizations, including the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has developed a method that dramatically improves the already ultrafast time resolution achievable with X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs). It could lead to breakthroughs on how to design new materials and more efficient chemical processes.

Read more | >

The Wyss Institute’s eRapid electrochemical sensor technology now enables sensitive, specific and multiplexed detection of blood biomarkers at low cost with potential for many clinical applications.

Multimedia Available

The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University (http://wyss.harvard.edu) uses Nature’s design principles to develop bioinspired materials and devices that will transform medicine and create a more sustainable world. Wyss researchers are developing innovative new engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing that are translated into commercial products and therapies through collaborations with clinical investigators, corporate alliances, and formation of new startups. The Wyss Institute creates transformative technological breakthroughs by engaging in high risk research, and crosses disciplinary and institutional barriers, working as an alliance that includes Harvard’s Schools of Medicine, Engineering, Arts & Sciences and Design, and in partnership with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston University, Tufts University, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, University of Zurich and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Read more | >

Dr. John Torday, Ph.D. is an Investigator at The Lundquist Institute of Biomedical Innovation, a Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics/Gynecology, and Faculty, Evolutionary Medicine, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Director of the Perinatal Research Training Program, the Guenther Laboratory for Cell-Molecular Biology, and Faculty in the Division of Neonatology, at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Dr. Torday studies the cellular-molecular development of the lung and other visceral organs, and using the well-established principles of cell-cell communication as the basis for determining the patterns of physiologic development, his laboratory was the first to determine the complete repertoire of lung alveolar morphogenesis. This highly regulated structure offered the opportunity to trace the evolution of the lung from its unicellular origins forward, developmentally and phylogenetically. The lung is an algorithm for understanding the evolution of other physiologic properties, such as in the kidney, skin, liver, gut, and central nervous system. Such basic knowledge of the how and why of physiologic evolution is useful in the effective diagnosis and treatment of disease.

Dr. Torday received his undergraduate degree in Biology and English from Boston University, and his MSc and PhD in Experimental Medicine from McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He did a post-doctoral Fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI.

Dr. Torday’s research has led to the publication of more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and 350 abstracts. More recently, he has gained an interest in the evolutionary aspects of comparative physiology and development, leading to the publication of 12 peer-reviewed articles on the cellular origins of vertebrate physiology, culminating in the book Evolutionary Biology, Cell-Cell Communication and Complex Disease.

Continue reading “Dr. John S Torday — Lundquist Institute / UCLA — Aging And Disease As A Process Of Reverse Evolution” | >

In the search for ways to effectively combat age-related human disease, the enzyme sirtuin 6 (Sirt6) has recently become a focus of biochemical research. A targeted activation of Sirt6 could prevent or mitigate such diseases, for example some types of cancer. In a paper for the journal Nature Chemical Biology, biochemists from the University of Bayreuth have now shown how the small molecule MDL-801 binds to the enzyme Sirt6 and influences its activity. These findings stand to aid the development of new drugs.

Read more | >

A team of researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Southern University of Science and Technology, has discovered a thought-provoking pattern in cross-sections observed in an F + HD → HF + D reaction. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their double-pronged approach to learning more about the role of relativistic spin-orbit interactions in chemical reactions. T. Peter Rakitzis, with the University of Crete, and IESL-FORTH, has published a Perspectives piece in the same journal issue outlining the difficulty of studying chemical reactions at the quantum level and the work done by the team in China.

Read more | >

Innovative silicon solutions provider HPQ Silicon Resources Inc. (“HPQ” or the “Company”), announced that it has received the TREKHY® system, a portable hydrogen-based mini-power generator, jointly developed by the French companies Apollon Solar SAS (“Apollon”) and Pragma Industries SAS (“Pragma”).

While continuing to work with Apollon on the development of new generations of more efficient silicon powders for hydrogen production, HPQ signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Apollon and Pragma to study the commercial potential of the TREKHY® autonomous power generator in Canada.

The TREKHY® provides energy on demand. The system uses a compact fuel cell to provide electrical power. The integrated fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen to provide useful electricity + H2O. Hydrogen is produced through a chemical reaction resulting from contact between water and a powder bag. Each bag delivers 30W of power for more than one hour. (Video of the system in operation). In January 2021, a Japanese distributor purchased 300 TREKHY® systems to equip the survival shelters of the Japanese Civil Security.

Read more | >