Single-atom vibrational spectroscopy now sensitive at level of chemical bonds

23-Mar-2023 - Researchers led by Prof. ZHOU Wu from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) and Prof. Sokrates T. Pantelides of Vanderbilt University have pushed the sensitivity of single-atom vibrational spectroscopy to the chemical-bonding-configuration extreme, which is critical for ...

Faster (cheaper) method for making big bioactive ring molecules

14-Dec-2016 - Ring molecules called cyclic depsipeptides play an important role in living organisms. Microbes make them as part of their chemical arsenal for attacking competitors and they have proven effective as antibiotics, anti-retrovirals and pesticides, among other applications. One problem, however, has ...

Experimental insecticide explodes mosquitoes, not honeybees

07-Dec-2016 - In a new study, Vanderbilt pharmacologist Jerod Denton, Ph.D., Ohio State entomologist Peter Piermarini, Ph.D., and colleagues report an experimental molecule that inhibits kidney function in mosquitoes and thus might provide a new way to control the deadliest animal on Earth. The investigators ...

Reducing antidepressants’ side effects

24-Nov-2016 - Medicines used to treat depression, called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), can increase bleeding risk and bleeding time and disrupt platelet aggregation in the gastrointestinal tract. SSRIs prevent cells from taking up the neurotransmitter serotonin that has been released from ...

Making high-performance batteries from junkyard scraps

04-Nov-2016 - Take some metal scraps from the junkyard; put them in a glass jar with a common household chemical; and, voilà, you have a high-performance battery. "Imagine that the tons of metal waste discarded every year could be used to provide energy storage for the renewable energy grid of the future, ...

Quantum dots made from fool's gold boost battery performance

13-Nov-2015 - If you add quantum dots - nanocrystals 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair - to a smartphone battery it will charge in 30 seconds, but the effect only lasts for a few recharge cycles. However, a group of researchers at Vanderbilt University found a way to overcome this problem: ...

Largest atom smashers create smallest droplets

How small can a droplet shrink and still remain a liquid?

08-Oct-2015 - The LHC successfully created sub-atomic blobs of Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) by colliding lead ions together. Smashing these two massive ions together generated tremendous temperatures, that are required for the primordial state of matter to form. “Lead ions are very large, each containing hundreds ...

Cheaper, greener way to make new drugs

25-Mar-2014 - This alternative approach to creating artificial organic molecules, called bioretrosynthesis, was first proposed four years ago by Brian Bachmann, associate professor of chemistry at Vanderbilt University. Now Bachmann and a team of collaborators report that they have succeeded in using the ...

Size matters in nanocrystals' ability to adsorb gases

12-Aug-2013 - More efficient catalytic converters on autos, improved batteries and more sensitive gas sensors are some of the potential benefits of a new system that can directly measure the manner in which nanocrystals adsorb and release hydrogen and other gases. The technique, which was developed by ...

New study confirms exotic electric properties of graphene

20-Nov-2009 - First, it was the soccer-ball-shaped molecules dubbed buckyballs. Then it was the cylindrically shaped nanotubes. Now, the hottest new material in physics and nanotechnology is graphene: a remarkably flat molecule made of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal rings much like molecular chicken ...