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chemistry

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Illustration of a brain surrounded by castle walls that keep out blood vessels.
explainers

How the Brain Protects Itself From Blood-Borne Threats

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
June 20, 2023
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To buffer the brain against menaces in the blood, a dynamic, multi-tiered system of protection is built into the brain’s blood vessels.

smell

How a Human Smell Receptor Works Is Finally Revealed

By Wynne Parry
May 1, 2023
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After decades of frustration, researchers have determined how an airborne scent molecule links to a human smell receptor.

Illustration of asteroids in space that are interconnected into a structure like that of the amino acid glycine.
explainers

Inside Ancient Asteroids, Gamma Rays Made Building Blocks of Life

By John Rennie +1 authors
Allison Parshall
January 4, 2023
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A new radiation-based mechanism adds to the ways that amino acids could have been made in space and brought to the young Earth.

Hands hold a ball-and-stick model of a pill-shaped molecule called a fullertube.
chemistry

‘Fullertubes’ Join the Family of Carbon Crystals

By James R. Riordon
December 20, 2022
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The buckminsterfullerene revolution never came, but some researchers are eagerly exploring the properties of newfound carbon crystals known as fullertubes.

Artwork of human figure smelling a flower and the smell being categorized as a type of flower.
smell

Machine Learning Highlights a Hidden Order in Scents

By Allison Parshall
October 10, 2022
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Efforts to build a better digital “nose” suggest that our perception of scents reflects both the structure of aromatic molecules and the metabolic processes that make them.

Nobel Prize

Molecule-Building Innovators Win Nobel Prize in Chemistry

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
October 5, 2022
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The chemists Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless were recognized for their development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.

an illustration of various objects (a chair, a rocket, a cell phone, etc.) as well as biological objects such as a DNA double-helix and microbe, all against a lime green background
The Joy of Why

What Is Life?

By Steven Strogatz
June 15, 2022
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Without a good definition of life, how do we look for it on alien planets? Steven Strogatz speaks with Robert Hazen, a mineralogist and astrobiologist, and Sheref Mansy, a chemist, to learn more.

quantum physics

Quantum Complexity Tamed by Machine Learning

By Charlie Wood
February 7, 2022
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If only scientists understood exactly how electrons act in molecules, they’d be able to predict the behavior of everything from experimental drugs to high-temperature superconductors. Following decades of physics-based insights, artificial intelligence systems are taking the next leap.

Nobel Prize

Chemistry Nobel Prize Honors Technique for Building Molecules

By Jordana Cepelewicz
October 6, 2021
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Benjamin List and David MacMillan received the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their development of asymmetrical organocatalysis.


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