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chemistry

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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.

neuroscience

Secret Workings of Smell Receptors Revealed for First Time

By Jordana Cepelewicz
June 21, 2021
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Researchers have finally seen how some smell receptors bind to odor molecules. The work yields new insights into one of the most mysterious and versatile senses.

Cells being injected with a microneedle.
Abstractions blog

Nobel Chemistry Prize Awarded for CRISPR ‘Genetic Scissors’

By Jordana Cepelewicz
October 7, 2020
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Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna have been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their development of CRISPR/Cas9 genetic editing.


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