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    Oxygen Takes Elitist Attitude to Sharing Electrons

    Oxygen Takes Elitist Attitude to Sharing Electrons

    Fuel cells and other devices use reactions involving oxygen. To improve these technologies, scientists need to know how the oxygen behaves. Researchers just overturned the conventional thinking about the oxygen's behavior.

    A Natural Fondness for Plutonium

    A Natural Fondness for Plutonium

    Once released into the environment, radioactive materials pose risks. Scientists found that a protein that binds radioactive elements, such as plutonium. This discovery could lead to new ways to clean a contaminated area.

    Improving Catalysis Science with Synchrotrons

    Improving Catalysis Science with Synchrotrons

    the global economy and have been the subject of research for decades. Despite their unique advantages, x-ray synchrotron spectroscopy techniques were not widely employed by those delving into the intricacies The Synchrotron Catalysis Consortium was established to address this situation by providing scientists a means to study catalysts at work under realistic conditions and developing new techniques to characterize catalysts.

    Natural Chemicals Transform Human-Made Particulates

    Natural Chemicals Transform Human-Made Particulates

    Research into two natural chemicals shows how they compete to coat and change atmospheric particles created by fossil fuel combustion. The results could improve the accuracy of climate and air quality simulations.

    Scientists Rewrite Bacteria's Genetic Code

    Scientists Rewrite Bacteria's Genetic Code

    By recoding bacterial genomes such as E. coli, it is possible to create organisms that can potentially synthesize products not commonly found in nature.

    Busted: Revealing Mismatches in MJO Modeling

    Busted: Revealing Mismatches in MJO Modeling

    Researchers found that certain models get the relationship between environmental moisture and precipitation wrong. This mismatch produces more precipitation than is observed particularly during inactive phase of the Madden-Julian Oscillation.

    Plutonium Keeps Its Electrons Close to Home

    Plutonium Keeps Its Electrons Close to Home

    Extremely complex plutonium has ties to energy and security. Scientists from Pacific Northwest National Lab and Washington State University found that plutonium's behavior, in plutonium tetrafluoride, can be attributed to atoms hoarding electrons

    Making Sense of Failure in Light-Harvesting Semiconductors

    Making Sense of Failure in Light-Harvesting Semiconductors

    Scientists at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis uncovered the mysteries of photochemical instability in a widely used semiconductor. Their results reveal previously unpredicted pathways to degradation and provide insights.

    Electrons Fingerprint the Fastest Laser Pulses

    Electrons Fingerprint the Fastest Laser Pulses

    Physicists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are analyzing how ultrafast laser pulses interact with matter. Their study of how two attosecond laser pulses would interact with a helium atom produced an electron momentum distribution that displays an unexpected two-armed vortex pattern, resembling a spiral galaxy.

    Defects, Electrons, and a Long-Standing Controversy

    Defects, Electrons, and a Long-Standing Controversy

    Scientists reconciled a long-standing controversy on topological insulators' low-temperature electrical properties. These results might pave a way to control the properties of these materials, which hold promise for next-generation electronics.

    Diverse Fungi Secrete Similar Suite of Decomposition Enzymes

    Diverse Fungi Secrete Similar Suite of Decomposition Enzymes

    A recent study reveals different fungal species secrete a rich set of enzymes that share similar functions, despite species-specific differences in the amino acid sequences of these enzymes.

    Breathable and Stretchable Protein Wafers

    Breathable and Stretchable Protein Wafers

    Scientists constructed defect-free sheets of material with pores that "breathe"--open and close simultaneously without falling apart.

    Fast and Furious Bucket Brigade

    Fast and Furious Bucket Brigade

    Carbon nanotubes that confine water into one-dimensional wires have validated a decade-old prediction and achieved rates faster than in bulk water and state-of-the-art fuel cell membranes. Ultimately, this could aid membranes for fuel cells to power your car and home.

    Improved Tests of the Weak Nuclear Force From Beta Decay

    Improved Tests of the Weak Nuclear Force From Beta Decay

    Scientists performed an exquisitely precise measurement of the angular distribution of neutrinos emerging from beta decay using a novel approach to reveal the subtle imprint of tensor interactions -- processes that have long defied measurement.

    New Math Captures Fluids in Unprecedented Detail

    New Math Captures Fluids in Unprecedented Detail

    Developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a new mathematical framework sheds light on how fast a fluid moves in its environment, how much pressure it is under, and what forces it exerts on its surroundings.

    Biofuel Tech Straight From the Farm

    Biofuel Tech Straight From the Farm

    In herbivores' guts, fungi digest plant material. Researchers characterized several fungi involved in this digestion process and identified a large number of enzymes that work synergistically to degrade the raw biomass.

    Inner Workings of Atomically Thin Transistors

    Inner Workings of Atomically Thin Transistors

    Scientists reveal conductive edges and thread-like flaws during the normal operation of molybdenum disulfide transistors using a specialized imaging technique of interest for next-generation electronics.

    Johannes Lercher Received Inaugural Lectureship From Australian Catalysis Society

    Johannes Lercher Received Inaugural Lectureship From Australian Catalysis Society

    Johannes Lercher, Director of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Institute for Integrated Catalysis, was chosen for the first David Trim and Noel Cant Lectureship sponsored by the Catalysis Society of Australia.

    Wildfires Lingering Heat: Brown Carbon's Story

    Wildfires Lingering Heat: Brown Carbon's Story

    Researchers studying brown carbon released by burning plant matter found that brown carbon's light absorption (warming effect) properties depend more on burn conditions) than fuel type.

    Sugar Hitches a Ride on Organic Sea Spray

    Sugar Hitches a Ride on Organic Sea Spray

    Hitching a ride on fatty molecules, a "sticky" strategy shields sugary molecules from their soluble nature, and may explain the discrepancies between models and actual measurements of sea spray aerosol composition.

    Transformations: Basic Catalysis Enabling Zero-Carbon-Footprint Future, Scale-up of Aviation Biofuels, Five Cents about Nickel Catalysts

    Transformations: Basic Catalysis Enabling Zero-Carbon-Footprint Future, Scale-up of Aviation Biofuels, Five Cents about Nickel Catalysts

    The August 2016 issue of the Institute for Integrated Catalysis' Transformations highlights in catalysis.

    Determining Real Molecules in Operating Batteries

    Determining Real Molecules in Operating Batteries

    For the first time, scientists revealed the structural and chemical evolution of molecules at an electrode surface in an operating battery.

    "High-Occupancy" Vehicle (HOV) Battery

    "High-Occupancy" Vehicle (HOV) Battery

    Future batteries made of negatively charged electrodes that take advantage of magnesium intercalation could have twice or more the energy density of today's commercial lithium-ion batteries.

    Finding Where the Missing Proton Goes in Water

    Finding Where the Missing Proton Goes in Water

    Scientists traced how a cluster of water molecules adapts to incorporate an extra proton in the formation of an aqueous acid. Their research indicates that the extra proton resides on the surface of a cage structure formed by the 21 water molecules.

    Unmasking the Molecule

    Unmasking the Molecule

    Atom and bond arrangements help determine a molecule's identity. Researchers adapted a new technique called "itProbe" to produce images of structure and bonding in a single molecule, essentially unmasking the molecules.