Common glass, used in windows or bottles, for example, is made by heating a mixture of calcium oxide (lime), sodium carbonate (soda), and silicon (IV) oxide (sand), resulting in a calcium silicate. This silicate is not a crystal but a solid in which atoms are positioned at random and have no long-range ordered pattern. These […]
It is time to round off this trilogy of articles about the importance of basic science nowadays. But first, how does science improve? A research team selects a topic, creates its hypothesis and workflow and, perhaps, tries to publish an article with the findings. This article is read by a new research team, who will […]
Author: Francisco J. Blanco is an Ikerbasque Research Professor at CIC bioGUNE Molecular interactions in cell membranes, particularly lipid-protein interactions in their hydrophobic core, are difficult to analyse and remain poorly characterised despite high relevance in physiological and pathological processes. Structural rearrangements in membranes and embedded proteins, and the way molecular interactions contribute to their […]
“ It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present.— But if (& oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia & phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity etc present […]
Turning simple, individual molecules into complex, interconnected materials is the core of polymer chemistry. There is currently an increasing demand for materials with sophisticated properties such as self-healing and reusable adhesivity. However, achieving polymers with such functionalities generally demands higher structural complexity, synthetic difficulty, and cost. Now, a team of chemists has designed a supramolecular […]
Author: Roberto D’Agosta is an Ikerbasque Research Professor at ETSF and the Department of Materials Physics in the Faculty of Chemistry at the UPV/EHU in San Sebastian. Francesca Baletto, senior lecturer at King’s College London, read and commented the manuscript. Every single moment, nature exploits catalysis to make or improve specific chemical reactions. Catalysts facilitate […]
Many methods can be used to synthesise non-molecular inorganic solids. Some solids can be prepared by a variety of routes but others, especially those that are not thermodynamically stable, may be much more difficult to prepare and may require special methods. Non-molecular inorganic solids can also be prepared in various forms, as fibres, films, foams […]
From nucleic acids to proteins and sugar chains, all life is made up of polymers, large molecules made up of sequences of small units called monomers. However, how these macromolecules first appeared on the surface of Earth is still controversial. It is generally assumed that, right before life started, our planet was covered in very […]
Lipinski’s “rule of five”, 1 very well known by medicinal chemists, has been defined as a set of rules, based on the number 5 -hence its name-, to evaluate the “drug-likeness” of a given molecule. The rules are: – The molecule should have no more than 5 H-bond donors and 10 H-bond acceptors (i.e. N […]
Applicability or some usefulness is the mantra of new I+D research. However, in trying to obtain results or confirm an application we often forget to check or study the conditions and methods used. One example could be the different methodologies that we can be used to define antioxidant capacity. An antioxidant is a molecule that […]