Organic small molecules are essential for many different fields, from medicine to technology: Most of the drugs we take, biological probes and the constituents of solar cells, to name but a few, are small organic molecules. (Figure 1) However, their synthesis in the laboratory is not easy. Individual reaction conditions for each step of the […]
No matter how the layout of the periodic table may be, there are elements that are always grouped together. This is easy to understand; let’s take for example the standard form of the table (due to H.G. Deming). In this layout each group, each vertical column in the table, has more significant periodic trends than […]
Imagine that you enter a room full of a poisonous gas wearing a mask that is not good enough to prevent the gas reaching your lungs and killing you. The mask is not good enough because it would allow the gas to diffuse through the fabric it is made of, eventually reaching your nose and […]
A uthor: Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo, Permanent Researcher, University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) Although «cracking the origins-of-life puzzle», regardless of the reputation of the journalist who tells the news, is clearly not within the reach of science quite yet, the article published a few weeks ago by Sutherland and colleagues in the UK , does constitute […]
“In the beginning, there was simplicity” Richard Dawkins, “The selfish gene”, chapter 2 The question of how life began on Earth is as old as the human race and has occupied the thoughts and time of scientists and philosophers for centuries, often causing conflict throughout history. From a scientific point of view, the several possibilities […]
A quantum dot is a nanometric crystalline structure of semiconductor materials. In a quatum dot electrons are confined in a region of space, thus creating a well defined structure of energy levels that depends very much on the size and shape of the quantum dot. This structure resembles that of atoms, that is why sometimes […]
When we think about the new materials of the future some names may come to mind: pure carbon, in the form of graphene or nanotubes or buckyballs or any other exotic allotrope; or some kind of oxide of these carbon allotropes; or some strange combination of metal oxides, manufactured via processes that remind us of […]
Not many people know that polyoxometalates (POMs) discovery dates back to 1783 and that they were the D´Elhuyar brothers ( Juan José D´Elhuyar (Logroño, 1754 ) and Fausto D´Elhuyar (Logroño, 1755) who discovered a yellow spicy/bitter tasting salt from the reaction of ammonium molybdate with phosphoric acid which is now known as ammonium 12-phosphomolybdate, (NH […]
Most leaves are various shades of green. This is due to the chlorophylls. The name chlorophyll comes from the Greek words chloros (green) and phyllon (leaf). There are six types of chlorophylls in plants. The two main chlorophylls are chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b. Chlorophyll a absorbs purple and orange light the most. Chlorophyll b […]
The way a carbon atom binds to other atoms is what make this element so important. Apart from its capacity to bind to a wide range of different atoms, most remarkable is the way it can form long chains of carbon atoms with different kinds of covalent bonds between them . Biologically, for instance, the […]