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 […]
Since its discovery in 2003, graphene has become one of the “materials of the future”, with applications ranging from tissue engineering to energy storage. Recently, a paper published in Oncotarget by researchers at the University of Manchester has shown its potential in anti-cancer therapy, in addition to its already known applications in medicine as a […]
Hydraulic fracturing or Fracking is a controversial technique in which a solvent (water with chemicals) is injected at high pressure into deep rocks in order to break them so that natural gas and petroleum can flow freely. In a paper published recently in Nature Materials , researchers from the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia claim […]
Technology is all around us. There are a lot of acts that we perform daily that involve much more technology than we can imagine. Take for example removing the lid of a diary product; you would expect that the lid will offer some resistance but not so high as to make it impossible to open […]
There are people that have the feeling that if they get to know what something is made of automatically thay have learned something. This attitude is called reductionism. But take water, for example: how knowing that water is composed of molecules and that each of these molecules is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and […]
Sunlight is the most important energy source of Earth. All earthlings live thanks to the ability of plants and bacteria to transform solar energy into chemical one. As sunlight is a free, and practically unlimited, energy source it is easy to understand the general interest in finding efficient ways of transforming it into electrical power […]
Nowadays, our role as consumers controls most of our spare time. We find delight in looking for that object that symbolizes our values, our aesthetic categories, or at least the kind of thing we are comfortable with. We might well say that product design has become part of our daily lives as consumers and, strangely […]
The human brain is arguably the most fascinating organ found in nature. Its complexity has been known since Santiago Ramón y Cajal pioneering work showed the central nervous system (CNS) was a contiguous neuronal network where neuron is the basic unit as opposed to the view of the brain being a single continuous network (reticulum) […]
Biochemistry • Biology • Materials • Molecular biology • Neuroscience
Some jellyfish species are beautifully fluorescent in the dark ocean, emitting light from different parts of their bodies in a process that is thought to help them to warn off predators. The molecular biology behind this process of glowing is possible thanks to one of the most famous proteins in molecular biology, the green fluorescent […]
Approximately 90% of world’s electricity is generated in turbines moved by hot steam, which, unfortunately, operate only at 30 to 40 percent efficiency. This means that around two thirds of the total energy input is lost into the environment as waste heat. Thermoelectric materials can convert such waste heat into useful electricity, although they are […]