Science

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A protective shield for sensitive catalysts: Hydrogels block harmful oxygen

An international research team has found a way of protecting sensitive catalysts from oxygen-caused damage. In the future, this could facilitate the creation of hydrogen fuel cells with molecular catalysts or with biomolecules such as the hydrogenase enzyme. To date, this could only be accomplished using the rare and expensive precious metal platinum. Together with their French colleagues, researchers from Bochum and Mülheim describe the way in which a hydrogel can serve as a "protective shield" for biomolecules.

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With a novel hydrogel, sensitive catalysts can be protected from oxygen molecules (red) which could irreversibly damage the catalysts. The hydrogel converts oxygen into water (red-white).

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World's thinnest lightbulb -- graphene gets bright! Columbia engineers and colleagues create bright, visible light emission from one-atom thick carbon

Led by Young Duck Kim, a postdoctoral research scientist in James Hone's group at Columbia Engineering, a team of scientists from Columbia, Seoul National University (SNU), and Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) reported today that they have demonstrated -- for the first time -- an on-chip visible light source using graphene, an atomically thin and perfectly crystalline form of carbon, as a filament. They attached small strips of graphene to metal electrodes, suspended the strips above the substrate, and passed a current through the filaments to cause them to heat up.

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Researchers grind nanotubes to get nanoribbons: Rice-led experiments demonstrate solid-state carbon nanotube 'templates'

A simple way to turn carbon nanotubes into valuable graphene nanoribbons may be to grind them, according to research led by Rice University.

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Researchers led by materials scientists at Rice University discovered that altering carbon nanotubes with carboxyl (COOH) and hydroxyl (OH) groups and grinding them together produces nanoribbons. The find could lead to novel nanostructured products with specific properties.

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Rosetta's lander Philae wakes up from hibernation

Rosetta's lander Philae has woken up after seven months in hibernation on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

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Sustainable transport essential to new global goals and low carbon economy – UN panel

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Bicycle-taxi in the streets of Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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Argonne scientists announce first room-temperature magnetic skyrmion bubbles: New ideas are bubbling up for more efficient computer memory

Researchers at UCLA and the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory announced a new method for creating magnetic skyrmion bubbles at room temperature. The bubbles, a physics phenomenon thought to be an option for more energy-efficient and compact electronics, can be created with simple equipment and common materials.

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Iranian Researchers Model, Design Optical Switches

Iranian researchers modeled and designed optical switches to take the place of electronic switches.

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NASA Prepares for First Interplanetary CubeSats

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NASA's two small MarCO CubeSats will be flying past Mars in 2016 just as NASA's next Mars lander, InSight, is descending through the Martian atmosphere and landing on the surface. MarCO, for Mars Cube One, will provide an experimental communications relay to inform Earth quickly about the landing.

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Framework materials yield to pressure

Pressure is a powerful thermodynamic variable that enables the structure, bonding and reactivity of matter to be altered. In materials science it has become an indispensable research tool in the quest for novel functional materials.

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This is a cobalt II octahedral packing diagram as viewed in the (001) plane.

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Framework materials yield to pressure

Pressure is a powerful thermodynamic variable that enables the structure, bonding and reactivity of matter to be altered. In materials science it has become an indispensable research tool in the quest for novel functional materials.

51670.jpg
This is a cobalt II octahedral packing diagram as viewed in the (001) plane.