Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering

The Scattering Light Imaging (SLI) technique provides a cost-effective, high-resolution method to map neural connections in the brain. The technique, which involves analyzing light scattering patterns in thin brain slices, offers more detailed results than existing methods like dMRI, and is more acc

Complex crystals that mimic metals -- including a structure for which there is no natural equivalent -- can be achieved with a new approach to guiding nanoparticle self-assembly.

Just as space holds infinite mysteries, when we zoom in at the level of biomolecules (one trillion times smaller than a meter), there is still so much to learn.

Meet us at Purdue University, May 19-20.

Researchers created a fluorescent nanoparticle using a combination of materials (MCM-41, chitosan and dansylglycine) to examine latent fingerprints. These nanoparticles have special properties that make them adhere well to fingerprint residues, even old ones.

For decades, structural biologists have been working on cracking the molecular 3D structures of proteins to understand their function. But what if a protein doesn't have a fixed structure? For molecules that keep changing their shape all the time, both research and sharing the findings within the scientific community can be complicated. EMBL scientists have contributed to new guidelines that will make the data…

A study biochemically and structurally characterizes a lanmodulin from Hansschlegelia quercus with an oligomeric state sensitive to rare-earth ionic radius.

Introducing interconnected mesopores and macropores into microporous zeolites with the rationalized pore size at each level is an effective strategy to suppress the diffusion limitations, but remains highly challenging due to the lack of rational design principles.

What goes on inside planets like Neptune and Uranus? To find out, an international team headed by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), the University of Rostock and France's École Polytechnique conducted a novel experiment. They fired a laser at a thin film of simple PET plastic and investigated what happened using intensive laser flashes. One result was that the researchers were able to confirm their…

When you think of proteins—the enzymes, signaling molecules, and structural components in every living thing—you might think of single strands of amino acids, organized like beads on a string. But nearly all proteins consist of multiple strands folded up and bound to one another, forming complicated 3D superstructures called molecular assemblies. One of the key steps to understanding biology is discovering how a…

An article describing research conducted by John Peters, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma, and fellow researchers, has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Over the past decade, teams of engineers, chemists and biologists have analyzed the physical and chemical properties of cicada wings, hoping to unlock the secret of their ability to kill microbes on contact. If this function of nature can be replicated by science, it may lead to development of new products with inherently antibacterial surfaces that are more effective than current chemical treatments.

Buried features and re-entrant geometries drive application-specific metrology solutions.

Semicrystalline polymers are solids that are assumed to flow only above their melting temperature. In a new study published in Science Advances, Chien-Hua Tu and a research team at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany and the University of Ioannina Greece confined crystals within nanoscopic cylindrical pores to show the flowing nature of semicrystalline polymers below their melting point,…

Quantum dots are clusters of some 1,000 atoms which act as one large "super-atom." It is possible to accurately design the electronic properties of these dots just by changing their size. However, to create functional devices, a large number of dots have to be combined into a new material. During this process, the properties of the dots are often lost.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 2.8 million Americans experience antibiotic-resistant infections each year; more than 35,000 die from those infections.

Cell membranes from comb jellies reveal a new kind of adaptation to the deep sea: curvy lipids that conform to an ideal shape under pressure.

Many diseases can be successfully treated in the simple environment of a cell culture dish, but to successfully treat real people, the drug agent has to take a journey through the infinitely more complex environment within our bodies and arrive, intact, inside the affected cells. This process, called drug delivery, is one of the most significant barriers in medicine.

Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science and collaborators have succeeded in creating a "superlattice" of semiconductor quantum dots that can behave like a metal, potentially imparting exciting new properties to this popular class of materials.

The RNA molecule is commonly recognized as messenger between DNA and protein, but it can also be folded into intricate molecular machines. An example of a naturally occurring RNA machine is the ribosome, that functions as a protein factory in all cells.