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Categories: Archaeology: General, Chemistry: General

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Quantum effects can play an important role in chemical reactions. Physicists have now observed a quantum mechanical tunneling reaction in experiments. The observation can also be described exactly in theory. The scientists provide an important reference for this fundamental effect in chemistry. It is the slowest reaction with charged particles ever observed.

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Helium -- essential for many medical and industrial processes -- is in critically short supply worldwide. Production is also associated with significant carbon emissions, contributing to climate change. This study provides a new concept in gas field formation to explain why, in rare places, helium accumulates naturally in high concentrations just beneath the Earth's surface. The findings could help locate new reservoirs of carbon-free helium -- and potentially also hydrogen.

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A new study reports on genomic data from a 23,000-year-old individual who lived in what was probably the warmest place of Europe at the peak of the last Ice Age. The oldest human genome recovered from the southern tip of Spain adds an important piece of the puzzle to the genetic history of Europe.

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The demand for vanillin vastly outstrips the natural resources of this flavoring agent. A chemical process is thus used to produce the required large quantities of vanillin from petroleum, which is far less expensive than obtaining the substance from fermented genuine vanilla pods. Another alternative is to make vanillin from lignin, a waste product of the wood pulping industry. A team has now managed to further enhance their method of electrochemical production of vanillin from lignin in that they employ a 'green' oxidation method for this purpose.

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Geoscientists have developed a cheap and environmentally friendly method for the synthesis of cerianite, a rare earth mineral which holds promise for the treatment of diseases associated with inflammation, including cancer.

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Certain diseases, including Alzheimer's, are currently considered 'undruggable' because traditional small molecule drugs can't interfere with the proteins responsible for the illnesses. But a new technique that specifically targets and breaks apart certain proteins -- rather than just interfering with them -- may offer a pathway toward treatment. Researchers have now designed a compound that targets and breaks down a post-translationally modified protein closely associated with Alzheimer's disease.

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Researchers have discovered what they believe is the earliest use of steel in Europe -- on Iberian stone pillars from the Final Bronze Age.

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In 2011, scientists recorded a previously unknown feeding strategy in whales around the world. Now, researchers in Australia think they may have found evidence of this behaviour being described in ancient accounts of sea creatures, recorded more than 2,000 years ago. They believe that misunderstandings of these descriptions contributed to myths about medieval sea monsters. Whales are known lunge at their prey when feeding, but recently whales have been spotted at the surface of the water with their jaws open at right angles, waiting for shoals of fish to swim into their mouths. A clip of this strategy was captured in 2021 and went viral on Instagram. This strategy seems to work for the whales because the fish think they have found a place to shelter from predators, not realising they are swimming into danger. It's not known why this strategy has only recently been identified, but scientists speculate that it's a result of changing environmental conditions -- or that whales are being more closely monitored than ever before by drones and other modern technologies.

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Researchers have succeeded in producing very special catalysts, known as 'Lewis superacids', which can be used to break strong chemical bonds and speed up reactions. The production of these substances has, until now, proven extremely difficult. The chemists' discovery enables non-biodegradable fluorinated hydrocarbons, similar to Teflon, and possibly even climate-damaging greenhouse gases, such as sulphur hexafluoride, to be converted back into sustainable chemicals.

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Chaotic behavior is typically known from large systems: for example, from weather, from asteroids in space that are simultaneously attracted by several large celestial bodies, or from swinging pendulums that are coupled together. On the atomic scale, however, one does normally not encounter chaos -- other effects predominate. Now scientists have been able to detect clear indications of chaos on the nanometer scale -- in chemical reactions on tiny rhodium crystals.

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A new form of heterostructure of layered two-dimensional (2D) materials may enable quantum computing to overcome key barriers to its widespread application, according to an international team of researchers.

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Perovskites, a family of materials with unique electric properties, show promise for use in a variety fields, including next-generation solar cells. A team of scientists has now created a new process to fabricate large perovskite devices that is more cost- and time-effective than previously possible and that they said may accelerate future materials discovery.

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A research team has developed one of the world's fastest single-shot laser cameras, which is at least a thousand times faster than today's most modern equipment for combustion diagnostics. The discovery has enormous significance for studying the lightning-fast combustion of hydrocarbons.

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Scientists who study the origins and evolution of the plague have examined hundreds of ancient human teeth from Denmark, seeking to address longstanding questions about its arrival, persistence and spread within Scandinavia.

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A series of new stable, porous materials that capture and separate benzene have been developed.

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The boundaries between biology and technology are becoming blurred. Researchers have now successfully grown electrodes in living tissue using the body's molecules as triggers. The result paves the way for the formation of fully integrated electronic circuits in living organisms.

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A new method to convert waste plastic to fuel and raw materials promises to help close the carbon cycle at mild temperature and with high yield.

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An air filter made out of corn protein instead of petroleum products can concurrently capture small particulates as well as toxic chemicals like formaldehyde that current air filters can't. The research could lead to better air purifiers, particularly in regions of the world that suffer from very poor air quality. The more environmentally friendly air filter was able to simultaneously capture 99.5% of small particulate matter, similar to commercial HEPA filters, and 87% of formaldehyde, which is higher than specially designed air filters for those types of toxics.

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A recent excavation in Megiddo, Israel, unearthed the earliest example of a particular type of cranial surgery in the Ancient Near East -- and potentially one of the oldest examples of leprosy in the world.

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In their search for silver ore, the Romans established two military camps in the Bad Ems area near Koblenz in the 1st century AD.