Hacker News with Generative AI: Chemistry

Japanese scientists create new plastic that dissolves in saltwater overnight (newatlas.com)
Scientists at RIKEN in Japan have developed a new type of plastic that’s just as stable in everyday use but dissolves quickly in saltwater, leaving behind safe compounds.
Scientists Discover New Heavy-Metal Molecule 'Berkelocene' (newscenter.lbl.gov)
A research team led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has discovered “berkelocene,” the first organometallic molecule to be characterized containing the heavy element berkelium.
Scientists break down plastic using a simple, inexpensive catalyst and air (phys.org)
Harnessing moisture from air, Northwestern University chemists have developed a simple new method for breaking down plastic waste.
Indian chemical company employees indicted for Importing of Fentanyl Precursors (justice.gov)
An India-based chemical manufacturing company and three high-level employees were charged in federal court in Washington, D.C., today related to illegally importing precursor chemicals used to make illicit fentanyl.
Chemists develop dye stack that mimics plant energy conversion (phys.org)
With artificial photosynthesis, mankind could utilize solar energy to bind carbon dioxide and produce hydrogen. Chemists from Würzburg and Seoul have taken this one step further: They have synthesized a stack of dyes that comes very close to the photosynthetic apparatus of plants. It absorbs light energy, uses it to separate charge carriers and transfers them quickly and efficiently in the stack.
The Molecule of the Month (bris.ac.uk)
Each month since January 1996 a new molecule has been added to the list on this page, which makes this one of the longest running Chemical websites on the internet!
Philly's street fentanyl contains a chemical called BTMPS used in plastic (theconversation.com)
As much as half of the fentanyl sold on Philly’s streets contains an industrial chemical used in plastics manufacturing. That’s according to our November 2024 testing of fentanyl samples collected in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, regarded as the largest open-air drug market on the East Coast.
Michael Faraday's illustrated notes to be posted online (theguardian.com)
He was a self-educated genius whose groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of physics and chemistry electrified the world of science and laid the foundations for Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity nearly a century later.
Artificial photosynthesis directed toward organic synthesis (nature.com)
Inspired by natural photosynthesis, artificial photosynthesis has been gaining increasing interest in the field of sustainability/green science and technology as a non-natural and thermodynamically endergonic (ΔG° > 0, uphill) solar-energy-driven reaction that uses water as an electron donor and a source material.
Benzene is not quite how we think it is (2020) (springernature.com)
Benzene is a molecule at the heart of chemical culture, and a battleground for competing views on electronic structure. We applied an algorithm to extract Kekulé structures from a wave function, finding that electron correlation causes electrons of each spin to occupy alternate Kekulé structures.
A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems (quantamagazine.org)
Rare and powerful compounds, known as keystone molecules, can build a web of invisible interactions among species.
Bird study finds larger volumes of toxic PFAS chemicals than previously reported (phys.org)
Researchers studying birds and the food they eat are now finding much larger volumes of the toxic PFAS chemicals than before.
What Rosalind Franklin contributed to the discovery of DNA's structure (nature.com)
Chemist Rosalind Franklin independently grasped how DNA’s structure could specify proteins.
Chemists find greener path to making ethylene oxide, a key industrial chemical (phys.org)
Scientists have discovered a potentially greener way to produce a crucial industrial chemical used to make many everyday products, from plastics and textiles to antifreeze and disinfectants, according to a study published in Science and co-authored by Tulane University chemical engineer Matthew Montemore.
As China sweeps top spots, chemistry seems to be dying in the US (scmp.com)
There is a seismic shift happening in global scientific leadership: China is cementing its dominance in chemistry research, while Western institutions are facing cutbacks.
Brewing tea removes lead from water (news.northwestern.edu)
Good news for tea lovers: That daily brew might be purifying the water, too.
Scented products cause indoor air pollution on par with car exhaust (newatlas.com)
Using scented products indoors changes the chemistry of the air, producing as much air pollution as car exhaust does outside, according to a new study.
Among top researchers 10% publish at unrealistic levels, analysis finds (chemistryworld.com)
About 10% of the most influential researchers worldwide in various scientific fields, including chemistry, are achieving ‘implausibly high’ publication and new co-author rates.
Physicists decipher structure of antimony melt, explain structural anomalies (phys.org)
Physicists decipher structure of antimony melt, explain nature of observed structural anomalies
A pair of scissors on formica table suddenly bursts into flames (reddit.com)
A pair of scissors sitting on my table (formica top) suddenly burst into flames. No heat source, electricity, or battery nearby. No contact with anything but the table. I suspect some sort of chemical reaction between the handles and the table occurred. Any ideas?
Rubidium Can Be More Than a Lithium Cast-Off (ieee.org)
Rubidium is often an unwanted by-product of lithium mining and extraction—but it has its own high-tech uses.
"A pair of scissors sitting on my table suddenly burst into flames" (reddit.com)
A pair of scissors sitting on my table (formica top) suddenly burst into flames. No heat source, electricity, or battery nearby. No contact with anything but the table. I suspect some sort of chemical reaction between the handles and the table occurred. Any ideas?
Durable plastic gets a sustainability makeover in novel polymerization process (phys.org)
Car tires, replacement hip joints, bowling balls—these and other items are made from a class of plastics called thermosets, known for extreme durability.
Why gold loves arsenic (2021) (mining.com)
An international team of geochemists discovered why gold is concentrated alongside arsenic, a phenomenon that explains the formation of most deposits of the precious metal.
NASA's Asteroid Bennu Sample Reveals Mix of Life's Ingredients (nasa.gov)
Studies of rock and dust from asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft have revealed molecules that, on our planet, are key to life, as well as a history of saltwater that could have served as the “broth” for these compounds to interact and combine.
Chem With Amanda: free chemistry curriculum – Jr High thru early college (chemwithamanda.com)
This website is for anyone who is interested in learning or reviewing introductory general, organic and biological chemistry topics.
Superheavy element half-life measurements push back the limits of stability (chemistryworld.com)
The limit of known half-lives of superheavy massive nuclei has been pushed down by two orders of magnitude with the observation of the half-life of a neutron deficient rutherfordium isotope.
Excuse me sir, would you like to buy a kilo of isopropyl bromide? [pdf] (sciencemadness.org)
Plastic supercapacitors could solve energy storage problems (newsroom.ucla.edu)
UCLA chemists have created a new type of textured, fur-like PEDOT film with more surface area to store charge and built a supercapacitor with it that stored nearly ten times more charge than conventional PEDOT and lasted nearly 100,000 charging cycles.
New tech turns seawater into drinking water without tons of chemicals (news.umich.edu)
Water desalination plants could replace expensive chemicals with new carbon cloth electrodes that remove boron from seawater, an important step of turning seawater into safe drinking water.