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Category: chemistry

Imaging technique captures ultrafast electron and atom dynamics in chemical reactions

During chemical reactions, atoms in the reacting substances break their bonds and re-arrange, forming different chemical products. This process entails the movement of both electrons (i.e., negatively charged particles) and nuclei (i.e., the positively charged central parts of atoms). Valence electrons are shared and re-arranged between different atoms, creating new bonds.

The movements of electrons and nuclei during chemical reactions are incredibly fast, in many cases only lasting millionths of a billionth of a second (i.e., femtoseconds). Yet reliably tracking and understanding these movements could help to shed new light on how specific molecules are formed, as well as on the underpinnings of quantum mechanical phenomena.

Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University recently introduced a new approach to observe chemical reactions as they unfold, precisely tracking the movement of electrons and atomic nuclei as a molecule breaks apart. This strategy, outlined in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, was successfully used to image the photodissociation of ammonia (NH₃), the process in which a NH₃ molecule absorbs light and breaks down into smaller pieces.

Honeycomb lattice sweetens quantum materials development

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are pioneering the design and synthesis of quantum materials, which are central to discovery science involving synergies with quantum computation. These innovative materials, including magnetic compounds with honeycomb-patterned lattices, have the potential to host states of matter with exotic behavior.

Using theory, experimentation and computation, scientists synthesized a magnetic honeycomb of potassium cobalt arsenate and conducted the most detailed characterization of the material to date. They discovered that its honeycomb structure is slightly distorted, causing magnetic spins of charged cobalt atoms to strongly couple and align.

Tuning these interactions, such as through chemically modifying the material or applying a large magnetic field, may enable the formation of a state of matter known as a quantum spin liquid. Unlike permanent magnets, in which spins align fixedly, quantum spins do not freeze in one magnetic state.

Biomass-derived furans offer sustainable alternative to petroleum in chemical production

A research project conducted by the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung shows how biomass can be used as a raw material for chemical products instead of petroleum. The scientists have published their findings in the journal Science.

The chemical industry is facing major challenges: for reasons of CO2 neutrality, circular economy, and geopolitical instability, there is a desire to move away from petroleum and other fossil materials as raw materials for the production of high-quality chemicals. But how will molecular building blocks for essential medicines, for example, be obtained in the future?

X-ray four-wave mixing captures elusive electron interactions inside atoms and molecules

Scientists at the X-ray free-electron laser SwissFEL have realized a long-pursued experimental goal in physics: to show how electrons dance together. The technique, known as X-ray four-wave mixing, opens a new way to see how energy and information flow within atoms and molecules. In the future, it could illuminate how quantum information is stored and lost, eventually aiding the design of more error-tolerant quantum devices. The findings are reported in Nature.

Much of the behavior of matter arises not from electrons acting alone, but from the ways they influence each other. From chemical systems to advanced materials, their interactions shape how molecules rearrange, how materials conduct or insulate and how energy flows.

In many quantum technologies —not least quantum computing—information is stored in delicate patterns of these interactions, known as coherences. When these coherences are lost, information disappears—a process known as decoherence. Learning how to understand and ultimately control such fleeting states is one of the major challenges facing quantum technologies today.

Reversing immune suppression in pancreatic cancer could lead to novel therapies

In a unique finding, researchers at Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center discovered that when pancreatic cancer cells send out tiny particles that are packed with certain microRNA molecules, nearby immune cells called macrophages are reprogrammed to help the tumor grow instead of engaging in their regular role of fighting the tumor. This insight from cell and mouse experiments helped the scientists outline a potential way to reverse the process and possibly improve outcomes in pancreatic cancer.

“Our approach focuses on blocking adverse outcomes of microRNA-based communication between pancreatic cancer cells and immune cells,” says Amrita Cheema, Ph.D., professor, Departments of Oncology, Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology and Radiation Medicine at Georgetown and senior author of the study. “By disrupting these channels of communication, we could reprogram the immune cells and restore their ability to fight cancer, resulting in meaningful reductions in pancreatic tumor growth.”

The study appears January 16, 2026, in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.

Simulations predict antibody drug viscosity, paving way for easier self-injection

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) aid the body against autoimmune diseases and cancer, among other things. Patients have to pick up the medicine every few weeks. It would be easier for them to be able to inject the medicine themselves at home, but this would only be possible if the medications were highly concentrated but not too viscous.

A team at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, led by Professor Lars Schäfer from the Center for Theoretical Chemistry and the company Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma have developed a quick and realistic simulation method to make this possible. This method can predict how formulations will behave.

The team reports its findings in the Journal of Physical Chemistry.

What If the Universe Remembers Everything?

Sometimes crystals behave in surprising ways. A new chemical may resist crystallizing for years, and then, once it happens in one place, it suddenly begins to crystallize easily all over the world.

Sometimes animals, too, show a strange collective learning. Once one group has learned a new behavior, the same species elsewhere seems able to learn it more quickly, even without any direct contact.

In this keynote address, from the Science of Consciousness Conference, Rupert brings these and other examples together to suggest a simple but radical possibility.

All Conference Videos.
/ @thescienceofconsciousness.

To support Rupert’s work click the join button to become a channel member.
… or subscribe on Substack. https://rupertsheldrake.substack.com

Penn engineers turn toxic fungus into anti-cancer compound

face_with_colon_three year 2025.

Penn-led researchers have turned a deadly fungus into a potent cancer-fighting compound. After isolating a new class of molecules from Aspergillus flavus, a toxic crop fungus linked to deaths in the excavations of ancient tombs, the researchers modified the chemicals and tested them against leukemia cells. The result? A promising cancer-killing compound that rivals FDA-approved drugs and opens up new frontiers in the discovery of more fungal medicines.

“Fungi gave us penicillin,” says Sherry Gao, Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) and in Bioengineering (BE) and senior author of a new paper in Nature Chemical Biology on the findings. “These results show that many more medicines derived from natural products remain to be found.”

A breakthrough in DNA sequencing hints at why most smokers don’t get lung cancer

Breakthrough in DNA sequencing offers clues to why most smokers do not develop lung cancer.

“Our data suggest that these individuals may have survived for so long in spite of their heavy smoking because they managed to suppress further mutation accumulation,” says pulmonologist and genetics researcher Simon Spivack, a co-author on the study. “This leveling off of mutations could stem from these people having very proficient systems for repairing DNA damage or detoxifying cigarette smoke.”

Researchers who study the health effects of cigarette smoke have used all kinds of methods — from giving lab animals high doses of chemicals found in tobacco to combing through archives to determine which diseases smokers get more often — to figure out how the habit affects the body. Those studies have made it clear that cigarettes contain hundreds of harmful chemicals, including dozens of carcinogens.

For decades, researchers didn’t have any way to measure the mutations in lung cells that actually cause lung cancer. Five years ago, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York found a way to overcome technical limitations that had made it impossible to sequence the genome. That is, they figured out how to determine the exact order of the A, T, C, and G molecules of the DNA within a single cell without introducing too many errors in the process.

Exploring metabolic noise opens new paths to better biomanufacturing

Much like humans, microbial organisms can be fickle in their productivity. One moment they’re cranking out useful chemicals in vast fermentation tanks, metabolizing feed to make products from pharmaceuticals and supplements to biodegradable plastics or fuels, and the next, they inexplicably go on strike.

Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have found the source of the fluctuating metabolic activity in microorganisms and developed tools to keep every microbial cell at peak productivity during biomanufacturing.

The work, published in Nature Communications, tracks hundreds of E. coli cells as they produce a yellow food pigment—betaxanthin—while growing, dividing and carrying out normal metabolic activities.

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