International – Pagina 9
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InternationalThe unfortunate generation
Our new columnist Sjoerd Rijpkema distills his thoughts and opinions about chemistry and society into a meme. This week: the compensation for students in the Netherlands who didn’t get a ‘basisbeurs’.
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InternationalMicrowave recycling of bulletproof vests
Researchers have succeeded in recycling powdered aramid fibres using microwave radiation, according to a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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InternationalCooling down the earth through use of bioenergy with carbon storage
Cooling down the earth through use of bioenergy with carbon storage. By using biomass not only as an energy source, but also reducing CO2 in the process, you create a system where you lower CO2 in the atmosphere. As a result, you cool the earth.
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InternationalFirst detected 40 years ago, a byproduct in chloraminated drinking water has finally been identified
The nature of an ‘unidentified product’ in drinking water disinfected with chloramines, which serves over 113 million people in the US alone, has finally been revealed by researchers in the US and Switzerland.
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InternationalTake charge of your finances
Isabelle Kohler shares her journey from financial uncertainty to financial confidence and offers practical advice to help early-career researchers take control of their financial future.
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InternationalCarnivore prefers bamboo
The dietary choice of giant pandas is a mystery to scientists because of their carnivorous gastrointestinal tract. The presence of bamboo microRNAs in the blood of pandas sheds new light on the exchange of microRNAs between plants and animals.
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InternationalBioBTX develops technology for sustainable aromatics
BioBTX has developed technology to sustainably manufacture high-performance materials by converting waste into chemical building blocks.
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InternationalAll tied up: germanene nanoribbons could be useful for quantum computers
Researchers from Twente and Utrecht have made strips of germanium atoms that are one atom thick and a few nanometres wide. The two-dimensional nanoribbons have properties that could be useful in future quantum computers.
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InternationalS(tea)ping against metals
Some cultures serve a cup of tea with every meal. Recently, researchers at Northwestern University discovered that tea can filter out some of the heavy metals. As well as being tasty, a cup of tea now seems to have another small health benefit.
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InternationalShedding light on off-targets
Using photoaffinity probes based on a motif found in kinase-targeting anticancer drugs, researchers from KU Leuven have shown that their off-targets are not only found in the kinase families, but also in other proteins. They have published their findings in Communications Chemistry.
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InternationalProtective bubbles
Fatty tissue is an important energy reserve. But it also acts as a super-strength protective ‘bubble wrap’ for fragile parts of the skeleton.
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InternationalFinding your writer’s voice
Writing is an essential skill in academia, yet many early-career researchers find it challenging. In this column, Isabelle Kohler shares her personal relationship with writing and offers practical advice to help researchers transform writing from a daunting task into a rewarding practice.
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InternationalVici grants awarded
Dutch research funding organisation NWO selected 43 proposals for a Vici-grant. Among the laureates are four KNCV-members.
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InternationalProducing antibodies non-stop
Huge batch reactors are still the norm in the bioprocessing industry. But they are not really sustainable, nor are they cheap. Start-up company SimAbs is now introducing a steady-state system in which antibodies are produced continuously.
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InternationalBorrowed hydrogen makes ‘green’ soap
Ben Feringa’s group has developed a simple, green method for attaching unprotected alcohols to amino acids, with only water as a by-product. All the possibilities are described in Chemistry A European Journal.
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InternationalNatural and unnatural amino acids show synthetic synergy
A team from Groningen and Barcelona cleared up what takes place when you put a designer enzyme with unnatural amino acids through a directed evolution campaign, as shown in ACS Catalysis. ‘We didn’t anticipate this at all.’
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InternationalAdrian Hergesell – Stretching plastic bonds for recycling
Adrian Hergesell is working on an alternative and much more sustainable way of recycling plastic using a ball mill and renewable energy.
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InternationalTicks owe their tenacity to glycine-rich proteins
Thanks to colloid chemistry, ticks can suck our blood at their leisure. By chance, two groups from Maastricht and Wageningen were the first to shed light on this, as they report in Nature Chemistry.
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InternationalThe power of looking backwards
Isabelle shares how her personal journey taught her the value of looking backwards rather than forwards or sideways. She applies these insights to academia, encouraging PhD students and postdocs to acknowledge their progress and small wins.
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InternationalAn X-ray lens on catalysts
Researchers in Ghent have found a method to determine the temperature of a catalyst very locally during a reaction, as reported in Nature Catalysis. Their work offers a new fundamental view of catalytic reactions.