molecules

First-Ever Look at Exploding Molecules Reveals Their Quantum Secrets

The feat makes the microscopic world more tangible, while offering tantalizing opportunities for deeper investigations into complex quantum systems.

Physics & Chemistry Gayoung Lee Aug 8

Eagle Nebula (m16 Messier 16) Sho Palette

Physicists Solve a 50-Year Mystery About a Critically Important Molecule

The discovery itself is simple and fundamental, but the applications stretch far and wide into astrophysics and quantum technology, the researchers say.

Physics & Chemistry Gayoung Lee Jul 2

Scientists Find Giant Organic Molecules on Mars as Old as Life on Earth

The longest organic molecules yet found on Mars are very similar to those produced by life on Earth.

Space & Spaceflight Isaac Schultz Mar 24

An artist's impression of a galaxy in the early universe.

Water Existed in the Universe Billions of Years Earlier Than Thought, Astronomers Say

Water was present just a couple hundred million years after the Big Bang, according to a new study, shaking up the timeline of planetary evolution.

Space & Spaceflight Isaac Schultz Mar 3

Chainmail-Inspired Breakthrough Could Redefine the Future of Armor

Scientists found a novel way to arrange molecules into an tough, flexible, 2D material.

Physics & Chemistry Margherita Bassi Jan 17

Image of a tiny bubble of water forming on palladium.

Scientists Witness the Birth of Water Molecules at the Smallest Scale Yet

Using an advanced imaging technique, engineers got a glimpse of water being formed at the smallest scale ever.

Physics & Chemistry Adam Kovac Oct 2

A New Storage Breakthrough Could Squeeze a Library’s Worth of Data Into a Teaspoon of Protein

By 2020, researchers estimate that the world’s digital archive will weigh in at around 44 trillion gigabytes. That’s an astounding amount of data that isn’t necessarily being stored in the safest of places. Most storage mediums naturally degrade over time (if they’re not hacked or accidentally destroyed) and even the cloud isn’t as reliable as…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski May 2

Huge Advancement in MRI Tech Captures Teeny Molecules With Incredible Resolution

The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines in hospitals are great at creating pictures of the human body. For decades, scientists have hoped that the same technology could be used to examine much smaller things, like individual molecules. Now, a team from Canada and the United States has revealed a new, high-resolution MRI method with resolutions…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum Mar 1

Our Best View Yet of Molecules Moving Inside Living Cells

A new microscope developed at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts is allowing scientists track the position and orientation of individual molecules in living cells. It has the potential to reveal unknown aspects of molecular behavior, including those that turn cells into agents of disease. Dubbed the “instantaneous fluorescence polarization” microscope, this new…

Tech News George Dvorsky Sep 30

New Imaging Technique Shows How Complex Molecules Buck and Twist

It’s becoming gradually easier to see what molecules look like up close, but seeing how their shape changes in real-time is still incredibly hard. Now, a new technique allows scientists to see how molecules change their shape over the course just trillionths of a second. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe Dec 22

This Tiny “Nano-Wrench” Can Twist Molecules Into Custom Shapes

If engineers ever hope to build structures at the nanoscale, they’re going to need very, very tiny fingers. Or at least very tiny tools. By building a wrench that’s just 1.7 nanometers across, researchers from the University of Vermont have taken a critical step in that direction. This technique leverages an attribute of molecules known…

io9 George Dvorsky Sep 25

This Interactive Map Could Help Astronomers Solve A 92-Year-Old Mystery

Since 1922, astronomers have been baffled as to the precise origin and composition of the diffuse interstellar bands seen through the Milky Way’s stellar medium. This new interactive map doesn’t solve the mystery, but it shows us exactly where these enigmatic molecules reside. Image: Lan, Zasowski & Menard In the 1920s, Berkeley graduate student Mary…

io9 George Dvorsky Jan 13

Scientists Built Flash Storage in a Single Molecule

When a lot of us think about storage, we still think about that archaic method of encoding data by etching patterns into a disk. That’s so 20th century. In the era of flash storage, researchers are now doing amazing things with chemical bonds—things like storing data on a single molecule. A pretty bonkers-sounding breakthrough in…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes Nov 21

Can Atoms Ever Touch?

There’s a very commonly held view that atoms can never touch: bring them together slowly, and you reach a point where they begin to repel. But in this video, Professor Philip Moriarty explains that really isn’t the case. Philip is a little irritated by many of the discussion online about how molecules repel, never to…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe Aug 5

Scientists film how the brain makes memories for the first time ever

For the first time in history, scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have captured how our brain makes memories in video, watching how molecules morph into the structures that, at the end of the day, make who we are. If there’s a soul, this how it gets made. Before this, Japanese…

Sploid Jesus Diaz Jan 27

This Amazing Image Shows How Atoms In Glass Move When You Bend It

When you bend anything, you stretch the bonds between atoms and force the little fellas to move about against their will. This image shows exactly that happening, inside a sheet of glass. Just last month, scientists announced that they’d created the thinnest ever sheet of glass which was just two atoms thick. At the time…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Oct 11

The First Images of Molecules Breaking and Reforming Chemical Bonds

Microscopy is advancing in leaps and bounds these days. It was just last week that scientists produced the first image of a hydrogen atom’s orbital structure. Not to be outdone, Berkeley chemists have now captured a series of images showing molecules as they break and reform their chemical bonds. It looks almost… textbook. https://gizmodo.com/the-first-image-ever-of-a-hydrogen-atoms-orbital-struc-509684901 It’s…

io9 George Dvorsky May 31

The “ultimate” building blocks of life have been found in interstellar space

The building blocks of life could have their beginnings in the tiny icy grains that make up the gas and dust found between the stars, and those icy grains could be the key to understanding how life can arise on planets. With help from students, researchers have discovered an important pair of prebiotic molecules in…

io9 Nancy Atkinson - Universe Today Mar 1

How Many Water Molecules Does It Take to Make Ice?

You might think that sounds like a dumb question: why does it matter how many molecules there are, they just need to be cold enough, right? Wrong: you need enough to make the complex crystal structure that you see so clearly in snow flakes—and now scientists have worked out exactly how many that is. 275.…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe Sep 27

Insanely Strong Molecular Glue, Inspired by Flesh-Eating Bacteria

If you’ve ever stuck your fingers together with super glue, you know pain. But imagine sticking them together with glue that bonds materials at the molecular level: that’s real pain. It’s also what scientists are doing, with the help of flesh-eating bacteria. A team of researchers from the University of Oxford has created a molecular…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Feb 22

molecules

First-Ever Look at Exploding Molecules Reveals Their Quantum Secrets

Physicists Solve a 50-Year Mystery About a Critically Important Molecule

Scientists Find Giant Organic Molecules on Mars as Old as Life on Earth

Water Existed in the Universe Billions of Years Earlier Than Thought, Astronomers Say

Chainmail-Inspired Breakthrough Could Redefine the Future of Armor

Scientists Witness the Birth of Water Molecules at the Smallest Scale Yet

A New Storage Breakthrough Could Squeeze a Library’s Worth of Data Into a Teaspoon of Protein

Huge Advancement in MRI Tech Captures Teeny Molecules With Incredible Resolution

Our Best View Yet of Molecules Moving Inside Living Cells

New Imaging Technique Shows How Complex Molecules Buck and Twist

This Tiny “Nano-Wrench” Can Twist Molecules Into Custom Shapes

This Interactive Map Could Help Astronomers Solve A 92-Year-Old Mystery

Scientists Built Flash Storage in a Single Molecule

Can Atoms Ever Touch?

Scientists film how the brain makes memories for the first time ever

This Amazing Image Shows How Atoms In Glass Move When You Bend It

The First Images of Molecules Breaking and Reforming Chemical Bonds

The “ultimate” building blocks of life have been found in interstellar space

How Many Water Molecules Does It Take to Make Ice?

Insanely Strong Molecular Glue, Inspired by Flesh-Eating Bacteria

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Pro-Iran Hackers Target Critical U.S. Energy and Water Infrastructure

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