Chemists working on tight budgets in developing countries may be able to substitute extracts of potatoes, celery, eggplant, carrot, cassava, horseradish or an array of inexpensive and locally available vegetable products for the costly reagents traditionally needed for chemical reactions, a new study suggests.

Using a biochemical version of a computer chip, a team led by Johns Hopkins researchers has solved a long-standing mystery related to the mating habits of yeast cells.

Gold is not as noble and stable as it has been previously thought. This is the conclusion of an international team of researchers from Germany, France and Sweden who came to the ESRF to study the structure of this material at high pressure. They present their results in Physical Review Letters.

Platinum is the most efficient electrocatalyst for accelerating chemical reactions in fuel cells for electric vehicles. In reactions during the stop-and-go driving of an electric car, however, the platinum dissolves, which reduces its efficiency as a catalyst. This is a major impediment for vehicle-application of fuel cells.

Berkeley Scientists Find New Way to Trap and Hold Intermediate Compounds in Water

Porous materials are involved in many chemical reactions that affect our daily lives. Despite their wide use, there is little knowledge about them. Scientists from the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the ESRF have just shed new light on how these materials organise themselves when they are created.