Electricity generation is projected to play a central role in global decarbonization efforts. On the one hand, electricity generation is supposed to scale up rapidly, as we use electricity to replace fossil fuels in everything from powering vehicles to heating buildings and cooking food...Read more about Fossil Fuels are Dead, Long Live Fossil Fuels
By George B. Kauffman, Professor of Chemistry, California State University Fresno
Willard Frank Libby (1908 - 1980) American chemist whose technique of carbon-14 (or radiocarbon) dating provided an extremely valuable tool for archaeologists, anthropologists, and earth scientists...Read more about Willard Frank Libby
One of biology’s wilder facts is that we’re all family. You and me, sure, but also me and a mushroom. Triceratops shared genes with you. So does the virus that makes you cough, and a rosebush. Bacteria left us on the tree of life around 2.7 billion years ago, but the wet world they came...Read more about Meet CRISPR: Humanity’s shiny new tool
In a paper published earlier this year in the journal Nature, scientists explain the process in which they are using yeasts to manufacture cannabis compounds. These test tube shenanigans are being conducted more as a way for scientists to gain a better understanding of THC and CBD rather...Read more about Can beer yeast be used to create THC and CBD?
The story of the fifteenth element began in Hamburg, in 1669. The unsuccessful glassblower and alchemist Hennig Brandt was trying to find the philosopher’s stone, a mythical substance that could turn base metals into gold. Instead, he distilled something new. It was foamy and, depending...Read more about The histories hidden in the periodic table
When it was unveiled in 2012, people had great hopes that the gene editor CRISPR/Cas9 could treat or even cure hundreds to thousands of genetic diseases. This year, researchers in the United States began testing the gene editor in people, a crucial first step in determining whether the...Read more about The first U.S. trials in people put CRISPR to the test in 2019
Researchers in the UC Berkeley lab of John Kuriyan, Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the departments of Molecular and Cell Biology and Chemistry, have utilized powerful NSF funded supercomputers at the University of Texas Advanced Computing Center and the...Read more about Skin cancer mystery revealed in Yin and Yang protein
A team of researchers at Berkeley Lab, led by alumna Rebecca Abergel, have developed a library of artificial proteins or “peptoids” that effectively “chelate” or bind to lanthanides and actinides, heavy metals that make up the so-called f-block elements at the bottom of the periodic...Read more about Artificial proteins have a firm grasp on heavy metals
Last year, researchers from the lab of Professor Omar Yaghi at UC Berkeley and Saudi Arabia published research announcing advancements in their MOF water capture system research. Now, the US military has established a new research program via DARPA looking for advanced ways to hydrate...Read more about Extracting drinking water out of thin air is DARPA’s latest research program
