Page 110 - Berkeley Lab News Today

Researchers synthesize peptoids at Berkeley Lab to combat viruses Researchers Annelise E. Barron and Gill Diamond discovered peptoids, biomimetic molecules that could be used to fight viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2. A team of researchers discovered that molecules called peptoids, which they synthesized at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, or the Berkeley Lab, can be used to fight a variety of viruses. Peptoids are biomimetic molecules, meaning that they mimic the body’s natural proteins but ar...

— a discovery that may have implications for future technological developments. Published in the journal Nature Communications, the study showed that by adding trace amounts of plastic to a solution, researchers were able to create a crystalline structure in a matter of minutes. Peter Ercius, a Berkeley Lab scientist who helped visualize the crystals, said before this discovery, nanoparticles were typically altered through “self-assembly.” “If something self-assembles, it kind of doesn...

Eleven sustainability-focused scientists make up the newest Cyclotron Road fellowship cohort at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, or Berkeley Lab.

Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Fathom Bristol used a hydraulic model to consider the degree to which human-caused climate change may have affected flooding in Houston in 2017 during Hurricane Harvey. Resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center were used to quantify the increase in Houston flood area and depth and to host a portal where other scientists and the public can access and explore the resulting data.

Insight into benzene formation could help development of cleaner combustion engines Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Florida International University have demonstrated the first real-time measurement—using lab-based methods—of free radical particles reacting under cosmic conditions, prompting elementary carbon and hydrogen atoms to coalesce into primal benzene rings. The researchers say that their findings, recently...

Key to Cleaner Combustion? Look to the Stars 6H 6, the benzene ring – an elegant, hexagonal molecule comprised of 6 carbon and 6 hydrogen atoms. Astrophysicists say that the benzene ring could be the fundamental building block of polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs, the most basic materials formed from the explosion of dying, carbon-rich stars. That swirling mass of matter would eventually give shape to the earliest forms of carbon – precursors to molecules some scientists say are conne...

ORNL researchers found the papain-like protease (in orange) can bind to the human interferon-stimulated gene 15 protein (in blue) in multiple ways and...

June 10, 2021 -- How much do the effects of climate change contribute to extreme weather events? It’s hard to say—the variables involved are plentiful,

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3·, gave rise to the first aromatic ring, benzene. The current study is the first demonstration of the so-called “radical propargyl self-reaction” under astrochemical and combustion conditions. Using a high-temperature, coin-sized chemical reactor called the “hot nozzle,” the researchers simulated the high-pressure, high-temperature environment inside a combustion engine as well as the hydrocarbon-rich atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, and observed the formation of isomers – molec...