X-ray Spectrometry / Ezine
Super, cool: Liquid, crystal
Date: Dec 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
A team in Salt Lake City has demonstrated why water can remain in the liquid state even if it is cooled as low as 13 degrees Celsius below its normal freezing point. However, their research also suggests that it is impossible to maintain supercooled water as a liquid at below this temperature.
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Absorbing oxygen: Understanding enzymes
Date: Nov 15, 2011
Author: David Bradley
New clues as to why oxygen becomes the undoing of hydrogenase enzymes has emerged from X-ray absorption spectroscopy studies carried out at the Swiss Light Source.
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Journal Highlight: Determining the C60 molecular arrangement in thin films by means of X-ray diffraction
Date: Nov 7, 2011
Author:
Grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction of a C60 thin film was used to illustrate that atomic structural information can be obtained from molecular films without further knowledge of the single-crystal structure.
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Designer MOFs: Algorithm calculates likely frameworks
Date: Nov 7, 2011
Author: David Bradley
US researchers have developed a computational algorithm to construct all conceivable metal organic frameworks (MOFs) from a library of building blocks and to rapidly screen them for optimal methane storage capacity. X-ray diffraction was used to characterise one of the most promising of the materials. The approach could have applications in developing gas storage materials, catalysts and sensors.
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"Quasi" science wins Nobel: crystal prize
Date: Oct 15, 2011
Author: David Bradley
Quasicrystals have earned Israeli scientist Danny Shechtman the 2011 Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2011. Shechtman was studying aluminium alloys in the 1980s using transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and neutron diffraction, when he discovered a forbidden tenfold symmetry pattern in the materials sample.
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Journal Highlight: Application of X-ray fluorescence to turbulent mixing
Date: Oct 10, 2011
Author:
Combined measurements of X-ray absorption and fluorescence have been performed in jets of pure and diluted argon gas to demonstrate the feasibility of using X-ray fluorescence to study turbulent mixing.
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Fish tales: marine molecule with antiviral bite
Date: Oct 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
Synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering has been used to study details of squalamine, a molecule found in the dog fish, that has now been shown to have broad-spectrum antiviral properties in addition to previously known medicinal effects.
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Close encounters: The bacterial kind
Date: Sep 15, 2011
Author: David Bradley
A new crystal structure reveals unprecedented detail of the interaction between bacterium and cell surface as the two come into close proximity.
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Journal Highlight: A miniature X-ray tube approach to measuring lead in bone using L-XRF
Date: Sep 12, 2011
Author:
A miniature X-ray tube and silicon PiN diode detector were used to measure lead in bone phantoms by L-line X-ray fluorescence, using phantoms made from plaster of Paris dosed with lead and with an outer layer of resin to mimic soft tissue overlying bone.
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Nitrous: Cracking the cycle
Date: Sep 1, 2011
Author: David Bradley
The greenhouse gas nitrous oxide undergoes partial decomposition depending on environmental conditions. Now, researchers in Germany have determined the structure of an enzyme, N2O-reductase, that breaks down the gas, which reveals the surprising presence of four copper atoms and two sulfur atoms, as opposed to one, at its active centre.
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