Capacitors are crucial components in electronic devices such as smartphones and computers. They are made of dielectric materials that polarize on the application of the voltage. Currently, barium titanate (BaTiO3) is the most widely used material for capacitors ..read more

Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are widely used in gas turbine engines to obtain elevated working temperatures and improve engine efficiency. The phase transition of the ceramic layer is accompanied by a large volume difference, causing the concentration of thermal stress, eventually leading the TBCs to fall off and fail. Therefore, it is necessary to quantitatively evaluate the magnitude and distribution of thermal stress induced by phase transition in the ceramic layer ..read more

For most human proteins, there are no small molecules known to bind them chemically (so-called "ligands"). Ligands frequently represent important starting points for drug development but this knowledge gap critically hampers the development of novel medicines ..read more

A research team has reviewed the process of gel formation in fermented sausages, emphasizing the crucial role of myofibrillar proteins and the influence of lactic acid bacteria, temperature, and processing methods on gel properties ..read more

Freeze casting is an elegant, cost-effective manufacturing technique to produce highly porous materials with custom-designed hierarchical architectures, well-defined pore orientation, and multifunctional surface structures. Freeze-cast materials are suitable for many applications, from biomedicine to environmental engineering and energy technologies ..read more

"Bookworm" is a cute thing to call a voracious reader, but actual bookworms—as well as microorganisms and time—break down the flour pastes commonly used to keep old publications in one piece ..read more

Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have gained new insights in the field of high-pressure carbon chemistry: They synthesized two new carbides—compounds of carbon and another chemical element—with unique structures. The results may provide an unexpected explanation of the wide spread of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the universe. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications ..read more

Our bodies are made up of trillions of different cells, each fulfilling their own unique function to keep us alive. How do cells move around inside these extremely complicated systems? How do they know where to go? And how did they get so complicated to begin with? Simple yet profound questions like these are at the heart of curiosity-driven basic research, which focuses on the fundamental principles of natural phenomena. An important example is the process by which cells or organisms move in response to chemical signals in their environment, also known as chemotaxis ..read more

In most industrial chemical reactions, catalysts combine with the starting materials and accompany them through intermediate stages to the product. In chemistry, this pathway is known as the reaction mechanism, and it is a kind of black box: nobody knows what is happening at the molecular level at first ..read more

A team of chemical engineers from Université PSL, CNRS, Harvard University and chemical company Calyxia, has discovered a way to prevent or delay coalescence in some immiscible liquids ..read more