Accurately differentiating tumours from surrounding healthy tissue is critical for the success of breast and other cancer surgeries. Currently, however, many surgeons still rely on invasive histopathology to determine tumour margins, with the surgeon and patient left waiting under anaesthesia for 30 minutes while an excised tissue sample is taken away to the lab for evaluation.
Organohalogen flame retardants have come under fire in recent years after concerns they could have harmful effects on health and the environment. But novel organophosphorus retardants derived from renewable plant sources may offer a less toxic and biodegradable alternative, according to researchers presenting the work at the ACS meeting in San Diego in August 2019.
Researchers have taken the first steps towards creating safer, environmentally friendly protein batteries by making electrodes from synthetic polypeptides and other polymers. The polypeptides could one day be useful in flow batteries for storing electrical charge, they reported at the ACS meeting in San Diego in August 2019.
Adapting an ordinary smartphone to function as a fluorescence microscope could help to reduce outbreaks of infection by ‘cruise ship’ microbe norovirus, researchers reported at the ACS meeting in August 2019.
X-ray vision is a capability often associated with comic book superheroes. But researchers have recently brought the idea closer to reality by creating superpower mice with the ability to see near-infrared light, they reported at the ACS meeting in San Diego in August.
The Periodic Table of elements was proposed by Mendeleev 150 years ago this year. Now, a group in Japan has proposed a periodic table for molecules.
Around half of all drug trials that supported approvals for new cancer drugs conducted between 2014 and 2016 were flawed, according to researchers.
Climate change could force crop and livestock production to be abandoned in parts of southern Europe and the Mediterranean, according to a European Environment Agency (EEA) report. More extreme events like droughts, heatwaves and floods, will outweigh any benefits from climate change such as longer growing seasons and more suitable crop conditions.
The amount of antibiotics entering the River Thames would need to reduce by as much as 80% to avoid the development and spread of antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’, according to researchers at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH).
Radiation from mobile phones could be used to protect brain tissue from the rogue protein clumps associated with Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research.