Air-fueled Battery Could Last Up To 10 Times Longer: Ground-breaking Technology For Electric Cars

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090517152557.htm

A new type of battery has the capability to hold up to ten times more storage than current designs. This is made possibly because it is an air-fuelled battery. This new design can improve performance and the renewable energy industry. This battery will use energy from the wind and from the sun. Since there are no chemicals in the battery, there is more space to be used for energy. These batteries will be cheaper than the rechargeable's that we use now. With this new battery, we will be able to be more resourceful.

Chemical Robots being developed in Europe

Dr. Stepanek's prototype "chobots" are less than a hair's breadth across:

Frantisek Stepanek of Prague's Institute of Chemical Technology has announced that he is developing a new variety of nanobots.  The holy grail of nanoscience has been to develop effective nanobots - robots that are small enough to travel inside the human body and make repairs.  One of the great hurdles scientists have been facing in creating these potentially life-saving machines has been the difficulty of shrinking the gears and circuitry used in traditional robots down to a scale that can potentially flow through the bloodstream or even enter cells.  Dr. Stepanek hopes to overcome this hurdle by avoiding it entirely: instead of trying to create a small version of a computer, he is creating artificial versions of simple life.  Although his creations are not alive (they do not evolve or reproduce), Dr. Stepanek hopes that (eventually) they will be capable of tasks such as delivering medicine or detecting and destroying cancerous cells.  Like living organisms, however, their programming (instructions) will be encoded as chemical patterns inside of their gelatinous cells.  The individual efficacy of each "chobot" (as they are called) is limited, however, just like their biological counterparts (such as white blood cells), they will function en masse: by sending out molecular signals to each other, the chobots will be able to work as a team to solve problems from killing cancerous cells to cleaning water supplies.  

BBC News: 'Chemical robots' swarm together:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8044200.stm

Chemist Shows How RNA Can Be the Starting Point for Life

Recently, an english chemist has found, "The hidden gateway to the RNA world," the chemical milieu which life forms were thought to have emerged from earth, billions of years ago. For twenty years, this question of the origin of life has puzzled, even thwarted both scientists and researchers. It is only now that we know how the building blocks of life, as known as RNA, spontaneously assembled themselves in the conditions of the primitive earth. If correct, these finds could solve countless other mysteries about the origin of life. The english chemist, John D. Sutherland, makes an analogy comparing RNA and evolution. He says that his research is like doing a crossword puzzle, and that it gets easier and easier as he finds more clues. Many call him a pioneer of perbiotic  chemistry. He also goes on to say that the spontaneous appearance of some nucleotides on the primitive earth had created life, and that it was, "a near miracle."

"http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/science/14rna.html"

Molecular Chemistry takes a New Twist

In a discovery that could have implications for biological research, new calculations show that a basic tenet of chemistry is wrong. The new finding indicates that in some molecules quantum forces trump the traditional explanation. The find focuses on ethane, which has two carbon atoms bonded to each other. On the other end of the carbon-carbon bond the methyl group, spins like a three-pronged turnstile, says chemist Frank Weinhold of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Scientist Vojislava Pophristic spent 5 years crunching calculations with a supercomputer to figure out what underlies the stability of ethane's staggered conformation. First, she mathematically modeled ethane and removed the parts of the calculations that relate to the steric effect. The ethane molecule remained staggered. She then looked at the other known influence on ethane twisting which is known as hyperconjugation. When Pophristic blocked the electron jumping by placing a hypothetical screen between the two methyl groups, ethane's structure finally assumed the eclipsed form. Hyperconjugation, not steric effects, makes staggered ethane stable, they conclude. Researchers can no longer assume that steric effects play the major role in determining stable forms.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_22_159/ai_76157728/

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-27-2004-52238.asp
Chemistry of love

As it turns out love can be somewhat controlled by chemistry. The common symptoms of love, including sweaty palms, shaky knees and general restlessness, are caused by a natural chemical, Phenylethylamine. Its release from the brain can be triggered from deceptively simple actions like the meeting of the eyes or touching of the hands. Heady emotions, racing pulses and heavy breathing results, and all these are clinically explained as an overdose of this chemical. For instance, chocolate is known to have very high level of this chemical. The latest discovery in this field shows that the arrangement of molecules in this chemicals and the whole world is excited because now humans can actually concoct love potions. In other words, humans could isolate the chemical compound and making drugs that can induce love. What would happens is that an individual would take the drug, and than fall in love with the next person you see.
This new discovery is a large step for discovery the reasons of love and how in the future it might even be possible to control love with a set of drugs which would lead to humans even having more power over the world than ever before.

Self-Mending Plastic

Today most plastics that are recyclable such as water bottles and grocery bags are called thermoplastics. They are polymers that can be melted down and turned into something else. A second category of plastics called thermoset resins cant be turned into new plastics as easily. These resins include electrical insulation and epoxy glue. Most of these products made from these plastics end up as trash and are unusable again.

            Chemists at the University of Groningen in Netherlands have created a thermoset plastic that when heated heals it self instead of decomposing. They are composed of polyketones that are cross linked using bismaleimide which is an organic compound. The reaction is reversible as well. When the plastic is heated to about 300 degrees the material becomes unlinked but when is cools is become a polymer again. The metal can be used for the same uses many plastics are used for.

            This invention is a large step for the understanding of self-healing materials that will someday lead to the creation of recyclable thermoset plastics. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28obheal.html?_r=1&ref=science