DuBois Receives National Inorganic Chemistry Award
Congratulations to Dr. Daniel DuBois at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on receiving the American Chemical Society's Award in Inorganic Chemistry, a prestigious national honor. DuBois was chosen for his unique approach to designing inorganic molecular complexes to speed reactions. Instead of taking a hit-or-miss approach based on creating and testing endless variations to find the properties needed, he answered the fundamental questions, showing the scientific community "why" these materials behaved as they did, and how to use that knowledge to rationally develop improved catalysts.
The Path a Proton Takes
Meandering along the water-filled highways laced through an alternative membrane for fuel cells, protons visit sulfur and oxygen atom clusters along the way, according to scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The highways are lined with identical hook-shaped molecules. Each channel contains a shell that keeps the water in, formed by the molecules' backbones. The small clusters, known as sulfonate groups, dangle inside the channel. In the middle is a thin "wire" of water.
New Protein Discovered Gives Insights to Iron's Fate Underground
It's almost an evil twin story; a protein that steals electrons from iron in one microbe looks a lot like one that adds electrons in another microbe, according to scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of East Anglia. Their survey of the genes of common groundwater bacterium Sideroxydans lithotrophicus ES-1, which removes electrons from iron, revealed that it contained genes in common with Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, which adds electrons to iron.
Team Wins 2012 Innovation Award
Congratulations to the team from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Hummingbird Scientific on receiving a Microscopy Today 2012 Innovation Award. The award honors groundbreaking imaging products and methods. The honorees are Jun Liu, Chongmin Wang, Don Baer, Suntharampillai (Theva) Thevuthasan, Wu Xu and Jiguang (Jason) Zhang from PNNL; and Daan Hein Alsem and Norman Salmon from Hummingbird Scientific.
Turning Down the Heat for Carbon
When it comes to reducing the impact of the energy we use to cool our homes and power our computers, one option is to remove gaseous carbon dioxide (CO2), pump it into underground reservoirs, and have it become part of the mineral formations. If the CO2 doesn't react, it remains in a state that could be released by drilling or earthquakes, defeating the purpose of sequestering the carbon away from the atmosphere.
