In this paper, the transformation process from Au8 to Au25 nanoclusters (NCs) is investigated with steady state fluorescence spectroscopy and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy at various reaction temperatures and solvent diffusivities. Results demonstrate that Au8 NCs, protected by bovine serum albumin, transform into Au25 NCs under controlled pH values through an endothermic reaction wit...

A new hypothesis for the origin of endothermy in birds is discussed. I suggest extensive parental care provided the initial impetus for the evolution of endothermy. Among extant animals one of the most important functions of an endothermic metabolism is the incubation of embryos. Furthermore, I propose that extensive parental care is a key innovation that greatly influenced much of the homoplas...

Four new Glycosyl-NucleoLipid (GNL) analogs featuring either a single fluorocarbon or double hydrocarbon chains were synthesized in good yields from azido thymidine as starting material. Physicochemical studies (surface tension measurements, differential scanning calorimetry) indicate that hydroxybutanamide-based GNLs feature endothermic phase transition temperatures like the previously reporte...

Monodisperse nanoparticles of well-defined size and shape are required in several emerging applications, which take advantage of their size-dependent properties such as the superparamagnetic limit in the case of magnetic nanoparticles. Accurate tuning of the nanoparticle size and shape requires understanding of the mechanisms involved in particle nucleation and growth. In spite of extensive ong...

Recent theoretical work in single-bubble sonoluminescence has suggested that water vapor in the collapsing bubble leads to energy-consuming chemical reactions, restricting the peak temperatures to values for which hardly any light emission could occur. Analyzing the reaction thermodynamics within the dense, collapsed bubble, we demonstrate that the excluded volume of the nonideal gas results in...

The metastability of some phases of CsHSO4 and RbH2PO4 is due to the volume decrease at an endothermic phase transition which “locks in” the metastability in question. Water adsorption, which removes these metastabilities, probably exerts a “wedge-like” force which expands the lattice spacing in the surface layer, thus facilitating the start of the phase transition. The induction time and the z...

Parental care is an ecologically significant behavior adopted by many vertebrates, especially endothermic ones, and has thus received considerable attention (Clutton-Brock 1991; Farmer 2000). Parental care provides offspring with many requirements for development, such as water balance, energy provisioning, and temperature regulation (CluttonBrock 1991; Deeming, 2004). Because the needs of Corr...

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) gel was prepared by the freezing and thawing method using the solvents of N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMA) and tetramethylene sulfone(sulfolane). The gelation time after a series of freezing and thawing was examined with varying PAN concentration of DMA solution and the freezing time. Dynamic viscoelasticity was measured in the course of gelation for DMA solution to observe t...

Borane amine compounds hold promise in a chemical hydrogen storage setting due to their high gravimetric and volumetric content of releasable hydrogen. The heats of formation and the thermodynamics of the dehydrogenation of N-methyl substituted cyclodi-, cyclotriand cyclotetraborazane were predicted at the G3(MP2) level following B3LYP/DGDVZP2 level optimization. The dehydrogenation of the N-me...