The mechanisms of interaction between inorganic matter and biomolecules, as well as properties of resulting hybrids, are receiving growing interest due to the rapidly developing field of bionanotechnology. The majority of potential applications for metal-biohybrid structures require stability of these systems under vacuum conditions, where their chemistry is elusive, and may differ dramatically...

Relationships and variability of bio-optical properties in coastal waters are investigated. Optical proxies indicate that these coastal waters are optically complex and highly variable and are categorized as follows: (1) relatively clear and dominated by high index of refraction, biogenic particles, (2) more turbid, consisting of mostly inorganic particles and little phytoplankton, (3) extremel...

The solid phases of gold(I) and/or silver(I) cyanides are supramolecular assemblies of inorganic polymer chains in which the key structural degrees of freedom-namely, the relative vertical shifts of neighbouring chains-are mathematically equivalent to the phase angles of rotating planar ('XY') spins. Here, we show how the supramolecular interactions between chains can be tuned to mimic differen...

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, [Zn(HPO(4))(C(2)H(3)N(3))](n), contains one Zn(2+) cation, one (HPO(4))(2-) anion and a 1,2,4 triazole ligand. The Zn(2+) cation is coordinated in a quite regular tetra-hedral geometry by O atoms from three phosphate groups and a tertiary N atom from the triazole ring. Each phosphate anion is connected to three Zn(II) cations, leading to a series of co...

Beneficial effects of CO2 on photosynthetic organisms will be a key driver of ecosystem change under ocean acidification. Predicting the responses of macroalgal species to ocean acidification is complex, but we demonstrate that the response of assemblages to elevated CO2 are correlated with inorganic carbon physiology. We assessed abundance patterns and a proxy for CO2:HCO3- use (δ13C values) o...

The structure and the composition are two key factors that influence the physical, chemical, and other properties of materials. Correspondingly, structural design and functionalization with inorganic or organic materials provide efficient routes to enhancing some properties. Herein, iron triad nanomaterials, with a wide range of applications in energy, environment and other fields, were chosen ...

We report a general strategy for designing and synthesizing inorganic nanostructures with arbitrarily prescribed three-dimensional shapes. Computationally designed DNA strands self-assemble into a stiff "nanomold" that contains a user-specified three-dimensional cavity and encloses a nucleating gold "seed." Under mild conditions, this seed grows into a larger cast structure that fills and thus ...

The cell membranes of microorganisms appear to be rather complex, metabolically active entities, equipped with many specific active transport mechanisms which mediate the uptake and accumulation of a variety of compounds. Bacteria have been shown to accumulate amino acids (Cohen and Rickenberg, 1956; Gale, 1947; 1953), carbohydrates (Cohen and Monod, 1957; Rickenberg et al., 1956), and inorgani...

In recent years, the search to develop large-area solar cells at low cost has led to research on photovoltaic (PV) systems based on nanocomposites containing conjugated polymers. These composite films can be synthesized and processed at lower costs and with greater versatility than the solid state inorganic semiconductors that comprise today's solar cells. However, the best nanocomposite solar ...

The space of metastable materials offers promising new design opportunities for next-generation technological materials, such as complex oxides, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, steels, and beyond. Although metastable phases are ubiquitous in both nature and technology, only a heuristic understanding of their underlying thermodynamics exists. We report a large-scale data-mining study of the Mat...