EurekAlert! News by Subject: Chemistry & Physics - News by Subject: Chemistry & Physics

Chemistry & Physics

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 24-Jun-2025 00:11 ET (24-Jun-2025 04:11 GMT/UTC)

Printed skin to replace animal testing

Graz University of Technology
Reports and Proceedings

A research team from TU Graz and the Vellore Institute of Technology in India is developing a 3D-printed skin imitation equipped with living cells in order to test nanoparticles from cosmetics without animal testing.

Journal: STAR Protocols
Funder: OeAD-GmbH

Chemists simplify synthesis of drugs involving amide groups

National Research University Higher School of Economics
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Chemists from HSE University and the Nesmeyanov Institute of Organoelement Compounds of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INEOS RAS) have developed a new method for synthesising amides, essential compounds in drug production. Using a ruthenium catalyst and carbon monoxide under precisely controlled reaction conditions, they successfully obtained the target product without by-products or complex purification steps. The method has already been tested for synthesising a key component of Vorinostat, a drug used to treat T-cell lymphoma. This approach could lower the cost of the drug by orders of magnitude. The paper has been published in the Journal of Catalysis. The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation.

Journal: Journal of Catalysis

New review illuminates how thermodynamics sets boundaries for life's functions

Higher Education Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The review bridges physics and biology by analyzing how stochastic thermodynamics—a framework describing energy exchanges in microscopic systems—helps explain limitations across diverse biological functions.

Journal: Quantitative Biology
Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Swiss National Science Foundation

Breakthrough in metamaterial electromagnetic response: Debye relaxation mechanism

Light Publishing Center, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics And Physics, CAS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The electromagnetic responses of metamaterial microstructural units are typically described using classical polarization theory models from dielectric physics, such as the Lorentz and Drude models. However, there has been a notable absence of the Debye model, which holds significant importance in dielectric physics. Chinese scientists have now successfully uncovered a novel broadband electromagnetic response mechanism in metamaterial microstructures based on polarization theory - Debye relaxation.

Journal: Light Science & Applications
Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Key Research and Development Program of China, Young Innovation Team Project of Shaanxi province

Smartphone photo sensors transformed into an unprecedented resolution antimatter camera

Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

At CERN, scientists from the AEgIS collaboration led by a team of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have repurposed smartphone camera sensors to create a detector capable of tracking antiproton annihilations in real time with unprecedented resolution. This new device, described in a paper just published in Science Advances, can pinpoint antiproton annihilations with a resolution of about 0.6 micrometres, a 35-fold improvement over previous real-time methods.

Journal: Science Advances

New computer model reveals how Bronze Age Scandinavians could have crossed the sea

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

People living in Bronze Age-era Denmark may have been able to travel to Norway directly over the open sea, according to a study published April 2, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Boel Bengtsson from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and colleagues. To complete this study, the research team developed a new computer modeling tool that could help other scientists better understand how ancient peoples traversed the sea.

Journal: PLOS One

Microplastics detected in cat placentas and fetuses during early pregnancy

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a small study of eight cats at early stages of pregnancy, researchers detected 19 different kinds of microplastic particles in fetuses from two cats and in the placentas of three cats. Ilaria Ferraboschi of the University of Parma, Italy, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on April 2, 2025.

Journal: PLOS One