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

Chemistry & Physics

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 11-Sep-2025 20:10 ET (12-Sep-2025 00:10 GMT/UTC)

Paper-based devices diagnose malaria in asymptomatic people

Ohio State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Devices made with cheap strips of paper have outperformed two other testing methods in detecting malaria infection in asymptomatic people in Ghana – a diagnostic advance that could accelerate efforts to eliminate the disease, researchers say.

Journal: Analytical Chemistry
Funder: NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Rice chemists leap across terpenoid landscapes with enzyme-enabled scaffold hopping

Rice University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A research team led by Rice University has introduced an innovative strategy that uses enzymes to convert one terpenoid structure into many different forms, streamlining synthetic pathways and redefining the approach to natural product synthesis.

Journal: Nature Chemistry
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Entangled and stiffened: Movement in an entangled cluster of worms

Heinrich-Heine University Duesseldorf
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Physicists from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have, in collaboration with colleagues from Darmstadt and Dresden, examined the movement in clusters of active, self-propelled, flexible polymer chains. In the process, they identified new physical laws, with which they also can describe living clusters of worms and tentacles. In the journal Nature Communications, they describe that the active movement of living individuals causes novel internal entanglements to arise, which can stiffen such a dynamic cluster to the extent that it practically becomes a solid.

Journal: Nature Communications

SwRI’s Angel Wileman named one of Women in Hydrogen 50 for 2025

Southwest Research Institute
Grant and Award Announcement

SAN ANTONIO — June 16, 2025 — The Women’s Global Leadership Conference (WGLC) in Energy has selected Southwest Research Institute’s Angel Wileman for 2025’s Women in Hydrogen 50. This list recognizes 50 women, nominated by their colleagues and peers, as the current and future leaders of the hydrogen economy. This distinction honors Wileman as one of the most accomplished figures in her industry, with the potential to affect real change.

Steering magnetic textures with electric fields

Paul Scherrer Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have demonstrated an innovative method to control magnetism in materials using an energy-efficient electric field. The discovery focuses on materials known as magnetoelectrics, which offer promise for next-generation energy technologies, data storage, energy conversion, and medical devices. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

Journal: Nature Communications

One-step route to complex molecules using ortho-quinodimethanes

Waseda University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Diels–Alder reaction is a widely used tool for building complex ring structures but often requires difficult-to-make starting materials. Researchers from Waseda University, along with other collaborators, developed a palladium-catalyzed method to generate reactive ortho-quinodimethanes using simple, commercially available compounds. This one-step, multicomponent reaction efficiently produces diverse polycyclic molecules. Their discovery of a unique benzyl–palladium intermediate offers a practical, faster approach to synthesizing biologically important and structurally complex compounds, including natural products.

Journal: Chem

Turning ultrasound into medicine: Low-intensity ultrasound unlocks precision cancer treatment

Science China Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists from Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have developed a novel ultrasound-driven therapy that activates dormant cancer drugs directly inside tumors. By combining low-intensity ultrasound with specially designed nanoparticles, the team achieved a 99% tumor suppression rate and 66.7% cure rate in mice. This non-invasive approach minimizes side effects and could revolutionize targeted cancer treatment.

Journal: National Science Review