Gold is a precious metal and looks great in a ring. How about a benzene ring? Biaryls, compounds containing two directly connected benzene rings, frequently feature in pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals as well as forming the core of many functional materials (for example LEDs, liquid crystals, conducting polymers). A new way to prepare biaryls – compounds…

It started with Sam going around to his neighbour to borrow some milk. Things took a further step when one of them borrowed some chairs for a barbecue. Finally, the two neighbours decided the time had come to take down the fence between their gardens, to better enjoy the shared space. This is how StreetBank…

Martian Water. The thought of Martian canals comes to mind. NASA’s Curiosity rover mission has found evidence a stream that once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but this evidence — images of rocks containing ancient stream bed…

The extraction of the much needed water from a large underground aquifer in northern Namibia may need to wait for further studies, officials have warned at a water investment conference. The aquifer, discovered in July, may contain enough water to sustain about one million people living in the area for 400 years at the current…

How tight should the air pollution laws be? There is a lot of argument and concern not only over health issues but over costs and technical limits. With an overhaul of air quality laws due within a year in Europe, health advocates are calling for the European Commission to resist pressure to tone down the…

We all have managed to stockpile an old computer or two, maybe a couple of corded phones or even a two hundred pound TV set from 1985 that you simply don’t know what to do with. As your electronic waste, or e-waste accumulates in your garage collecting dust you decide it’s finally time to take…

The West Sixth Brewing Company in Lexington, Kentucky, is a craft brewery, founded by Joe Kuosman, Ben Self, Robin Sither, and Brady Barlow and located in the old Rainbo Bread Company building. The business is the first Kentucky brewery to can its beer and has the ability to produce 180 barrels per month. The redeveloped…

Space is full of nothingness. However, the nothingness is not quite complete. Galaxies are vast clusters of stars surrounded by more nothingness (more or less. Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to find evidence our Milky Way Galaxy is embedded in an enormous halo of hot gas that extends for hundreds of thousands of…

While evolution is an accepted theory of how species evolve over time, and how new species spring from existing ones, the fundamental question of what actually started life on this planet is still the subject of a lot of conjecture. Some scientists postulate that rocks from space carrying life from other planets or perhaps asteroids…

Life in extreme environments – hot acids and heavy metals exposure are particularly nasty – can apparently make very similar organisms deal with stress in very different ways, according to new research from North Carolina State University. One single-celled organism from a hot spring near Mount Vesuvius in Italy fights uranium toxicity directly – by…