The oceans have absorbed about 40 percent of the manmade carbon dioxide (CO2), and mankind doesnt seem likely to make fewer demands anytime soon. Just how much CO2 can be forced into the ocean is a question that arose when scientists noticed that despite ever-increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the oceans inhaled it at different rates over the years. UCSBs Tim Devries may have found outwhy.

The geoscientist and his colleagues, Mark Holzer of the University of New South Wales in Sydney and Franois Primeau of UC Irvine, took apart data since the 1980s, and some pre-industrial estimates from 1765, to look at the problem from the other end of the telescope. Given the carbon cycle since the 1980s, what was the pattern of change in certain tracer elements, they asked, namely temperature, salinity, two chlorofluorocarbons (CFC 11 and 12), and carbon-14. Their paper, Recent increase in oceanic carbon uptake driven by weaker upper-ocean overturning, appeared in the February 9 issue of Nature.

They limited their query to the upper 1,000 meters of water, but expanded it to include all the oceans of the world. What they discovered was that the total carbon exchange depended on whether more came up out of the water than went down into it. The deeper parts of the ocean are rich with ancient carbon from limestone, rocks, dead creatures, and so on. With cold temperatures and windy conditions, as prevailed in the 1990s as compared to the 1980s, CO2 emerged to such an extent that it overwhelmed the amount being absorbed into surface waters. The rolling layers of water also took anthropogenic CO2 deeper into the ocean. The reverse has happened through 2014, with warmer conditions and less overturning circulation in the upperocean.

In some areas, the circulation rate varied by 50 percent from one decade to the next, though the pattern did not hold throughout the world. Some areas of the Northern Hemisphere oceans had fairly equal rates of carbon exchange through the 80s and 90s, the researchers found, and upwelling in the tropics in the 2000s belied the strength of the tradewinds.

The model does not separate natural variations from anthropogenic forcing, they noted, but shows a trend toward future circulation weakening. One thing seems clear, Devries told The Independent. Changes in ocean circulation can have a big impact on how much CO2 the oceans absorb, and we need to better understand how these changes will affect oceanic CO2 uptake in thefuture.

Link:
Ocean-Air Carbon Dioxide Chemistry Experiment - Santa Barbara Independent

Forbes

The 10 Best Popular Science Books of 2016: Maths, Physics, Chemistry Forbes This group of books that I think were the best to be published in 2016 focuses on chemistry, physics and mathematics. So if the other book lists that I published a few weeks ago (evolution/ecology/behavior, environment/conservation and birds/birding ...

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The 10 Best Popular Science Books of 2016: Maths, Physics, Chemistry - Forbes

Yesterday, we provided oral evidence to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into the Future of Chemicals Regulation, which focuses on the future of REACH (the Registration, Evaluation Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) regulation in the UK after it leaves the EU.

Building upon our written evidence, our Programme Manager for Environment and Regulation, Dr Camilla Alexander-White, answered MPs questions on what different options the UK has to regulate chemicals in the future and the scientific skills and expertise needed to run regulatory systems.

Dr Alexander-White said: "Chemical scientists are vital to the development and implementation of a range of regulations that aim to protect the environment and human health, including systems like REACH.

"Whatever regulatory system the UK follows, we need to make sure that we have a strong chemical sciences base that can deliver, analyse and interpret the high quality, robust scientific data that is needed to underpin regulation."

See the rest here:
Chemistry's crucial role in future chemicals regulation - Royal Society of Chemistry

Science Daily

Learning chemistry within Minecraft video game -- ScienceDaily Science Daily Scientists are exploring whether teaching real-world science through a popular computer game may offer a more engaging and effective educational approach ... and more »

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Learning chemistry within Minecraft video game -- ScienceDaily - Science Daily

Flashes of light help chemists at Princeton University and Bristol-Myers Squibb drive the hydroaminations of olefins to produce substituted amines. The light-powered reaction gives chemists another tool for installing amines in drugs and other biologically important molecules.

The new hydroamination is noteworthy for its intermolecular reactivity, its use of unactivated olefin substrates, its toleration of several different functional groups, and its regioselectivity for anti-Markovnikov amine productswherein the new CN bond forms on the less substituted carbon of the olefin (Science 2017, DOI: 10.1126/science.aal3010). Most other examples of hydroaminations result in products with the opposite, Markovnikov regiochemistry. Whats more, the new reaction can produce highly substituted amines (such as in the example shown) that are impossible to make any other way.

In the reaction, irradiation of a secondary alkyl amine in the presence of an iridium catalyst and a thiol cocatalyst yields an aminium radical cation intermediate. This species is responsible for the reactions anti-Markovnikov regiochemistry and highly substituted products, explains Robert Knowles, who led the research effort. These alkyl aminium radical cations are highly reactive and will add to many olefin classes with extraordinarily fast rates, allowing us to achieve these types of intermolecular hydroaminations. he says.

Knowles came up with an elegant approach to what was really an unsolved problem, comments Kami L. Hull, an expert in anti-Markovnikov hydrofunctionalization at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Previous examples of anti-Markovnikov hydroaminations, she points out, either required activated olefins or directing groups, or produced stoichiometric amounts of unwanted by-products. Furthermore, Hull adds, Knowless olefin substrates are so energetically stable that they wouldnt react without his photocatalytic approach, which really expands what chemists can do with this reaction.

Link:
New amination chemistry brought to light - Chemical & Engineering News (subscription)

Re2 on Carbon Scheme. Credit: University of Nottingham

Ever since it was proposed that atoms are building blocks of the world, scientists have been trying to understand how and why they bond to each other. Be it a molecule (which is a group of atoms joined together in a particular fashion), or a block of material or a whole living organism, ultimately, everything is controlled by the way atoms bond, and the way bonds break.

The challenge is that lengths of chemical bonds are between 0.1 0.3 nm, about half a million times smaller than the width of a human hair, making direct imaging of bonding between a pair of atoms difficult. Advanced microscopy methods, such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) or scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), can resolve atomic positions and measure bond lengths directly, but filming chemical bonds to break or to form, with spatiotemporal continuity, in real time, still remains one of the greatest challenges of science.

This challenge has been met by a research team from the UK and Germany led by Professor Ute Kaiser, head of the Electron Microscopy of Materials Science in the University of Ulm, and Professor Andrei Khlobystov in the School of Chemistry at the University of Nottingham they have published Imaging an unsupported metal-metal bond in dirhenium molecules at the atomic scale in Science Advances, a journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science covering all aspects of scientific endeavor.

This group of researchers are known for their pioneering use of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to film movies of chemical reactions at the single-molecule level, and dynamics of tiny clusters of metal atoms in nanocatalysts utilize carbon nanotubes atomically thin hollow cylinders of carbon with diameters at the molecular scale (1-2 nm) as miniature test tubes for atoms.

Professor Andrei Khlobystov, said: Nanotubes help us to catch atoms or molecules, and to position them exactly where we want. In this case, we trapped a pair of rhenium (Re) atoms bonded together to form Re2. Because rhenium has a high atomic number it is easier to see in TEM than lighter elements, allowing us to identify each metal atom as a dark dot.

Professor Ute Kaiser, added: As we imaged these diatomic molecules by the state of the art chromatic and spherical aberration-corrected SALVE TEM, we observed the atomic-scale dynamics of Re2 adsorbed on the graphitic lattice of the nanotube and discovered that the bond length changes in Re2 in a series of discrete steps.

The group have a rich track record of using an electron beam as a tool for dual-purpose: precise imaging of atomic positions and activation of chemical reactions due to energy transferred from fast electrons of the electron beam to the atoms. The two-in-one trick with TEM allowed these researchers to record movies of molecules reacting in the past, and now they were able to film two atoms bonded together in Re2 walking along the nanotube in a continuous video. Dr. Kecheng Cao, Research Assistant at Ulm University who discovered this phenomenon and performed the imaging experiments, said: It was surprisingly clear how the two atoms move in pairs, clearly indicating a bond between them. Importantly, as Re2 moves down the nanotube, the bond length changes, indicating that the bond becomes stronger or weaker depending on the environment around the atoms.

After a period of time, atoms of Re2 exhibited vibrations distorting their circular shapes onto ellipses and stretching the bond. As the bond length reached a value exceeding the sum of atomic radii, the bond snapped and vibration ceased, indicating that the atoms became independent of one another. A little later the atoms joined together again, reforming a Re2 molecule.

Dr. Stephen Skowron, Postdoctoral Research Assistant at University of Nottingham who carried out the calculations for Re2 bonding, said: Bonds between metal atoms are very important in chemistry, particularly for understanding magnetic, electronic, or catalytic properties of materials. What makes it challenging is that transition metals, such as Re, can form bonds of different order, from single to quintuple bonds. In this TEM experiment, we observed that the two rhenium atoms are bonded mainly through a quadruple bond, providing new fundamental insights into transition metal chemistry.

Andrei Khlobystov, said: To our knowledge, this is the first time when bond evolution, breaking and formation was recorded on film at the atomic scale. Electron microscopy is already becoming an analytical tool for determining structures of molecules, particularly with the advance of the cryogenic TEM recognised by 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. We are now pushing the frontiers of molecule imaging beyond simple structural analysis, and towards understanding dynamics of individual molecules in real time. The team believe that one day in future electron microscopy may become a general method for studying chemical reactions, similar to spectroscopic methods widely used in chemistry labs.

Reference: Imaging an unsupported metalmetal bond in dirhenium molecules at the atomic scale by Kecheng Cao, Stephen T. Skowron, Johannes Biskupek, Craig T. Stoppiello, Christopher Leist, Elena Besley, Andrei N. Khlobystov and Ute Kaiser, 17 January 2020, Science Advances.DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay5849

Excerpt from:
Chemical Bond Making & Breaking Recorded in Action 500,000x Smaller Than the Width of a Human Hair - SciTechDaily

February 16, 2017 by Ross Barker Professor Lee Cronin

A University of Glasgow research project is set to get underway beyond the earth's atmosphere following a successful launch into space today (Wednesday 15 February).

The project could help future space explorers create their own chemicals and drugs on demand, allowing them to maximise the efficiency of their launch payloads by taking raw chemical ingredients with them rather than specific medications. They could then use digital chemistry technology to make drugs and other materials as required.

A DIDO2 nano-satellite containing an experiment designed by Professor Lee Cronin, the University's Regius Chair of Chemistry, was one of 103 launched into space this morning on an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) rocket. Professor Cronin and his research team developed the launch in partnership with SpacePharma, a company which specialises in providing scientists with access to microgravity environments.

The mission, part of the ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle programme, was successfully launched just before 4am GMT/ 9am local time at Sriharikota, around 80km from Chennai.

The experiment is a continuation of previous research from the Cronin Group which aims to digitise chemistry and make it possible for chemical compounds of all kinds to be 'printed' on demand.

During the experiment, the research team will remotely activate a microfluidic device inside the satellite which will bring together chemical agents. Using an onboard microscope, they will be able to watch the agents react, forming crystals of a drug currently being developed for use in as a possible anti-cancer treatment.

Professor Cronin said: "This is a fantastic opportunity to literally take the Cronin Group's research to new heights. Low- and zero-gravity environments offer a wide range of new opportunities for science, and we're excited to see how this experiment progresses.

"Imagine you are on living on Mars and you need access to a drug that you have not taken with you, this approach might allow you to use a digital blueprint and make the drug on demand from a minimal set of chemicals.

"This collaboration is exciting since we are going to be able to do a digitally controlled chemical experiment in space that produces a complex organic molecule that is part of a class of anti-cancer drugs under study in my laboratory. We chose this molecule as it complex one-pot three step assembly and ends by producing the drug candidate in highly pure crystalline form."

Yossi Yamin, founder and CEO of SpacePharma, said: "We are really excited that Professor Cronin is using our nano-satellite for his digital chemical experiments and we hope this will pave the way for developing chemistry in space including drug manufacturing and testing."

Explore further: India to launch 103 satellites in record single mission

India will launch a rocket carrying 103 satellites next month in a record single mission, a report said Wednesday, as its famously frugal space agency looks to zoom ahead in the commercial space race.

India successfully put a record 104 satellites from a single rocket into orbit on Wednesday in the latest triumph for its famously frugal space programme.

Scientists have developed a new form of 'chemical search engine' which could provide clues to the origins of life on Earth.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the University of Glasgow say they have taken their first tentative steps towards creating 'life' from inorganic chemicals potentially defining the new area of 'inorganic biology'.

(Phys.org) -- A new 3D printing process developed at the University of Glasgow could revolutionise the way scientists, doctors and even the general public create chemical products.

India plans to launch a mission to Mars next year, putting an orbital probe around the red planet to study its climate and geology, top space department officials said on Thursday.

The distribution of normal matter precisely determines gravitational acceleration in all common types of galaxies, a team led by Case Western Reserve University researchers reports.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft recently detected organic-rich areas on Ceres. Scientists evaluated the geology of the regions to conclude that the organics are most likely native to the dwarf planet. Data from the spacecraft suggest ...

War correspondent, statesman, astronomer. Stargazing may not be what Winston Churchill is best remembered for, but a treatise he wrote on extraterrestrial life has revealed his scientific acumen six decades later.

(Phys.org)Astronomers have detected four faint, polarized flares at 154 MHz from the nearby variable star UV Ceti. The newly observed flares are much fainter than most flares found at these frequencies. The findings were ...

NASA is inviting the public to help search for possible undiscovered worlds in the outer reaches of our solar system and in neighboring interstellar space. A new website, called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, lets everyone participate ...

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have discovered a patch of land in an ancient valley on Mars that appears to have been flooded by water in the not-too-distant past. In doing so, they have pinpointed a prime target ...

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Digital chemistry set reaches new heights with space launch - Phys.Org

Bristol skyline. Photograph: Alamy

A university building was evacuated after a student accidentally made the same explosive that was used in the Paris terror attacks.

The University of Bristol said triacetone triperoxide (TATP) was unintentionally formed in its chemistry laboratory on 3 February.

Police, fire service and bomb disposal experts were called to the building and carried out a controlled explosion of the substance. No one was injured in the incident.

TATP was used in bomb vests worn by militants in the attacks that killed 130 people in November 2015.

A university spokesperson said: Following a full investigation, we can confirm that the chemical triacetone triperoxide (TATP) was unintentionally formed during a routine procedure carried out by a PhD student.

The student was following a published literature method and the risk of TATP as a potential byproduct had been identified during the risk assessment process.

They added: We have robust contingency plans in place to deal with incidents of this nature. As soon as the presence of TATP was identified, the student immediately notified those responsible for laboratory safety in the school.

A series of actions were then taken which resulted in the precautionary evacuation of the chemistry building and surrounding buildings and the controlled disposal of the substance by the emergency services.

The spokesperson said the chemistry departments risk assessment process was being reviewed to determine whether additional checks could be made.

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Bristol university chemistry lab evacuated in explosive scare ... - The Guardian

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's PDA packed reunion at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sunday night has been the talk of the SAG Awards.

The former spouses were seen embracing, holding hands and gazing adoringly at each other in cosy moments not seen since their heyday as Hollywood's golden couple.

Their backstage and onscreen antics have prompted much discussion as to whether the duo - who divorced in 2005 - could perform a U-turn worthy of the most soppiest of romcoms and reunite.

Or is that the pair, who were torn apart after Brad fell head over heels for Angelina Jolie , have finally learned to get along as friends?

Body language expert Judi James gives her inside take on what the couple really mean to each other.

Judi explains: "Brad and Jen are one of those Hollywood couples that fans will always see as being made for one another, despite their divorce and his marriage to Angelina, so now the moment in time has arrived that they are both single and looking great it will appear that fate is pushing them back into the same romantic plot line they left in 2005.

"Their body language here does a lot to fuel those rumours as they use vast amounts of loving eye contact and torso proximity as they meet up on the red carpet but Im not sure their subtler signals are congruent enough for us all to be celebrating a re-run of their relationship. Brad does look incredibly pleased to see Jen and even to pull her away for an intimate greeting, grabbing her wrist like a small child impatient to get his mummys attention, but this time its Jen who shows signs of proceeding with caution.

"The last time we saw this couple in action they looked intensely loved-up and tactile as they walked along a beach during a break to re-boot their marriage and despite intense signals of mutual love Brad went straight back to announce their split and his relationship with Angelina the next day, meaning we need to be cynical however great it would be to see them back together as a couple.

"Brad gazes longingly as Jen as she chats to the press but her Wait! reaction is to extend an arm and place her hand out palm-flat. The way hes grabbing her wrist rather than her hand suggest a lack of easy-going intimacy between the pair, otherwise I would expect him to hold her hand. The gesture does make him look quite possessive, as though hes trying to capture her full attention but she is clearly making him wait.

"Brads narrow-eyed smile and his wide display of teeth make him look very much like the male lead in a movie returning to his girl. His smile suggests genuine warmth bordering on feelings of love while his eye-gaze looks intense. Jen responds but with bent knees and raised brows that seem to imply some surprise, as though they havent met up for a while.

"The way Jen touches both Brads arms suggests shes using a checking gesture, holding him a bit at arms length while she checks out his intentions.

"Jen leans in for a kiss that is very much led and controlled by her. Her pelvis is pushed back to avoid more intimate contact and her touch on his arm looks polite, for some reason making a display of the ring on her wedding finger.

"We can see Jens response from another angle here as she greets her ex.

"Brad still has hold of her wrist rather than her hand and Jens puckered brows and squeezed smile suggest surprise rather than passion as she bends her torso and raised her hand to move in for the cheek kiss. Brads wrist-hold is a complex gesture, looking surprisingly possessive given their circumstances but not intimate or romantic."

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Brad Pitt & Jennifer Aniston have sizzling sexual chemistry but possessive streak may ruin reunion - Mirror Online

During a chemical reaction, the molecules involved in the reaction gain energy until they reach a point of no return known as a transition state.

Until now, no one has glimpsed this state, as it lasts for only a few femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second). However, chemists at MIT, Argonne National Laboratory, and several other institutions have now devised a technique that allows them to determine the structure of the transition state by detailed observation of the products that result from the reaction.

Were looking at the consequences of the event, which have encoded in them the actual structure of the transition state, says Robert Field, the Robert T. Haslam and Bradley Dewey Professor of Chemistry at MIT. Its an indirect measurement, but its among the most direct classes of measurement that have been possible.

Field and his colleagues used millimeter-wave spectroscopy, which can measure the rotational-vibrational energy of reaction product molecules, to determine the structure of the products of the breakdown of vinyl cyanide caused by ultraviolet light. Using this approach, they identified two different transition states for the reaction and found evidence that additional transition states may be involved.

Field is the senior author of the study, which appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead author is Kirill Prozument, a former MIT postdoc who is now at Argonne National Laboratory.

A central concept of chemistry

For any chemical reaction to occur, the reacting molecules must receive an input of energy that enables the activated molecules to reach a transition state, from which the products are formed.

The transition state is a central concept of chemistry, Field says. Everything we think about in reactions really hinges on the structure of the transition state, which we cannot directly observe.

In a paper published in 2015, Field and his colleagues used laser spectroscopy to characterize the transition state for a different type of reaction known as an isomerization, in which a molecule undergoes a change of shape.

In their new study, the researchers explored another style of reaction, using ultraviolet laser radiation to break molecules of vinyl cyanide into acetylene and other products. Then, they used millimeter-wave spectroscopy to observe the vibrational level population distribution of the reaction products a few millionths of a second after the reaction occurred.

Using this technique, the researchers were able to determine nascent populations of molecules in different levels of vibrational energy a measure of how much the atoms of a molecule move relative to each other. Those vibrational energy levels also encode the geometry of the molecules when they were born at the transition state, specifically, how much bending excitation there is in the bond angles between hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen atoms.

This also allowed the researchers to distinguish between two slightly different products of the reaction hydrogen cyanide (HCN), in which a central carbon atom is bound to hydrogen and nitrogen, and hydrogen isocyanide (HNC), in which nitrogen is the central atom, bound to carbon and hydrogen.

This is the fingerprint of what the structure was during the instant that the molecule was released, Field says. Previous methods of looking at reactions were blind to the vibrational populations, and they were blind to the difference between HCN and HNC.

The researchers found both HCN and HNC, which are produced via different transition states, among the reaction products. This suggests that both of those transition states, which represent different mechanisms of reaction, are in play when vinyl cyanide is broken apart by the ultraviolet laser.

This implies that there are two different mechanisms competing for transition states, and were able to separate the reaction into these different mechanisms, Field says. This is a completely new technique, a new way of going to the heart of what happens in a chemical reaction.

The new technique allows scientists to explore the transition state in a way that has previously not been possible, says Arthur Suits, a professor of chemistry at the University of Missouri.

In this work, the researchers use the powerful new technique of broadband rotational spectroscopy to monitor the nascent vibrational distributions of the products of a photodissociation reaction, thereby gaining deep insight into two different transition states, says Suits, who was not involved in the study. Broadband rotational spectroscopy continues to amaze us with unexpected applications such as this glimpse of the elusive transition, and other exciting advances driven by this technique are no doubt on the way.

Additional mechanisms

The researchers data shows that there are additional reaction mechanisms beyond those two, but more study is needed to determine their transition state structures.

Field and Prozument are now using this technique to study the reaction products of the pyrolytic breakdown of acetone. They also hope to use it to explore how triazine, a six-membered ring of alternating carbon and nitrogen atoms, breaks down into three molecules of HCN, in particular, whether all three products form simultaneously (a triple whammy) or sequentially.

The research was funded by the Department of Energy, the Petroleum Research Fund, and the National Science Foundation. Other authors of the paper include Joshua Baraban PhD 13 of Ben-Gurion University; G. Barratt Park PhD 15 of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry; Rachel Shaver SM 13; P. Bryan Changala of the University of Colorado at Boulder; John Muenter of the University of Rochester; Stephen Klippenstein of Argonne National Laboratory; and Vladimir Chernyak of Wayne State University.

See original here:
Chemists glimpse the fleeting transition state of a reaction - MIT News

Forbes

Five Things To Know About Heroin's Curious Chemistry History Forbes Bring up the topic of opioid painkillers, and you're almost certain to hear an idea that goes like this: People believed, or were allegedly led to believe, that opioid painkillers pose less of an addiction risk than they actually do. What comes up less ...

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Five Things To Know About Heroin's Curious Chemistry History - Forbes

In 2004, bands were growing up. Court jesters Blink-182s self-titled album a year previous had hinted at a more mature sound and Green Day were about to blow the whole thing sky high by trading two-minute slacker anthems about masturbation and not wanting to tidy your room for the sprawling, epic, anti-war rock opera American Idiot.

Popular music was primed for change. With Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, My Chemical Romance delivered it.

The hushed opening of Helena was an intriguing preamble that marked MCR out as a group of musicians prepared to experiment and take the scenic route toward pure rock fury. Its subdued scene-setting soon gave way toa deeply personal and heartfelt love letter to Gerard Ways deceased grandmother. Despite its heavy lyrical content, it still kicked serious amounts of arse, the thrashing verses and breakdown groove of the chorus sating those who just wanted to bang their heads.

Give Em Hell, Kid and To The End follow in a much more straightforward punk-rock vein, all urgency and blazing power chords, yet are characterised by Gerards bitter and wounded prose. You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison tries to restrain itself and allows Gerard to wallow in his own fears, but, like Animal in The Muppets going crazy on his drums, MCR cant keep the subdued gothic shoegazing up for long. Just as the chorus is about to kick in, the band detonate in exhilarating fashion.

Then there comes the song with which My Chemical Romance captured the hearts of so many. When MCR released Im Not Okay (I Promise), they immediately entered into the lexicon of great anthems for the disaffected youth. It stands alongside the likes of The Whos My Generation, The Sex Pistols Anarchy In The UK, Nirvanas Smells Like Teen Spirit and Rage Against The Machines Killing In The Name in the honours list of zeitgeist-capturing, generation-defining statements.

Its also a song that best showcases what made My Chemical Romance so exhilarating musically. Despite its outsider stance, the song is effortlessly cool, the mid-section breakdown where Gerard declares Im okay over a tinkling piano before the whole band come careering back in with renewed vigour that they keep until the songs end is delivered with a swagger that any band would sell body parts to replicate.

Im Not Okay became the most perfect three-and-a-half minutes of teen angst in a decade and, in doing so, launched MCR. It made them more than a band they became a badge of honour. It's still a genuine anthem for the disaffected, sounding as righteously pissed off and fresh as it did 15 years ago. For all their future success, its this moment that turned My Chemical Romance from a band to a cult and is arguably the four minutes that have come to define them.

If people thought the album was to peak there, then The Ghost Of You, while not being as startling and instant, still kept the anthems coming. A black-hearted ballad of true woe and despair, it marks the point where the more grandiose tendencies of the band were first allowed to flex their muscles.

On reflection, all these years later, there is no denying that the second half of the album isnt quite as breathless as the first. Only the spaghetti western-inspired Hang EmHigh, featuring a typically frantic vocal performance from former Black Flag and Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris, and the brilliantly defiant Thank You For The Venom, really live up to what had gone before.

By that point, though, it was enough. My Chemical Romance had spliced an original, inspiring and youthfulcollection of dark-sounding punk-rock anthemsthat showed as many glimpses of instantaneouspop as it did the wildly lavish pomp and ceremony that would come to characterise the oncoming juggernaut that was The Black Parade. Andalthough that may be the album most identify themwith,Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge still stands asMy Chemical Romances masterpiece and one of the finest alternative albums this decade has seen.

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My Chemical Romance's Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge: The best alternative album of the century so far? - Louder

A team of Harvard chemists has succeeded in performing the coldest chemical reaction to ever occur, according to a Nov. 29 paper they published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Science.

Chemistry and Chemical Biology professor Kang-Kuen Ni leads the team, which has been working on this ultracold chemical process for four years.

The team created a technique using lasers that allowed them to set the reaction temperature just a few millionths of a Kelvin above absolute zero the lowest physically possible temperature. They used the reaction to study the process by which the chemical reactants broke down.

Ming-Guang Hu, a postdoctoral researcher in Nis lab, said the team wanted to observe the effects of the ultracold technique on a chemical reaction. Hu is one of the first authors on the paper, along with Yu Liu, a graduate student in the lab.

Our goal is to apply the ultracold molecule technique to different fields, Hu said. For this project specifically, we want to apply the ultracold molecule technique to study the chemical reaction.

Hu added that scientists have long understood the theoretical basis of the different stages of chemical reactions, but that the new experiment allows them to more directly observe intermediate stages. Hu and Ni said scientists have relatively little knowledge of the short-lived middle stages between reactants and their final products.

What we were looking for was the products of this reaction, to confirm that these chemical reactions were happening, going from reactants to product, Ni said. But a bit of a surprise was that we also see the intermediate, which is usually more transient in nature.

Hu said he hopes the study will help future researchers to better control the speed of ultracold chemical reactions.

The long-term goal is really to be able to control, or alter, the reaction rate of chemical reactions, Hu said. The ultracold technique is probably the most close to that dream.

The team is currently exploring new ways they can use the ultracold technique, according to a Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology press release. The release states that the technique may help researchers manipulate reactants during a reaction, prematurely excite them, or physically nudge them around.

Ni said she has heard very positive reactions to the experiment from other researchers.

In the very immediate community, people are very excited. It was a bit of a puzzle for at least ten years, Ni said. But, moreover, we also saw something that we didnt expect. Now we have opened up new possibilities to everybody, so the community is very excited to see what we could learn next.

Read more:
Harvard Chemists Perform the Coldest Chemical Reaction in the Known Universe | News - Harvard Crimson

Ahead of the Washington Mystics 78-72 win over Atlanta on Sunday, Mystics Coach Mike Thibault was asked to describe the progress his retooled roster is making toward becoming a cohesive unit. His response was simple.

Slow, he said.

That disconnect showed Sunday, when for the second straight game Washington needed the final seconds to seal a home win. The Mystics (5-2) staved off an impressive comeback from Atlanta after frittering away an 18-point lead. Washington trailed 72-71 with 43 seconds left before it won the game at the foul line, with Elena Delle Donne hitting five free throws and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough sinking two as the Dream (4-2) missed its final two field goals.

Its hard, eight players, we got tired legs shooting the ball, Thibault said. ... But its really nice to have one of the best players in the league on your team when youre down the stretch.

[Mystics Ivory Latta has a book and a message]

Delle Donne led Washington with 23 points and a career-high 15 rebounds and hit 10 of her 12 free throw attempts. Tierra Ruffin-Pratt added 11 points, and a hot-handed Kristi Toliver had 15 on a season-high five three-pointers.

Washington was without starting guard Tayler Hill (neck/left shoulder strain) and backups Natasha Cloud (left knee strain) and Asia Taylor (neck pain), but a shortened rotation is just one of the reasons team chemistry on offense was spotty Sunday.

A month into the season, the Mystics are integrating six new players. Starting forward Emma Meesseman is overseas with the Belgian national team, and Toliver is still catching up after missing all of training camp.

Hills injury also forced Walker-Kimbrough into the starting lineup just four games into her WNBA career. Her first task as a starter was no easy ask the former Terp had to guard Eastern Conference player of the month Tiffany Hayes, who averages 19.8 points and had 24 against the Mystics.

All that offensive adjustment resulted in Washingtons second shoddy shooting game in a row: The Mystics shot 36.5 percent from the field Sunday.

I just think were operating at about 50 percent offensively right now, Thibault said.

His star player agreed, though no one in the Mystics locker room is fretting. The win put Washington ahead of Atlanta at the top of the Eastern Conference and in second place in the league overall behind undefeated Minnesota.

We have great moments, and then we have some bad moments, Delle Donne said. But its early in the season, and its kind of expected. Were a brand-new team, and were all trying to figure one another out. Obviously I hope to see us improve each game and get better and better, but until then, we just have to continue to be really good on defense.

Defense helped Washington dominate the first half. Hot shooting from Toliver, who had three three-pointers in the first three minutes of the game, got the Mystics off to a good start, and they kept Atlantas offense from getting out in transition as they went on lengthy runs at the start of the second and third quarters.

With Walker-Kimbrough on her, Hayes got to the free throw line only twice in the first half and was held to just seven points.

But breakdowns crept in midway through the third quarter, when Hayes finally pushed through a tired Washington defense and the Mystics sputtering offense lost its safeguard.

Hayes had seven points in the third quarter alone. Washington ended the game with 14 turnovers to Atlantas three, many of them a result of miscommunication.

I thought we had two terrible possessions on offense where causal, not executing what we called, then we watched us shoot a jump shot, and while were watching, theyre out running two-on-one a couple times, Thibault said of third quarter. They had us on our heels a little bit.

Delle Donne stepped in when the Mystics were really reeling, after Sancho Lyttle nabbed Atlantas first lead of the game with a 12-foot jumper with 43 seconds to play. Washington came out of a timeout with the ball, and Delle Donne drew a three-shot foul when Lyttle jumped to block her shot far too early.

Walker-Kimbroughs two free throws with four seconds left provided insurance and accounted for two of the rookies three points Sunday. Her first career start was a solid one defensively, and she may be seeing more minutes soon.

Hill strained her neck in Wednesdays win over Connecticut but could play this week. Cloud had a gnarly collision with Taylor in practice Friday, and an MRI exam Saturday morning revealed a left knee strain. There is no timetable for Clouds return.

For now, at least, she is another missing piece for Washington to work around.

New York tops Phoenix

Kiah Stokes scored a career-high 23 points and added 14 rebounds to help the New York Liberty beat the visiting Phoenix Mercury, 88-72.

Its the second straight game that Stokes has had a career high in points and finished with a double-double. I think shes in a good place and I think shes shown great progress, New York Coach Bill Laimbeer said of Stokes.

Shavonte Zellous added 21 points, and Tina Charles had 16 for New York (4-3).

Brittney Griner scored 26 points, and Diana Taurasi added 17 for Phoenix (4-3).

Associated Press

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Lacking chemistry, Mystics react well enough to hold off the Dream - Washington Post

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DuPont has developed ionomeric resins for making balls that fly farther.

Credit: DuPont

Manufacturers have taken a fresh swing at the chemistry of golf balls in recent years to make balls that suit every golfer, from the duffers that shank them out of bounds to the latest hot shots who bend them around bunkers on the pro tour.

Much of the latest chemistry is designed to make balls that are more controllable or fly fartheror both. Softer balls typically give golfers better control, while harder balls travel faster. The latest golf ball brand names (Max, Rush, TruSpeed, and Velocity) hint at where the technology is headed.

About 1.2 billion golf balls are produced every year. There are more than 80 different types of balls of varying construction materials and designs.

Although major changes have taken place in ball formulation recently, golf ball technology has been on an upswing for more than 500 years; that is, ever since the game was invented on the eastern coast of Scotland sometime in the 15th century. Back in the day, golfers played with wooden clubs and made their balls from local hardwoods such as beech.

In 1618, golf ball technology really began to take off with the creation of the featherie, a leather pouch stuffed with boiled feathers from chickens or geese. The featherie-making process was lyrically described in The Goff, a 1743 poem by Thomas Mathison. The feathers and leather started wet and as the leather dried, it shrank to create a tightly packed ball.

By 1848, the featherie was dropped and the gutty came on the scene. The ball was made from gutta-percha, a type of coagulated latex, likely from Palaquium gutta, a fruit originating from the Yucatan. When gutta-percha was heated in water and rolled into a sphere, it formed a virtually indestructible ball. Historians widely attribute the guttys creation in the 1840s to Robert Adams Paterson, a divinity student at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Chemistry is helping players hit golf balls with better speed and accuracy.

Credit: Shutterstock

With the advent of industrialization in the late 1800s, companies began producing rubber balls from molds. In 1898, Ohio-based tire and rubber producer B.F. Goodrich introduced the first ball that had rubber threads wound around a natural rubber core, all encased in a gutta-percha sphere.

The wound ball went through a number of incarnationsincluding one with a compressed air core that tended to explodebefore manufacturers adopted a design that replaced the gutta-percha cover with balata, a form of natural rubber obtained from a South American tree. Throughout much of the early 20th century, gutta-percha and balata balls became the weapons of choice for most golfers, pro and amateur alike.

These days, a golf ball is typically made of a butadiene rubber center surrounded by one or more rubber mantles and topped off with a tough skin. These outer layers are made from blends of high-performance ethylene copolymers known as ionomeric resins, which harden through ionic crosslinking between negatively charged acid groups and positively charged metal salts, such as zinc and sodium salts.

This design is favored because the resulting balls have a hard core with an outside that is compressible, or soft, according to the website of DuPont, which has been high on the leader board for golf ball technology for more than 50 years. DuPonts technology, for example, is being used by Nike under the brand name Speedlock RZN.

Other rubber and polymer producers are also collaborating with golf ball manufacturers to make a ball that really flies. Japanese golf ball maker Kasco has been using polymer producer Lanxesss neodymium polybutadiene rubber in the core of its balls. This material efficiently converts impact energy into kinetic energy and thus enhances flying distance, Lanxesss website claims.

Perhaps the most quintessential part of a golf ball is its pitted coating, which affects how the ball rolls and how it feels when it is hit by a golfers club. Dimples also reduce a balls drag as it flies through the air. Manufacturers alter the size and number of dimples to adjust performance.

PPG, among others, has produced coatings for golf balls. The company has been producing a range of proprietary coating formulations, including scratch-resistant ones made from polyurethane, for companies such as the Titleist balls producer Acushnet for more than a decade.

Unlike most politicians of the 20th century, former U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill wasnt impressed with the game. He once described golf as a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose. He may have been right at the time, but as it turns out, golf ball technology has been on an upward trajectory ever since.

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What's inside golf balls, and can chemistry make them fly farther? - Chemical & Engineering News

KITTITAS Kittitas baseball coach Eric Sorensen had to think a bit when asked to describe the type of season he hopes to have in 2017.

Its not a rebuilding year, he said, after contemplating the question. I think its going to be a year that we can feed off of from last year.

The Coyotes came ever so close to a fifth-straight state tournament appearance. Instead, a loss to Liberty Bell in a loser-out 2B district tournament game ended their season.

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I felt like we didnt achieve what we wanted to, Sorensen said. Districts left a bad taste in everybodys mouth and I remind them from the first day of practice that we have a whole lot more to accomplish.

Creating chemistry

This season, the Kittitas coaching staff has made it a point to create more team chemistry early on, starting with more senior leadership.

The Coyotes feature seven seniors in Travis Ledgard, Tommy Ott, Ben Weber, Jerome Lael, Jace Moen, Dylan Byers and Hunter Wallace.

Sorensen said it is going to be important for them to set an example for the kind of baseball club they want to become.

We have a bunch of old guys and then we have a bunch of young guys that will be our future, Sorensen said. We need to have good leadership to teach these new guys what it is about.

After weeks of being forced inside and watching their baseball diamond slowly thaw out, the Coyotes have been working on team building exercises to create one cohesive unit.

It can always be better, Sorensen said. If we arent a cohesive brotherhood it doesnt matter how good you are. We are nine guys working as one.

Finding replacements

This past Monday, Kittitas finally got its first taste of a damp field when it was able to practice on the elementary school grounds, but there were a few familiar faces missing.

Over at least the last few seasons, pitcher Jaden Meador, catcher Druw Ledgard and outfielder Eli Eilers have been cornerstones in the program, but they graduated last spring.

Sorensen found suitable replacements including a three-man pitching rotation made up of seniors Webber, Ott and Travis Ledgard.

We are going to miss Jaden, Sorenson said. He was a guy you could trust for a Game 1, but the nice part with these three is take your pick. Over the course of a weekend we can have two good starters and a third that can come in and shut the game down.

Although each could pitch on any given day, each has his own identity.

I have big shoes to fill, but I think the three of us are going to make a big difference, Travis Ledgard said.

Balanced lineup

Kittitas also will feature a balanced lineup that will have Weber at the top to Tyson Dekoning in the middle to junior Nick Meador.

Another bench player looking to contribute is freshman Justin Hudson.

We just have guys who can get on base and we will have an overall better lineup, Weber said.

The Coyotes start their season this afternoon against Selahs junior varsity squad, but throughout the upcoming weeks their opponents will not be as familiar.

Kittitas entered the brand new Eastern Washington Athletic Conference league this year, and although DeSales has been a perennial powerhouse by winning 11 state championships since 2000, Sorensen said there is going be some great competition.

We want to have the first league title for this new league, and I think if we dont make it out of districts, we wont be satisfied, Sorensen said.

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Kittitas baseball promotes more team chemistry, senior leadership for 2017 season - Daily Record-News

Fort Worth Star Telegram

Rangers clubhouse missing key players, but chemistry will be there Fort Worth Star Telegram For those who still believe in chemistry being a major component of the game and that's just about everyone in baseball, by the way the Rangers expect that the clubhouse will again be a strength despite the disruptive spring and the loss of three ...

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Rangers clubhouse missing key players, but chemistry will be there - Fort Worth Star Telegram

VANCOUVER, B.C. Consistency is the name of the game forVancouver Whitecaps FC right now, and it's no coincidence that its reaping results.

Carl Robinson fielded an unchanged starting lineup for the fifth straight match in Saturday's 2-0 win over Western Conference leaders Sporting Kansas City at BC Place. Vancouver's new-look 4-1-4-1 lineup had brought the 'Caps some success on the road in a tough four-game road stretch. They came back with six points and could have had more, given their four fine performances.

Robinson admitted he toyed with the idea of mixing things up, but went with an if it ain't broke, don't fix it approach, and it paid off.

"I gave it lots of thought," Robinson said. "Sometimes you get it right when you win, or get a result or a performance, and sometimes you dont. So lots of thought has gone into it. I just felt it was right."

The Whitecaps recent chemistry has been noticeable, especially on the defensive side, with two clean sheets in their last three matches. Elsewhere on the pitch, link-up play is improving every game as players understanding grows. With three wins in their last four games, the results speak for themselves.

Defender Sheanon Williams says hes excited by what may lie in store for this group.

"As the weeks go on I have started to feel more comfortable with the players that Im playing with on my side," said theMLS veteran. "This team is a team that day in, day out, comes to work. Even the substitutes that come on, you can see the work that everybody does for each other its something that I havent seen. Its a credit to the team and the guys we have in that locker room.

"I have been in the league eight years and this is definitely the most excited that I have been to be on a team. I think that this team has everything to make a deep run and to be successful in this league. Im excited and I hope everyone else is."

Center backTim Parker agrees.

"In the backline it's great, we're grooving pretty well now," he said. "We're not giving up many chances. In front of us, it's good. We all understand the kind of team we want to be and the kind of players we want and how we want to play the game."

But Robinson doesn't want his team to feel too settled. Injuries and a lack of available bodies are factors in the Whitecaps' lineup stability, and as much as he likes the consistency and chemistry, the coach also wants competition for places.

"I just said to them, when players become healthy, competition will rise," Robinson said. "Challenges for your starting spot will rise. The strong will come out and the weak will have to get their head down and fight again. And thats what pleases me the most. You know, weve been consistent, weve performed, weve got some really good results."

Starting this week, Robinson will have to balance rotation, competition and continuity. The games now come thick and fast for Vancouver, starting with a two-legged Canadian Championship semifinal against the Montreal Impact that opens at BC Place on Tuesday night (10 pm ET | TSN1 in Canada).

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Whitecaps see chance to "make a deep run" as chemistry, consistency grows - MLSsoccer.com

By Jeremy D. Goodwin Globe Correspondent March 02, 2017

Mark S. Howard

Alexander Platt and Celeste Oliva in Stage Kiss.

Theres surely something strange about depictions of physical intimacy onstage. We understand that the stage directions, like the lines the actors speak, are all scripted. But two people kissing onstage are still kissing.

Sarah Ruhls comedy Stage Kiss doesnt dwell too deeply on such metaphysics. Ruhl is a highly interesting playwright and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, but this 2011 entry is not a major work. Yet as seen in a crisp and attractive production at Lyric Stage Company of Boston, it makes for an agreeable romp with ample laughs and just enough winks toward something deeper to suggest to attentive audience members that perhaps theyre onto something.

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Ruhl gives us two central characters, identified only as She (Celeste Oliva) and He (Alexander Platt), ex-lovers reunited in the cast of a remount of a 1930s Broadway flop. Oliva motors Stage Kiss from the outset, when we see her nervously auditioning for the amusingly ineffectual director played with a light comic touch by Lyric mainstay Will McGarrahan. This actor has the gift of making it look easy, but his comic timing here is expert.

Through the rehearsal process of this play-within-a-play and its opening night, we track the exchange between the hokey melodramas depiction of an affair and the evolution of She and Hes relationship. The structure is inverted in the second act, when offstage life gives way to the performance of a different play. We get repeated reminders that the line between an actor doing her job and a person living in the moment is more permeable than is comfortably acknowledged such as when botched stage business leads to a genuinely broken foot or sprained neck.

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Director Courtney OConnor keeps the clever storytelling twists lucid, making sure we follow the transitions from play to play-within-a-play, even when they occur in the same scene and on the same set. OConnors deftest move, though, is facilitating a pair of ever-more-impressive central performances.

Oliva and Platt are provided here a showcase of their craft. The piece could easily lie inert if not for these actors firecracker chemistry. In scenes set onstage and off, the two model the full emotional journey of a testy romance, from post-coital bliss to the bitter re-litigation of ancient disputes to an awkward post-breakup meeting. Stage Kiss is forever reminding us of the essential artifice of performance (starting with the protagonists names), but Oliva and Pratt keep things anchored by believably playing the reality underlying the gags. Even when their motivations are obscured by costumes and heavy accents, we observe the evolution of these characters.

Another chief asset is Michael Hisamoto as Kevin, an all-purpose understudy. Kevins presence in various roles becomes a running joke particularly when a scene calls for his very awkward kissing skills. (Kevin is gay, and the trepidation with which he approaches his intimate moments with She is hilarious.) Craig Mathers, Theresa Nguyen, and Gillian Mackay-Smith also do admirable double duty in roles that work as mirror images.

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The playwright doesnt quite stick the landing, as things take a turn for the sentimental and were suddenly meant to be invested in the mending of an offstage relationship weve seen little of. The plays concluding beats feel very familiar, reminding us weve really seen all of this before, in other backstage tales told in the theater and on film.

But in one bravura comic sequence involving the directors intervention in an onstage kiss, we get a reminder that even the most personal of gestures may be merely artifice whatever one might be pretending.

Stage Kiss

At Lyric Stage Company of Boston, through March 26. 617-585-5678, http://www.lyricstage.com

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Firecracker chemistry makes 'Stage Kiss' stand out - The Boston Globe

March 7, 2017 Credit: Tiago Fioreze / Wikipedia

Nature's carbonate system, the dynamic chemistry involving carbon dioxide (CO2), carbonate (CO32-), bicarbonate (HCO3-), and carbonic acid (H2CO3), is a vital component of the biosphere. Carbonate, bicarbonate, and carbonic acid emerge when atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves in the oceans, which is the largest sink for this greenhouse gas. Researchers are interested in better understanding the carbonate system to potentially help facilitate carbon sequestration schemes, especially with carbon-bonding minerals, to help mitigate climate change. The carbonate system is also central to biological respiration systems, another reason why researchers are interested in this chemistry.

Recently, a group of chemists from the University of California, Berkeley teamed up with scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and made breakthrough discoveries about the carbonate species' behavior at saltwater surfaces, like that of the ocean. They report their findings this week in The Journal of Chemical Physics, from AIP Publishing.

According to one of the paper's authors, UC Berkeley chemistry professor Richard Saykally, a strong motivation for this research was understanding the chemical processes involved in carbon sequestration. They found that while neutral carbonic acid was most heavily present at the surface, as was expected, the more highly charged carbonate ion was more abundant than the weaker bicarbonate.

"We want to generally advance our understanding of the global carbon cycle," Saykally said. "The aspects of this cycle that we have been focusing on begin with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolving into salt water, followed by some very interesting chemistry."

Carbon dioxide is captured by the water surface and hydrated to form carbonic acid or bicarbonate, which can then ionize into either bicarbonate or carbonate where carbonate may react with dissolved magnesium or calcium ions to form limestone.

"We want to know all those steps going from gaseous carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to limestone," Saykally said. "Our goal is to understand all the details in all the steps in that process."

UC Berkeley chemistry doctoral candidate Royce Lam, a co-author of the paper who led much of the research, wanted to build on earlier examinations of the hydration structure of carbonic system species, focusing on the relative abundances of carbonate species at the liquid surface.

Collaborating with LBNL's Dr. Hendrik Bluhm, Lam and co-authors made use of the ambient pressure photoemission spectroscopy (APPES) beamline (11.0.2) at the Advanced Light Source synchrotron at LBNL, to conduct X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) measurementsa way to probe the molecular makeup of materials using an intense beam of high-energy X-rays. The XPS system enabled them to probe different aspects of the carbonate system they could not access before.

"What is special about XPS is that it allows us to probe at different depths into the water surface," Lam said. "This is one of the few beamlines in the world that can do this class of experiments on liquids."

For samples, Lam combined solutions of the carbonate species and hydrochloric acid, which fortuitously resembled the ocean system. With a liquid microjet device, the researchers injected these samples into a vacuum chamber and probed them at multiple X-ray energies to deduce the relative abundances of the carbonate species from the photoemitted electrons.

At the liquid surface, both carbonate and carbonic acid were more abundant than biocarbonate. The most significant surprise was that the more highly charged carbonate was more abundant at the surface than the less charged bicarbonate, which conflicts with expectations from existing theoretical models.

This raises important question about where the bicarbonate could be moving in the system, with a possibility that the carbonate could be "ion pairing" with sodium, changing the chemistry, and causing bicarbonate to move to lower depths.

"We are still working on the theory and we hope that this paper will stimulate further theoretical discussion that may actually yield definitive insights about what is going on here," Lam said.

Lam hopes that this research will also lead to more direct research on carbon sequestration possibilities.

"So, the next step would be to look further into ion pairing, and essentially limestone or mineral formation, specifically, looking at the interaction of calcium and magnesium ions with carbonate," Lam said of one carbon sequestration possibility he discussed.

Saykally feels this research connects with the whole system of aqueous carbonate chemistry, with applications ranging from carbon sequestration to biomedical research.

"In order to achieve these kinds of advances, I believe you have to know every detail of the chemistry involved in all those steps of the water-carbonate system." Saykally said. "It is a very intricate chemistry with profound practical implications."

Explore further: Unravelling the mysteries of carbonic acid: Researchers peeling back the veil on a critical but short-lived molecule

More information: "Reversed interfacial fractionation of carbonate and bicarbonate evidenced by X-ray photoemission spectroscopy," Royce K. Lam, Jacob Smith, Anthony Rizzuto, Osman Karsilio?lu, Hendrik Bluhm and Richard J. Saykally. Journal of Chemical Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.4977046

Blink your eyes and it's long gone. Carbonic acid exists for only a tiny fraction of a second when carbon dioxide gas dissolves in water before changing into a mix of protons and bicarbonate anions. Despite its short life, ...

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Nature's carbonate system, the dynamic chemistry involving carbon dioxide (CO2), carbonate (CO32-), bicarbonate (HCO3-), and carbonic acid (H2CO3), is a vital component of the biosphere. Carbonate, bicarbonate, and carbonic ...

A University of Connecticut climate scientist confirms that more intense and more frequent severe rainstorms will likely continue as temperatures rise due to global warming, despite some observations that seem to suggest ...

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A new study showing dryness of the atmosphere affects U.S. grassland productivity more than rainfall could have important implications for predicting how plants will respond to warming climate conditions.

In their GSA Bulletin article published online
last week, Timothy A. Goudge and colleagues detail the clay mineralogy of sediment from Lake Towuti, Indonesia, using a technique called visible to near-infrared (VNIR) spectroscopy. ...

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Synchrotron sheds X-ray light on carbon chemistry at ocean surfaces - Phys.Org