The quest for superheavy elements (SHEs) is driven by the desire to find and explore one of the extreme limits of existence of matter. These elements exist solely due to their nuclear shell stabilization. All 15 presently 'known' SHEs (11 are officially 'discovered' and named) up to element 118 are short-lived and are man-made atom-at-a-time in heavy ion induced nuclear reactions. They are iden...

Polymer-clay nanocomposites exhibit much improved mechanical, physical, and chemical properties compared to the pure polymer. The interaction of polymer and organically modified silicates is mainly influenced by the surfactant layer in the system. To investigate the structure and dynamics of this surfactant layer, various electron paramagnetic spectroscopy (EPR) techniques were applied. Continu...

The dwell times between two successive steps of the two-headed molecular motor myosin V are governed by non-exponential distributions. These distributions have been determined experimentally for various control parameters such as nucleotide concentrations and external load force. First, we use a simplified network representation to determine the dwell time distributions of myosin V, with the as...

In 1903, Arthur Cushny, Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics at the University of Michigan, published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association entitled “The Pharmacologic Action of Drugs: Is It Determined by Chemical Structure or by Physical Characters(1)?” To a chemist today, this question might seem odd. The physical properties of a drug and its chemical structure...

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to probe the structure and stability of alkanethiolate self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold nanoparticles. We observed that the surface of gold nanoparticles becomes highly corrugated by the adsorption of the SAMs. Furthermore, as the temperature is increased, the SAMs dissolve into the gold nanoparticle, creating a liquid mixture at temperatures much...

Physicochemical properties of a mineral-based gasoline engine oil have been monitored at 0, 500, 1000, 2000, 3500, 6000, 8500, and 11500 kilometer of operation. Tracing has been performed by inductively coupled plasma and some other techniques. At each series of measurements, the concentrations of twenty four elements as well as physical properties such as: viscosity at 40 and 100°C; viscosity ...

The molecular formula of a new antimetabolite produced by Streptomyces purpurascens was determined to be C5H5N5O2 by elemental analysis, FD-MS and 13C NMR. Reduction of this antimetabolite with Raney nickel yielded guanine. The antimetabolite was distinguishable from known N-hydroxyguanines by comparison of their UV spectra. The structure of the antimetabolite was finally established to be 7-hy...

In the course of screening for new antitumor substances, BE-18591 (la) was isolated from cultures of Streptomyces sp. BA18591X). The isolation and physico-chemical properties together with biological activities are reported in the preceding paper. In this paper, the structure elucidation is described. The physico-chemical properties of la were summarized in a previous paper1*. The molecular for...

Life is that which evolves. Living systems are the products of evolutionary processes and can undergo further evolution. A crucial question for the origin of life is the following: when do chemical kinetics become evolutionary dynamics? In this Account, we review properties of "prelife" and discuss the transition from prelife to life. We describe prelife as a chemical system where activated mon...

New computational models of natural site mutations are developed that account for the different selective pressures acting on different locations in the protein. The number of adjustable parameters is greatly reduced by basing the models on the underlying physical-chemical properties of the amino acids. This allows us to use our method on small data sets built of specific protein types. We demo...