Chemistry and Chemical Engineering News

Carbon is the fourth-most-abundant element in the universe and takes on a wide variety of forms, called allotropes, including diamond and graphite. Scientists at Carnegie's Geophysical Laboratory are part of a team that has discovered a new form of carbon

Few people have ever claimed to see three rainbows arcing through the sky at once. In fact, scientific reports of these phenomena, called tertiary rainbows, were so rare -- only five in 250 years

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2011 to Daniel Shechtman of the Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, for the discovery of quasicrystals: non-repeating regular patterns of

Breakthrough will allow experts to create the 'perfect plastic' with specific uses and properties by using a high-tech 'recipe book.' It will also increase our ability to recycle plastics

A research team at Michigan State University has developed a laser that could detect roadside bombs -- the deadliest enemy weapon encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan

University of Florida researchers may help resolve the public debate over our future light source of choice: Edison's incandescent bulb or the more energy efficient compact fluorescent lamp

The smallest electrical motor on the planet, at least according to Guinness World Records, is 200 nanometers. Granted, that's a pretty small motor -- after all, a single strand of human hair is 60,000 nanometers wide -- but that tiny mark is about to be s

Exploiting a novel technique called phase discontinuity, researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have induced light rays to behave in a way that defies the centuries-old laws of reflection and refraction

Taking their cue from biological circulatory systems, University of Illinois researchers have developed vascularized structural composites, creating materials that are lightweight and strong with potential for self-healing, self-cooling

Working in collaboration with the RhineMain Polytechnic, materials scientists at the TU Darmstadt have developed an extremely sensitive explosives sensor that is capable of detecting even slight traces of the high-explosive chemical compound pentaerythrit