Chemical compounds

Microsoft Corp. is using powerful computers and artificial intelligence to help researchers speed up the painstaking work required to discover new chemical compounds and materials that could be used for everything from batteries to eco-friendly paints.The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory used the company's Azure Quantum Elements service to quickly assess 32 million potential materials for a new battery, according to Jason Zander, Microsoft's executive vice president for strategic missions and technologies. The…

Sea lions and dolphins that swim off California’s central coast are dying. Toxic algae blooms off the state’s coast are believed to be stranding and even killing the marine animals at alarming rates, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Can the Government Change Social Media? | Gizmodo InterviewThe Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute has received over 1,000 reports of sick and dead marine mammals from June 8 through June 14, according to a recent report from the NOAA’s Fisheries…

New research this month adds more fuel to the debate over gas stoves. The study found that gas and propane stoves emitted detectable amounts of benzene, a common air pollutant and carcinogen. Benzene levels were often above recommended safety thresholds and could linger for hours after the stoves were turned off in some homes.Republicans Create Culture War Over… Stoves Earlier this year, the Consumer Product Safety Commission made headlines after one of its commissioners, Richard Trumka Jr, suggested that the agency might…

A CO2 collector on display at a museum in Germany. Photo: Daniel Karmann/picture-alliance/dpa (AP)Scientists agree that we’re going to need to build machines to suck carbon from the sky to stave off the worst impacts of climate change—but there are a lot of challenges for this new industry in the coming decades, including figuring out how to make the technology more effective. A discovery from a team of researchers at Lehigh University, published in Science Advances on Wednesday, could make this process three times more…

Photo: Ringo Chiu (Shutterstock)Investigators are looking into Snapchat’s alleged role in fentanyl-laced pills being distributed through the popular video and messaging app. Bloomberg is reporting that the FBI and Justice Department’s investigation is part of a broader probe into the nation’s counterfeit drug problem.An anonymous source told Bloomberg that the FBI has interviewed the parents of children who have died due to fentanyl poisoning by pills allegedly obtained on the app. They’re also working to trace who…

After years of openly flirting with entering the health care industry, Amazon went all out on Tuesday in its debut of RxPass, a new subscription service that provides Amazon Prime members with unlimited prescription medications for an additional $5 monthly fee. According to Amazon, RxPass is designed for people who are uninsured or whose insurance doesn’t cover certain medications, and customers don’t need health insurance to sign up for RxPass. While it doesn’t stock every medication out there, RxPass offers 60 generic…

Image: Shutterstock (Shutterstock)An important clinical trial for Parkinson’s disease has just gotten underway in the UK. The placebo-controlled Phase III trial will test whether a long-existing cough medication can slow down the progression of the neurodegenerative condition and improve people’s quality of life. Earlier studies have suggested that the drug can interact with brain proteins key to the development of Parkinson’s.The drug is called ambroxol, and it’s been in use since the late 1970s as a common ingredient…

The ongoing opioid crisis in the U.S. has shortened life expectancy and caused untold suffering. The synthetic drug fentanyl has been particularly devastating, because it’s so potent compared to other opioids. New research in rats may offer a glimmer of hope, however: Scientists found that an experimental vaccine can prevent the behavioral and physiological effects of fentanyl, by producing antibodies that bind to the drug in the bloodstream. The work is detailed in a study published in late October in the journal…

Blue flames rise from the burner of a natural gas stove June 11, 2003 in Orange, California.Photo: David McNew (Getty Images)Natural gas stoves commonly emit toxic chemicals into homes, even when the appliances are not in use. A study published today in Environmental Science & Technology found that, when researchers took samples from gas stoves in California, nearly all of them were leaking harmful levels of benzene, which is known to cause cancer in humans. The amount emitted from some stoves was up to seven times…

Mars: If the extreme temperatures and exposure to cosmic radiation don’t kill you, the unbreathable air certainly will. Now, a team of researchers has proposed a method of addressing the latter issue, by using plasma to split carbon dioxide—of which Mars has plenty—into carbon and oxygen.One of the biggest barriers to human habitation of worlds beyond Earth is in-situ resource utilization, or rather, the lack thereof. Until humans can reliably use what’s readily available on Mars to live there, our species can’t have an…