Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource

In a similar way to your old pick-up truck rusting in the driveway, your body experiences a continuous battle against the elements. A constant barrage of oxidative stress attacks your cells and their constituent parts, including proteins. Like rust-proof paint on your vehicle, you have defense mechanisms that seek to prevent damage before it starts. But also like your trusty truck, once a weakness in the armor presents itself, it can spread rapidly — and often unnoticed — until you suddenly discover significant damage. Numerous diseases, as well as aging itself, are linked to uncontrolled oxidative processes that lead to irreversible damage and ultimately death. Understanding these oxidative processes may lead toward stopping and possibly even reversing damage.

New rock formed by deep undersea volcanoes does not stay bare long. Microbes quickly move onto these basalts to form communities in the form of biofilms. As these biofilms grow and develop, they change the geology of their environment, forming mineral deposits. Since many of these communities are deep in the cold ocean waters, where sunlight does not reach, they must use alternative sources of energy. What these might be is unknown, but a common theory posits that the microbes may be obtaining energy using materials from the rock itself.

Copper is an essential ingredient for animal and plant life. Some proteins specifically bind copper for both structural and catalytic purposes. Up until now, mononuclear copper(II) ion binding sites fit into two categories, type 1 and type 2, defined by both their functional roles, structures, and the physical properties of the interactions.

Cells need copper to function, but too much copper can be toxic, leading to liver damage and neurological problems, as happens in disorders such as Wilson disease. The inorganic small molecule tetrathiomolybdate (TM), assumed to be a copper chelator, is commonly used to treat Wilson disease. TM may also be an effective treatment of some cancers by starving the cancer cells of the copper they need to grow. Despite its common use, its molecular mechanism was unknown.

Anthropologists learn about ancient cultures through the objects left behind. Ritualistic artifacts give glimpses into the religious and belief systems of nonextant societies. Application of new techniques of chemical and structural analysis to the study of ancient objects can give more insight into how they were made and used.

Life is mostly composed of the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorous.  Although these six elements make up biomolecules such as nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids, it is theoretically possible that some other elements in the periodic table could serve similar functions.  In a paper published in Science, Wolfe-Simon et. al., describe a bacterium of the Halomonadaceae family, strain GFAJ-1 which appears to substitute arsenic for phosphorous to sustain its growth.

Nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, or NSF, is a relatively new disease in which the skin becomes hardened, joint movement becomes difficult and, in extreme cases, an excessive and sometimes fatal fibrosis tissue forms around organs. So far, NSF has only been observed in patients with kidney dysfunction who have undergone an MRI that required the injection of gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs). Researchers speculate that the patient's kidneys cannot break down the gadolinium, causing NSF, but until now there has been no direct evidence for such a link.

Researchers at SSRL have developed a new, more powerful way to probe the behavior of a key component in hydrogen fuel cells. The group, led by Daniel Friebel of SSRL and Anders Nilsson of SSRL and SIMES, coated a single crystal of rhodium with one layer of platinum atoms, creating a platinum catalyst that was in essence "all surface." The unique sample design allowed them to observe how the catalyst surface interacted with the type of acid–water environment typical of fuel cells.

Dioxygen (O₂), critical for many of our cellular processes, is carried and activated by a variety of enzymes. These enzymes contain metals that contact the oxygen in different ways to form reactive intermediates. Oxygen’s reactivity is affected by the arrangement of the enzymes’ amino acid residues. Often, the enzyme active site will have a unique structure to stabilize oxygen binding.

The element chromium is found in the environment in two common forms: Cr(VI), which is easily absorbed by the human body, and Cr(III), which is not. The first of these in the form of chromates can have severe adverse effects on the human body, including cancerous tumor formation and gene damage.  Normally Cr(VI) forms are not present in the approximately one billion tons of coal used annually for electricity generation in the U.S., however, a fraction of the Cr(III) in coal can become oxidized during coal combustion ending up as a Cr(VI) component in fly-ash, the major waste product from coal combustion.