Fibrinogen is a key protein for blood coagulation and is essential for treating patients with bleeding disorders. Now, researchers from China and USA have developed synthetic polymer nanoparticles to facilitate manufacture of fibrinogen concentrate. This reagent has high selectivity for human fibrinogen, is more specific than biologic reagents, and can be produced economically, thereby presenting a new method for drug manufacturing. Its development could lead to the availability of inexpensive fibrinogen concentrate for medical use.

Organic semiconductors have garnered much attention in optoelectronics owing to their flexibility, which is allowed by weak interaction forces. However, this also makes for poor charge carrier mobility. In a new study, researchers from Japan combined organic semiconductor molecules with similar structures to produce interfaces with better crystal quality and charge transport efficiency, paving the way for the realization of high-mobility organic optoelectronics.

Scientists at Umeå University, Sweden, and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have developed ways to decipher effects of the CO2 rise during the past 100 years on metabolic fluxes of the key plant species in peatlands, mosses. Analyses of cellulose in peat cores collected by collaborating scientists working in five continents indicate that a CO2-driven increase in photosynthesis of mosses is strongly dependent on the water table, which may change the species composition of peat moss communities.

A paper published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society presents research discussing how new air quality standards recommended by the American Thoracic Society have the potential to prevent more illness and death than standards adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This study is part of the annual ATS/Marron Institute Health of the Air report.