●  Direct imaging: Laser-driven deformation and fragmentation of C60 is recorded in real-time by X-ray imaging.

●  Unexpected response: "Breathing" motion of the molecule predicted by theory is not seen in the experiment.

●  Complex dynamics: Many-electron dynamics or ultrafast heating could explain the discrepancies.

●  Future applications: The time-resolved X-ray imaging may be applied to laser-controlled chemistry even in large (bio-)molecules.

Whether you’re a home gardener or an industrial farmer, you might be familiar with mulching films — plastic sheets laid over the soil to protect seedlings and promote crop growth. But like many other plastic materials, these films can release damaging microplastics and don’t have any insect-repelling power. So, a team reporting in ACS Agricultural Science & Technology has developed an alternative biodegradable mulching film that also naturally repels pests using citronella oil.

Matrix-free phosphorescent carbon nanodot inks enable scalable, invisible printing with ultrahigh resolution and high fidelity, highlighting their potential for large-scale information storage and time-delayed display applications.

A team of researchers at IOCB Prague headed by Dr. Tomáš Slanina has developed a new method for labeling molecules with fluorescent dyes that surpasses existing approaches in both precision and stability. The new fluorescent label remains covalently bonded to its target molecule and does not fall apart even under demanding conditions inside living cells. This allows scientists to track labeled molecules over long periods with high reliability – an advantage for research in biology, chemistry, and medicine. The study was published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.