Nanoparticles (NPs), materials with sizes ranging from 10 to 1,000 nm, are increasingly utilized as drug-delivery systems and in medical diagnosis. However, the impact of NPs on the structure and function of biological macromolecules like proteins remains poorly understood. Now, a recent study by researchers from Tokyo University of Science, Japan, reveals the changes in the protein structure of bovine serum albumin during interaction with different sizes of silica NPs.

Exciplex upconversion-type organic light-emitting devices (ExUC-OLEDs) can emit light at less than half the voltage needed for conventional OLEDs, but their development remained limited by strict requirements for compatible donor and acceptor materials. Now, researchers from Japan have introduced a nanometer-thin spacer layer, boosting blue light output by 77-fold compared to previously incompatible materials. With a greater choice of materials, this design opens doors to energy-efficient OLEDs for a wide range of uses.

The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has unveiled the very first “mega” images of the cosmos obtained thanks to the extraordinary features and wide-field view of its LSST camera—the largest in the world. The camera took nearly two decades to build and involved hundreds of scientists across the globe, including a number of CNRS teams. The world-wide First Look unveiling event is held on 23 June at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

An interdisciplinary team of experts in green chemistry, engineering and physics at Flinders University in Australia has developed a safer and more sustainable approach to extract and recover gold from ore and electronic waste.

Explained in the leading journal Nature Sustainability, the gold-extraction technique promises to reduce levels of toxic waste from mining and shows that high purity gold can be recovered from recycling valuable components in printed circuit boards in discarded computers.