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A study co-led by the UB lays the chemical foundations that will allow the production of tailored alginates to meet the production demand in different industrial sectors Every year, thousands of tonnes of brown algae are extracted from the seabed to obtain compounds such as alginates, a polymer composed of sugars that has high density and strength, offering potential biotechnological applications.

Food fraud occurs when products that do not meet consumer expectations reach the market and, in extreme cases, this can lead to health problems. To combat this misleading and critical practice in the food sector, a team from the University of Barcelona has published new studies presenting technologies to verify the geographical origin of two food products: virgin olive oil - emblematic of the Mediterranean diet - and pine nuts, the most expensive nuts on the market.

Emerging pollutants are compounds - microplastics, oils, dyes, pharmaceuticals, plasticizers, etc. that end up in aquatic ecosystems and can pose an environmental and health risk.

The study investigates epigenetic regulation by placental DNA methylation, opening new perspectives on the relationship between this process and disorders of pregnancy and embryonic development. They identify the crucial role in placental development of a protein, which together with other enzymes, restores partially methylated domains in human trophoblast stem cells.

A recent study conducted on melon plants has revealed a defense mechanism that certain plants activate to deal with insect pests. It is a system of signaling molecules that, distributed through extracellular vesicles - including exosomes - allow plants to adapt their defenses according to the level of stress they are under.

News Researchers analyze the directional peak-antenna-like behavior of tunnel junctions formed by surface defects at the atomic scale The profile of light collected with tunneling microscopes changes when the tip is placed on an atomic step. This phenomenon can be exploited to build picoantennas, nanoscale elements that direct light.

A team of researchers from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) has developed hybrid membranes based on a functional porous nanomaterial and a polymer, capable of effectively degrading emerging contaminants present in water. The work, published in the journal Nanoscale , promises to significantly improve water quality and contribute to the development of sustainable treatment methods.

"This is one of the most important works that this research group has done in its history, and that is saying a lot", especially in a team that is able to characterize and synthesize its own carbon n

From November 13 to 19, the third Global Plastics Treaty Meeting was held in Nairobi (Kenya), which tried, albeit in vain, to find an agreement to hold "countries and companies accountable for their action, or inaction, on plastic pollution and its impact on our health, environment and economy". World leaders have set themselves a date to further discuss the issue in April 2024 in Ottawa, Canada, but in the meantime, plastics and microplastics continue to produce pollution, primarily in waters around the globe.

A team of scientists from the Complutense University of Madrid, the Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry of the CSIC (ICP-CSIC) and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center have added a new function -through computational methods- to a defense protein of the strawberry anemone (Actinia fragacea ).

Researchers at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) have developed a process based on the photo-Fenton method that allows the efficient degradation of polystyrene nanoplastics in water. This breakthrough could be key in the fight against plastic pollution, especially in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP).

An international team led by the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol) of the University of Valencia has opened a new path in the research of so-called -magnet molecules-.

An international research team led by the University of Valencia, in which the University of Cambridge and the Italian Ministry of Culture participate, has analysed for the first time the bones of the Pompeii Casts (the skeletons of its inhabitants in a plaster mould) with an innovative technique, x-ray fluorescence analysis, and concludes that they died of suffocation, not burned or dehydrated as other theories defend.

The University of Valencia develops a tool to improve research on molecular nanomagnets A team from the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol) of the University of Valencia has developed an open interactive platform that brings together and makes available to science around 20,000 data relating to the chemical design of molecular nanomagnets of special interest in the field of magnetic memories.

An international collaboration involving the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) has succeeded in bringing X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to the femtosecond time scale. This advance, published in Nature Communications , will not only make it possible to investigate the effects on chemical bonds due to the movements of atomic nuclei, but also those caused by electronic dynamics.

In the field of molecular magnetism, the design of devices with technological applications at the nanoscale —quantum computing, molecular spintronics, magnetic cooling, nanomedicine, high-density information storage, etc.— requires those magnetic molecules that are placed on the surface to preserve their structure, functionality and properties.

Domingo Carlos Salazar, molecular archaeologist and researcher at the University of Valencia, has participated in the first analysis of zinc isotope ratios (atoms of different masses of the same chemical element) in the dental enamel of a Neanderthal to determine his position in the food chain. The study, published in the journal PNAS, and led by a researcher from the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, has determined that the Neanderthal to which the tooth belonged probably had an almost carnivorous diet.

A study published in the journal Pharmacological Research reveals the oligomeric molecular structure of the MOR-Gal1R complex, a component present in the brain which is involved in the analgesic and addictive effects of certain opioids. The study includes the participation of the experts Vicent Casadó, Estefanía Moreno and Verònica Casadó-Anguera, from the Molecular Neuropharmacology Research Group of the Faculty of Biology and the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (I ).

If we compare the right to the left hand, we can see these are specular images —that is, like symmetrical shapes reflected in a mirror— and they cannot superimpose on each other. This property is chirality, a feature of the matter that plays with the symmetry of biological structures at different scales, from the DNA molecule to the tissues of the heart muscle.

A molecular machine is a series of molecules that can conduct different mechanical movements as a response to a stimulus. This is a key structure for the development of different cellular functions. Professor Lluïsa Pérez-García, from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences of the UB, took part in an international research led by the University of Nottingham, which has created a light-controlled artificial molecular machine.