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[Video transcript] Can Scientists Answer These Questions? RNA, Abiogenesis, Chemical Natural Selection & more Dr. James Tour. [Video. [More of his videos here]. [Note: this is from a synthetic organic chemist at Rice University and who and what he presents here is way out of my league, and read just a little, but think it is worth posting. Thus I used https://poe.com/ to format this* provocative transcript from the YouTube video, which was a giant wall of text.] Note also that the main body of the transcript is here, but Question number 3 was evidently mistakenly listed in the vid...

New method can pull rare earth elements from electronic waste and coal ash.. When a pulse of current goes through a tube containing coal ash, a flash of light indicates rapid heating. Rare earth elements then become much easier to extract.. As chemists scramble to find ways to reclaim valuable metals from industrial waste and discarded electronics, one team has found a solution that sounds a little like magic: Zap the trash with flashes of electric heat. Rare earth elements (REEs) present an environmental paradox. On one hand, these dozen or so metals, such as yttrium and neodymium, are vital...

Wearable devices that harvest energy from movement are not a new idea, but a material created at Rice University may make them more practical. The Rice lab of chemist James Tour has adapted laser-induced graphene (LIG) into small, metal-free devices that generate electricity. Like rubbing a balloon on hair, putting LIG composites in contact with other surfaces produces static electricity that can be used to power devices.For that, thank the triboelectric effect, by which materials gather a charge through contact. When they are put together and then pulled apart, surface charges build up that can be channeled toward power generation.In...

An international team of scientists is getting closer to perfecting molecule-sized motors that drill through the surface of cancer cells, killing them in an instant. Researchers at Rice University, Durham (U.K.) University and North Carolina State University reported their success at activating the motors with precise two-photon excitation via near-infrared light. Unlike the ultraviolet light they first used to drive the motors, the new technique does not damage adjacent, healthy cells. The research led by chemists James Tour of Rice, Robert Pal of Durham and Gufeng Wang of North Carolina may be best applied to skin, oral and gastrointestinal cancer...