Periodic Table

We can learn a great deal about the lives and social structures of civilizations thousands of years ago by studying what they ate. While actual food remains are few and far between, scientists can reconstruct ancient menus by studying chemical signatures in human remains, typically bone collagen or tooth enamel. Collagen rarely survives the harsh, salty heat of the Iraqi desert, so researchers studying ordinary families in the ancient Sumerian city of Abu Tbeirah turned instead to tooth enamel. […]

Toward the right side of the periodic table below oxygen, are the chalcogens, or "ore-forming" elements. The chalcogens that occur naturally, including sulfur, selenium and tellurium, are all somehow involved in biological processes. Molecules containing sulfur, like the antioxidant glutathione, play a central role in redox regulation, the balance between oxidation and reduction that is essential for maintaining cellular health.

In this age of Mars rovers, questions about the planet's ancient past have shifted. A growing body of evidence supports the idea that Mars was once warm and wet. Now researchers are focused on the timeline of the red planet's watery past. Research efforts all come down to the ultimate question regarding the planet: Did it ever host life?

Thanks to modern therapies, a cancer diagnosis is no longer an automatic death sentence. But many patients still suffer from unwanted side effects and limited efficacy. In a recent Bioconjugate Chemistry publication, William & Mary researchers have designed an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) with the potential to improve the potency and decrease the cost of currently approved cancer drugs.

We know Aotearoa New Zealand is home to many geographically and biologically special features. Yet few of us know it also has its very own measure of "deep time." Known as the New Zealand Geological Timescale, it has just undergone its most comprehensive revision in 20 years.