The latest short science news items from C&EN. Every fluorine atom in human-made molecules ultimately comes from the same mineral source: CaF 2, also known as fluorspar or fluorite. But getting those ...

The lanthanide (4f) and actinide (5f) elements (collectively the “f-block”) comprise around a quarter of the periodic table, and many are essential to key aspects of modern life and society. These ...

Quantum tunneling is a strange phenomenon where tiny particles manage to pass through barriers they technically don’t have the energy to overcome. It’s like a person walking toward a locked door, and ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Fluorine is critical for biomedicine. This element can help drug compounds be more potent and last longer in the body, and its radioactive isotope, fluorine-18, powers medical imaging ...

Chemists have synthesized perfluorocubane for the first time. The molecule, C 8 F 8, consists of a cube of carbon atoms with fluorine atoms attached to each of its eight vertices. The synthetic feat ...

CU Boulder chemist Niels Damrauer and his research colleagues use visible light to break environmentally persistent carbon-fluorine bonds in PFAS The strength of the bond between carbon and fluorine ...

When molecules fall apart, their electric charge doesn't stay put—it rearranges as bonds stretch and break. An international team of scientists has now tracked these ultrafast changes in the small ...

NASA scientists have developed strategies to minimize the environmental impact of greenhouse gas on global warming. After analyzing more than a dozen molecules involved in global warming, researchers ...