Water molecules exist in two different forms with almost identical physical properties. For the first time, researchers have succeeded in separating the two forms to show that they can exhibit different chemical reactivities. These results were reported by researchers from the University of Basel and their colleagues in Hamburg in the scientific journal Nature Communications (“Observation of different reactivities of para and ortho-water towards trapped diazenylium ions”).
From a chemical perspective, water is a molecule in which a single oxygen atom is linked to two hydrogen atoms. It is less well known that water exists in two different forms (isomers) at the molecular level. The difference lies in the relative orientation of the nuclear spins of the two hydrogen atoms. Depending on whether the spins are aligned in the same or opposite direction, one refers to ortho- or para-water.
Image Credit: University of Basel
News This Week
Coronavirus May Be a Blood Vessel Disease, Which Explains Everything
In April, blood clots emerged as one of the many mysterious symptoms attributed to Covid-19, a disease that had initially been thought to largely affect the lungs in the form of pneumonia. Quickly after came [...]
Researchers develop experimental rapid COVID-19 test using nanoparticle technique
Scientists from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) developed an experimental diagnostic test for COVID-19 that can visually detect the presence of the virus in 10 minutes. It uses a simple assay [...]
Researchers flag similarities between COVID-19 deaths and severe rheumatic illnesses
Rheumatologists at the University of Alberta are flagging similarities between the deaths of some COVID-19 patients and those with rheumatic illnesses, and are testing proven rheumatic treatments to see whether they help against [...]
Next-gen nano technologies to tackle infection and diagnose disease
Next-gen nano technologies that can prevent infection and diagnose disease are set to transform the medical industry as this important UniSA research is awarded more than $2 million dollars under the National Health and [...]
DeepMind’s Protein Folding AI Is Going After Coronavirus
In late December last year, Dr. Li Wenliang began warning officials about a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, but was silenced by the police before tragically succumbing to the disease two months later. Meanwhile, [...]
COVID-19 is like three different diseases, says New York doctor
Almost 10 weeks into the pandemic, COVID-19 is continuing to surprise and baffle health experts. In fact, experts' picture of exactly how COVID-19 might play out in the body is now quite different to [...]
Designing vaccines from artificial proteins
EPFL scientists have developed a new computational approach to create artificial proteins, which showed promising results in vivo as functional vaccines. This approach opens the possibility to engineer safer and more effective vaccines. Vaccines [...]
Tiny RNA that should attack coronavirus diminish with age and disease
A group of tiny RNA that should attack the virus causing COVID-19 when it tries to infect the body are diminished with age and chronic health problems, a decrease that likely helps explain why [...]
Leave A Comment