Measurements of the friction coefficient of steel-on-ice over a large temperature range reveal very high friction at low temperatures (-100 °C) and a steep decrease in the friction coefficient with increasing temperature. Very low friction is only found over the limited temperature range typical for ice skating. The strong decrease in the friction coefficient with increasing temperature exhibits Arrhenius behavior with an activation energy of E ≈ 11.5 kJ mol. Remarkably, molecular dynamics simulations of the ice-air interface reveal a very similar activation energy for the mobility of surface molecules. Weakly hydrogen-bonded surface molecules diffuse over the surface in a rolling motion, their number and mobility increasing with increasing temperature. This correlation between macroscopic friction and microscopic molecular mobility indicates that slippery ice arises from the high mobility of its surface molecules, making the ice surface smooth and the shearing of the weakly bonded surface molecules easy.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b01188 | DOI Listing |
Anal Bioanal Chem
January 2025
School of Life Sciences, Nantong University, 9 Seyuan Road, Nantong, 226019, Jiangsu, China.
Hydrogen peroxide (HO) is a critical signaling molecule with significant roles in various physiological processes in plants. Understanding its regulation through in situ monitoring could offer deeper insights into plant responses and stress mechanisms. In this study, we developed a microneedle electrochemical sensor to monitor HO in situ, offering deeper insights into plant stress responses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Appl Mater Interfaces
January 2025
Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan.
The development of hole-collecting materials is indispensable to improving the performance of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). To date, several anchorable molecules have been reported as effective hole-collecting monolayer (HCM) materials for p-i-n PSCs. However, their structures are limited to well-known electron-donating skeletons, such as carbazole, triarylamine, etc.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Struct Mol Biol
January 2025
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus, Denmark.
The C3 protein is the central molecule within the complement system and undergoes proteolytic activation to C3b in the presence of pathogens. Pattern-independent activation of C3 also occurs via hydrolysis, resulting in C3(HO), but the structural details of C3 hydrolysis remain elusive. Here we show that the conformation of the C3(HO) analog, C3MA, is indistinguishable from C3b.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Chem Soc
January 2025
Key Laboratory of Photochemistry, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, P. R. China.
The sluggish water oxidation reaction (WOR) is considered the kinetic bottleneck of artificial photosynthesis due to the complicated four-electron and four-proton transfer process. Herein, we find that the WOR can be kinetically nearly barrierless on four representative photoanodes (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Sens
January 2025
Research Institute for Light-induced Acceleration System (RILACS), Osaka Metropolitan University, 1-2 Gakuencho, Nakaku, Sakai, Osaka 599-8570, Japan.
The unique characteristics of biological structures depend on the behavior of DNA sequences confined in a microscale cell under environmental fluctuations and dissipation. Here, we report a prominent difference in fluorescence from dye-modified single-stranded DNA in a light-induced assembly of DNA-functionalized heterogeneous probe particles in a microwell of several microliters in volume. Strong optical forces from the Mie scattering of microparticles accelerated hybridization, and the photothermal effect from the localized surface plasmons in gold nanoparticles enhanced specificity to reduce the fluorescence intensity of dye-modified DNA to a few %, even in a one-base mismatched sequence, enabling us to clearly highlight the single nucleotide polymorphisms in DNA.
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