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Quantitative NMR spectroscopy reveals solvent effects in the photochemical degradation of thymoquinone

Mandava et al. | Dec 16, 2023

Quantitative NMR spectroscopy reveals solvent effects in the photochemical degradation of thymoquinone

Thymoquinone is a compound of great therapeutic potential and scientific interest. However, its clinical administration and synthetic modifications are greatly limited by its instability in the presence of light. This study employed quantitative 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to identify the effect of solvation on the degradation of thymoquinone under ultraviolet light (UV). It found that the rate of degradation is highly solvent dependent occurs maximally in chloroform.

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Strain-selective in vitro and in silico structure activity relationship (SAR) of N-acyl β-lactam broad spectrum antibiotics

Poosarla et al. | Oct 19, 2021

Strain-selective <i>in vitro</i> and <i>in silico</i> structure activity relationship (SAR) of N-acyl β-lactam broad spectrum antibiotics

In this study, the authors investigate the antibacterial efficacy of penicillin G and its analogs amoxicillin, carbenicillin, piperacillin, cloxacillin, and ampicillin, against four species of bacteria. Results showed that all six penicillin-type antibiotics inhibit Staphylococcus epidermidis, Escherichia coli, and Neisseria sicca with varying degrees of efficacy but exhibited no inhibition against Bacillus cereus. Penicillin G had the greatest broad-spectrum antibacterial activity with a high radius of inhibition against S. epidermidis, E. coli, and N. sicca.

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The Effects of Atmospheric Attenuation on Cosmic Ray Muons: How is Surface Level Cosmic Ray Muon Flux Affected by Atmospheric Attenuation?

Sun et al. | Sep 11, 2021

The Effects of Atmospheric Attenuation on Cosmic Ray Muons: How is Surface Level Cosmic Ray Muon Flux Affected by Atmospheric Attenuation?

Cosmic rays are high-energy astronomical particles originating from various sources across the universe. Here, The authors sought to understand how surface-level cosmic-ray muon flux is affected by atmospheric attenuation by measuring the variation in relative muon-flux rate relative to zenith angle, testing the hypothesis that muons follow an exponential attenuation model. The attenuation model predicts an attenuation length of 6.3 km. This result implies that only a maximum of 24% of muons can reach the Earth’s surface, due to both decay and atmospheric interactions.

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High-throughput virtual screening of novel dihydropyrimidine monastrol analogs reveals robust structure-activity relationship to kinesin Eg5 binding thermodynamics

Shern et al. | Jan 20, 2021

High-throughput virtual screening of novel dihydropyrimidine monastrol analogs reveals robust structure-activity relationship to kinesin Eg5 binding thermodynamics

As cancer continues to take millions of lives worldwide, the need to create effective therapeutics for the disease persists. The kinesin Eg5 assembly motor protein is a promising target for cancer therapeutics as inhibition of this protein leads to cell cycle arrest. Monastrol, a small dihydropyrimidine-based molecule capable of inhibiting the kinesin Eg5 function, has attracted the attention of medicinal chemists with its potency, affinity, and specificity to the highly targeted loop5/α2/α3 allosteric binding pocket. In this work, we employed high-throughput virtual screening (HTVS) to identify potential small molecule Eg5 inhibitors from a designed set of novel dihydropyrimidine analogs structurally similar to monastrol.

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Ladder Fuel Treatments Effect Burn Area of Forest Fires in Semi-Arid High Elevation Climates

Schwartz et al. | Oct 05, 2020

Ladder Fuel Treatments Effect Burn Area of Forest Fires in Semi-Arid High Elevation Climates

In this study, the authors investigate a timely and important topic: forest fires. More specifically, they use a wildfire simulator to test how ladder fuels effect the burn area of a forest fire. Ladder fuels are fuels that cause a forest fire to rise up from the forest floor to the canopy, which may affect the overall spread. They simulated fire spread with different levels of ladder fuel treatment and found that the spread of a burn area would indeed decrease with increased ladder fuel treatment. These findings have important implications for forest and forest fire management.

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