Google spent much of the past year hustling to build its Gemini chatbot to counter ChatGPT, pitching it as a multifunctional AI assistant that can help with work tasks or the digital chores of personal life. More quietly, the company has been working to enhance a more specialized artificial intelligence tool that is already a must-have for some scientists.
AlphaFold, software developed by Google’s DeepMind AI unit to predict the 3D structure of proteins, has received a significant upgrade. It can now model other molecules of biological importance, including DNA, and the interactions between antibodies produced by the immune system and the molecules of disease organisms. DeepMind added those new capabilities to AlphaFold 3 in part through borrowing techniques from AI image generators.
“This is a big advance for us,” Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, told WIRED ahead of Wednesday’s publication of a paper on AlphaFold 3 in the science journal Nature. “This is exactly what you need for drug discovery: You need to see how a small molecule is going to bind to a drug, how strongly, and also what else it might bind to.”
AlphaFold 3 can model large molecules such as DNA and RNA, which carry genetic code, but also much smaller entities, including metal ions. It can predict with high accuracy how these different molecules will interact with one another, Google’s research paper claims.
The software was developed by Google DeepMind and Isomorphic labs, a sibling company under parent Alphabet working on AI for biotech that is also led by Hassabis. In January, Isomorphic Labs announced that it would work with Eli Lilly and Novartis on drug development.
AlphaFold 3 will be made available via the cloud for outside researchers to access for free, but DeepMind is not releasing the software as open source the way it did for earlier versions of AlphaFold. John Jumper, who leads the Google DeepMind team working on the software, says it could help provide a deeper understanding of how proteins interact and work with DNA inside the body. “How do proteins respond to DNA damage; how do they find, repair it?” Jumper says. “We can start to answer these questions.”
Understanding protein structures used to require painstaking work using electron microscopes and a technique called x-ray crystallography. Several years ago, academic research groups began testing whether deep learning, the technique at the heart of many recent AI advances, could predict the shape of proteins simply from their constituent amino acids, by learning from structures that had been experimentally verified.
In 2018, Google DeepMind revealed it was working on AI software called AlphaFold to accurately predict the shape of proteins. In 2020, AlphaFold 2 produced results accurate enough to set off a storm of excitement in molecular biology. A year later, the company released an open source version of AlphaFold for anyone to use, along with 350,000 predicted protein structures, including for almost every protein known to exist in the human body. In 2022 the company released more than 2 million protein structures.
In 1938, chemist Roy J. Plunkett stumbled across a substance that would change the world forever. He was experimenting with refrigerant gases when he noticed that one compound had transformed into a white, waxy solid. It had extraordinary properties, being impervious to heat and chemical degradation and also extremely slippery.
Today, we know this chemical as Teflon, and produce more than 200,000 tonnes of the stuff every year. It is used in everything from non-stick frying pans to medical catheters. Though undoubtedly useful, Teflon was also the first of a group called perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), better known as forever chemicals.
Almost as soon as Teflon was invented, concerns were raised about its potential impacts on the environment and our bodies (it is worth noting, though, that these days, using non-stick cookware is probably safe as the pans are heat-treated and don’t release any nasties unless they are left on a high heat for a long time). Today, the world is finally getting to grips with just how dangerous forever chemicals can be to our health – and dealing with the problem head on. In January, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) added nine forever chemicals to its list of hazardous constituents. And last month, the US imposed its first ever limits on levels of PFAS in drinking water, in a belated bid to reduce exposure to these ubiquitous chemicals. But what risks do they actually pose and what should we be doing to remove them from our lives? Researchers face a huge…
Today’s crude-oil refineries will need to be replaced with renewable fuel and chemical production to achieve net-zero goals.Credit: Brandon Bell/Getty
Fossil energy sources need to be eliminated — and communities that will be adversely affected during the clean-energy transition supported, as we wrote in an Editorial last week. In this week’s issue, Eelco Vogt and Bert Weckhuysen, chemists at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, lay out what needs to be done to decarbonize an important component of fossil-fuel infrastructure: crude-oil refineries.
Read the paper: The refinery of the future
The workings of refineries are little known to most people outside the oil and gas industries, yet are essential to the global economy. They convert crude oil into liquid fuels used in transportation, notably diesel, petrol and jet fuel. Refineries also provide chemicals and synthetic materials that are used to produce most of today’s consumer and health-care goods. In a Perspective article, Vogt and Weckhuysen set out a blueprint for decarbonizing oil-refinery capacity by mid-century. They acknowledge that the cost and scale of the necessary transition are “staggering”. Their vision deserves attention. Industry leaders and policymakers need to take it seriously.
Modern refinery functions include ‘cracking’ crude oil, whereby molecules with long chains of carbon atoms are broken down into shorter ones. This process helps to produce transportation fuels, as well as the chemicals and materials used in many medicines and everyday products, from shampoo to sticky tape. At present, the overwhelming proportion of global refinery output — at least 70% — goes into fuelling transport, including road, rail, shipping and aviation. Under net-zero scenarios, much of this demand will fall with the electrification of transport and with greater use of hydrogen and biomass-derived fuels.
In the net-zero scenario used by the authors, demand for conventionally produced carbon-based transportation fuels is still expected to exist, at around one-third of today’s levels. Such fuels will be needed in part to satisfy future energy needs in Africa, Asia and Latin America as countries there continue to develop economically. Use of fuel in aviation, which is difficult to electrify, will also increase as the tourism industry continues to boom. Some projections forecast less demand for conventionally produced fossil fuels, but all scenarios suggest that alternatives to the production of such fuels are needed.
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The authors propose developing refineries that can make chemicals and materials from biomass and recycled plastic, and synthetic fuels from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, instead of from crude oil. It would be necessary to capture CO2 from existing activities that produce a lot of the gas, such as cement manufacturing, or directly from the air. The hydrogen would come from electrolysing water. The entire process would need to be powered by renewable energy — and is estimated to require ten times as much energy as existing refineries require. In their plan, the authors pose urgent questions. Some are for researchers. Some are for policymakers. Some are for industry. Ideally, answers would come from discussions involving all of these stakeholders.
A key question relates to the energy needed to power refineries. Creating refineries powered entirely by renewables will be a huge challenge. Refineries run continuously, but renewable sources are not always available; for example, solar energy in darkness, or wind energy on a calm day. Technologies that can produce or compensate for energy fluctuations, at the required scale, are still in development.
Refineries’ essential role in the manufacture of drugs and everyday household products also needs to be addressed. For the latter, consideration must be given to the need to reduce humanity’s material footprint — an aim of ongoing talks on the United Nations plastics treaty.
Cost is a third question. Building alternative refinery capacity at large scales won’t come cheap. Here, the obstacles are mostly considerations for decision-makers, rather than technological barriers. In terms of cost, the authors calculate that replacing one oil refinery with technology compatible with net-zero goals would cost between €14 billion (US$15 billion) and €23 billion. They estimate that the total cost of converting the world’s refining capacity by 2050 would be between €320 billion and €520 billion per year.
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That is a large sum — although it is on existing scales of public and private industrial investment. If the world decides to embark on a path to replacing fossil-fuel refineries with net-zero ones, this change must be mandated or incentivized. To unlock the required funding, the authors call for policies including the implementation of carbon taxes and removal of fossil-fuel subsidies. There will be resistance — not least from fossil-energy companies and their advocates — that will almost certainly slow the authors’ timetable.
We don’t know what the world will look like in 2050. In some future scenarios, fewer refineries might be needed. Some researchers have proposed that ammonia could be produced without the emission of CO2 and used as a fuel for internal combustion engines used in long-distance shipping. That would require less refinery capacity, although large amounts of energy would be needed to generate the hydrogen required to produce the ammonia.
The research community knows enough to start imagining different versions of the future, and recognizing just how hard it might be to reach them before it’s too late. A little over a quarter of a century is a very short period for this scale of technological change. As such, we must take the next step and, following the authors’ advice, evaluate and develop the processes that ensure we reach net-zero targets as soon as and in the most effective way possible.
A researcher from the University of Birmingham has developed a new high-throughput device that produces libraries of advanced materials using sustainable mechanochemical approaches.
The device, created by Dr Jason Stafford from the University’s School of Engineering, is a fully automated unit that can be programmed for parallel synthesis to produce a series of advanced materials made in different ways for further testing and optimisation.
It reduces the amount of time researchers spend generating advanced materials in the laboratory and creates highly controlled reaction times.
Current techniques to synthesise advanced materials
Current techniques for synthesising advanced materials, while effective, are not without their limitations. They rely on a top-down approach that peels off layers of atoms or a bottom-up approach that builds up a sheet by depositing one atom at a time.
These approaches involve a large number of steps and synthesis parameters and rely on thousands of precursors, presenting significant challenges that the new high-throughput device aims to address.
Current approaches hinder research and development of new formulations using nanomaterials made from single elements like graphene or compounds such as copper oxide or crystals.
High-throughput device
The new device uses mechanochemical synthesis, which accesses new materials and induces chemical reactions through mechanical forces. This reduces the need for toxic solvents.
The high-throughput device works with standard laboratory glassware or custom vessels and can be programmed to deliver different mechanical forces in each vessel.
This may contain anything from a dilute liquid suspension to a dry solid powder.
New materials for chemical manufacturing and drug discovery
The new device is expected to interest professionals working in chemical manufacturing, advanced materials design, and drug discovery.
It will enable the development of new materials that can translate directly into environmentally sustainable manufacturing processes.
Dr Stafford said: “There is a massive and ever-growing library of specialised 2D materials that have not reached mainstream applications, yet researchers are spending up to half of their time ensuring synthesis steps are performed repeatedly and correctly.
“The automated platform can significantly reduce the time and expertise required in these processes and free up scientists to focus on the core aspects of their research in materials discovery.”
Allen Bard is widely regarded as the father of modern electrochemistry. During his prolific research career, including more than 60 years at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, Bard became a world-renowned innovator and researcher, pioneering diverse areas of electrochemistry and technologies that are widely used today.
Bard’s work on electrochemiluminescence — luminescence induced by a reaction involving the transfer of electrons — led to the commercialization of sensitive assays for biomarkers in clinical diagnostics. Bard also developed the first scanning electrochemical microscope, a tool that has proved invaluable for investigating materials for solar cells and batteries, as well as for probing cancer cells and tracking chemical reactions.
Born and raised in New York City, Bard studied chemistry at the City College of New York in 1955. He did his graduate studies (1955–58) at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, briefly under Nobel laureate Geoffrey Wilkinson, who specialized in organometallic compounds. Bard’s presence in Wilkinson’s laboratory when the group identified the structure of ferrocene — the most ubiquitous electrochemical standard in electrochemistry — was a harbinger of great things to come.
After Wilkinson left Harvard in 1955, Bard moved to James J. Lingane’s research group, where he completed his dissertation on the electrochemistry of tin. He also worked with chemist David Geske on early attempts to apply electrochemical methods to the study of reaction mechanisms. He was introduced to the electrochemistry of aprotic solvents (unlike water, they lack an acidic proton), in which highly reactive species can be generated that would otherwise be quenched by reactions with protons.
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Bard was subsequently hired as an instructor at UT Austin by Norman Hackerman, a chemist who specialized in electrochemical measurements of corrosion. In the 1960s, Bard and others established the important role of radical ions (ions that have an extra electron) in oxidation and reduction reactions of organic compounds. His group demonstrated that these species resulted from transfers of a single electron, a concept that was not generally accepted at the time. This work led Bard’s research into the area of electrogenerated chemiluminescence — in which species generated at electrodes form excited states that emit light.
Bard was a continual pioneer and rapid adapter of new electrochemical techniques. He developed many different approaches, including the rotating ring-disk electrode, used in hydrogen generation; alternating-current impedance methods for measuring fast electron transfer; and the use of digital simulations for analysing electrochemical processes. These methods provided fundamental insights into how electrons move (as a current) across interfaces and into solution as the electric potential (voltage) is varied.
From 1979 to the end of the 1990s, Bard developed the microscopic detection of electrochemical processes using piezoelectric motors, work that ultimately resulted in the development of scanning electrochemical microscopy. This technique can image electrochemical reactions on surfaces at scales from micrometres to nanometres. In collaboration with chemist Fu-Ren ‘Frank’ Fan, Bard used this form of microscopy to conduct the first electrochemical measurement of a single redox molecule, which for analytical chemists is the ultimate achievement at the limit of detection.
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Bard’s interests didn’t stop there. During the global oil crises of the 1970s, he was a pioneer of solar fuels — chemical energy sources produced using sunlight and stored for later use. He adapted the physics and materials science of metal–semiconductor junctions, or Schottky barriers, and applied electrochemical methods to split water molecules to release hydrogen, for example.
In the late 1970s, Bard’s group brought its techniques to the study of proteins and other biological molecules, including for processes such as the measurement of the electrochemical reduction of disulfide bonds in insulin and bovine serum albumin. This demonstrated the viability of protein electrochemistry, and such methods have since been used to study the movement of electrons in biological systems such as photosystem II and the fungal enzyme laccase in biofuel cells.
In 1980, Bard and his former PhD student Larry Faulkner penned the seminal textbook Electrochemical Methods, which will continue to inform generations of electrochemists. The latest, 3rd edition contains contributions from one of us (H.S.W.). Bard served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Chemical Society from 1982 to 2001.
Bard was of the ‘old school’ of researchers and was dedicated to deep fundamental investigations of select topics. Nonetheless, he was always on the lookout for new ideas, asking colleagues: “What’s the new science here?” He prized innovation, thoroughness and independent thought.
His vast and lasting academic legacy includes more than 1,000 research papers and more than 30 patents. Perhaps the greatest legacy lies in the people that Bard worked with and mentored. Over his almost 65 years at UT Austin, Bard supervised some 90 PhD students and collaborated with around 200 postdoctoral associates and many visiting scientists.
In 2002, on his receipt of the Priestley Award — the highest award of the American Chemical Society — Bard told Chemical Engineering News: “Whatever I’ve done as a scientist will be there for a while, but then fade away. The big names in science quickly become unknown. But through your students you maintain a presence in future generations, and they go on and on and on.” In this regard, Bard’s work is enshrined in the chemistry community, scientific literature and history books.
Tiny robots might offer a way to clean up plastic pollution in water
dottedhippo/Getty Images
Tiny magnetic robots can help remove some of the smallest plastic particles from polluted water.
Most plastics eventually end up as tiny fragments that then hide in our environment, food and drinking water. There is no consensus on the health implications of ingesting plastic yet, but early research suggests that plastic particles can enter organs within the body and that this process gets easier as the particles get smaller.
However, efficiently detecting and removing the tiniest of…
Fan, X. et al. Opportunities of flexible and portable electrochemical devices for energy storage: expanding the spotlight onto semi-solid/solid Electrolytes. Chem. Rev.122, 17155–17239 (2022).
Sumboja, A. et al. Electrochemical energy storage devices for wearable technology: a rationale for materials selection and cell design. Chem. Soc. Rev.47, 5919–5945 (2018).
Vijayakumar, V., Anothumakkool, B., Kurungot, S., Winter, M. & Nair, J. R. In situ polymerization process: an essential design tool for lithium polymer batteries. Energy Environ. Sci.14, 2708–2788 (2021).
Chen, S. et al. Carbon-Based Fibers for Advanced Electrochemical Energy Storage Devices. Chem. Rev.120, 2811–2878 (2020).
Zhao, Q., Liu, X., Stalin, S., Khan, K. & Archer, L. A. Solid-state polymer electrolytes with in-built fast interfacial transport for secondary lithium batteries. Nat. Energy4, 365–373 (2019).
Ling, S. et al. Densifiable ink extrusion for roll-to-roll fiber lithium-ion batteries with ultra-high linear and volumetric energy densities. Adv. Mater.35, 2211201 (2023).
Rao, J. et al. All-fiber-based quasi-solid-state lithium-ion battery towards wearable electronic devices with outstanding flexibility and self-healing ability. Nano Energy51, 425–433 (2018).
Zapata-Benabithe, Z., Carrasco-Marín, F. & Moreno-Castilla, C. Preparation, surface characteristics, and electrochemical double-layer capacitance of KOH-activated carbon aerogels and their O- and N-doped derivatives. J. Power Sources219, 80–88 (2012).
El-Kady, M. F. et al. Engineering three-dimensional hybrid supercapacitors and microsupercapacitors for high-performance integrated energy storage. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA112, 4233–4238 (2015).
Nishi, T., Nakai, H. & Kita, A. Visualization of the state-of-charge distribution in a LiCoO2 cathode by in situ Raman imaging. J. Electrochem. Soc.160, A1785 (2013).
Chong, W. G. et al. Lithium–sulfur battery cable made from ultralight, flexible graphene/carbon nanotube/sulfur composite fibers. Adv. Funct. Mater.27, 1604815 (2017).
Xia, Z. et al. Manipulating hierarchical orientation of wet-spun hybrid fibers via rheological engineering for Zn-ion fiber batteries. Adv. Mater.34, 2203905 (2022).
Zeng, Y. et al. An ultrastable and high-performance flexible fiber-shaped Ni–Zn battery based on a Ni–NiO heterostructured nanosheet cathode. Adv. Mater.29, 1702698 (2017).
Zhang, Y. et al. Flexible and stretchable lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors based on electrically conducting carbon nanotube fiber springs. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.53, 14564–14568 (2014).
Hoshide, T. et al. Flexible lithium-ion fiber battery by the regular stacking of two-dimensional titanium oxide nanosheets hybridized with reduced graphene oxide. Nano Lett.17, 3543–3549 (2017).
Weng, W. et al. Winding aligned carbon nanotube composite yarns into coaxial fiber full batteries with high performances. Nano Lett.14, 3432–3438 (2014).
Superconductivity has been demonstrated at extremely low temperatures, but it remains elusive at room temperatures.Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory/SPL
Research misconduct is hugely detrimental to science and to society. Defined as “fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results” by the US Office of Research Integrity, it violates trust in science and can do great harm to the wider public, scientific institutions and especially co-authors and students who had no part in the wrongdoing. In cases involving public funds, it squanders resources that could have been allocated to other research and it can erode lawmakers’ support for science.
Does the scientific community, as a whole, have appropriate processes for reporting, investigating and communicating about instances of potential misconduct? This question is not new. At Nature, we’re asking it again, after two separate studies that we published were subsequently retracted.
Exclusive: official investigation reveals how superconductivity physicist faked blockbuster results
The studies1,2 were originally published in October 2020 and March 2023. The first was retracted in September 2022 and the second in November 2023. The corresponding author on both papers was Ranga Dias, a physicist studying superconductivity at the University of Rochester in New York, and a recipient of grants from the US National Science Foundation (NSF).
The papers by Dias and his co-authors claimed to report room-temperature superconductivity under extremely high pressures, each in different materials. Room-temperature superconducting materials are highly sought after. They could, for example, transform the efficiency of electricity transmission, from the smallest to the largest application. But high-pressure experiments are difficult and replicating them is complex.
Nature initiated an investigative process that resulted in the 2020 paper being retracted after members of the community told the journal they were troubled by aspects of the data being reported. Nature also initiated an investigation into the 2023 paper. However, this article was retracted at the request of most of Dias’s co-authors while the investigation was still ongoing.
Many details about this case came to light thanks to continued questions from the research community, including during post-publication peer review. Much credit must also go to the persistence of science journalists, including members of Nature’s news team (which is editorially independent of Nature’s journal team) and those from other publications.
What can journal editors, funding organizations and institutions that employ researchers learn from such cases? We have the same goal: producing and reporting rigorous research of the highest possible standard. And we need to learn some collective lessons — including on the exchange of information.
The University of Rochester conducted three inquiries, which are a preliminary step to making a decision about whether to perform a formal investigation into scientific misconduct. The inquiries were completed between January and October 2022. Each concluded that such an investigation was not warranted.
Superconductivity scandal: the inside story of deception in a rising star’s physics lab
Earlier this month, Nature’s news team uncovered a 124-page report on a subsequent confidential investigation, performed at the NSF’s request. In it, a team of reviewers concluded after a ten-month assessment of evidence that it was more likely than not that Dias had committed data fabrication, falsification and plagiarism. The report is dated 8 February 2024, and the determination is regarding the two Nature papers, a 2021 study3 published in Physical Review Letters and a 2022 study4 in Chemical Communications — both of which were also retracted. However, the investigation has not yet officially been made public.
Some researchers have asked why Nature published Dias’s second paper in March 2023, when questions were being asked about the first one. Others have asked why the retraction notices didn’t spell out that there has been misconduct.
It’s important to emphasize that it’s Nature’s editorial policy to consider each submission in its own right. Second, peer review is not designed to identify potential misconduct. The role of a journal in such situations is to correct the scientific literature; it is for the institutions involved to determine whether there has been misconduct, and to do so only after the completion of due process, which involves a systematic evaluation of primary evidence, such as unmodified experimental data.
Access to raw data is fundamental to resolving cases of potential misconduct. It is also something we constantly think about in relation to publishing. Indeed, for certain kinds of data, Nature requires authors to deposit them in external databases before publication. But there must be more the research community — including funders and institutions — can all do to incentivize data sharing.
Another question is whether the matter could have been dealt with more quickly. Nature’s editors have been asking the same question: specifically, could there have been more, or better, communication between journals and institutions once evidence of potential misconduct came to light?
Publish, and be damned…
Last month, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), a non-profit organization that represents editors, publishers and research institutions, updated its guidelines on how publishers and universities could communicate better. The guidelines are full of important advice, including that institutions, not publishers, should perform integrity or misconduct investigations. Investigators require access to primary evidence. As employers and grant-givers, institutions are the appropriate bodies to mandate access to unmodified experimental data, correspondence, notebooks and computers and to interview relevant staff members — all essential parts of an investigation.
But often, journals need to start a process that could lead to retracting a study in the absence of an institutional investigation — or while an investigation, or inquiry, is ongoing5. Are cases such as this an opportunity for journals and institutions to discuss establishing channels through which to exchange information, in the interest of expedited outcomes — as part of due process? Nature’s editors would be willing to play a part in such discussions.
Retractions are part of publishing research, and all journals must be committed to retracting papers after due process is completed. Although a paper can be retracted for many reasons, when the cause is potential misconduct, institutions must conduct thorough investigations.
This case is not yet closed. Both the university and the funder need to formally announce the investigation’s results, and what action they intend to take. They should not delay any more than is necessary. When there is credible evidence of potential scientific misconduct, investigations should not be postponed. There is strength in collaborating to solve a problem, and nothing to be ashamed of in preserving the integrity of the scientific record.
I spend an inordinate amount of time in my kitchen scrutinising pieces of plastic, trying to discern whether they are recyclable or not. If they are, they go into a bag alongside glass, cans, cardboard and paper. If not, or if I am unsure, I put them in a plastic bag (non-recyclable) and shove it into the cupboard under the stairs. My intention is to deposit it in a container for non-recyclable plastics in a nearby supermarket. But the road to landfill is paved with good intentions. Sometimes I get exasperated and just end up chucking it.
Whether my obsessive sorting actually makes any difference, I don’t know. I hope the recyclables do end up being recycled. As for the other stuff, which makes up about half of my plastic waste, I have no idea of its fate. I presume it is called “non-recyclable” for a reason.
Hopefully, I soon won’t have to waste any more of my precious time triaging this type of waste. A suite of “advanced recycling” technologies is gradually coming on stream, promising to take used plastic of any type and convert it into something extremely useful: plastic. The goal is to create a circular economy for this material where there is no longer any need to make virgin plastic from crude oil, just endlessly recycle what we already have. Plastic, rightly demonised as a scourge of the modern world, could be fantastic again.
There is plenty of it to work with. Since the 1950s, we have produced over 10 billion tonnes…
A researcher uses a chemical to extract drug residue from fingerprints
Loughborough University
Forensic scientists have developed a new technique that can detect drug and explosive residue on fingerprint samples from crime scenes.
“That information, the presence of drug particles, is an almost untapped resource,” says James Reynolds at Loughborough University in the UK. That is because investigators use thin gelatine layers, called gel lifters, to lift fingerprints. These introduce chemicals to samples, making it difficult to identify trace amounts of drugs or explosives on them.
