Researchers from Jena uncover new mechanism for regulating cell division in the bacterial pathogen Klebsiella. Klebsiella pneumoniae is one of the most common and most dangerous bacterial pathogens impacting humans, causing infections of the gastrointestinal tract, pneumonia, wound infections and even blood poisoning. With the aim of discovering therapeutically exploitable weaknesses in Klebsiella, a research team from the Balance of the Microverse Cluster of Excellence at the University of Jena, Germany has taken a close look at the molecular biology…
Sodium-ion batteries still have a number of weaknesses that could be remedied by optimising the battery materials. One possibility is to dope the cathode material with foreign elements. A team from HZB and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has now investigated the effects of doping with Scandium and Magnesium. The scientists collected data at the X-ray sources BESSY II, PETRA III, and SOLARIS to get a complete picture and uncovered two competing mechanisms that determine the stability of the cathodes. Lithium-ion batteries…
The issue of metal oxide layer degradation in semi-transparent perovskite solar cells successfully tackled and resolved, demonstrating significant progress for the first time in the world. The Photovoltaics Research Department of the Korea Institute of Energy Research (hereafter KIER), working with the KIER Energy AI and Computational Science Lab, has achieved advancements in the stability and efficiency of semi-transparent perovskite solar cells. These cells have potential use in building windows and tandem solar cells*. The semi-transparent solar cells achieved a record-breaking efficiency…
New research finds that fungi that live in healthy plants are sensitive to climate change. Findings more than a decade in the making reveal a rich diversity of beneficial fungi living in boreal forest trees, with implications for the health of forests. Spruce, pine, fir and other trees tower across the frigid swaths of land that span North America, northern Europe and Russia in a great ring around the world. These boreal forests constitute the largest land ecosystem and the…
ISSCC 2024 paper says ‘ground-breaking’ DC-DC converter unifies power switches on a single chip. University of California San Diego and CEA-Leti scientists have developed a ground-breaking piezoelectric-based DC-DC converter that unifies all power switches onto a single chip to increase power density. This new power topology, which extends beyond existing topologies, blends the advantages of piezoelectric converters with capacitive-based DC-DC converters. The power converters the team developed are much smaller than the huge, bulky inductors currently used for this role….
New phased-array transmitter design overcomes common problems of CMOS technology in the 300 GHz band, as reported by scientists from Tokyo Tech. Thanks to its remarkable area efficiency, low power consumption, and high data rate, the proposed transmitter could pave the way to many technological applications in the 300 GHz band, including body and cell monitoring, radar, 6G wireless communications, and terahertz sensors. Today, most frequencies above the 250 GHz mark remain unallocated. Accordingly, many researchers are developing 300…
The expression “flawless from every angle” is commonly used to characterize a celebrity’s appearance. This doesn’t simply imply that they appear attractive from a specific viewpoint, but rather that their appeal remains consistent and appealing from various angles and perspectives. Recently, a research team from Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) has employed metasurface to fabricate angle-dependent holograms with multiple functions, capturing significant interest within the academic community. A research team comprising Professor Junsuk Rho from the Department of…
How does ocean alkalinity enhancement affect marine life? In a multi-week experiment starting today, scientists led by GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel investigate if the addition of rock powder is able to help the ocean absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change. For this purpose, twelve enclosed test tanks are set up in the water in front of the Kiel Aquarium. With the help of controlled experiments, the researchers want to better assess what effects…
Event brings together corrosion experts and automotive industry professionals. Southwest Research Institute will host its second Automotive Corrosion Symposium in Detroit April 11-12. The event, first held in 2022, is designed to foster communication among corrosion experts from within automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) as well as material, paint and other automotive suppliers over a wide spectrum of industry-identified corrosion issues. “Corrosion is a concern within the automotive industry, not just for cosmetic reasons, but because it can affect functionality…
To synthesize potential drugs or natural products, you need natural substances in specific mirror-image variants and with a high degree of purity. For the first time, chemists at the University of Bonn have succeeded in producing all eight possible variants of polypropionate building blocks from a single starting material in a relatively straightforward process. Their work has now been published in the prestigious journal “Angewandte Chemie.” Polypropionates are natural products that can help save lives. They are needed to make…
Project leader Dr.-Ing. Abdolrahman Omidinia Anarkoli and working group leader Prof. Dr. Ing. Laura De Laporte at the DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, have been awarded a Proof of Concept Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for their project “AnisoPlate”. Their aim is to investigate the technical and commercial potential of their newly developed device. With this technology, they want to produce three-dimensional, hydrogel-based human tissue models in high throughput that exhibit a controllable spatial orientation and…
Astronomers report oscillation of our giant, gaseous neighbor. A few years ago, astronomers uncovered one of the Milky Way’s greatest secrets: an enormous, wave-shaped chain of gaseous clouds in our sun’s backyard, giving birth to clusters of stars along the spiral arm of the galaxy we call home. Naming this astonishing new structure the Radcliffe Wave, in honor of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where the undulation was originally discovered, the team now reports in Nature that the Radcliffe Wave not…
The Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology (INP) in Greifswald, Germany has developed a new method for the production of ultra-hydrophobic organosilicon polymer coatings. These coatings are an alternative to per- and polyfluorinated compounds (PFAS), which are still used in many industrial applications and sectors. PFAS compounds have been used for decades to enhance a wide range of products, including those in the medical, semiconductor and textile industries. They are extremely water-repellent and therefore have a number of advantages,…
Creating a quantum computer powerful enough to tackle problems we cannot solve with current computers remains a big challenge for quantum physicists. A well-functioning quantum simulator – a specific type of quantum computer – could lead to new discoveries about how the world works at the smallest scales. Quantum scientist Natalia Chepiga from Delft University of Technology has developed a guide on how to upgrade these machines so that they can simulate even more complex quantum systems. The study is…
…increase significantly over high latitudes. Berkeley Lab scientists show decadal increases in wetland methane emissions in Arctic and Boreal ecosystems. Wetlands are Earth’s largest natural source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is about 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere. A research team from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) analyzed wetland methane emissions data across the entire Boreal-Arctic region and found that these emissions have increased approximately nine percent…
… is a big step forward. Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers and has one of the lowest survival rates in the world. Cytokines, which are small signaling proteins, such as interleukin-12 (IL-12), have demonstrated considerable potential as robust tumor suppressors. However, their applications are limited due to a multitude of severe side effects. In a paper published Jan. 11 by Nature Nanotechnology, Biomedical Engineering Professor Ke Cheng and his research group demonstrate that using nanobubbles, called exosomes, through an inhalation treatment method…
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