Scientists from Bayreuth have developed a new method for studying liquid and soft matter using artificial intelligence. In a study now published in the renowned journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America” (PNAS), they open up a new chapter in density functional theory with their “neural functional theory”. We live in a highly technologised world where basic research is the engine of innovation, in a dense and complex web of interrelationships and interdependencies….
Prof. Dr. Caroline Gutjahr, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, has been awarded one of the highly prestigious Consolidator Grants from the European Research Council (ERC). In her project “SymbioticExchange”, she will investigate how the close coexistence of plants and friendly fungi in the soil works and how the exchange of nutrients between the symbiotic partners is regulated. Her findings could contribute to a new form of agriculture that considers fungi and plants in…
Catfish Attach Differently Than Expected. Some may know suckermouth armoured catfish as “window cleaners” from aquariums because they possess a suckermouth, which allows them to attach to various surfaces. The attachment is not only enabled by a vacuum created by the fish but also by specific structures of their mouths, which enable an interlocking and adhering to surfaces. A team of researchers closely examined these unique suckermouths and summarized their findings in a recent publication. The team studied a total…
KIT researchers use deep learning to enhance the spatial and temporal resolution of coarse precipitation maps. Strong precipitation may cause natural disasters, such as floodings or landslides. Global climate models are required to forecast the frequency of these extreme events, which is expected to change as a result of climate change. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now developed a first method based on artificial intelligence (AI), by means of which the precision of coarse precipitation fields generated…
Study indicates that these animals, like birds, are sensitive to the angle of magnetic inclination. The soprano pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) weighs only a few grams, but it is estimated that members of this small bat species cover thousands of kilometres every year on their nocturnal migrations from north-eastern to south-western Europe. Precisely how they find their way across such long distances in the dark remains unclear. However, an international team led by biologist Dr Oliver Lindecke from the University of…
By studying how spider silk responds to sound, researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have developed a patent for a brand-new microphone technology. Using biomimicry as a model, Binghamton University Distinguished Professor of Engineering Ron Miles worked with then-doctoral student and current Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Jian Zhou to patent a bio-inspired flow microphone — the very patent that has now been commercialized by the Canadian venture firm TandemLaunch and its spin-off company Soundskrit, which has also recently released both an analog…
This research carried out at the State University of Campinas focused on the use of nanometric optomechanical cavities as bridges between superconducting circuits and optical fibers, with applications in computing and quantum communications. The ability to transmit information coherently in the band of the electromagnetic spectrum from microwave to infrared is vitally important to the development of the advanced quantum networks used in computing and communications. A study conducted by researchers at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil,…
In a study that could help fill some holes in quantum theory, the team recreated a “quantum bomb tester” in a classical droplet test. In our everyday classical world, what you see is what you get. A ball is just a ball, and when lobbed through the air, its trajectory is straightforward and clear. But if that ball were shrunk to the size of an atom or smaller, its behavior would shift into a quantum, fuzzy reality. The ball would…
The Leibniz Collaborative Excellence Program awards a one million Euro grant to the PRIMADIS project. The PRIMADIS project embarks on a pioneering journey into the depths of the primate brain, thanks to a funding by the Leibniz Collaborative Excellence Program of one million Euro for a period of three years. The initiative is led by a consortium of scientists from the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research (DPZ) and the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology (LIN) in Magdeburg….
Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) have discovered a new plasma instability that promises to revolutionize our understanding of the origin of cosmic rays and their dynamic impact on galaxies. At the beginning of the last century, Victor Hess discovered a new phenomenon called cosmic rays that later on earned him the Nobel prize. He conducted high-altitude balloon flights to find that the Earth’s atmosphere is not ionized by the radioactivity of the ground. Instead, he confirmed…
Discovery could pave the way toward better treatment for stroke and other brain injuries. A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nexus provides a better understanding of how the brain responds to injuries. Researchers at the George Washington University discovered that a protein called Snail plays a key role in coordinating the response of brain cells after an injury. The study shows that after an injury to the central nervous system (CNS) a group of…
The pathway may help explain why patients develop vision loss from “wet” or advanced “dry” macular degeneration. In a study published December 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Wilmer Eye Institute researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have found how a molecular pathway — involving oxidative stress, or an imbalance of molecular oxygen in cells, and the protein HIF-1 — contributes to what kind of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) a patient could develop. The leading cause of…
Rice study uncovers new ways to make ordered wafer-scale chiral carbon nanotube architectures. Chiral materials interact with light in very precise ways that are useful for building better displays, sensors and more powerful devices. However, engineering properties such as chirality reliably at scale is still a significant challenge in nanotechnology. Rice University scientists in the lab of Junichiro Kono have developed two ways of making wafer-scale synthetic chiral carbon nanotube (CNT) assemblies starting from achiral mixtures. According to a study in Nature Communications,…
Fraunhofer IZM manages to automate measuring optical in-glass waveguides. The use of glass as substrate in electronics manufacturing enables the additional transmission of optical signals through the substrate material. This allows much higher rates of data transmission, which is vital for many scenarios like automotive, telecommunication, or AI applications. Researchers at Fraunhofer IZM have now managed to develop a system that can automatically measure propagation losses in integrated optical waveguides, all part of the research project “Integrated Electro-Photonic Panel Systems”…
…to replace synthetic plastic films. Materials with enhanced structure derived from crustaceans and seaweed could be part of a next-generation answer to the challenge of replacing petroleum-based plastic films, according to new research from North Carolina State University. Combining chitosan, a biopolymer that makes crab shells hard, with agarose, a biopolymer extracted from seaweed that is used to make gels, creates unique biopolymer composite films with enhanced strength. The films are also biodegradable, have antibacterial properties, repel water and are…
The one-step fabrication process rapidly produces miniature chemical reactors that could be used to detect diseases or analyze substances. MIT researchers have used 3D printing to produce self-heating microfluidic devices, demonstrating a technique which could someday be used to rapidly create cheap, yet accurate, tools to detect a host of diseases. Microfluidics, miniaturized machines that manipulate fluids and facilitate chemical reactions, can be used to detect disease in tiny samples of blood or fluids. At-home test kits for Covid-19, for…
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