Scientists have discovered that bacteria can create something like memories about when to form strategies that can cause dangerous infections in people, such as resistance to antibiotics and bacterial swarms when millions of bacteria come together on a single surface. The discovery — which has potential applications for preventing and combatting bacterial infections and addressing antibiotic-resistant bacteria — relates to a common chemical element bacterial cells can use to form and pass along these memories to their progeny over later…
Zinc — cheap, abundant, environmentally friendly — may be the answer to better batteries, but there’s a major problem: Aqueous zinc ion batteries (AZIBs) cannot match lithium-ion batteries in terms of power output. To test what electrode material composition might be able to bring AZIBs up to par, a research team based in China developed two organic frameworks with the same constituents but arranged in different ways. When put to the test, the framework with appropriate density of active sites…
Quantum scientists have discovered a rare phenomenon that could hold the key to creating a ‘perfect switch’ in quantum devices which flips between being an insulator and superconductor. The research, led by the University of Bristol and published in Science, found these two opposing electronic states exist within purple bronze, a unique one-dimensional metal composed of individual conducting chains of atoms. Tiny changes in the material, for instance prompted by a small stimulus like heat or light, may trigger an…
For the first time, researchers at TU Wien have successfully observed the operating principle of so-called promoters in a catalytic reaction in real-time. These promoters play an important role in technology, but so far there is only limited understanding. Catalysts are essential for numerous chemical technologies, ranging from exhaust gas purification to the production of valuable chemicals and energy carriers. Often, tiny traces of additional substances are used alongside catalysts to make them highly effective. These substances are referred to…
The latest image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a portion of the dense center of our galaxy in unprecedented detail, including never-before-seen features astronomers have yet to explain. The star-forming region, named Sagittarius C (Sgr C), is about 300 light-years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*. “There’s never been any infrared data on this region with the level of resolution and sensitivity we get with Webb, so we are seeing lots of features here…
Soccer fans exhibit different patterns of brain activation while watching a match that may trigger positive and negative emotions and behaviors, according to research being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The researchers say the implication of these findings could extend beyond sports to fanaticism in other areas, such as politics. “This study aims to shed light on the behaviors and dynamics associated with extreme rivalry, aggression and social affiliation within…
GEOMAR participates in international climate change conference COP28 and supports the “Dubai Ocean Declaration”. Partnering with other leading scientific and stakeholder organisations, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel participates in this year’s United Nations climate change conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. GEOMAR contributes to the Ocean Pavilion, a central hub for leveraging ocean science and solutions for the climate crisis coordinated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Today, the partners call on…
Reducing Size, Weight and Cost through Higher Switching Frequencies and Lower Losses. Within the Research Project “PV-MoVe”, researchers at the Fraunhofer IEE investigated how to use active switching loss reduction networks for power semi-conductors to enable smaller, more lightweight, and more cost-efficient photovoltaic converters. Using newly developed additional circuitry, switching frequencies for a 50 kW PV inverter could be increased by a factor of 2.5 – 3 for the DC input stage and by a factor of 10 – 12.5…
Open-source supercomputer algorithm predicts patterning and dynamics of living materials and enables studying their behavior in space and time. Biological materials are made of individual components, including tiny motors that convert fuel into motion. This creates patterns of movement, and the material shapes itself with coherent flows by constant consumption of energy. Such continuously driven materials are called “active matter”. The mechanics of cells and tissues can be described by active matter theory, a scientific framework to understand shape, flows,…
A novel surgical implant developed by Washington State University researchers was able to kill 87% of the bacteria that cause staph infections in laboratory tests, while remaining strong and compatible with surrounding tissue like current implants. The work, reported in the International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, could someday lead to better infection control in many common surgeries, such as hip and knee replacements, that are performed daily around the world. Bacterial colonization of the implants is one of the leading…
The microbiome (the symbiotic community of microbial organisms of a host) is of existential importance for the functioning of every plant and animal, including human beings. A research team from Düsseldorf and Kiel headed by Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has now used the example of the sea anemone Nematostella vectenis to investigate how the microbiome develops together with the host. In the scientific journal Microbiome, the researchers describe that the bacterial community is primarily controlled by the host organism…
Global measurements and model calculations show that the complex relationship between the chemistry and climate impact of aerosol particles can be successfully captured by a simple formula. The extent to which aerosol particles affect the climate depends on how much water the particles can hold in the atmosphere. The capacity to hold water is referred to as hygroscopicity (K) and, in turn, depends on further factors – particularly the size and chemical composition of the particles, which can be extremely…
Researchers at the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Physics have superposed two light beams twisted in the clockwise direction to create anti-clockwise twists in the dark regions of the resultant superposition. The results of the research have been published in the prestigious journal “Optica”. This discovery has implications for the study of light-matter interactions and represents a step towards the observation of a peculiar phenomenon known as a quantum backflow. “Imagine that you are throwing a tennis ball. The ball…
A team of scientists from the Institut Pasteur has used the database of the National Reference Center for Meningococci to trace the evolution of invasive meningococcal disease cases in France between 2015 and 2022, revealing an unprecedented resurgence in the disease after the easing of control measures imposed during the COVID-19 epidemic. Recently reported cases have mainly been caused by meningococcal serogroups that were less frequent before the pandemic, and there has been a particular uptick in cases among people…
The vision system, evolved over millions of years, is highly complex. To make vision sensitive throughout the whole range of visible wavelengths, Nature employs a supramolecular chemistry approach. The visual pigment, cis-retinal, changes its shape upon capturing a photon. This shape transformation is accompanied by changes in the supramolecular organization of the surrounding proteins, subsequently triggering a cascade of chemical signaling events that get amplified and eventually lead to visual perception in the brain. “Some deep-sea fish have evolved antenna-like…
Revolutionizing fishery management and conservation… Deep learning model developed by researchers outperform human fishermen in correctly identifying the gender of horsehair crabs. When winter comes to Japan, fishermen in the northern regions set out to capture one of the most anticipated seasonal delicacies: the horsehair crab. Known locally as “kegani” and bearing the scientific name Erimacrus isenbeckii, this species of crustacean is highly sought after throughout the country. To protect the horsehair crab population from overfishing, the Japanese and prefectural…
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