Giant dust storms in the Gulf of Alaska can last for many days and send tonnes of fine sediment or silt into the atmosphere, and it is having an impact on the global climate system, say scientists. The storms are so extensive they can be seen by satellites orbiting the Earth. An image captured by the Landsat satellite in 2020 shows dust blowing out of the valley and over Alaska’s south coast. Exactly how the dust may be influencing the global…
A new study led by Vinod M. Menon and his group at the City College of New York shows that trapping light inside magnetic materials may dramatically enhance their intrinsic properties. Strong optical responses of magnets are important for the development of magnetic lasers and magneto-optical memory devices, as well as for emerging quantum transduction applications. In their new article in Nature, Menon and his team report the properties of a layered magnet that hosts strongly bound excitons — quasiparticles…
Using drone imagery and artificial intelligence (AI), scientists from the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Bremen have developed a method that delineates each tree in a forest, along with an estimate of its height and diameter. This capability can help to create biological inventories of forests such as mangroves and also to determine their stocks of stored carbon. Their study recently appeared as a featured article in the journal “Remote Sensing”. Mangrove forests can store large amounts…
UQ researchers have discovered that platelets secrete a protein that rejuvenates neurons in aged mice in a similar way to physical exercise. Pre-clinical trials by University of Queensland researchers have found an injection of a specific blood factor can replicate the benefits of exercise in the brain. Dr Odette Leiter and Dr Tara Walker from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute led a team which discovered platelets, the tiny blood cells critical for blood clotting, secrete a protein that rejuvenates neurons in aged mice in a similar…
Tiny plastic particles can be found in the air over the oceans even far away from the coast. According to a new study, microplastics are not only carried by the wind, but also escape into the atmosphere from seawater. For the first time, German and Norwegian researchers led by the University of Oldenburg present data on the composition and sources of different types of plastic in the air over the North Atlantic and the origin of the particles. The results…
The SMNDC1 gene controls key functions in the human body and is linked to diseases such as diabetes and cancer. Scientists in Stefan Kubicek’s research group at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have successfully pinpointed the exact location of the SMNDC1 protein within the cell nucleus and identified an inhibitor that opens up the potential for therapeutic applications of SMNDC1. The study has been published in Nature Communications. The protein SMNDC1 is…
Combining his enjoyment of maths with his love for nature, Thomas Frölicher develops climate models to calculate the impact of greenhouse gases on the ocean. Why is there a poster featuring the children’s book Globi und die Energie on Thomas Frölicher’s office door? “The authors asked me to check some of the facts. And of course I said yes.” Although a professor of climate and environmental physics and the lead author of UN climate reports, he evidently doesn’t consider editing…
New study captures behavior of interacting electrons that give rise to insulating states, addressing a key unsolved puzzle in the field. A Princeton University-led team of scientists has imaged the precise microscopic underpinnings responsible for many quantum phases observed in a material known as magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG). This remarkable material, which consists of twisted layers of carbon atoms arranged in a two-dimensional hexagonal pattern, has in recent years been at the forefront of research in physics, especially in…
… dubbed the Enchilada. Sandia Labs produces its first devices capable of supporting 200 trapped ion qubits. Sandia National Laboratories has produced its first lot of a new world-class ion trap, a central component for certain quantum computers. The new device, dubbed the Enchilada Trap, enables scientists to build more powerful machines to advance the experimental but potentially revolutionary field of quantum computing. In addition to traps operated at Sandia, several traps will be used at Duke University for performing…
Expensive noble metals often play a vital role in illuminating screens or converting solar energy into fuels. Now, chemists at the University of Basel have succeeded in replacing these rare elements with a significantly cheaper metal. In terms of their properties, the new materials are very similar to those used in the past. We’re familiar with chromium from everyday applications such as chromium steel in the kitchen or chrome-plated motorcycles. Soon, however, the element may also be found in the…
Researchers contact single graphene nanoribbons. Quantum technology is promising, but also perplexing. In the coming decades, it is expected to provide us with various technological breakthroughs: smaller and more precise sensors, highly secure communication networks, and powerful computers that can help develop new drugs and materials, control financial markets, and predict the weather much faster than current computing technology ever could. To achieve this, we need so-called quantum materials: substances that exhibit pronounced quantum physical effects. One such material is…
… to develop new nanotechnologies. Two molecular languages at the origin of life have been successfully recreated and mathematically validated, thanks to pioneering work by Canadian scientists at Université de Montréal. Published this week in the Journal of American Chemical Society, the breakthrough opens new doors for the development of nanotechnologies with applications ranging from biosensing, drug delivery and molecular imaging. Living organisms are made up of billions of nanomachines and nanostructures that communicate to create higher-order entities able to…
They used diamond crystal mirrors to make X-ray pulses run laps inside a vacuum chamber, demonstrating a key process needed for future generations of performance-enhanced X-ray lasers. Researchers have announced an important step in the development of a next-gen technology for making X-ray free-electron laser pulses brighter and more stable: They used precisely aligned mirrors made of high-quality synthetic diamond to steer X-ray laser pulses around a rectangular racetrack inside a vacuum chamber. Setups like these are at the heart…
…for a hundredfold reduction in the power consumption of future chips. Electronic devices are shrinking all the time. At the same time, the computer chips inside them are getting more and more powerful, but they are also using more energy, and running hotter. This makes it essential to find new ways to reduce the power consumption of high-performance computers. A new EU-funded project has brought together a high-profile consortium from science and industry to investigate how changes to the magnetic…
€ 10.4 Mio. for the “Leuna100” project. A consortium of two Fraunhofer institutes, DBI-Gastechnologisches Institut Freiberg, Technical University of Berlin and C1 makes industrial history at the Leuna site. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport over the next three years. The Berlin-based climate tech start-up C1, together with its partners the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES, the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT, DBI-Gastechnologisches Institut gGmbH Freiberg…
…for advanced cell culture and personalized medicine. The team of Dr. Elisha Krieg at the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden has developed a dynamic DNA-crosslinked matrix (DyNAtrix) by combining classical synthetic polymers with programmable DNA crosslinkers. DNA’s highly specific and predictable binding gives researchers unparalleled control over key mechanical properties of the material. The findings published in Nature Nanotechnology August 7, 2023, are highly relevant to in vitro cell culture materials for biological research. In-vitro culture of biological cells…
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