This AI system only needs a small amount of data to predict molecular properties, which could speed up drug discovery and material development. Discovering new materials and drugs typically involves a manual, trial-and-error process that can take decades and cost millions of dollars. To streamline this process, scientists often use machine learning to predict molecular properties and narrow down the molecules they need to synthesize and test in the lab. Researchers from MIT and the MIT-Watson AI Lab have developed…
Proof-of-concept device could also monitor for flu, RSV, other respiratory viruses. Now that the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic has ended, scientists are looking at ways to surveil indoor environments in real time for viruses. By combining recent advances in aerosol sampling technology and an ultrasensitive biosensing technique, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have created a real-time monitor that can detect any of the SARS-CoV-2 virus variants in a room in about 5 minutes. The inexpensive, proof-of-concept…
A state-of-the-art laser has been commissioned at European XFEL and used for its first user experiment, paving the way for new scientific insights. The DiPOLE 100-X laser delivers ultra-powerful bursts of green light that can transform matter into extreme states, allowing scientists to study its behavior at high temperatures and pressures. Over 100 international researchers were involved in the first experiment. DiPOLE, or Diode Pumped Optical Laser for Experiments, is a new type of laser that can generate high-energy bursts…
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and ETH Zurich have performed calculations to work out how air traffic could become climate-neutral by 2050. They conclude that simply replacing fossil aviation fuel with sustainable synthetic fuels will not be enough. Air traffic would also have to be reduced. The researchers are publishing their results today in the journal Nature Communications. The European Union aims to be climate neutral by 2050, a target that was set by the European Parliament in…
The strength of the immune reaction triggered by antibodies can be regulated. Antibodies are crucial, not only for treating tumors and infections. Sometimes, however, the immune reaction they trigger can be too strong and end up causing more damage, for example in the case of people infected with Covid-19. Problems such as these can often be avoided by finetuning antibodies, as Prof. Dr. Falk Nimmerjahn from FAU and two of his colleagues in the Netherlands and in the UK have…
Deep learning approach enables accurate electronic structure calculations at large scales. The electronic structure of a material plays a crucial role in fundamental but also applied research. However, the lack of a suitable simulation technique has long been a roadblock for the progress of these technologies. Researchers have now pioneered a machine learning-based simulation method that supersedes traditional electronic structure simulation techniques. The arrangement of electrons in matter, known as the electronic structure, plays a crucial role in fundamental but…
An international team of chemists led by Professors Frank Glorius (University of Münster) and Kendall N. Houk (University of California, Los Angeles, USA) has succeeded for the first time in using structural editing to insert a four-membered molecular ring into a larger, aromatic ring. This resulted in a structurally complex bicyclic ring system. Most drugs on the market consist of cyclic (ring-shaped) molecules, many of which contain multiple rings. Developing simple and powerful methods for constructing important and novel ring…
How do leafcutter ants measure the size of the leaf pieces they cut off? A study by the University of Würzburg now provides answers. Up to three million specimens, translated into human terms about twice as many inhabitants as Munich – that’s how large a single colony of leafcutter ants can become. To feed so many creatures at the same time, the animals have developed a sophisticated system: In their underground nests, they grow fungi, which they distribute to the…
Water flows, ice is rigid – this clear difference between the liquid and solid state of substances is part of our everyday experience. It follows from the very regular arrangement of atoms and molecules in crystalline solids, which is lost when they melt. Less clear, however, is the structure of “liquid crystals“ – highly interesting states that combine order and disorder in such a way that important applications such as LCDs (liquid crystal displays) are possible. Researchers from the Max…
Have you ever been compelled to enter sensitive payment data on the website of an unknown merchant? Would you be willing to consign your credit card data or passwords to untrustworthy hands? Scientists from the University of Vienna have now designed an unconditionally secure system for shopping in such settings, combining modern cryptographic techniques with the fundamental properties of quantum light. The demonstration of such “quantum-digital payments” in a realistic environment has just been published in Nature Communications. Digital payments…
The Rydberg state is widespread in a variety of physical platforms such as atoms, molecules, and solids. In particular, Rydberg excitons are highly excited Coulomb-bound states of electron–hole pairs, first discovered in the semiconductor material Cu2O in the 1950s. In a study published in Science, Dr. XU Yang and his colleagues from the Institute of Physics (IOP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with researchers led by Dr. YUAN Shengjun of Wuhan University, have reported observing Rydberg…
Researchers have combined research with real and robotic insects to better understand how they sense forces in their limbs while walking, providing new insights into the biomechanics and neural dynamics of insects and informing new applications for large legged robots. Campaniform sensilla (CS) are force receptors found in the limbs of insects that respond to stress and strain, providing important information for controlling locomotion. Similar force receptors exist in mammals known as Golgi tendon organs, suggesting that understanding the role…
Studies focus on blocking an enzyme that plays a crucial role in replication of the HIV-1 virus. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, in collaboration with researchers at the National Institutes of Health, report that two new studies in mice with a humanized immune system and human cell lines have identified an enzyme that plays a critical role in the late stages of HIV replication. This enzyme, called neutral sphingomyelinase-2 (nSMase2), plays an important role in the body’s metabolism of lipids,…
Every time a stem cell divides, one daughter cell remains a stem cell while the other takes off on its own developmental journey. But both daughter cells require specific and different cellular materials to fulfill their destinies. Animal stem cells use the cytoskeleton – a transient network of structural tubules – to physically pull the correct materials from the parent cell into each daughter cell during the split. Plants also have stem cells that need to distribute different materials to…
Unveiling a groundbreaking and accurate AI-based method to classify cardiac function and disease using chest X-Rays. AI (artificial intelligence) may sound like a cold robotic system, but Osaka Metropolitan University scientists have shown that it can deliver heartwarming—or, more to the point, “heart-warning”—support. They unveiled an innovative use of AI that classifies cardiac functions and pinpoints valvular heart disease with unprecedented accuracy, demonstrating continued progress in merging the fields of medicine and technology to advance patient care. The results will…
A clinical trial under MHH leadership is testing a new therapy with immune cells against the JC virus. The aim is to cure the fatal disease PML. Human polyomavirus 2 – formerly called John Cunningham (JC) virus – infects about 70 to 90 percent of all people worldwide without most even noticing it. But once it enters the body, the genetic material of the pathogen remains dormant there. If the immune system is weakened or shut down by a serious…
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