SwRI scientist awarded JWST Cycle 2 observations of Enceladus. Two Southwest Research Institute scientists were part of a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team that observed a towering plume of water vapor more than 6,000 miles long — roughly the distance from the U.S. to Japan — spewing from the surface of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. In light of this NASA JWST Cycle 1 discovery, SwRI’s Dr. Christopher Glein also received a Cycle 2 allocation to study the plume as well as…
A team of astrophysicists and citizen scientists have identified what may be some of the last planets NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope observed during its nearly decade-long mission. The trio of exoplanets – worlds beyond our solar system – are all between the size of Earth and Neptune and closely orbit their stars. ”These are fairly average planets in the grand scheme of Kepler observations,” said Elyse Incha, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But they’re exciting because Kepler observed them…
Rice U. engineers’ device is gentle on neurons, could serve as sensory prosthesis. Conventional implantable medical devices designed for brain stimulation are often too rigid and bulky for what is one of the body’s softest and most delicate tissues. To address the problem, Rice University engineers have developed minimally invasive, ultraflexible nanoelectrodes that could serve as an implanted platform for administering long-term, high-resolution stimulation therapy. According to a study published in Cell Reports, the tiny implantable devices formed stable, long-lasting and seamless…
New catalyst lowers cost for producing environmentally sustainable hydrogen from water. A plentiful supply of clean energy is lurking in plain sight. It is the hydrogen we can extract from water (H2O) using renewable energy. Scientists are seeking low-cost methods for producing clean hydrogen from water to replace fossil fuels, as part of the quest to combat climate change. Hydrogen can power vehicles while emitting nothing but water. Hydrogen is also an important chemical for many industrial processes, most notably…
Did you know that wires can be used to ionize air to make a loudspeaker? Simply put, it’s possible to generate sound by creating an electric field in a set of parallel wires, aka a plasma transducer, strong enough to ionize the air particles. The charged ions are then accelerated along the magnetic field lines, pushing the residual non-ionized air in a way to produce sound. If a loudspeaker can generate sound, it can also absorb it. While this plasma…
An international team consisting of researchers from Japan and Luxembourg show for the first time that pathological forms of the alpha-synuclein protein present in the blood of patients can be used for the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and its differentiation from several other neurodegenerative motor disorders. Their ground-breaking results, recently published in Nature Medicine, constitute a major step towards developing better diagnostics based on a simple blood test. Parkinson’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and multiple system atrophy compose a…
… against the important carbapenem antibiotics. In 2050, the number of people dying as a result of infection with antibiotic-resistant bacteria could rise to ten million, according to WHO forecasts. For targeted therapies and to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance, rapid and accurate diagnosis of resistance is essential. A new rapid test developed by DZIF researchers in cooperation with the company Coris BioConcept now makes it possible to detect over 95 percent of carbapenem resistance in patients infected with…
The cancer gene MYC drives unrestrained growth of most human cancers. It has been called the “Mount Everest” of cancer research because of the difficulty of designing medications that can disable it, and the expectation that an effective MYC drug could help so many cancer patients. Research groups from the The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute in Florida, the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund and the University of Münster have joined forces and climbed that peak by developing…
Ultrastructural changes in brain tissue promote inflammatory processes. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. It is characterized by inflammatory foci and damage in the brain’s so-called white matter, which consists of long nerve fibers and myelin. A German-Dutch research team has now shown that ultrastructural changes in healthy areas in the white matter of MS patients make the tissue more susceptible to inflammation and the formation of lesions. This could promote the…
With summer temperatures soaring, the spectre of water scarcity looms large. As a possible solution to increase the availability of clean, potable water, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have developed a novel thermal desalination system which can work using solar energy. The most common methods for desalination are membrane-based reverse osmosis and thermal desalination. However, both consume a lot of energy. Thermal desalination systems work by heating saltwater and then condensing the resulting vapour to obtain freshwater….
Researchers at Osaka University develop a new centipede-like robot and show how its motion can be switched from straight and curved walking, which may assist with search and rescue operations or planetary exploration. Researchers from the Department of Mechanical Science and Bioengineering at Osaka University have invented a new kind of walking robot that takes advantage of dynamic instability to navigate. By changing the flexibility of the couplings, the robot can be made to turn without the need for complex…
… brings blood pressure monitoring to your fingertips. Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a simple, low-cost clip that uses a smartphone’s camera and flash to monitor blood pressure at the user’s fingertip. The clip works with a custom smartphone app and currently costs about 80 cents to make. The researchers estimate that the cost could be as low as 10 cents apiece when manufactured at scale. The technology was published May 29 in Scientific Reports….
KRISS demonstrated carrier transport mechanism of photoanode with protective film to optimize green hydrogen production, The development can contribute to the realization of carbon-free green hydrogen and artificial photosynthesis. Hydrogen has been gaining attention as a clean and efficient energy source. However, is hydrogen really environmentally friendly? Most hydrogen commonly used now is “grey hydrogen” derived from fossil fuels. Since its production process accompanies generation of green house gas, it can be said that grey hydrogen is not environmentally friendly…
How inherited neurodegenerative diseases develop. Our cells are crisscrossed by a system of membrane tubes and pockets called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). It is crucial for the production of biomolecules and is continuously built up and degraded. Degradation, known as ER-phagy, is promoted by the protein ubiquitin, which controls many processes in the cell. If the proteins involved in ER-phagy are defective, neurodegenerative diseases result. This has been discovered by an international research team led by Goethe University Frankfurt (as…
of part of the brain’s protein destruction machine at synapses. A major component of the cell’s protein destruction machine moonlights at brain synapses. A new study by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research discovered a ‘moonlighting’ function carried out by a complex that normally works to degrade proteins in cells – this protein destruction machine is called the proteasome. The scientists found, by counting and visualizing individual protein complexes, that one part of the proteasome (the 19S…
Researchers investigate the swarming behavior of microrobots. Research study reveals alternative route to realize programmable active matter. Miniaturization is progressing rapidly in just any field and the trend towards the creation of ever smaller units is also prevalent in the world of robot technology. In the future, minuscule robots used in medical and pharmaceutical applications might be able to transport medication to targeted sites in the body. Statistical physics can contribute to the foundations for the development of such technologies….
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