Researchers have used artificial intelligence to build a 3D model of the Commander complex, a bundle of proteins that act as ‘postal workers’ in cells, to better understand dementia and infectious diseases including COVID-19. University of Queensland researchers have used artificial intelligence to build a 3D map of key cell components to better understand dementia and infectious diseases including COVID-19. Professor Brett Collins from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience and Professor Pete Cullen from the University of Bristol led a…
An international team including Simon Steidle from the Quaternary Research Group at the Department of Geology at the University of Innsbruck has reconstructed the evolution of groundwater in the Great Basin, USA – one of the driest regions on Earth – up to 350,000 years into the past with unprecedented accuracy. The results shed new light on the effects of climate change on water supply and provide important insights for the sustainable use of groundwater resources. The study was published…
The testis is the natural stem cell reservoir for the formation of male germ cells. Understanding this process is a prerequisite for enabling the formation of male germ cells “in the test tube”. This procedure is becoming increasingly important because it can be used to preserve and multiply the genetic potential of valuable individuals from which no vital sperm can be obtained. A science team at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), Berlin, and at the University…
Colistin is an antibiotic of last resort for the treatment of infections caused by extremely multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. The recent emergence and global spread of the mobile colistin resistance gene mcr-1 among many bacterial species in different environments poses a significant public health threat. However, the workings and success of mcr-1 as a resistance factor have not been fully understood. Led by scientists of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), a study recently published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum…
What is the optimal role of limited biomass in the national energy transition and what are the priority target markets for bioenergy sources? These questions were addressed by a team of researchers from the German Biomass Research Centre (DBFZ) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in the successfully completed research project “SoBio – Scenarios of optimal biomass use for energy by 2030 and by 2050”. Bioenergy makes a significant contribution to meeting the energy needs of the transport,…
Fix the slide, adjust, start with the lowest magnification and then focus through the specimen: This routine is particularly familiar to biology students from microscopy classes. Now, the process also works digitally. More than 200 specimens of plants, animals and microorganisms can be viewed in detail online – without a microscope, free of charge and accessible to everyone. A biologist at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) is making this possible with his project UDE BioSLiDES. “During the pandemic, we were…
By observing spin structure in “magic-angle” graphene, a team of scientists led by Brown University researchers have found a workaround for a long-standing roadblock in the field of two-dimensional electronics. For two decades, physicists have tried to directly manipulate the spin of electrons in 2D materials like graphene. Doing so could spark key advances in the burgeoning world of 2D electronics, a field where super-fast, small and flexible electronic devices carry out computations based on quantum mechanics. Standing in the…
More complete and sophisticated collection of genome sequences captures significantly more human diversity. Researchers have released a new high-quality collection of reference human genome sequences that captures substantially more diversity from different human populations than what was previously available. The work was led by the international Human Pangenome Reference Consortium, a group funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The new “pangenome” reference includes genome sequences of 47 people, with the…
Comparing single-cell sequencing across cereal crops provides clues about agricultural traits critical for adapting plants to climate change. Comparing individual cells across corn, sorghum, and millet reveals evolutionary differences among these important cereal crops, according to a new study led by New York University researchers. The findings, published in Nature, bring researchers closer to pinpointing which genes control important agricultural traits such as drought tolerance, which will help scientists faced with a changing climate adapt crops to drier environments. Corn,…
Another step away from the farm: Reducing the need to biopsy animals, the stem cells provide a potentially endless source for cultured meat. To make it possible for cellular agriculture—the process of growing meat in bioreactors—to feed millions of people, several technical challenges will have to be overcome. Muscle cells from chicken, fish, cows, and other food sources will have to be grown to produce millions of metric tons per year. Toward this goal, researchers at Tufts University Center for…
The SNO+ experiment has for the first time shown that neutrinos from a nuclear reactor over 240 km away can be detected with plain water. The Science Neutrinos are subatomic particles that interact with matter extremely weakly. They are produced in many types of radioactive decays, including in the core of the Sun and in nuclear reactors. Neutrinos are also impossible to block—they easily travel from the core of a nuclear reactor to a detector far away, and even through the Earth itself….
Stephanie Lacour’s specialty is the development of flexible electrodes that adapt to a moving body, providing more reliable connections with the nervous system. Her work is inherently interdisciplinary. So when a neurosurgeon asked Lacour and her team to come up with minimally invasive electrodes for inserting through a human skull, they came up with an elegant solution that takes full advantage of their expertise in compliant electrodes, and inspired by soft robotics actuation. The results are published in Science Robotics….
For the first time, the effects of silicon fertilization on wheat yields were investigated for a study led by the Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. In a field trial in Brandenburg, the plants formed significantly more biomass: Yields increased by 80 percent compared to conventionally farmed areas. The sequestration of carbon in the soil and the availability of water also improved significantly as a result of fertilization. In…
Interdisciplinary research team unlocks the mechanism for inhibiting inflammation of the joints. Immunoglobulin G antibodies (IgB) play an important role as drivers of inflammation in infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases. However, if the same immunoglobulin antibodies from the blood plasma of healthy donors are cleansed and injected into a patient’s bloodstream, they exhibit anti-inflammatory effects and have a positive effect on the immune system. The cause of this was unknown to a large extent up to now. An interdisciplinary team…
An unusual quasicrystal has been discovered by a team from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the University of Sheffield and Xi’an Jiaotong University. It has a dodecagonal honeycomb structure that has never been seen before. Until now, similar quasicrystals were only known to come in a solid – not liquid – form. The team presents its results in the scientific journal “Nature Chemistry”. Quasicrystals have a special structure. They have a regular pattern similar to normal crystals, however, in…
Feature combination of Siglec-16 and polysialic acid increases survival in patients with glioblastoma. Glioblastomas are malignant brain tumours with a poor prognosis because they usually do not respond to common cancer therapies. One reason for this is that the tumour cells have developed mechanisms to evade immune defence. Even more: certain cells of the innate immune system, so-called tumour-associated macrophages (TAM), are influenced in such a way that they not only do not attack the tumour cells, but even stimulate…
Feedback
