Traffic researchers from TU Dresden and Ruhr-University Bochum want to optimise the design, marking and signage of “turbo roundabouts”. Roundabouts have become an integral part of the German road network. In many places they increase traffic safety at junctions and promote traffic flow. Since the 1990s, this type of junction has become widespread throughout Germany. Thirty years later, a new type of roundabout is the focus of a research project that has become more widespread in recent years: “turbo roundabouts”….
Manufacturing automobiles requires energy and resources on a large scale. Higher vehicle mileage could result in a significant drop in the continuous energy demand during production, while also reducing the extraction of natural resources considerably. This is where the KOSEL research project comes in; a project that has seen the Fraunhofer IWU join forces with partners from industry and research: Vehicle components that have a long service life can be used over several vehicle life cycles and therefore do not…
Force-sensitive, dynamic, energy efficient and with a range of applications – these qualities are what distinguish the new robot gripper created by the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechatronic Systems Design IEM. It can transport fragile objects from one production step to the next without damaging them. The gripper is specially designed for the food industry, where careful handling of fragile products helps to avoid waste. The electric drive makes costly pneumatics obsolete. The robot gripper will be presented at the joint…
Modern lightweight construction has already been helping automotive and aerospace industry to save fuel and materials and to reduce environmental impact. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS have recently found a way to transfer such proven design principles to other industries. By using lasers, they weld filigree hollow chamber structures with cover sheets to form lightweight sandwich panels. Such metal structures can be produced particularly efficiently in the roll-to-roll process of the Fraunhofer IWS. The…
It sounds like something from science fiction: Don a specialized, electronic headband and control a robot using your mind. But now, recent research published in ACS Applied Nano Materials has taken a step toward making this a reality. By designing a special, 3D-patterned structure that doesn’t rely on sticky conductive gels, the team has created “dry” sensors that can measure the brain’s electrical activity, even amidst hair and the bumps and curves of the head. Physicians monitor electrical signals from…
… for enhancing the extreme ultraviolet laser power. A research team unravels a new optical phenomenon involving dark autoionizing states, enhancing the power of an extreme-ultraviolet laser. An international research team led by Professors Tsuneyuki Ozaki and François Légaré at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), has developed a unique method to enhance the power of a laser source emitting extreme ultraviolet light pulses. The underlying mechanism of the newly observed phenomenon involves the unique role of dark-autoionizing…
New design rules for capturing a stable, chiral oxygen atom. Colorado State University chemists have achieved a new feat in the realm of chemical design and synthesis: They’ve helped create the first example of a synthetic molecule, with an asymmetric oxygen atom as its centerpiece, that remains stable and nonreactive – despite this type of molecule’s tendency in nature to be touchy and short-lived. What makes this feat unique is that the new molecule is chiral, which means it has a non-superimposable…
Advanced materials become increasingly complex due to the high requirements they have to fulfill regarding sustainability and applicability. Dierk Raabe, and colleagues reviewed the use of artificial intelligence in materials science and the untapped spaces it opens if combined with physics-based simulations. Compared to traditional simulation mehtods AI has several advantages and will play a crucial role for material sciences in the future. Max Planck scientists explore the possibilities of artificial intelligence in materials science and publish their review in…
A team from the University of Freiburg and the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt-am-Main identify anisotropic friction In their investigation, the researchers applied new methods of single molecule force spectroscopy and high performance computing The results provide a key piece of the puzzle for understanding friction in technical applications and biological complexes An interdisciplinary research team of the Institutes of Physical Chemistry and Physics of the University of Freiburg and the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt-am-Main…
Neuroscientists at the University of Zurich have developed innovative objectives for light microscopy by using mirrors to produce images. Their design finds correspondence in mirror telescopes used in astronomy on the one hand and the eyes of scallops on the other. The new objectives enable high-resolution imaging of tissues and organs in a much wider variety of immersion media than with conventional microscope lenses. Some species of mussels can see. Scallops, for example, have up to 200 eyes that help…
Researchers are developing a new method. The human body contains more than 30 trillion cells. Until recently, the sheer number of cells in the organism meant that approaches to understanding human diseases and developmental processes based on the analysis of single cells were a futuristic vision. The development of new sequencing methods is currently revolutionising our understanding of cellular heterogeneity. These technologies can detect rare or even new cell types by extracting and sequencing the genetic information from the cells…
Researchers at the Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics (IAP), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), have designed a novel ultramicro supercapacitor, a tiny device capable of storing an enormous amount of electric charge. It is also much smaller and more compact than existing supercapacitors and can potentially be used in many devices ranging from streetlights to consumer electronics, electric cars and medical devices. Most of these devices are currently powered by batteries. However, over time, these batteries lose their ability to store…
When it comes to sustainability and green steel, everybody talks about hydrogen. But current means of storing and transporting hydrogen request high pressures and low temperatures, which are both energetically and economically costly. Ammonia is known to be a good hydrogen carrier. Yan Ma and colleagues show that ammonia can not only be used to carry hydrogen but also for the direct redcution of iron which makes ammonia a vialbe cnadidate to overcome the shortcomings of hydrogen. Max Planck materials…
Gamma-ray bursts are the most energetic and luminous events known to occur in the Universe. Short-lived flashes of gamma-rays that typically last from a a tenth of a second to less than an hour, gamma-ray bursts may for a brief period of time outshine entire galaxies. The explosions are believed to be caused by the collapse of massive stars, the collision of neutron stars, or the merging of a neutron star and a black hole. Although we have known about…
The secret has been hiding in plain view for 40 years. But it took the insight of a veteran astronomer to pull it all together within a year, using observations of Saturn from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and retired Cassini probe, in addition to the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft and the retired International Ultraviolet Explorer mission. The discovery: Saturn’s vast ring system is heating the giant planet’s upper atmosphere. The phenomenon has never before been seen in the solar system. It’s an unexpected interaction between Saturn and…
Scientists at EPFL’s Blue Brain Project have developed a groundbreaking computational model of the thalamic microcircuit in the mouse brain, offering new insights into the role this region plays in brain function and dysfunction. The thalamus and thalamic reticular nucleus are situated at the heart of the mammalian brain and are known to play a key role in a wide range of functions, including the transmission of sensory information to the cortex and the transition between brain states such as…
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