UMD-led team developed a miniaturized analyzer that may revolutionize how astrobiology discoveries are made on faraway moons and planets. As space missions delve deeper into the outer solar system, the need for more compact, resource-conserving and accurate analytical tools has become increasingly critical—especially as the hunt for extraterrestrial life and habitable planets or moons continues. A University of Maryland-led team developed a new instrument specifically tailored to the needs of NASA space missions. Their mini laser-sourced analyzer is significantly smaller…
Ion-tunable antiambipolarity in mixed ion-electron conducting polymers enables biorealistic organic electrochemical neurons. Researchers at Linköping University (LiU), Sweden, have created an artificial organic neuron that closely mimics the characteristics of biological nerve cells. This artificial neuron can stimulate natural nerves, making it a promising technology for various medical treatments in the future. Work to develop increasingly functional artificial nerve cells continues at the Laboratory for Organic Electronics, LOE. In 2022, a team of scientists led by associate professor Simone Fabiano…
Analyzing a person’s gene expression requires mapping their RNA landscape to a standard reference to gain insight into the degree to which genes are “turned on” and perform functions in the body. But researchers can run into issues when the reference does not provide enough information to allow for accurate mapping, an issue known as reference bias. In a new paper published in the journal Nature Methods, researchers at UC Santa Cruz introduce the first-ever method for analyzing RNA sequencing…
This study compares the efficacy of three mass spectrometry instruments and sample preparation techniques for the clinical diagnosis of mold. In recent years, filamentous fungi or molds have emerged as causative agents underlying life-threatening infections in immunocompromised individuals. The timely management of these infections requires the rapid and accurate diagnosis of mold in clinical settings. Unfortunately, traditional methods are time consuming, given the long incubation periods required to culture and examine molds. On the other hand, advanced molecular techniques are…
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has imaged the inner workings of a dusty disk surrounding a nearby red dwarf star. These observations represent the first time the previously known disk has been imaged at these infrared wavelengths of light. They also provide clues to the composition of the disk. The star system in question, AU Microscopii or AU Mic, is located 32 light-years away in the southern constellation Microscopium. It’s approximately 23 million years old, meaning that planet formation has…
EPFL researchers have collaborated with those at Harvard and ETH Zurich on a new thin-film circuit that, when connected to a laser beam, produces finely tailorable terahertz-frequency waves. Researchers led by Cristina Benea-Chelmus in the Laboratory of Hybrid Photonics (HYLAB) in EPFL’s School of Engineering have taken a big step toward successfully exploiting the so-called terahertz gap, which lies between about 300-30,000 gigahertz (0.3 to 30 THz) on the electromagnetic spectrum. This range is currently something of a technological dead…
KIT researchers work on new qubit approach – publication in Nature Materials. Quantum computers can more rapidly process large amounts of data, because they carry out many computation steps in parallel. The information carrier of the quantum computer is a qubit. Qubits do not only possess the information of “0” and “1,” but also values in between. However, the difficulty consists in producing qubits that are small enough and can be switched quickly enough to execute quantum calculations. A very…
Technology helps sensor and camera systems perform optimally by keeping optics transparent. Researchers have developed an optical coating system that combines antifogging and antireflective properties. The new technology could help boost the performance of lidar systems and cameras. “Walking into a warm room from the cold outside can cause glasses to fog up, blinding the user,” said research team leader Anne Gärtner from Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, both in Jena, Germany….
We are all familiar with robots equipped with moving arms. They stand in factory halls, perform mechanical work and can be programmed. A single robot can be used to carry out a variety of tasks. Until today, miniature systems that transport miniscule amounts of liquid through fine capillaries have had little association with such robots. Developed by researchers as an aid for laboratory analysis, such systems are known as microfluidics or lab-on-a-chip and generally make use of external pumps to…
Earth’s average surface temperature in 2022 tied with 2015 as the fifth warmest on record, according to an analysis by NASA. Continuing the planet’s long-term warming trend, global temperatures in 2022 were 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.89 degrees Celsius) above the average for NASA’s baseline period (1951-1980), scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York reported. “This warming trend is alarming,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Our warming climate is already making a mark: Forest fires are…
… on label-free proteins with a single tryptophan. Proteins are naturally fluorescent in the ultraviolet, offering an appealing approach to probe proteins in their native state without introducing any external fluorescent label. The UV autofluorescence of proteins is based on the presence of tryptophan amino acids, which typically occur as 1 to 5 tryptophan per protein. However, due to weak signals and large backgrounds in the UV, the current technology was restricted to large proteins featuring several tens of tryptophan…
Understanding how dust grains form in interstellar gas could offer significant insights to astronomers and help materials scientists develop useful nanoparticles. Laboratory and rocket-borne studies have revealed new insights into how interstellar dust grains came into being before our solar system formed. The results, published by Hokkaido University researchers and colleagues in Japan and Germany in the journal Science Advances, might also help scientists make nanoparticles with useful applications in more efficient and eco-friendly ways. These ‘presolar’ grains can be…
A team of physicists devise a model that maps a star’s surprising orbit about a supermassive black hole – revealing new information about one of the cosmos’ most extreme environments. Hundreds of millions of light-years away in a distant galaxy, a star orbiting a supermassive black hole is being violently ripped apart under the black hole’s immense gravitational pull. As the star is shredded, its remnants are transformed into a stream of debris that rains back down onto the black…
Seemingly spontaneously coordinated swarm behaviour exhibited by large groups of animals is a fascinating and striking collective phenomenon. Experiments conducted by researchers at Leipzig University on laser-controlled synthetic microswimmers now show that supposed swarm intelligence can sometimes also be the result of simple and generic physical mechanisms. A team of physicists led by Professor Frank Cichos and Professor Klaus Kroy found that swarms of synthetically produced Brownian microswimmers appear to spontaneously decide to orbit their target point instead of heading…
New study aims to advance quantum computing. An international team of researchers, including scientists from Jena, has succeeded in developing a new and particularly precise type of measurement in tiny quantum systems. Applications are conceivable in semiconductor manufacturing, for example, but also in mobile radio technology or microscopy in the future. Experimental tests to prove the study were carried out on Germany’s first quantum computer, the Fraunhofer “QSystemOne”, among others. The researchers have now published their results in the journal…
Discovery of previously unknown effect makes compact, ultra-fast control of spin qubits possible. Australian engineers have discovered a new way of precisely controlling single electrons nestled in quantum dots that run logic gates. What’s more, the new mechanism is less bulky and requires fewer parts, which could prove essential to making large-scale silicon quantum computers a reality. The serendipitous discovery, made by engineers at the quantum computing start-up Diraq and UNSW Sydney, is detailed in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. “This…
Feedback
