Georgia Tech researchers developed a new nanoelectronics platform based on graphene – a single sheet of carbon atoms. A pressing quest in the field of nanoelectronics is the search for a material that could replace silicon. Graphene has seemed promising for decades. But its potential faltered along the way, due to damaging processing methods and the lack of a new electronics paradigm to embrace it. With silicon nearly maxed out in its ability to accommodate faster computing, the next big…
Surrounded by a vast ocean underneath a thick ice shell, Enceladus is a hot candidate for potentially harboring alien life. A team of researchers led by the University of Arizona concluded that a future mission could provide answers even without landing on the tiny world. The mystery of whether microbial alien life might inhabit Enceladus, one of Saturn’s 83 moons, could be solved by an orbiting space probe, according to a new study led by University of Arizona researchers. In…
Grasses have “respiratory pores” (called stomata) that open and close to regulate the uptake of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis on the one hand and water loss through transpiration on the other. Unlike many other plants, stomata in grasses form lateral “helper cells”. Thanks to these cells, the stomata of grasses can open and close more quickly, which optimizes plant-atmosphere gas exchange and thus saves water. For the current study, Prof. Dr. Michael Raissig, Dr. Heike Lindner and co-author Roxane Spiegelhalder…
UC Riverside mouse study could lead to novel therapies for people living with PTSD. A remote fear memory is a memory of traumatic events that occurred in the distant past — a few months to decades ago. A University of California, Riverside, mouse study published in Nature Neuroscience has now spelled out the fundamental mechanisms by which the brain consolidates remote fear memories. The study demonstrates that remote fear memories formed in the distant past are permanently stored in connections between memory…
Columbia biomedical engineers develop therapeutic strategy to combine bacterial therapies with pharmaceutical drugs. Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the United States and around the world. Many of the currently available therapies have been ineffective, leaving patients with very few options. A promising new strategy to treat cancer has been bacterial therapy, but while this treatment modality has quickly progressed from laboratory experiments to clinical trials in the last five years, the most effective treatment for certain types of…
Researchers have uncovered a previously hidden heating process that helps explain how the atmosphere that surrounds the Sun called the “solar corona” can be vastly hotter than the solar surface that emits it. The discovery at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) could improve tackling a range of astrophysical puzzles such as star formation, the origin of large-scale magnetic fields in the universe, and the ability to predict eruptive space weather events that can disrupt…
Electromagnetic noise poses a major problem for communications, prompting wireless carriers to invest heavily in technologies to overcome it. But for a team of scientists exploring the atomic realm, measuring tiny fluctuations in noise could hold the key to discovery. “Noise is usually thought of as a nuisance, but physicists can learn many things by studying noise,” said Nathalie de Leon, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton University. “By measuring the noise in a material, they…
An international team of scientists led by Lucile Turc, an Academy Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki and supported by the International Space Science Institute in Bern has studied the propagation of electromagnetic waves in near-Earth space for three years. The team has studied the waves in the area where the solar wind collides with Earth’s magnetic field called foreshock region, and how the waves are transmitted to the other side of the shock. The results of the study are…
It has long been known that beyond a certain dose, X-rays damage living tissue, so there are clear medical indications for X-rays to keep radiation exposure to a minimum. In basic research on the properties and characteristics of mineralised tissue samples such as bone, researchers rely on increasingly powerful X-ray sources. Bones from fish and mammals “Until now, the motto has actually been: more flux and higher energy is better, because you can achieve greater depth of field and higher…
– breaking the single channel scattering limit. Recently, the National Science Review published the study of Huaping Wang’s group at Zhejiang University online. Inspired by electromagnetic metamaterials, the research team designed and fabricated a water wave superscattering device based on degeneracy resonance by using the similarity of water wave equation and electromagnetic wave equation under shallow water conditions, which was realized it experimentally. Water waves are a very intuitive fluctuating phenomenon that is widely observed in the natural world. Understanding…
Technique provides model for studying genesis of age-related macular degeneration and other eye diseases. Scientists used patient stem cells and 3D bioprinting to produce eye tissue that will advance understanding of the mechanisms of blinding diseases. The research team from the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health, printed a combination of cells that form the outer blood-retina barrier—eye tissue that supports the retina’s light-sensing photoreceptors. The technique provides a theoretically unlimited supply of patient-derived tissue…
The new method bridges the quantum and classical worlds and could improve measurements in quantum computers and other applications. We see the world around us because light is being absorbed by specialized cells in our retina. But can vision happen without any absorption at all – without even a single particle of light? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Imagine that you have a camera cartridge that might contain a roll of photographic film. The roll is so sensitive that coming…
Inflammation and overactivation of the immune system in the brain can cause loss of synapses and the death of neurons, leading to neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases. In Schizophrenia, increased levels of the immune protein C4 have been measured in patients’ brains and increasing C4 levels due to variations in copy number are associated with an increased risk for developing Schizophrenia. Therapies lowering C4 levels in the brain and reducing inflammation may benefit Schizophrenia patients but are currently not available. Brain…
Pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 and pneumococcus can cause severe pneumonia. If the airways then fill with fluid, the patient risks developing acute respiratory distress syndrome. Researchers at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have now discovered the molecular mechanisms that trigger fluid accumulation in the lungs. This also led them to discover a potential new therapy: A cystic fibrosis drug proved effective in their laboratory experiments, raising hope that this could be used to treat pneumonia regardless of the pathogen that caused it. The study has…
A newly developed rapid test needs only a few seconds to reliably detect pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2. It is based on specially designed magnetic nanoparticles. The current rapid tests for diagnosing infectious diseases are speedy, but not really fast. For example, antigen self-tests, PCR tests or ELISA tests for coronavirus take 15 minutes to several hours before a reliable result is available. In contrast, a new and very sensitive rapid test developed by a team from the universities of Würzburg…
Chemical processes are all around us. From novel materials to more effective medicines or plastic products – chemical reactions play a key role in the design of the things we use every day. Scientists constantly search for better ways to control these reactions, for example to develop new materials. Now an international research team led by the MPSD has found an explanation why chemical reactions are slowed down inside mirrored cavities, where molecules are forced to interact with light. Its…
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