New theory on autonomous remodeling of structures. The concept of remodeling is familiar to most people: those who have ever played with Lego bricks know that many combinations and structures possible from the same components. Typically, an attached manual describes the arrangement of the individual blocks and the shape of the final structure. Initially assembling only a few pieces can thereby already determine the way all other parts have to be attached. “Our model describes the rearrangement of building blocks…
Understanding how water droplets spread and coalesce is essential for scenarios in everyday life, such as raindrops falling off cars, planes, and roofs, and for applications in energy generation, aerospace engineering, and microscale cell adhesion. However, these phenomena are difficult to model and challenging to observe experimentally. In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers from Cornell University and Clemson University designed and analyzed droplet experiments that were done on the International Space Station. Droplets usually appear as small spherical…
Computational modeling reveals the mechanism by which an undulating, flying snake can achieve lift and glide hundreds of feet. Robots have been designed to move in ways that mimic animal movements, such as walking and swimming. Scientists are now considering how to design robots that mimic the gliding motion exhibited by flying snakes. In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech explored the lift production mechanism of flying snakes, which undulate side-to-side…
Charts called fitness landscapes could help researchers better understand the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and find treatments. Antibiotic resistance, when infection-causing bacteria evolve so they are no longer affected by typical antibiotics, is a global concern. New research at the University of Tokyo has mapped the evolution and process of natural selection of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria in the lab. These maps, called fitness landscapes, help us better understand the step-by-step development and characteristics of E. coli resistance to…
Osaka Metropolitan University scientists use cryogenic electron microscopy to investigate how the marine green macroalga Codium fragile photosynthesizes. Plants that live on land, such as spinach, grow by using sunlight to perform photosynthesis. How, then, do algae photosynthesize in the deep sea, an environment where only a little light reaches them? Land plants mainly absorb red and blue light from the sun and use it for photosynthesis. However, only weak blue-green light reaches the ocean floor. Therefore, macroalgae growing in…
How are galaxies born, and what holds them together? Astronomers assume that dark matter plays an essential role. However, as yet it has not been possible to prove directly that dark matter exists. A research team including Technical University of Munich (TUM) scientists has now measured for the first time the survival rate of antihelium nuclei from the depths of the galaxy – a necessary prerequisite for the indirect search for Dark Matter. Many things point to the existence of…
Lasers have ignited fusion! Lasers have ignited a mini star on earth, laying the foundation for a clean energy source of the future: A historical breakthrough in inertial confinement fusion research at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Lab and a defining moment for Photonics! One of the most promising applications of laser technology, the realization of laser-driven fusion, has achieved a historical breakthrough. As announced by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL, California, USA) in its press release…
Investigators from the Institute of Industrial Science at The University of Tokyo added the influence of hydrodynamics, which includes the flow and compressibility properties of water, to computer simulations of suspended charged particles in an electric field. They found that this greatly improved the predictions of the final structures compared with conventional computational models. This work may help explain how hydrodynamic interactions impact the self-organization of particles suspended in a solution, including in biological systems like cells. Brownian dynamics (BD)…
… that drive development. Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have developed a computer model — dubbed quantitative fate mapping — that looks back in the developmental timeline to trace the origin of cells in a fully grown organism. The new model, they say, can help researchers more precisely spot which cells acquire alterations during development that change an organism’s fate from healthy to disease states, including cancer and dementia. The achievement, described in the Nov. 23 issue of…
By directly targeting RNA, UC San Diego researchers were able to eliminate toxic protein buildup that causes the progressive neurodegenerative condition while not significantly disrupting other human genes. Huntington’s disease (HD) is a neurological disorder that causes progressive loss of movement, coordination and cognitive function. It is caused by a mutation in a single gene called huntingtin or HTT. More than 200,000 people worldwide live with the genetic condition, approximately 30,000 in the United States. More than a quarter of…
Scientists find out what stem cell networks look like and where they came from. An ancient fish called a ‘living fossil’ has helped researchers understand the basics of stem cells. This will further stem cell research and be a step in the direction of creating artificial organs. A beating heart. A complicated organ that pumps blood around the body of animals and humans. Not exactly something you associate with a Petri dish in a laboratory. But that may change in…
Engineers at the University of Illinois Chicago have built a machine that captures carbon from flue gas and converts it to ethylene. The device integrates a carbon capture system with an ethylene conversation system for the first time. And, the system not only runs on electricity, but it also removes more carbon from the environment than it generates – making it what scientists call net-negative on carbon emissions. Among manufactured chemicals worldwide, ethylene ranks third for carbon emissions after ammonia…
Oxygen is the key substance for life and one of the most abundant elements in the Earth. However, it’s still unknown whether oxygen is present and in which form in the inner core with extreme high pressure and temperature conditions, and almost composed of pure iron. Scientists co-led by Dr. Jin Liu from HPSTAR (the Center for High Pressure Science &Technology Advanced Research) and Dr. Yang Sun from Columbia University reveal that Fe-rich Fe-O alloys are stable at extreme pressures…
Fast ‘green’ process revives essential battery components for reuse. How many rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are you wearing? How many are in your general vicinity? Probably more than a few, and they’re great for powering all the things important to modern lives: cellphones, watches, computers, cars and so much more. But where they go when they fail is a growing problem. Rice University scientists believe they have a partial solution that relies on the unique “flash” Joule heating process they developed to produce graphene…
International expert committee led by Professor Arndt Vogel updates ESMO treatment guidelines for biliary tract cancer. Biliary tract cancers (BTC) are cancers of the bile ducts and gallbladder. BCTs are rare and account for less than one percent of malignant neoplasms in humans. Overall, BCT have a poor prognosis. Five years after diagnosis, only 10 to 20 percent of those affected are still alive. However, advances in medicine and research offer hope, which have led to the updating of the…
We want modern technology to become smaller and more energy-efficient without losing quality. Technical innovation is needed to achieve this. For several years, the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS has been researching a novel energy-efficient actuator system for micro loudspeakers. The prototype now presented has surpassed expectations: High volume and excellent sound quality meet high energy efficiency in practical tests. The results were now presented in the Nature Journal Microsystems & Nanoengineering. The research team led by Dr Bert…
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