A series of buzzing, bee-like “loop-currents” could explain a recently discovered, never-before-seen phenomenon in a type of quantum material. The findings from researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder may one day help engineers to develop new kinds of devices, such as quantum sensors or the quantum equivalent of computer memory storage devices. The quantum material in question is known by the chemical formula Mn3Si2Te6. But you could also call it “honeycomb” because its manganese and tellurium atoms form a…
To assess damage caused to the ozone layer by charged particles in space that surround the Earth, an international team of researchers from Japan, the United States, and Canada studied a type of aurora called an “isolated proton aurora”. They found more damage than predicted by simulations, suggesting a new factor to consider when assessing damage to the ozone layer. Along with solar radiation from the Sun, cosmic rays and high-energy plasma particles, such as ions and electrons, bombard the…
ESnet6 provides over 46 Terabits per second of bandwidth and intelligent network services to support unique data-intensive needs of scientific research. Today, the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) formally unveiled ESnet6, the newest generation of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) high-performance network dedicated to science. The hybrid in person and virtual event was held at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and live-streamed on streaming.lbl.gov. “ESnet6 represents a transformational change in the way networks are built for research, with improved capacity, resiliency,…
Scientists drive oil accumulation in rapidly growing aquatic plants. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have engineered duckweed to produce high yields of oil. The team added genes to one of nature’s fastest growing aquatic plants to “push” the synthesis of fatty acids, “pull” those fatty acids into oils, and “protect” the oil from degradation. As the scientists explain in a paper published in Plant Biotechnology Journal, such oil-rich…
Direct air capture may be key to saving Earth from the effects of climate change, but there’s a catch: It’s really hard to do. Direct air capture (DAC) technologies are designed to remove carbon dioxide from the air, although there’s still a lot of room for improvement in DAC materials. Other molecules in the air, especially water, are in much higher concentrations than carbon dioxide, or CO2. They start competing with each other, and ultimately, carbon dioxide isn’t what’s caught …
Smart fabrication, smart logistics, or smart farming: Distributed networks of sensors are working hard for us every single day. In the past, every application needed a custom solution to run the sensors and process the data. Researchers at Fraunhofer IZM have now developed a platform that can be easily mixed and matched for each purpose – saving lots of effort and resources along the way. Wireless sensors are present in almost all electronic devices. They are all around us: From…
Smart sensors that are wirelessly attached to the component, improve the understanding and control of production processes so that processes can be flexibly monitored and adaptively controlled. What sounds like a far-off vision of the future is already being implemented by the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen, Germany: Together with seven industrial partners, the researchers have designed an intelligent and flexible process control system that can process large amounts of data and transmit it almost instantaneously using…
Stability is one of the core requirements and at the same time an important potential weak point for components manufactured in layer-by-layer 3D printing such as Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM). One key to greater stability is to improve the adhesion between the individual layers, and the researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST achieve this through targeted chemical modification of the surface by using atmospheric pressure plasmas. Various plasma sources have been developed at the…
At Parts2Clean 2022, Fraunhofer IPK will demonstrate how intelligent image processing can contribute to maintaining capital goods. AI-based component and dirt detection in combination with innovative robotics and CO2 cleaning technologies enables the automation of maintenance process chains. Maintenance is a dirty business to begin with: Component contamination must be monitored, and when a certain “dirt level“ is reached, intervention, i.e. cleaning, is required. Researchers at Fraunhofer IPK have developed a technology that uses AI methods such as machine learning…
Current experiments and simulations show how to avoid destructive plasma instabilities in fusion reactors like ITER. Type-I ELM plasma instabilities can melt the walls of fusion devices. A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) and the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) found a way to get them under control. Their work is published in the renowned journal “Physical Review Letters”. Nuclear fusion power plants could one day provide a sustainable solution to our…
Massive neutron stars colliding in space are thought to be able to create precious metals such as gold and platinum. The properties of these stars are still an enigma, but the answer may lie beneath the skin of one of the smallest building blocks on Earth – an atomic nucleus of lead. Getting the nucleus of the atom to reveal the secrets of the strong force that governs the interior of neutron stars has proven difficult. Now a new computer…
For a long time, antibiotics were considered a silver bullet against bacterial infections. Over time, many pathogens have adapted to resist antibiotics, so the search for new drugs is becoming increasingly important. An international team of researchers including scientists at the University of Basel, has now discovered a new antibiotic by computational analysis and deciphered its mode of action. Their study is an important step in the development of new effective drugs. The WHO calls the creeping and rapidly growing…
Bitter protein fragments stimulate gastric acid secretion. Casein makes up the majority of the proteins in cheese and quark. Although casein itself does not taste bitter, its digestion in the stomach also produces bitter-tasting protein fragments (peptides). This has been proven for the first time in a study led by the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich (LSB). The study also suggests that the bitter peptides are able to stimulate acid secretion from gastric…
A protein that helps make neurons also works to reprogram scar tissue cells into heart muscle cells, especially in partnership with a second protein, according to a study led by Li Qian, PhD, at the UNC School of Medicine. Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine have made a significant advance in the promising field of cellular reprogramming and organ regeneration, and the discovery could play a major role in future medicines to heal damaged hearts. In a study published…
This is an unprecedented animal model that can be used to investigate Ewing sarcoma and to screen for compounds that may serve as lead molecules for the development of therapeutic drugs. This novel model has come about from a close collaboration between the laboratories headed by Dr. Cayetano Gonzalez at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and Dr. Jaume Mora at the SJD Pediatric Cancer Center Barcelona (PCCB), in Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona Children’s Hospital – IRSJD….
A new UV-visible protein allows researchers to see gene expression in plants without special equipment. The Science Biologists often use green fluorescent protein (GFP) to see what happens inside cells. GFP, which scientists first isolated in jellyfish, is a protein that changes light from one color into another. Attaching it to other proteins allows researchers to find out if cells produce those proteins and where within cells to find them. This in turn shows how cells deliver and use genes….
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