From The City College of New York’s Center for Discovery and Innovation and the Physics Department comes news of a new type of magnetic quasiparticle created by coupling light to a stack of ultrathin two-dimensional magnets. This achievement sprouting from a collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin lays the foundation for an emergent strategy to artificially design materials by ensuring their strong interaction with light. “Implementing our approach with magnetic materials is a promising path towards efficient magneto-optical effects,” said…
Cilia are small hair-like organelles that extend from cells and perform many functions, including motility and signaling. Researchers have now revealed that cilia have a specialized transport hub at their base, where trains and cargos are assembled for transport throughout the cilia. Since defects in this cilia transport system can lead to e.g. cystic kidneys or blindness, the results published in Science also provide new insights into molecular basis for a variety of diseases. Cilia perform numerous functions for the…
Titanium shows superconductivity above 26K at high pressures. Element superconductors are important either for superconducting mechanism studies or for potential applications because of the single composition. However element superconductor (SC) usually show very low transition temperature (Tc) typically below 10K. Recently Prof. Changqing Jin’s team at IOPCAS discovered Ti metal to be superconductive with Tc above 26K at high pressures: the record high for element superconductors so far. They found that Ti metal keeps superconductive with Tc above 20 K…
Whether looking out into space or peering deep into the microscopic realm, there is always more to see. In the case of solids, there is a world of atoms and particles teeming with activity that ultimately leads to useful properties like electrical conduction, magnetism, and insulation. One of the most powerful tools for seeing the unseen is a scanning tunneling microscope or STM for short. Rather than an optical lens, its powerful eye comes from an electrical current that passes…
Biosynthetic pathway of the light-harvesting carotenoid fucoxanthin is surprisingly complex / Photoprotective pigments serve as precursors. Diatoms are microscopic unicellular algae occurring in natural waters worldwide. During photosynthesis, they take up large quantities of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities, and convert it into biomass. The carotenoid fucoxanthin enables diatoms to efficiently harvest the blue-green part of the sunlight for photosynthesis. In collaboration with an international research team, researchers of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in…
Cow mucus provides the basis for a synthetic prophylactic gel developed at KTH Royal Institute of Technology to protect against HIV and herpes transmission. The lubricating gel proved 70 percent effective in lab tests against HIV, and 80 percent effective against herpes. The viral prophylactic tests were conducted in a lab on several types of cells. The results were reported today in the scientific journal, Advanced Science. Hongji Yan, a biomaterials researcher at KTH, says the promising results raise hope…
UC Santa Barbara researchers create a device to streamline interactions between ultra-cold and room-temperature computers. Many state-of-the-art technologies work at incredibly low temperatures. Superconducting microprocessors and quantum computers promise to revolutionize computation, but scientists need to keep them just above absolute zero (-459.67° Fahrenheit) to protect their delicate states. Still, ultra-cold components have to interface with room temperature systems, providing both a challenge and an opportunity for engineers. An international team of scientists, led by UC Santa Barbara’s Paolo Pintus, has…
Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy shows how solid-state lithium metal batteries degrade. Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have demonstrated that electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) can be a powerful non-destructive tool to study the degradation mechanisms of all-solid-state lithium metal batteries. They studied ceramic-based all-solid-state Li metal batteries prepared by aerosol deposition and heating, identifying the specific interface responsible for the drop in performance. Their work accurately highlights the engineering hurdles that need to be overcome to bring these top-in-class batteries to the…
First, pause and take a deep breath. When we breathe in, our lungs fill with oxygen, which is distributed to our red blood cells for transportation throughout our bodies. Our bodies need a lot of oxygen to function, and healthy people have at least 95% oxygen saturation all the time. Conditions like asthma or COVID-19 make it harder for bodies to absorb oxygen from the lungs. This leads to oxygen saturation percentages that drop to 90% or below, an indication…
Dresden research team finds that the cell cortex, a fine network of filaments below the cell membrane, is activated in a controlled way by thousands of short-lived protein condensates. During development, the cells of an embryo divide until a fully functional organism emerges. One component of the cell is especially important during this process: the cell cortex. This fine network of hair-like filament structures (called actin) just below the cell membrane is the main determinant of cell shape and is…
Combining synthesis, characterization, and theory confirmed the exotic properties and structure of a new intrinsic ferromagnetic topological material. The Science Topological insulators act as electrical insulators on the inside but conduct electricity along their surfaces. Researchers study some of these insulators’ exotic behavior using an external magnetic field to force the ion spins within a topological insulator to be parallel to each other. This process is known as breaking time-reversal symmetry. Now, a research team has created an intrinsic ferromagnetic…
Scientists from the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung and the Eindhoven University of Technology analyse how iron can be used to store and transport energy. Gaining sustainable energy from wind, solar and water is commonly known and applied. However, renewable sources depend on environmental conditions: in peak times of wind and sun, excess energy is produced that is needed in times of less wind and sunshine. But how to store and transport this excess energy efficiently? So far, no reliable, safe and…
Isotope-controlled silicon carbide for solid-state quantum devices. Fraunhofer IISB develops solid-state quantum electronics based on silicon carbide (SiC). The basis are SiC layers with precisely defined isotope concentrations epitaxially grown on SiC wafers. Defined point defects (color centers) generated in isotope-controlled SiC enable a variety of quantum devices. SiC-based solid-state devices offer enormous potential for the broad introduction of quantum technologies. At Fraunhofer IISB, a research group is developing optimized base materials and process technologies for solid-state quantum electronics using…
… a breakthrough in revealing the origin of life. The long-held dream of chemists to observe the structural dynamics of a single molecule have been now made possible. Single molecules sized about 1 nanometer (nm, 1 billionth of a meter) exist in a volatile state under ambient conditions. Considering that the Coronavirus, which is about 100 nm in size, spreads rapidly in the air shows how difficult it is to observe a single molecule. Recently, a Korean research team has…
The MICROSCOPE mission has confirmed the ‘equivalence principle’ with unprecedented accuracy, bolstering Einstein’s general relativity. The result, announced this week by a team led by the French space agency CNES, is a triumph for Einstein’s general relativity. However, it also potentially rules out some candidate universal theories of physics. General relativity is the best theory of gravity – positing that instead of being a ‘pulling’ force, the action of gravity is caused by large bodies like planets bending spacetime, curving…
EMBL researchers used data from over 300 human faecal microbiota transplants to gain an ecological understanding of what happens when two gut microbiomes clash together. Faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) – the transfer of lower intestinal fluids and microbes from one individual to another – is sometimes used to treat inflammatory gut diseases, including ulcerative colitis and bacterial infections. Although a form of it was first recorded in 4th century China, it was introduced to western medicine in the 1950s. In…
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