A research group led by Prof. WU Kaifeng from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with Dr. Peter C. Sercel from the Center for Hybrid Organic Inorganic Semiconductors for Energy, recently reported the utilization of lattice distortion in lead halide perovskite quantum dots (QDs) to control their exciton fine structure. The study was published in Nature Materials on Sept. 8. It is well known that shape or crystal anisotropy in…
Life in space is hard. If you wish to colonize it, for example by setting up stations on the Moon or on Mars, you need technologies that enable extremely efficient use of the scarce resources. The aim of the ERIS research project is to make use of these space technologies in the context of climate protection and the long-term safeguarding of life on Earth. The University of Stuttgart is supporting ERIS with the development of sustainable life support and supply…
Eight ice caves in four Austrian federal states: A team of geologists from the University of Innsbruck has comprehensively documented the loss and gain of ice in Alpine ice caves over the last 2000 years for the first time. The geologist Tanguy Racine warns: The ice of smaller caves especially is in danger of disappearing in the near future and with it a valuable climate archive. The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports. There are several thousand documented…
Ecosystem changes can be more accurately predicted by emissions of chiral compounds. Worldwide, plants emit about 100 million tonnes of monoterpenes into the atmosphere each year. These volatile organic molecules include many fragrances such as the molecule pinene – known for its pine fresh scent. Since these molecules are highly reactive and can form tiny aerosol particles that can grow into nuclei for clouds droplets, natural emissions play an important role in our climate. Therefore, it is important for climate…
Tuebingosaurus maierfritzorum lived in the Swabian Alb region – paleontologists reclassify 100-year-old discovery. Paleontologists at the University of Tübingen’s Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment have discovered a hitherto unknown genus and species of dinosaur. Tuebingosaurus maierfritzorum lived about 203 to 211 million years ago in the region now known as Swabian Alb and was a herbivore. The new species displays similarities with the large long-necked dinosaurs known as sauropods, and was identified when already-known dinosaur bones were re-examined….
Tuberculosis is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with an estimated 1.4 million deaths and ten million people infected annually. Resistant and multidrug-resistant (MDR) variants of the tuberculosis pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis pose a major threat to tuberculosis control and global health. Rapid detection of these patient-specific resistance patterns is therefore crucial for targeted treatment and successful control of the transmission of antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis bacteria—a goal that DZIF scientists have now taken a major step towards. Mutations in the…
Structural damage in lightweight components – caused by bird strikes on an aircraft wing, for example – is often difficult to detect using conventional non-destructive testing methods. Two new research robots at the Institute of Polymer Technology (IKT) at the University of Stuttgart, working autonomously and synchronously, are intended to optimize the testing technology for multifunctional high-performance materials. With a soft whir, JAMES raises its arm and grabs a tool head. Almost like a dancer, the robot moves freely through…
An international team of scientists, led by Laetitia Delrez, astrophysicist at the University of Liège (Belgium), has just announced the discovery of two ‘super-Earth’ type planets orbiting LP 890-9. Also known as TOI-4306 or SPECULOOS-2, this small, cool star located about 100 light-years from our Earth is the second coolest star around which planets have been detected, after the famous TRAPPIST-1. This important discovery is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. A first planet, LP 890-9b (or TOI-4306b), the…
A group of chemists from Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania, the authors of numerous breakthrough innovations in the solar energy field, proposed yet another solution to increase the stability and performance of perovskite solar elements. They synthesised a new class of carbazole-based cross-linkable materials, which are resistant to various environmental effects, including strong solvents used in the production of solar cells. When applied as hole transporting layers, the new materials developed at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) labs, helped…
World’s tiniest plumbing could one day funnel drugs to individual human cells. Working on microscopic pipes only a millionth as wide as a single strand of human hair, Johns Hopkins University researchers have engineered a way to ensure that these tiniest of pipes are safe from the tiniest of leaks. Leak-free piping, made with nanotubes that self-assemble, self-repair, and can connect themselves to different biostructures, is a significant step toward creating a nanotube network that one day might deliver specialized…
All magnets—from the simple souvenirs hanging on your refrigerator to the discs that give your computer memory to the powerful versions used in research labs— contain spinning quasiparticles called magnons. The direction one magnon spins can influence that of its neighbor, which affects the spin of its neighbor, and so on, yielding what are known as spin waves. Information can potentially be transmitted via spin waves more efficiently than with electricity, and magnons can serve as “quantum interconnects” that “glue”…
Device opens the door to applications in optical communications, sensing, and the search for exoplanets. On-chip laser frequency combs — lasers that emit multiple frequencies or colors of light simultaneously separated like the tooth on a comb — are a promising technology for a range of applications including environmental monitoring, optical computing, astronomy, and metrology. However, on-chip frequency combs are still limited by one serious problem — they are not always efficient. There are several ways to mitigate the efficiency…
… into a 100-times stronger, ductile hybrid carbon microlattice material. Developing a lightweight material that is both strong and highly ductile has been regarded as a long-desired goal in the field of structural materials, but these properties are generally mutually exclusive. Researchers at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) recently discovered a low-cost, direct method to turn commonly used 3D printable polymers into lightweight, ultra-tough, biocompatible hybrid carbon microlattices, which can be in any shape or size, and are 100…
The findings could help treat deadly arrhythmias. Electrical signals tell the heart to contract, but when the signals form spiral waves, they can lead to dangerous cardiac events like tachycardia and fibrillation. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and clinicians at Emory University School of Medicine are bringing a new understanding to these complicated conditions with the first high-resolution visualizations of stable spiral waves in human ventricles. “Clinicians have known for decades that spiral waves of electrical activity can…
MHH professor receives “ERC Proof of Concept Grant” to revolutionise drug safety / Novel immune cells to benefit millions of people. Medicines that are injected must be continuously tested for impurities as part of their production and release, as these can cause fever or even blood poisoning. Until now, this has mostly been done using animal tests, animal products or the so-called monocyte activation test (MAT). But the use of animal tests and products must be avoided – also because…
The genetic history of eelgrass may play a greater role than the local present-day environment for how tall the eelgrass can become and for how many other plants and animals will live within the eelgrass meadow. These findings were shown in a large survey that included researchers from the University of Gothenburg. Eelgrass in the Atlantic Ocean has less genetic variation compared with eelgrass meadows in the Pacific and may have a harder time to adapt and survive under climate…
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