A new study from North Carolina State University shows soil temperature can be used to effectively monitor and predict the spread of the corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea), an important pest that ravages corn, cotton, soybeans, peppers, tomatoes and other vegetable crops. The ability to better monitor the pest and make predictions about where it will appear could help farmers control the pest more effectively, which would reduce the financial and environmental impacts of pesticide use. The researchers combined historical soil…
UCSC scientists reported three crystal structures of periodic rippled beta sheets, a novel protein structure with potential applications in biomedicine and materials science. An unusual protein structure known as a “rippled beta sheet,” first predicted in 1953, has now been created in the laboratory and characterized in detail using x-ray crystallography. The new findings, published in July in Chemical Science, may enable the rational design of unique materials based on the rippled sheet architecture. “Our study establishes the rippled beta…
Research team uses laser flashes to simulate the interior of ice planets – and spurs a new process for producing miniscule diamonds. What goes on inside planets like Neptune and Uranus? To find out, an international team headed by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), the University of Rostock and France’s École Polytechnique conducted a novel experiment. They fired a laser at a thin film of simple PET plastic and investigated what happened using intensive laser flashes. One result was that the…
Walking for multi-legged creatures is a lot like slithering, researchers find by comparing ants to robots. The physics of walking for multi-legged animals and robots is simpler than previously thought. That is the finding described by a team of roboticists, physicists and biologists in the Sept. 5 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in a paper titled “Walking is like slithering: a unifying, data-driven view of locomotion.” “This is important because it will allow roboticists to…
… could be more common than previously thought. Researchers at SLAC found that oxygen boosts this exotic precipitation, revealing a new path to make nanodiamonds here on Earth. A new study has found that “diamond rain,” a long-hypothesized exotic type of precipitation on ice giant planets, could be more common than previously thought. In an earlier experiment, researchers mimicked the extreme temperatures and pressures found deep inside ice giants Neptune and Uranus and, for the first time, observed diamond rain as…
A molecular atlas of an Australian dragon’s brain sheds new light on over 300 million years of brain evolution. These days, dragons are keeping Game of Thrones fans on their toes. But they are also providing important insights into vertebrate brain evolution, as revealed by the work of Max Planck scientists on the brain of the Australian bearded dragon Pogona vitticeps. Vertebrate evolution took a major turn 320 million years ago when early tetrapods (animals with four limbs) transitioned from…
On Nature Photonics a new research, that shows the unprecedented performances of an extremely thin nonlinear material. A new bidimensional semiconductor shows the highest nonlinear optical efficiency over nanometer thicknesses. This is the result of a new study recently published in Nature Photonics by Xinyi Xu, PhD student of Columbia University, and Chiara Trovatello, postdoctoral research scientist at the Physics Department of Politecnico di Milano, together with Prof. Giulio Cerullo from the Physics Department of Politecnico di Milano, Dmitri N. Basov and…
Quantum materials: entanglement of many atoms discovered for the first time. Be it magnets or superconductors: materials are known for their various properties. However, these properties may change spontaneously under extreme conditions. Researchers at the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD) and the Technische Universität München (TUM) have discovered an entirely new type of such phase transitions. They display the phenomenon of quantum entanglement involving many atoms, which previously has only been observed in the realm of few atoms. The results were…
Linear analysis plays a central role in science and engineering. Even when dealing with nonlinear systems, understanding the linear response is often crucial for gaining insight into the underlying complex dynamics. In recent years, there has been a great interest in studying open systems that exchange energy with a surrounding reservoir. In particular, it has been demonstrated that open systems whose spectra exhibit non-Hermitian singularities called exceptional points can demonstrate a host of intriguing effects with potential applications in building…
EU funds research project on cell-based heart repair with 6.1 million euros. Chronic heart failure – also known as cardiac insufficiency in medicine – is the most common reason for hospital admissions and one of the most frequent causes of death in the western world. In Germany alone, four million people suffer from this disease. Often a heart attack precedes, as a consequence the heart muscle is no longer supplied with blood and thus oxygen and the organ is irrevocably…
Less risk, less costs: New method for the detection of alcohols combines zero- to ultralow-field nuclear magnetic resonance with the SABRE-Relay hyperpolarization technique. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an analytical tool with a wide range of applications, including the magnetic resonance imaging that is used for diagnostic purposes in medicine. However, NMR often requires powerful magnetic fields to be generated, which limits the scope of its use. Researchers working at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz…
International research team uses micro-computed tomography to scan 20-million-year-old amber. An international team of scientists has discovered a previously unknown extinct ant species encased in a unique piece of amber from Africa. Using the X-ray light source PETRA III at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg the researchers, from Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the University of Rennes in France, the University of Gdansk in Poland, as well as the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon in Geesthacht, Germany, had examined the critical fossil…
Transporting alternative fueled vehicles on roll-on/roll-off ferries. Electric vehicles are booming, with more than a million on German roads as of this year. This, in turn, means that an increasing number of alternative fueled vehicles are transported on ferries. However, there are particular conditions associated with traveling at sea, such as the sea state and closed vehicle decks. This, in combination with the particular characteristics of and risks associated with alternative fueled vehicles, means that shipping companies and ship crews…
People generate their own oxidation field and change the indoor air chemistry around them. People typically spend 90 percent of their lives inside, at home, at work or in transport. Within these enclosed spaces, occupants are exposed to a multitude of chemicals from various sources, including outdoor pollutants penetrating indoors, gaseous emissions from building materials and furnishings, and products of our own activities such as cooking and cleaning. In addition, we are potent mobile emission sources of chemicals that enter…
Climate change is causing major challenges especially for plant breeders. An intelligent field robot and X-ray technology are helping them selecting heat-tolerant plant varieties. The sensors in the high-tech machine were developed by the Fraunhofer Development Center for X-ray Technology, a division of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS. Our summers keep becoming hotter. Just this summer, Germany experienced a heatwave with temperatures of up to 40 C. The resulting drought also affected plants. Given an ample supply of…
Heidelberg scientists demonstrate how injuries are converted to regeneration signals at the molecular level. The phenomenon of regeneration was discovered over 200 years ago in the freshwater polyp Hydra. Until now, however, it was largely unclear how the orderly regeneration of lost tissues or organs is activated after injury. In its investigations of Hydra, an interdisciplinary research team at Heidelberg University was able to show how wound healing signals released upon injury are converted into specific signals of pattern formation…
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