Made from inexpensive, abundant materials, an aluminum-sulfur battery could provide low-cost backup storage for renewable energy sources. As the world builds out ever larger installations of wind and solar power systems, the need is growing fast for economical, large-scale backup systems to provide power when the sun is down and the air is calm. Today’s lithium-ion batteries are still too expensive for most such applications, and other options such as pumped hydro require specific topography that’s not always available. Now,…
Penn State-led collaboration builds on decades-old research to engineer advanced material. Someone taps your shoulder. The organized touch receptors in your skin send a message to your brain, which processes the information and directs you to look left, in the direction of the tap. Now, Penn State and U.S. Air Force researchers have harnessed this processing of mechanical information and integrated it into engineered materials that “think”. The work, published today (Aug. 24) in Nature, hinges on a novel, reconfigurable alternative…
Ocean trash and overflowing landfills have drawn widespread attention to the plastic waste that we put into our environment. In response, communities around the world work hard to reduce, reuse, and recycle. But what does it mean for something to be recyclable? A research team led by Guoliang “Greg” Liu, associate professor of chemistry in the College of Science, is working to expand the frontiers of plastic recycling. Many of us are comfortable tossing a metal can or a glass jar into the…
Isoprene is used as a precursor to produce terpenes and terpenoids. However, the direct catalytic conversion of isoprene to terpenoids is challenging. Recently, a research team led by Prof. CHEN Qing’an from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) realized nickel-catalysed asymmertric heteroarylative cyclotelomerization of isoprene to access a series of unnatural chiral monoterpenoids bearing quaternary carbon stereocenter. This study was published in Nature Catalysis on August 18. Terpenoids exist in almost all living organisms and function…
Two new approaches could help scientists use existing sequencing technology to better-distinguish RNA changes that affect how their genetic code is read. Kyoto University scientists are getting closer to finding ways to identify changes to RNA sequences that impact protein formation and can cause diseases. Their approach, published in the journal Genomics, utilizes probability algorithms together with an already-available, high-throughput sequencing technology. “Modifications that are found in all types of biological RNA influence gene regulation, which ultimately decides how different…
Could aid efforts to find treatments for Alzheimer’s, other diseases. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a new druggable pathway that potentially could be used to help prevent Alzheimer’s dementia. Amyloid beta accumulation in the brain is the first step in the development of Alzheimer’s dementia. Scientists have poured countless hours and millions of dollars into finding ways to clear amyloid away before cognitive symptoms arise, with largely disappointing results. In this study, published…
Making the construction of prototypes more efficient, cost-effective, faster and flexible – this will be possible with the world’s largest industrial delta 3D printer. The four-meter-high machine was developed by Professor Yilmaz Uygun’s research group at Jacobs University Bremen. The project, supported by the Kieserling Foundation, exhibits promising potential for industrial application and further research and cooperation opportunities for the university in Bremen-Nord. In industries such as spare parts management, prototype construction, and mechanical and plant engineering, individualized parts are…
Nearly all vital functions in the human body are regulated by so-called G protein-coupled receptors on the cell surface. These receptors thus serve as attractive drug targets to treat various diseases. Researchers led by Prof. Stephan Grzesiek from the Biozentrum, University of Basel, have now discovered that empty spaces inside these receptors are important for their activation and thus for relaying messages to the inner cell. Their approach to locate these voids may help to direct the search for novel…
Researchers at the University of Tsukuba report a new procedure to produce microscopic single crystals in the shape of hollow vases based on spontaneous crystal growth, which may provide a source of storage containers for nanotechnology applications. Scientists from the Department of Materials Science at the University of Tsukuba developed a new method to produce micrometer-scale single crystals in the form of hollow vessels. By drop-casting an ethanol solution onto a quartz substrate, the molecules can spontaneously assemble into the…
Our own immune system can become the enemy when mechanisms that are actually protective get out of control. In ANCA-associated vasculitis, excessive inflammatory reactions lead to pulmonary hemorrhages that can be fatal if left untreated. Researchers at the University of Bonn, together with colleagues from Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and England, have deciphered a mechanism in mice and patients that leads to the severe disease. The results are now published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. In ANCA-associated vasculitis, there…
A new study by the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) uses sea grapes, an algae species from the Indo-Pacific, to show how the quality of algae products can be further improved in terms of nutrition. The research was published in the journal Algal Research. By 2050, the world’s population is expected to increase to around 10 billion people. Food production will have to keep pace with this growth. The oceans, with their great, often still untapped potential as…
An international team of researchers led by Charles Cadieux, a Ph.D. student at the Université de Montréal and member of the Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx), has announced the discovery of TOI-1452 b, an exoplanet orbiting one of two small stars in a binary system located in the Draco constellation about 100 light-years from Earth. The exoplanet is slightly greater in size and mass than Earth and is located at a distance from its star where its temperature would…
“Deep biosphere” shaped by dissolved organic material from Earth’s surface. A research team with lead author Helena Osterholz of the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research (IOW) reports in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications on possible pathways by which microbial communities in the nutrient-poor “deep biosphere” can ensure survival. Among others, dissolved organic matter (DOM) was investigated in different deep groundwaters. Result: Already in the uppermost layers of the bedrock most of the labile matter is converted….
In humans, and many other species, both genes inherited from the mother and from the father influence how embryos develop. In the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, however, the mother has total control, as researchers from the Berger lab at GMI now uncovered. In a study published in eLife, the researchers show that the “mother plant“ has total control and completely inactivates the paternal genes in its embryos to ensure they develop properly. Humans have two sets of chromosomes, one maternal and…
Lymph nodes trigger very different immune responses – depending on which body tissue they are connected to. Special T cells are responsible for this newly discovered relation. The human body contains 600 to 800 lymph nodes, which are specialised organs that trigger immune responses. To be informed about infections in the body, lymph nodes are connected to the individual organs via lymph vessels. From the organs, the lymph vessels transport fluids and special immune cells to the lymph nodes. These…
To make the advantages of 5G for the process industry visible, the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT from Aachen is installing and hosting a 5G mobile system for the first time at Achema, the leading trade fair for the process industry. The Aachen-based scientists are using a newly developed prototype to illustrate how the status of a pumping system can be monitored in real time. The prototype can be viewed at Achema in Frankfurt from August 22 to 26,…
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