Engineered cell receptors successfully reproduce their original’s functionality on demand. How do signals from outside the cell cause a response inside it? Such outside signals could be hormones or neurotransmitters. To notice them, the cell’s surface possesses receptors. One of the key classes of such receptors are so-called G protein-coupled receptors, or in short GPCRs. They are proteins placed on the cell’s membrane. Once an outside signal activates them, they trigger processes inside the cell with far-reaching impacts on cell…
Rare earth metals, when linked, can act as a conduit for energy flow, and show promise for the development of novel materials. Scientists have connected two soft crystals and observed energy transfer between them—a finding that could lead to the development of sophisticated, responsive materials. The study, by scientists at Hokkaido University in Japan, was published in the journal Nature Communications. Soft crystals are flexible molecular solids with highly ordered structures. When they are subjected to external stimuli, such as…
International research team led by Göttingen University controls interaction of charge carriers. An international research team led by the University of Göttingen has detected novel quantum effects in high-precision studies of natural double-layer graphene and has interpreted them together with the University of Texas at Dallas using their theoretical work. This research provides new insights into the interaction of the charge carriers and the different phases, and contributes to the understanding of the processes involved. The LMU in Munich and…
Researchers use multicomponent alloys to make strong and ductile soft magnetic materials. Latest results now published in the journal Nature. Soft magnetic materials (SMMs) applied in electric engines transform energy from sustainable resources into electricity. Conventional SMMs, which are currently used in industry, are prone to damage under severe mechanical loads. Researchers from the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung (MPIE), the Technical University of Darmstadt and the Central South University, China, have developed a new design strategy that increases the lifetime of…
New technique could relieve pain for individuals with various chronic and neurological conditions. A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team has found that electrical stimulation of the body combined with sound activates the brain’s somatosensory or “tactile” cortex, increasing the potential for using the technique to treat chronic pain and other sensory disorders. The researchers tested the non-invasive technique on animals and are planning clinical trials on humans in the near future. The paper is published in the Journal of…
Bioengineered corneal tissue for minimally invasive vision restoration in advanced keratoconus in two clinical cohorts. Researchers and entrepreneurs have developed an implant made of collagen protein from pig’s skin, which resembles the human cornea. In a pilot study, the implant restored vision to 20 people with diseased corneas, most of whom were blind prior to receiving the implant. The study jointly led by researchers at Linköping University (LiU) and LinkoCare Life Sciences AB has been published in Nature Biotechnology. The…
In a comment recently published in “Nature”, Dr. Ugur Öztürk and his colleagues at the University of Potsdam, the University of Bristol and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research claim that more settlements will suffer from landslides in the future as climate change and urban sprawl are destabilizing slopes in the tropics. Over the last fifty years, disasters caused by landslides and floods have become ten times more frequent, despite landslides being significantly underreported in global databases. Worldwide, 4500…
The number of tree species growing in regions close to the equator is significantly higher than in regions further north and south of the earth. An international study published in „Nature Ecology and Evolution“ investigates the causes of this with a precision never before achieved. It emphasizes that the diversity of tree species in the tropics does not depend solely on bioclimatic factors. The study is based on a cooperation of 222 universities and research institutions. On the part of…
The fungus Ustilago maydis attacks corn and can cause significant damage to its host. To do this, it first ensures that the plant offers little resistance to the infection. The surgical precision it applies is shown by a new study from the University of Bonn, which has now been published in the journal New Phytologist. The Gregor Mendel Institute in Vienna and the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben were also involved in the work….
International team of geoscientists led by University of Jena drills the oldest well-preserved sedimentary rocks on our planet in South Africa. An international team of scientists led by Prof. Christoph Heubeck of Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany has drilled boreholes in South Africa that will help answer questions about the early history of our planet. The cores come from the “Barberton greenstone belt” near South Africa’s border with Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and can be dated to about 3.2 billion years…
Researchers at Heidelberg University Hospital together with a team of international researchers demonstrate a positive effect of physical activity on the generation of new heart muscle cells in older hearts in an animal model / Molecular analyses provide information on the underlying mechanisms / Study results published in the journal Circulation. Can physical activity support the generation of heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) even in aged animals? Researchers at Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD) together with a team of international collaborators demonstrated…
As biocatalysts, enzymes manage the metabolism of all living things. They do this extremely precisely, because even a single incorrectly converted substance could have fatal consequences for the organism. Young researchers from the Leibniz Science Campus ComBioCat are using this selective approach of enzymes and proteins in general to develop catalysts of the future: so-called artificial metalloenzymes. In the future, combinations of bio- and chemical catalysts will be used to design complex molecules, e.g. for pharmaceuticals, in a targeted and…
Scientists from the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) have developed a contact lens that can capture and detect exosomes, nanometer-sized vesicles found in bodily secretions which have the potential for being diagnostic cancer biomarkers. The lens was designed with microchambers bound to antibodies that can capture exosomes found in tears. This antibody- conjugated signaling microchamber contact lens (ACSM-CL) can be stained for detection with nanoparticle-tagged specific antibodies for selective visualization. This offers a potential platform for cancer pre-screening and…
Physicists love to smash particles together and study the resulting chaos. Therein lies the discovery of new particles and strange physics, generated for tiny fractions of a second and recreating conditions often not seen in our universe for billions of years. But for the magic to happen, two beams of particles must first collide. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have announced the first successful demonstration of a new technique that improves particle beams. This…
Discovery by Brazilian researchers featured on cover of the journal Nanoscale is noteworthy because of possible applications in next-generation electronic devices. Certain materials at very low temperatures conduct electric current without resistance or losses. This property, known as superconductivity, was discovered in 1911 by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853-1926), who won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research in the field. Even though more than a century has passed since its discovery, research on superconductivity is still…
Chemists from Freiburg have succeeded in converting polynuclear transition metal carbonyls into their homoleptic complex cations using typical inorganic oxidants. In their work, the research team of Malte Sellin, Christian Friedmann and Prof. Dr. Ingo Krossing from the Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry and Maximilian Mayländer and Sabine Richert from the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Freiburg show that the anthracene derivative with a half-step potential of 1.42 Volts vs. Fc0/+ can be converted to the…
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