An international team led by Uppsala University researchers has uncovered that eukaryotes (organisms with a cellular nucleus) have made hundreds of big leaps from sea to soil and freshwater habitats, and vice versa, during their evolution. The results, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, also provide insights into what the habitats of our ancient microbial ancestors looked like. Major habitat transitions, such as moving to land from a life in the sea, are key evolutionary events that can spark explosions…
A new self-healing coating material. Fast, localized, and low-energy-consumption self-healing material… Expected applications: automotive coating materials. [ACS Appl. Polym. Mater.] Published as supplementary cover of the May 2022 issue. A transparent protective coating material that can be self-healed in 30 minutes when exposed to sunlight has been developed. Excellent durability of automotive coatings is the most important issue in protecting a vehicle surface. In addition, protective coating materials should be colorless and transparent so that the original color of the…
Neural networks determine the amplitude and phase of X-ray pulses, enabling new, high-resolution quantum studies. The Science Ultrafast pulses from X-ray lasers reveal how atoms move at timescales of a femtosecond. That’s a quadrillionth of a second. However, measuring the properties of the pulses themselves is challenging. While determining a pulse’s maximum strength, or ‘amplitude,’ is straightforward, the time at which the pulse reaches the maximum, or ‘phase,’ is often hidden. A new study trains neural networks to analyze the…
… lays groundwork for smaller, cheaper lidar. Technology could benefit lidar applications from autonomous driving to virtual reality. Researchers have developed a new chip-based beam steering technology that provides a promising route to small, cost-effective and high-performance lidar (or light detection and ranging) systems. Lidar, which uses laser pulses to acquire 3D information about a scene or object, is used in a wide range of applications such as autonomous driving, free-space optical communications, 3D holography, biomedical sensing and virtual reality….
Experiment demonstrates how software-optimized circuits execute less error-prone quantum algorithms. A research partnership at the Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Chicago-based Super.tech (acquired by ColdQuanta in May 2022) demonstrated how to optimize the execution of the ZZ SWAP network protocol, important to quantum computing. The team also introduced a new technique for quantum error mitigation that will improve the network protocol’s implementation in quantum processors. The experimental data was published this July in…
Development of effective live bacterial therapeutics may depend more on using and re-introducing native microbes that can stick around than how the microbes are modified. Residing within the human gut are trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms that can impact a variety of chronic human ailments, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, cancer, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and inflammatory bowel disease. Numerous diseases are associated with imbalance or dysfunction in gut microbiome. Even in diseases that don’t involve the microbiome,…
A breakdown of lipid metabolism in these brain cells promotes inflammation and interferes with neuron activity, a new study finds. One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease is a reduction in the firing of some neurons in the brain, which contributes to the cognitive decline that patients experience. A new study from MIT shows how a type of cells called microglia contribute to this slowdown of neuron activity. The study found that microglia that express the APOE4 gene, one of…
UC San Diego and Salk scientists uncover surprising connection that results in abnormal inflammation and development of atherosclerosis; findings could lead to new therapeutics for other diseases as well. Mitochondria are organelles found within most cells, best known for generating the chemical energy required to power cellular functions. Increasingly, however, researchers are discovering how mitochondrial function — and dysfunction — play critical roles in numerous diseases, and even aging. In a new study published in the August 4, 2022 online…
… awakens stem cells to repair damaged muscle. Study published in Science opens up new avenues for enhancing muscle regeneration. A new study published in the journal Science reveals a unique form of cell communication that controls muscle repair. In damaged muscle, stem cells must work together with immune cells to complete the repair process, yet how these cells coordinate to ensure the efficient removal of dead tissue before making new muscle fibers has remained unknown. The scientists have now…
Researchers use single-cell approaches and deep learning to map all stages of fruit fly embryo development, possibly moving one-step closer to predictive embryonic genomics. Scientists have constructed the most complete and detailed single-cell map of embryo development in any animal to date, using the fruit fly as a model organism. Published in Science, this study, co-led by Eileen Furlong at EMBL and Jay Shendure at the University of Washington, harnesses data from over one million embryonic cells spanning all stages…
Porous material from melamine efficiently captures CO2 from flue gases; could be scaled down. Using an inexpensive polymer called melamine — the main component of Formica — chemists have created a cheap, easy and energy-efficient way to capture carbon dioxide from smokestacks, a key goal for the United States and other nations as they seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The process for synthesizing the melamine material, published this week in the journal Science Advances, could potentially be scaled down…
Cardiomyopathy is not a uniform disease. Rather, individual genetic defects lead to heart failure in different ways, an international consortium reports in Science. The molecular and cellular mechanisms that lead to heart failure in people with cardiomyopathy are determined by the specific gene variant that each patient carries, according to newly published research based on the first comprehensive single-cell analysis of cardiac cells from healthy and failing hearts. The work, reported in the journal Science, was conducted by 53 scientists from six countries in North…
Researchers from TU Delft have constructed the smallest flow-driven motors in the world. Inspired by iconic Dutch windmills and biological motor proteins, they created a self-configuring flow-driven rotor from DNA that converts energy from an electrical or salt gradient into useful mechanical work. The results open new perspectives for engineering active robotics at the nanoscale. The article is now published in Nature Physics. Elusive Rotary motors have been the powerhouses of human societies for millennia: from the windmills and waterwheels…
Until now, noisy and power-guzzling building dryers have normally been the only way of repairing water damage to apartments from leaking pipes or following heavy rain and flooding. The “FastDry”® technology developed by Fraunhofer researchers requires significantly less energy and works at least as quickly as conventional systems. The idea that underpins the technology is incredibly simple. Damp walls are a massive problem. Moisture compromises the indoor climate of living spaces and encourages the growth of mold that is hazardous…
Using light, atoms can be made to attract each other. A team from Vienna and Innsbruck was able to measure this binding state of light and matter for the first time. A very special bonding state between atoms has been created in the laboratory for the first time: With a laser beam, atoms can be polarised so that they are positively charged on one side and negatively charged on the other. This makes them attract each other creating a very…
… that can be faithfully moved during cell division. Researchers from the Gerlich Group at IMBA – Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences – discovered a molecular mechanism that confers special physical properties to chromosomes in dividing human cells to enable their faithful transport to the progeny. The team showed how a chemical modification establishes a sharp surface boundary on chromosomes, thus allowing them to resist perforation by microtubules of the spindle apparatus. The findings are…
Feedback
