A fascinating new look at what drives T cells to guard the intestines. Cells in the gut send secret messages to the immune system. Thanks to new research from La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) scientists, we can finally get a look at what they’re saying. A new study in Science Immunology reveals how the barrier cells that line the intestines send messages to the patrolling T cells that reside there. These cells communicate by expressing a protein called HVEM,…
The new air-powered hand provides a lightweight, low-maintenance and easy-to-use body-powered prosthetic option particularly well suited for children and those in low and middle-income countries. A revolutionary new hand prosthesis powered and controlled by the user’s breathing has been developed by researchers at the University of Oxford. The simple lightweight device offers an alternative to Bowden cable-driven body-powered prosthetics initially developed in the early 19th century – particularly for those too young or anatomically unsuited to an uncomfortable harness and…
A team at the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has used food industry waste to develop a nasal plug designed to tackle nosebleeds. Nosebleeds, also known as epistaxis, are one of the most frequent otolaryngologic (ENT) emergencies worldwide. It is estimated that 60% of the world’s population will experience an episode of epistaxis at least once in their lifetime, although only 6-10% of them will seek medical attention. There are several methods for treating epistaxis and one of the most…
Odorant Analysis 2.0. A research team from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich (LSB) has succeeded in automating an established method for the gentle, artifact-avoiding isolation of volatile food ingredients. As the team’s current comparative study now shows, automated solvent-assisted flavor evaporation (aSAFE) offers significant advantages over the manual process. It achieves higher yields on average and reduces the risk of contamination by nonvolatile substances. The optimized method is particularly important for odorant…
Fraunhofer technology for respiratory patients. Patients with severe respiratory or lung diseases require intensive treatment and their lung function needs to be monitored on a continuous basis. As part of the Pneumo.Vest project, Fraunhofer researchers have developed a technology whereby noises in the lungs are recorded using a textile vest with integrated acoustic sensors. The signals are then converted and displayed visually using software. In this way, patients outside of intensive care units can still be monitored continuously. The technology…
A multi-institutional effort led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania is taking steps to develop an effective technique to regenerate photoreceptors cells and restore sight in people with vision disorders. What if, in people with blinding retinal disorders, one could simply introduce into the retina healthy photoreceptor cells derived in a dish from stem cells, and restore sight? It’s a tantalizingly straightforward strategy to curing blindness, yet the approach has been met with a number of scientific roadblocks, including…
In severe Covid-19 patients, the metabolism produces insufficient amounts of certain energy-rich compounds called ketone bodies. However, these energy carriers are needed by two important cell types in the immune system in order to fight the virus effectively. Perhaps this finding explains why some people fall ill so much more severely than others. A study led by the University of Bonn at least points in this direction. The results have now been published in the journal Nature. They also give…
More and more bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Bacteriophages are one alternative in the fight against bacteria: These viruses attack very particular bacteria in a highly specific way. Now a Munich research team has developed a new way to produce bacteriophages efficiently and without risk. The World Health Organization (WHO) regards multi-resistant germs as among the largest threats to health. In the European Union alone, 33,000 people die each year as the result of bacterial infections which cannot be…
A new class of vaccines developed. A vaccination as tumor therapy – with a vaccine individually created from a patient’s tissue sample that ” attaches” the body’s own immune system to cancer cells: the basis for this long-term vision has now been achieved by a team of researchers from the MPI for Polymer Research and the University Medical Center Mainz, in particular from the Departments of Immunology and Dermatology. Their results were recently published in the journal ACS Nano. “We…
Researchers from Leipzig published a gigantic digital map displaying the full diversity of life through thousands of photos. The so-called LifeGate encompasses all 2.6 million known species of this planet and shows their relationship to each other. The interactive map can now be accessed free of charge at https://lifegate.idiv.de. Joint press release of Leipzig University (Botanical Garden) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) If you want to find out which places are close to Quito, you search…
Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are promising solar technologies. Although low-cost wet processing has shown advantages in small-area PSC fabrication, the preparation of uniform charge transport layers with thickness of several nanometers from solution for meter-sized large area products is still challenging. Recently, a research group led by Prof. LIU Shengzhong from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has developed a facile surface redox engineering (SRE) strategy for vacuum-deposited NiOx to match the slot-die-coated perovskite, and fabricated high-performance…
Quantum computing, a field that relies on the principles of quantum mechanics to calculate outcomes, has the potential to perform tasks too complex for traditional computers and to do so at high speeds, making it in some ways the new frontier for science and engineering. To get to the point where quantum computers can meet their expected performance potential, the development of large-scale quantum processors and quantum memories is needed. Precise control of qubits — or quantum bits, the basic…
A mmWave Backscatter System, developed by a team led by Professor Song Min Kim is exciting news for the IoT market as it will be able to provide fast and stable connectivity even for a massive network. A research team led by Professor Song Min Kim of the KAIST School of Electrical Engineering developed a system that can support concurrent communications for tens of millions of IoT devices using backscattering millimeter-level waves (mmWave). With their mmWave backscatter method, the research…
Researchers from Aarhus and Berlin have developed a new algorithm that can teach computers to predict how complex molecules will bind to the surface of catalysts. It’s almost llike playing extreme Tetris. Imagine a game of Tetris where you not only have to stack the pieces in three dimensions, but the pieces are also much more complicated than the seven geometric shapes you normally use in the game. In this case, the pieces are large and complex molecules that are…
New stamp-sized ultrasound adhesives produce clear images of heart, lungs, and other internal organs. Ultrasound imaging is a safe and noninvasive window into the body’s workings, providing clinicians with live images of a patient’s internal organs. To capture these images, trained technicians manipulate ultrasound wands and probes to direct sound waves into the body. These waves reflect back out to produce high-resolution images of a patient’s heart, lungs, and other deep organs. Currently, ultrasound imaging requires bulky and specialized equipment…
The use of an imperfect 2D material, contrary to conventional approaches, was found to increase carrier mobility by two orders at room temperature. This discovery paves a smoother path to 2D materials for semiconductors. Two dimensional (2D) semiconductors have a unique property that allows their thickness to be reduced to one or few atoms – and this property could potentially minimise the short channel effects that remain an issue in advanced silicon-based transistors, for example, turning on a transistor prematurely….
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