While Omicron variants of the pandemic coronavirus ratchet up immune evasion, study suggests current boosters intensify protections against serious infection. Although Omicron subvariants of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic coronavirus have evolved to evade antibody responses from the primary COVID-19 vaccine series, a new laboratory study suggests current vaccine boosters may elicit sufficient immune protection against severe Omicron-induced COVID-19 disease. The project assessed a comprehensive panel of vaccines available in the United States and around the world, as well as immunity acquired…
Scientific advancements have often been held back by the need for high volumes of data, which can be costly, time-consuming, and sometimes difficult to collect. But there may be a solution to this problem when investigating how our bodies fight illness: a new machine learning method called “MotifBoost.” This approach can help interpret data from T-cell receptors (TCRs) in identifying past infections to specific pathogens. By focusing on a collection of short sequences of amino acids in the TCRs, a…
Researchers at the University of Stuttgart present long-term study on the degradation of plastic. It was a shipwreck for the benefit of science. In June 1993, the cargo ship SS Hamada sustained severe damage in heavy seas above a coral reef off the coast of Egypt, broke in two, and sank – fully loaded with plastic granules – in the middle of a nature reserve. But the disaster also offered an opportunity. Some of the plastic pellets washed up on…
Star systems: The detection of an unusually compact “one of a kind” system of three stars was announced earlier this year. The question about how this unique combination of a binary set of stars and a revolving bigger star can form is now the focus in a collaboration between two young researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Tertiary star formation on a massive scale The star system consists of a binary set of stars –…
… and explain the recent surge in COVID-19 infections. A new study is one of the first to perform a robust biophysical analysis on the delta variant. Since June, the number of COVID-19 infections started rising again, as the most transmissible omicron variant started picking up delta variant mutations leading to new subvariants BA.4/BA.5 and Deltacron variants. Out of all the five known variants of concern, which have been shown to evade therapeutic antibodies and vaccines developed against unmutated, original…
Breakthrough in neutron physics: A team from TU Vienna, INRIM Turin and ILL Grenoble has succeeded for the first time in building a neutron interferometer from two separate crystals. Particles can move as waves along different paths at the same time – this is one of the most important findings of quantum physics. A particularly impressive example is the neutron interferometer: neutrons are fired at a crystal, the neutron wave is split into two portions, which are then superimposed on…
… as efficient proton conductor at high temperatures. Researchers develop a highly symmetric ruthenium (III) complex with six imidazole-imidazolate groups for efficient high-temperature proton conduction in fuel cells. As the world is moving towards more environment-friendly and sustainable sources of energy, fuel cells are receiving a lot of attention. The main advantage of fuel cells is that they use hydrogen, a clean fuel, and produce only water as a by-product while generating electricity. This new and clean source of electricity…
… creates golden opportunities for nanoimaging and communications. Low-dimensional materials form an emerging platform for exotic light-matter interactions, ideally suited for various photonic technologies. Light can strongly engage matter in these materials to create quasiparticles. These quasiparticles are known as polaritons, supporting deep-subwavelength optical fields with broadband responses. Van der Waals (vdW) crystals can feature these polaritons in the mid-infrared frequency range. Anisotropic vdW crystals are fascinating for nanophotonics because the material has different atomic interactions at the bonding level….
Researchers develop approach to leverage the function of an elusive small satellite DNA molecule and to harness its immune defense powers. Since first discovered in the 1980s, retrons have puzzled researchers who simply wanted to know what these bacterial DNA sequences actually did. Now, EMBL scientists have identified that some retrons encode toxin proteins, which they keep inactive with the help of a small DNA fragment. When a bacterial virus (phage) attacks bacteria, the small DNA can sense the attack…
A team of international experts, renowned for debunking several black hole discoveries, have found a stellar-mass black hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbour galaxy to our own. “For the first time, our team got together to report on a black hole discovery, instead of rejecting one,” says study leader Tomer Shenar. Moreover, they found that the star that gave rise to the black hole vanished without any sign of a powerful explosion. The discovery was made thanks to…
Eyes of mice lacking protective protein show signs similar to age-related macular degeneration. Loss of the protein pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF), which protects retinal support cells, may drive age-related changes in the retina, according to a new study in mice from the National Eye Institute (NEI). The retina is the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye, and aging-associated diseases of the retina, like age-related macular degeneration (AMD), can lead to blindness. This new finding could lead to therapies…
… in the human brain throughout life provide new insights into brain plasticity and other functions, according to Penn Medicine researchers. Analysis also shows severe reduction of these neurons in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s Disease. A team led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has used advanced techniques to show that, in a key memory region of the brain called the hippocampus, immature, plastic neurons are present in significant numbers throughout…
When carbon atoms stack into a perfectly repeating three-dimensional crystal, they can form precious diamonds. Arranged another way, in repetitive flat sheets, carbon makes the shiny gray graphite found in pencils. But there are other forms of carbon that are less well understood. Amorphous carbon—usually a sooty black material—has no repetitive molecular structure, making it challenging to study. Now, researchers at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have utilized a new framework for understanding the electronic…
Discovery of a short-lived state could lead to faster and more energy-efficient computing devices. The Science For the first time, researchers have used ultrafast electron diffraction (UED), an ultrafast camera for detecting tiny atomic movements, to observe a quantum electronic device as it operates. The electronic device in this research is a custom-designed miniature switch made of vanadium dioxide. This material can switch between electrically insulating and conducting states. The researchers toggled the switches electrically while taking snapshots that showed…
On average, 30 per cent of all species worldwide have been threatened with extinction or already become extinct over the last 500 years. This was the result of estimates by 3,331 experts working on biodiversity in 187 countries. This large and diverse group was asked in a survey, led by the University of Minnesota and with the participation of iDiv and the University of Leipzig, to provide assessments of the change in the species they study. The results are expected…
Virtual spinal cord is continuously optimized. Like a newborn animal, a four-legged robot stumbles around during its first walking attempts. But while a foal or a giraffe needs much longer to master walking, the robot learns to move forward fluently in just one hour. A computer program acts as the artificial presentation of the animal’s spinal cord, and learns to optimize the robot’s movement in a short time. The artificial neural network is not yet ideally adjusted at the beginning,…
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