Meltwater seeping beneath Arctic glaciers puts thickest and fastest at risk of sudden collapse. As climate change warms the planet, glaciers are melting faster, and scientists fear that many will collapse by the end of the century, drastically raising sea level and inundating coastal cities and island nations. A University of California, Berkeley, scientist has now created an improved model of glacial movement that could help pinpoint those glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic most likely to rapidly slide downhill…
A new method for detecting tsunamis using existing GPS satellites orbiting Earth could serve as an effective warning system for countries worldwide, according to a new study by an international team led by UCL (University College London) researchers. A new method for detecting tsunamis using existing GPS satellites orbiting Earth could serve as an effective warning system for countries worldwide, according to a new study by an international team led by UCL researchers. Initial tsunami waves are typically a few…
“This study really sheds light on how we can design and manufacture battery electrodes to obtain a long cycle life for batteries,” said Feng Lin, an associate professor in chemistry at Virginia Tech. It doesn’t come on fast. It may take weeks to notice. You have the newly recharged lithium-ion AA batteries in the wireless kitty water fountain, and they last two days. They once lasted a week or more. Another round of charging, and they last one day. Soon,…
In the quest to build smart skin that mimics the sensing capabilities of natural skin, ionic skins have shown significant advantages. They’re made of flexible, biocompatible hydrogels that use ions to carry an electrical charge. In contrast to smart skins made of plastics and metals, the hydrogels have the softness of natural skin. This offers a more natural feel to the prosthetic arm or robot hand they are mounted on, and makes them comfortable to wear. These hydrogels can generate…
It helps to deliver the medicine to the tumor without affecting healthy cells. Researchers at Ural Federal University (UrFU) have proposed the use of polyoxometallate nanoclusters as a carrier for chemotherapy drug. It will help to deliver medications precisely to the focus of a pathological process, such as a cancerous tumor, without toxic effects on healthy cells. Delivery can be accomplished either by electrophoresis or by injection into the bloodstream. The development is described in the AIP Conference Proceedings. “We’ve explored…
The left hand looks like the right hand in the mirror but the left-handed glove does not fit on the right hand. Chirality refers to this property where the object cannot be superimposed on to the mirror image. This property in molecules is an important factor in pharmaceutical research as it can turn drugs toxic. These molecules and mirror-symmetrical molecules have the same physical properties, and therefore cannot be distinguished using general optical analysis. Instead, polarized light – that spins…
During the 20th century, earthquakes in Europe accounted for more than 200,000 deaths and over 250 billion Euros in losses. Comprehensive earthquake hazard and risk assessments are crucial to reducing the effects of catastrophic earthquakes because earthquakes cannot be prevented nor precisely predicted. An international team of European seismologists, geologists, and engineers, with leading support of members from the Swiss Seismological Service and the Group of Seismology and Geodynamics at ETH Zurich has; therefore, revised the earthquake hazard model that…
According to folklore, silver bullets kill werewolves, but in the real world, researchers want to harness this metal to fight another deadly foe: bacteria. Recently, scientists have tried to develop a silver coating for implantable medical devices to protect against infection, but they’ve had limited success. In a study in ACS Central Science, one team describes a new, long-acting silver-ion releasing coating that, in rats, prevents bacteria from adhering to implants and then kills them. Sometimes medical care requires surgeons to…
Researchers demonstrate quantum computer memory resilient against errors. Quantum computing holds the potential to be a game-changing future technology in fields ranging from chemistry to cryptography to finance to pharmaceuticals. Compared to conventional computers, scientists suggest that quantum computers could operate many thousand times faster. To harness this power, scientists today are looking at ways to construct quantum computer networks. Fault-tolerant quantum memory, that responds well when hardware or software malfunctions occur, will play an important role in these networks….
… after scientists discover cause of disease. Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have identified a gene called TLR7 that, when over-activated, is responsible for causing lupus, an autoimmune disease that can be life-threatening in severe cases. TLR7 is programmed to help the immune system guard against viral infections, but in its mutated form it can become aggressive and cause the immune system to attack healthy cells. The discovery, made by an international team of scientists, could pave the way…
Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute are studying G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), membrane proteins that are the target of one-third of approved drugs. Using single-molecule imaging techniques, researchers gained fresh insight into the process by which cellular signals are relayed by GPCRs. The work may aid the development of novel drugs by manipulating the way they activate certain pathways. A paper on the work appeared today in Cell. The human genome encodes…
NASA gives boost to Boston University-led effort. A Boston University–led team that has pioneered major advances in our understanding of the bubble protecting the solar system—and all life on Earth—has won a major new grant from NASA. The SHIELD (Solar wind with Hydrogen Ion Exchange and Large-scale Dynamics) DRIVE Science Center has been awarded a new five-year grant to continue advancing its breakthrough work in heliophysics, the study of how the sun influences and shapes the solar system. The funding will also…
As the earth’s climate continues to warm, researchers predict wild animals will be forced to relocate their habitats – likely to regions with large human populations – dramatically increasing the risk of a viral jump to humans that could lead to the next pandemic. This link between climate change and viral transmission is described by an international research team led by scientists at Georgetown University and is published April 28 in Nature (“Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk” DOI…
EMBL Barcelona scientists have recapitulated for the first time in the laboratory how the cellular structures that give rise to our spinal column form sequentially. The spinal column is the central supporting structure of the skeleton in all vertebrates. Not only does it provide a place for muscles to attach, it also protects the spinal cord and nerve roots. Defects in its development are known to cause rare hereditary diseases. Researchers from the Ebisuya Group at EMBL Barcelona have now created a…
For the past thirty years, the star β Pictoris has fascinated astronomers because it enables them to observe a planetary system in the process of formation. It is made up of at least two young planets, and also contains comets, which were detected as early as 1987. These were the first comets ever observed around a star other than the Sun. Now, an international research team headed by Alain Lecavelier des Etangs, CNRS researcher at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris…
… thought to be impossible. Associate professor Mazhar Ali and his research group at TU Delft have discovered one-way superconductivity without magnetic fields, something that was thought to be impossible ever since its discovery in 1911 – up till now. The discovery, published in Nature, makes use of 2D quantum materials and paves the way towards superconducting computing. Superconductors can make electronics hundreds of times faster, all with zero energy loss. Ali: “If the 20th century was the century of…
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