University of Tübingen team finds parallels with Martian environment in investigation of Spain’s heavy-metal polluted Rio Tinto estuary. At the mouth of the Rio Tinto in southwestern Spain, acidic river water – polluted with heavy metals from ore mining and mineral weathering – mixes with the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean. Here, microorganisms that love such extreme conditions form a unique community. They live in water as acidic as vinegar, are resistant to high salinity, and some also cope…
In the field of optogenetics, scientists investigate the activity of neurons in the brain using light. A team led by Prof. Dr. Ilka Diester and Dr. David Eriksson from the Optophysiology Laboratory at the University of Freiburg has developed a new method to simultaneously conduct laminar recordings, multifiber stimulations, 3D optogenetic stimulation, connectivity inference, and behavioral quantification on brains. Their results are presented in Nature Communications. “Our work paves the way for large-scale photo-recording and controlled interrogation of fast neural…
Creating a virtual reality classroom … School-age children could one day take a class on the moon — with the help of virtual reality, that is. With a $1 million National Science Foundation grant, a multi-university team of researchers will work to expand the possibilities of VR-based education over wireless networks. Led by Bin Li, Penn State associate professor of electrical engineering, the researchers will develop and implement a virtual reality system to create a personalized, collaborative VR platform for…
Collaboration achieves milestone with successful accelerator experiment. Molybdenum (Mo-99) plays a seminal role in the diagnosis of cancer and other diseases. After a few hours, the radioisotope decays to produce Technetium-99m, which is used in the imaging procedures needed to examine millions of people around the world every year. The current fission-based process has many challenges like the aging reactors and the environmental impact of the process. That is why researchers are searching for alternative methods of production. At the…
Researchers at TU Graz have modelled an AI system for automotive radar sensors that filters out interfering signals caused by other radar sensors and dramatically improves object detection. Now the system is to be made more robust to weather and environmental influences as well as new types of interference. In order for driving assistance and safety systems in modern cars to perceive their environment and function reliably in all conceivable situations, they have to rely on sensors such as cameras,…
Space travel can be agonizingly slow: For example, the New Horizons probe took almost 10 years to reach Pluto. Traveling to Proxima Centauri b, the closest habitable planet to Earth, would require thousands of years with even the biggest rockets. Now, researchers calculate in ACS’ Nano Letters that low-power lasers on Earth could launch and maneuver small probes equipped with silicon or boron nitride sails, propelling them to much faster speeds than rocket engines. Instead of catching wind, like the sails on…
While there is currently no cure for blindness, a first-of-its-kind artificial vision system has undergone its first successful implantation, bringing with it the potential to restore partial vision to people who have lost their sight. The Intracortical Visual Prosthesis (ICVP), an implant that bypasses the retina and optic nerves to connect directly to the brain’s visual cortex, has been successfully surgically implanted in the ICVP study’s first participant at Rush University Medical Center this week. This surgery is part of…
New proof-of-concept study reveals a way to make ‘universal’ organs that could be used in all recipients regardless of blood type. A study published in Science Translational Medicine performed at the Latner Thoracic Surgery Research Laboratories and UHN’s Ajmera Transplant Centre has proved that it is possible to convert blood type safely in donor organs intended for transplantation. This finding is an important step towards creating universal type O organs, which would significantly improve fairness in organ allocation and decrease mortality…
How fat cells in the skin help fight acne. Acne is among the most common skin diseases in the United States, according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, affecting up to 50 million Americans each year. It is also among the least studied. It’s known that hair follicles assist in the development of a pimple, but new research suggests the skin cells outside of these hair follicles play a larger role. The findings published in the February 16, 2022…
… by which the bacterium Legionella pneumophila regulates the immune response of its host cells. Legionellosis or Legionnaires’ disease affected more than 1 800 people in France in 2019 and caused 160 deaths. This emerging disease is caused by Legionella pneumophila, an environmental bacterium that thrives in hot water systems. Researchers from the Institut Pasteur, the CNRS, the University of Paris have discovered a mechanism that allows Legionella pneumophila to target the immune response of the cells it infects by…
Researchers have observed extremely high rates of melting at the bottom of the Greenland Ice Sheet, caused by huge quantities of meltwater falling from the surface to the base. As the meltwater falls, energy is converted into heat in a process like the hydroelectric power generated by large dams. An international team of scientists, led by the University of Cambridge, found that the effect of meltwater descending from the surface of the ice sheet to the bed – a kilometre…
Altered sensory processing of communication signals. For a long time it has been assumed that difficulties in processing communication signals in autism occur at the level of the cerebral cortex or structures in the brain associated with emotion processing. Neuroscientists at Technische Universität Dresden have now shown that adults with autism have altered processing of auditory communication signals already in the subcortical auditory pathway – a structure that connects the ears with the cerebral cortex. Their findings have been recently…
University of Jena biologists discover in fossils earliest proof of cooperative behaviour in ants. An international research team led by biologists from Friedrich Schiller University Jena has discovered material evidence that ants already lived in a special social system based on the division of labour more than 100 million years ago. Ants live in states organised according to the division of tasks. There are three castes, each of which has a different role: the queen lays eggs and the males…
A COVID-19 risk variant inherited from Neandertals reduces a person’s risk of contracting HIV by 27 percent. The genetic variants we are born with can increase or decrease our risk of falling seriously ill with COVID-19. The major genetic risk variant for severe COVID-19, one we inherited from Neandertals, is surprisingly common. This raises the question whether it may actually be of advantage to carry this variant. A study by Hugo Zeberg, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for…
An international team of scientists at the European XFEL has taken a snapshot of a cyclic molecule using a novel imaging method. Researchers from the European XFEL, DESY, Universität Hamburg and the Goethe University Frankfurt and other partners used the world’s largest X-ray laser to explode the molecule iodopyridine in order to construct an image of the intact molecule from the resulting fragments. (Nature Physics, DOI 10.1038/s41567-022-01507-0). Exploding a photo subject in order to take its picture? An international research…
New findings enable first direct, real-time images of radiation-sensitive soft nanomaterials in organic solvents. With highly specialized instruments, we can see materials on the nanoscale – but we can’t see what many of them do. That limits researchers’ ability to develop new therapeutics and new technologies that take advantage of their unusual properties. Now, a new method developed by researchers at Northwestern University is using Monte Carlo simulations to extend the capabilities of transmission electron microscopy and answer fundamental questions…
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