Photosynthesis is a process in plants and algae that has become established and constantly adapted over the last three billion years. In crops, however, researchers assume that it still does not run efficiently, so they could further improve this important process and thus increase the yield of crops. A role model could be algae, which have adapted to very extreme locations in many cases. However, it has hardly been possible to analyse them in detail until now. A new method…
Extensive metagenomic studies provide detailed insights into microbial communities and their ecological functions a team of scientists of the universities of Oldenburg and Göttingen reports. At first glance, the open ocean seems to be a uniform habitat: Water as far as the eye can see. A research team from the universities of Oldenburg and Göttingen has now been able to show on the basis of extensive data that communities of microbes, so-called prokaryotes, nevertheless differ regionally in the Atlantic Ocean…
Insufficiently considered carbon stocks in very old sediments are released as greenhouse gases / publication in ‘Frontiers in Earth Science’. Thawing permafrost in the Arctic could be emitting greenhouse gases from previously unaccounted-for carbon stocks, fuelling global warming. That is the result of a study conducted by a team of geologists led by Professor Dr Janet Rethemeyer at the University of Cologne’s Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, together with colleagues from the University of Hamburg and the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam…
In both the Arctic and Antarctic, the contamination with hazardous chemicals has been increasing. The German Environment Agency (UBA) and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon together hosted the workshop „Act now – Legacy and Emerging Contaminants in Polar Regions“. On January 25th and January 26th, experts from four continents met and discussed potential impacts of legacy and new hazardous chemi-cals, which accumulate in snow, ice and wildlife. Today, we live in the “Chemical Anthropocene” and our society, the environment and human health…
Contrary to previous belief, some blood cells stay in tissues for years. Human immune cells not only circulate in the blood, but can also occupy certain tissues and sometimes remain there for years. A research team led by immunologist Christina Zielinski discovered this phenomenon by examining patient samples after stem cell transplantation. In addition, the researchers were able to characterize the special properties of tissue-resident immune cells in more detail. The results were published in Science Immunology. When pathogens enter…
It’s the front line of climate change and could hold the key to predicting global sea level rise, but what goes on at the underwater face of Greenland’s glaciers is a mystery to science. That could change in 2023 with a bold new mission led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin that will explore three of Greenland’s glaciers with a submersible robot. The voyage will be the first time Greenland’s glaciers — which make up the world’s…
Recently, the research team led by Prof. XU Guosheng from Institute of Plasma Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences demonstrated a novel “two-step” magnet design strategy to design advanced stellarator with standardized permanent magnet blocks and simple coils. The related achievement was published on Cell Reports Physical Science. In the recent two years, permanent magnet was introduced to help simplify the complicated 3D coils of the stellarators and some designs have been proposed. However, the previous magnet…
New method from Clemson University researcher, enabled by Frontera supercomputer, helps explain role of phonons in copper-based superconductivity. Researchers have known about high-temperature superconducting copper-based materials, or cuprates, since the 1980s. Below a certain temperature (approximately -130 degree Celsius), electrical resistance vanishes from these materials and magnetic flux fields are expelled. However, the basis for that superconductivity continues to be debated and explored. “It has been widely accepted that traditional superconductors result from electrons interacting with phonons, where the phonons…
The detection and quantification of cancer-associated molecular biomarkers in body fluids, or liquid biopsies, prove minimally invasive in early cancer diagnostics. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed an approach that accelerates the detection of cancer biomarkers in samples taken at the time and place of patient care. The study, published in ACS Nano, focused on the detection of a group of molecular biomarkers called microRNAs (miRNAs), small, single-stranded and noncoding RNAs that play important roles in gene…
Researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stanford University have fabricated a material for computer components that enable the commercial viability of computers that mimic the human brain. Electrochemical random access (ECRAM) memory components made with 2D titanium carbide showed outstanding potential for complementing classical transistor technology, and contributing toward commercialization of powerful computers that are modeled after the brain’s neural network. Such neuromorphic computers can be thousands times more energy efficient than today’s computers. These advances in computing…
Scientists repeatedly check the weather forecasts as they prepare aircraft for flight and perform last-minute checks on science instruments. There’s a large winter storm rolling in, but that’s exactly what these storm-chasing scientists are hoping for. The team is tracking storms across the Midwest and Eastern United States in two NASA planes equipped with scientific instruments to help understand the inner workings of winter storms as they form and develop. The team is flying two aircraft to investigate winter storms,…
Scientists identify key features in microbes that predict how warming affects carbon dioxide emissions. The Science Microbes play an important role in climate because they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when they eat. Bacteria and their main predators, protists, account for more than 40 times the biomass of all animals on Earth. As a result, they have a huge effect on carbon dioxide emissions. However, predicting the size of that effect and how global warming will affect microbial carbon…
Mass-producing nanoribbons for cutting-edge electronics and catalysts. Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have succeeded in using nanowires of a transition-metal chalcogenide to make atomically thin “nanoribbons”. Bundles of nanowires were exposed to a gas of chalcogen atoms and heat which helped merge the threads into narrow strips. Nanoribbons are highly sought after for sophisticated electronic devices; given the scalability of the method, the team hopes it will see widespread use in the industrial production of cutting-edge materials. Materials science in the…
Two-dimensional materials are incredibly thin. Typically only an atom thick, 2D materials exhibit highly desirable properties for advanced technologies, such as flexibility, superconductivity and more. Made from carefully transitioning individual components from gas or vapor to crystalline solids, such materials and the mechanisms by which they become imbued with such characteristics are still shrouded in mystery. Now, through a novel monitoring and analysis method, researchers led by Toshiaki Kato at Tohoku University have revealed a critical mechanism in the development…
Burning plasma achieved in inertial fusion experiments for the first time. For more than 60 years, scientists have sought to understand and control the process of fusion, a quest to harness the vast amounts of energy released when nuclei in fuel come together. A paper published today in the journal Nature describes recent experiments that have achieved a burning plasma state in fusion, helping steer fusion research closer than it has ever been to its ultimate goal: a self-sustaining, controlled…
USC’s recently launched Center for Neuronal Longevity brings together a multidisciplinary team to address unmet needs in vision loss and other neurological diseases. Could a new paradigm in digital health treat blinding disorders and possibly also be a conduit for treating other parts of the brain? A multi-disciplinary team of world-renowned researchers at USC are exploring this exciting possibility. Building on decades of knowledge, the success of the world’s first FDA-approved retinal implant to restore sight to the blind, and…
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