Metal halide perovskites have been under intense investigation over the last decade, due to the remarkable rise in their performance in optoelectronic devices such as solar cells or light-emitting diodes. The most efficient devices, fabricated in the so called ‘standard architecture’ commonly include processing steps performed at high temperature, thus increasing their energy payback time and limiting the possibility to integrate them in emerging applications such as flexible and wearable electronics. An alternative device architecture – termed the ‘inverted architecture’…
An international group of researchers led by the Paul Scherrer Institute and the Heriot-Watt University has carried out in-depth analyses of the climate impact of blue hydrogen. This is produced from natural gas, with the CO2 resulting from the process captured and stored. The study, published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal Sustainable Energy & Fuels, concludes that blue hydrogen can play a positive role in the energy transition – under certain conditions. Hydrogen is an energy carrier of…
Researchers from Uppsala University have been able to document and visualise hearing loss-associated genes in the human inner ear, in a unique collaboration study between otosurgeons and geneticists. The findings illustrate that discrete subcellular structures in the human organ of hearing, the cochlea, are involved in the variation of risk of age-related hearing loss in the population. The study is published in BMC Medicine. Hearing loss is a potentially debilitating condition that affects more than 1.23 billion people worldwide. The…
A single-cell map of corn’s root reveals a regulator of cellular diversity. In assembling cellular jigsaw puzzle, researchers uncover genetic instructions for cell types that help crops tolerate drought and flooding. A new study uses novel single-cell profiling techniques to reveal how plants add new cell layers that help them resist climate stressors like drought or flooding. The research focuses on corn—a critically important crop around the world—in an effort to create a cell-by-cell map of the plant’s root system,…
Engineers at Rice lead study of how polystyrene contributes to crisis. The Styrofoam container that holds your takeout cheeseburger may contribute to the population’s growing resistance to antibiotics. According to scientists at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering, discarded polystyrene broken down into microplastics provides a cozy home not only for microbes and chemical contaminants but also for the free-floating genetic materials that deliver to bacteria the gift of resistance. A study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials describes how the ultraviolet aging…
Physicists from Exeter and Trondheim have developed a theory describing how space reflection and time reversal symmetries can be exploited, allowing for greater control of transport and correlations within quantum materials. Two theoretical physicists, from the University of Exeter (United Kingdom) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (in Trondheim, Norway), have built a quantum theory describing a chain of quantum resonators satisfying space reflection and time reversal symmetries. They have shown how the different quantum phases of such…
For exploring materials right down to the nano-level, researchers often need to construct a complex structure to house the materials – a time-consuming and complicated process. But imagine if there was a way the structure could simply build itself? That is exactly what researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, now present in an article in the journal Nature. Their work opens up new research opportunities. Investigating nano materials can make it possible to study completely new properties and interactions….
An international team of scientists, in which researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) participate together with other institutions from Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, UK, and Mexico, has been able to measure the masses of the giant planets of the V1298 Tau system, just 20 million year old. Masses for such young giant planets had not been obtained previously, and this is the first evidence that these objects have already reached their final size at very early stages of…
As far as extrasolar planets go, ‘GJ 367 b’ is a featherweight. With half the mass of Earth, the newly discovered planet is one of the lightest among the nearly 5000 exoplanets known today. It takes the extrasolar planet approximately eight hours to orbit its parent star. With a diameter of just over 9000 kilometres, GJ 367 b is slightly larger than Mars. The planetary system is located just under 31 light years from Earth and is thus ideal for…
Light is an electromagnetic wave: it consists of oscillating electric and magnetic fields propagating through space. Every wave is characterized by its frequency, which refers to the number of oscillations per second, measured in Hertz (Hz). Our eyes can detect frequencies between 400 and 750 trillion Hz (or terahertz, THz), which define the visible spectrum. Light sensors in cell phone cameras can detect frequencies down to 300 THz, while detectors used for internet connections through optical fibers are sensitive to…
A neural network trained exclusively to predict protein shapes can also generate new ones. Just as convincing images of cats can be created using artificial intelligence, new proteins can now be made using similar tools. In a report in Nature, researchers describe the development of a neural network that “hallucinates” proteins with new, stable structures. Proteins, which are string-like molecules found in every cell, spontaneously fold into intricate three-dimensional shapes. These folded shapes are key to nearly every biological process,…
In Science Advances, scientists report successfully freeze-drying specialized liposomes that could be developed for use in future vaccines. Things that are freeze-dried: Astronaut food. Emergency rations. And, just maybe, some future COVID-19 vaccines. Freeze-drying is a method for removing water from a product. First, you freeze the item you’re trying to dehydrate, causing any water in it to become ice. Then, you remove the ice through a process called sublimation, in which ice turns directly into vapor under low pressure….
Researchers led by the University of Tsukuba present computer simulations that capture the complex dynamics of elusive neutrinos left over from the Big Bang. Current simulations of cosmic structure formation do not accurately reproduce the properties of ghost-like particles called neutrinos that have been present in the Universe since its beginning. But now, a research team from Japan has devised an approach that solves this problem. In a study published this month in SC ’21: Proceedings of the International Conference…
A team led by University of Arizona aerospace and mechanical engineers has been selected for the first round of funding from a national hypersonics consortium. The University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics awarded its first round of funding, totaling $25.5 million, to projects that advance the field of hypersonic flight, in which vehicles travel upwards of five times the speed of sound. Samy Missoum, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona, received $1.5 million to lead the development of…
An enzyme system frees sulfur from small organic compounds to make a surprising gaseous side product. The Science Researchers often observe ethylene gas in oxygen-poor environments such as certain types of soil. For decades, scientists have known that ethylene comes from microbes. But the only known natural microbial processes that produce ethylene require oxygen. So how do oxygen-poor environments contain ethylene? A team of scientists have discovered an enzyme system from bacteria that produces ethylene without oxygen, shedding light on…
Coastal organisms thrive on floating plastic debris in the “great pacific garbage patch”. Coastal plants and animals have found a new way to survive in the open ocean—by colonizing plastic pollution. A new commentary published Dec. 2 in Nature Communications reports coastal species growing on trash hundreds of miles out to sea in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, more commonly known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” “The issues of plastic go beyond just ingestion and entanglement,” said Linsey Haram,…
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