A peptide sensor to detect water-soluble polymers in wastewater, a major contributor to pollution on par with microplastics, has been developed by scientists from Tokyo Institute of Technology. The new technique takes advantage of the bonding that occurs between peptides and different polymers to train a machine learning algorithm that can both identify and quantify a large number of pollutants in a single solution. From dying coral reefs to diminishing fish populations, marine pollution due to plastics is a growing…
A new training programme for young researchers. PERSEPHONe has received funding as part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme in the framework of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). A new training programme for young researchers has started: PERSEPHONe (PERovskite SEmiconductors for PHOtoNics). It is a joint research training and doctoral programme, implemented by a partnership of highly ranked universities, research institutions and industrial research partners spread over 6 different countries. The project will involve 14 Early Stage Researchers, who have…
Researchers take a granular look at global inputs and impacts of human wastewater in coastal ecosystems. The tendency for most of us when it comes to human wastewater is out of sight, out of mind. Rarely do we consider what happens after we flush that toilet or turn off that tap. However, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have turned their attention and considerable computational power to the subject and its impacts on global coastal ecosystems. The results aren’t pretty, but…
When crucial connections are missing. Research team led by University of Göttingen investigates the importance of “tight junctions” for cell movement. The ability of cells to move together in harmony is crucial for numerous biological processes in our body, for example wound healing, or the healthy development of an organism. This movement is made possible by the connections between individual cells. These connections, in turn, are established by various protein molecules which transfer the necessary forces and information between neighbouring…
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a scalable, low-cost method to improve the joining of materials in solid-state batteries, resolving one of the big challenges in the commercial development of safe, long-lived energy storage systems. Solid-state batteries incorporate a safer, fast-charging architecture featuring a solid-state electrolyte versus the liquid electrolytes in today’s lithium-ion batteries. A successful solid-state commercial battery system could provide at least two times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries in a…
The project “Drilling Overdeepened Alpine Valleys (DOVE)”, part of the “International Continental Scientific Drilling Program” (ICDP), aims to reconstruct the spatial and temporal climate development during the ice ages up to 2.6 million years ago and show their influence on the landscape development in the entire Alpine region. To this end, the Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics (LIAG), in cooperation with the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and the Geological Survey in Freiburg (LGRB), carried out three research boreholes in…
MHH cardiology investigates the effect of digitoxin. Researchers include the 1000th patient in multicentre study. Can digitoxin, an active ingredient from foxglove leaves, help patients with heart failure? Many things point to this, but it has not yet been scientifically investigated and proven. Researchers have been investigating this question since 2015 in the large-scale DIGIT-HF study. The study, which involves 50 centres in Germany, Austria and now also Serbia, is coordinated by the Department of Cardiology and Angiology at Hannover…
The Snowman Nebula is an emission nebula that resides in the constellation Puppis in the southern sky, about 6,000 light-years away from Earth. Emission nebulae are diffuse clouds of gas that have become so charged by the energy of nearby massive stars that they glow with their own light. The radiation from these massive stars strips electrons from the nebula’s hydrogen atoms in a process called ionization. As the energized electrons revert from their higher-energy state to a lower-energy state,…
The new science of heart health uses AI and algorithms to prevent heart attacks, strokes, and stress. When you’re staring petrified at the new Resident Evil movie, or breathlessly following along to a vintage Jane Fonda aerobics video, what happens to your blood flow? PhD candidate Joseph C. Muskat and a group from Purdue University created algorithms that model how healthy young adults respond to fear- and exercise-induced stress. The simulations allow scientists to probe parts of the cardiovascular system individually and…
A group of scientists working at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), Pune have for the first time unravelled the eclipse mechanisms for the millisecond pulsars in compact binary systems using the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT). Eclipses in millisecond pulsars have been known since the 1980’s, but the exact cause of these eclipses have not been understood till now. Devojyoti Kansabanik a Ph.D. student at NCRA is the lead author of the paper describing this work, which…
Highly sensitive and with a rapid response time, the new X-ray detector is less than 10 nanometres thick and could one day lead to real-time imaging of cellular biology. Scientists in Australia have used tin mono-sulfide (SnS) nanosheets to create the thinnest X-ray detector ever made, potentially enabling real-time imaging of cellular biology. X-ray detectors are tools that allow energy transported by radiation to be recognised visually or electronically, like medical imaging or Geiger counters. SnS has already shown great…
PNAS publication: In a laboratory experiment, MARUM researchers simulate alternative hydrocarbon formation through reduction of acetic acid. The isotopic compositions of hydrocarbon compounds are like a fingerprint. They can clearly indicate the way in which hydrocarbons like methane, ethane, propane, butane and pentane are formed. When hydrocarbons are combusted, water and carbon dioxide are produced and energy is released. Hydrocarbons, including crude oil and natural gas, are formed over geological time periods under high temperatures and pressures, and researchers can…
An INRS team succeeds in measuring temperature in 2D, without contact, with an ultrafast single-shot camera. A new imaging technique, developed by the teams of Professors Jinyang Liang and Fiorenzo Vetrone at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), can measure temperature in 2D, without contact, and in just a snap. The results of their research were published in the journal Nature Communications. This accurate real-time temperature detection could one day improve photothermal therapy and help in the early…
Scientists at UNIGE show that during development, the different populations of neurons needed for connections between brain areas share similar genetic programs, but which unfold at different speeds. The cerebral cortex, located at the surface of the brain, handles the cognitive, language, and complex functions that allow us to represent the world or project ourselves into the future. By being able to categorize and associate the stimuli it receives from our five senses, the cortex links this information together to…
Researchers built an open source room-temperature control system for superconducting quantum processors. A team of physicists and engineers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) successfully demonstrated the feasibility of low-cost and high-performance radio frequency modules for qubit controls at room temperature. They built a series of compact radio frequency (RF) modules that mix signals to improve the reliability of control systems for superconducting quantum processors. Their tests proved that using modular design methods reduces the cost and size of…
… for Florida Department of Transportation. Resulting platform will enable real-time, safety-critical data analysis, dissemination. Southwest Research Institute is leading an $8 million project to develop a data exchange platform enabling the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to analyze road conditions in real-time and communicate important travel information to the traveling public, state/local government entities, private sector partners and other stakeholders. In addition to real-time analysis, the platform will also support analysis of long-term historic data enabling data-driven infrastructure investments…
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