Research team from Kiel University investigates how to maintain the efficacy of available antibiotics by sequentially administering closely related agents. Public health is coming under increasing pressure worldwide due to the antibiotic crisis: the rapid increase in resistance of bacterial pathogens could mean that in the near future bacterial infections that are usually harmless will be difficult or impossible to treat. The spread of antibiotic resistance is based on the ability of pathogens to adapt quickly to the drugs. In…
Christian Luft, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Minister of Science of Schleswig-Holstein, Karin Prien, and the State Secretary for Science, Research, Equalities and District Authority of the City of Hamburg, Dr. Eva Gümbel, inaugurated the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (HIBEF) at the European XFEL in Schenefeld, near Hamburg, yesterday (31 August, 2021). Under the leadership of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in cooperation with the Hamburg research Centre DESY, HIBEF pools equipment and…
Meta-analysis shows contribution of placebo in exercise for muscle and joint pain. Prof. Daniel Belavy from the Hochschule für Gesundheit (University of Applied Sciences) in Bochum, Germany, in collaboration with an Australian research group (Dr. Clint Miller, Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia) examined how effective exercise is for musculoskeletal pain syndromes. Their findings: in a meta-analysis of 79 studies including 4719 patients, they found exercise training improves chronic pain, but that the effect is similar…
Improving projections, predictions and protection in the face of expected sea level rise. A new assessment of flood risk in Venice indicates that the impact of higher emissions on relative sea level rise during this century will be critical in planning future defence infrastructure for Venice and other coastal cities, state the authors of a new special issue published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences today. The special issue, with contributions lead by researchers from Università del Salento, ISMAR…
The entrainment of fluid near schooling, self-propelled particles can be utilized for directed transport. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS), the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Twente created a new model for a new transport mechanism on the microscale in a combined experimental and theoretical approach. They investigated small self-propelling objects, so-called micro-swimmers, and monitored a directed transport of particles in the surrounding fluid. Using this observation, they computed how a multitude of…
Research reveals how star-making pollutes the cosmos. Galaxies pollute the environment they exist in, researchers have found. A team of astronomers led by Alex Cameron and Deanne Fisher from the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) used a new imaging system on at the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii to confirm that what flows into a galaxy is a lot cleaner than what flows out. The research is published today in The Astrophysical Journal….
In their search for distant galaxies, rapidly rotating neutron stars and black holes, radio astronomers are collecting an ever-increasing amount of data. In the future, this flood of data will also be analyzed with the help of artificial intelligence. To this end, eight institutions in North Rhine-Westphalia have joined forces under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) to form the “NRW Cluster for Data-Intensive Radio Astronomy: Big Bang to Big Data”. Three Bonn-based institutions, the…
How the unity of physical and biochemical cues creates healthy organisms. New TU Dresden research group aims to uncover how stem cells respond to mechanical forces and electrical cues during the development and maintenance of the nervous and cardiovascular system. Dr. Adele Doyle, Assistant Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, joined the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (PoL) in July, 2021, to lead the research group Mechanobiology of Stem Cells at TU Dresden. Using approaches from…
Against infections, tumours and inflammations, immune cells are locally positioned as rapid reaction forces in the organs of the body. On site, they specialise and take on various tasks. When pathogens invade the human body, a rapid response is required. At the forefront of the immune response are special immune cells. They reside in various tissues such as the lungs, liver, skin and intestines, where they take up the fight against invaders at an early stage. Their name: innate lymphoid…
The Human Cell Atlas is the world’s largest, growing single-cell reference atlas. It contains references of millions of cells across tissues, organs and developmental stages. These references help physicians to understand the influences of aging, environment and disease on a cell – and ultimately diagnose and treat patients better. Yet, reference atlases do not come without challenges. Single-cell datasets may contain measurement errors (batch effect), the global availability of computational resources is limited and the sharing of raw data is…
An international team has reported in Nature the first observation of ghost polaritons, which are a new form of surface waves carrying nanoscale light strongly coupled with material oscillations and featuring highly collimated propagation properties. The research team observed these phenomena over a common material – calcite – and showed how ghost polaritons can facilitate a superior control of infrared nano-light for sensing, signal processing, energy harvesting and other technologies. In recent years, nanophotonics at infrared and terahertz frequencies has…
The National Institutes of Health has begun a clinical trial to assess the antibody response to an extra dose of an authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccine in people with autoimmune disease who did not respond to an original COVID-19 vaccine regimen. The trial also will investigate whether pausing immunosuppressive therapy for autoimmune disease improves the antibody response to an extra dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in this population. The Phase 2 trial is sponsored and funded by the National Institute…
A team studied some of the smallest particles in the Universe on the nation’s fastest computer, Summit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Science Scientists use particle accelerators to speed up electrically charged particles to nearly the speed of light. They then smash those particles together to study the new particles that form, including quarks. However, free quarks cannot be directly observed in isolation due to color confinement. This phenomenon means certain particles, including quarks and gluons, cannot be isolated….
LSU Quantum researchers rearrange photon distribution to create different light sources. For decades, scholars have believed that the quantum statistical properties of bosons are preserved in plasmonic systems, and therefore will not create different form of light. This rapidly growing field of research focuses on quantum properties of light and its interaction with matter at the nanoscale level. Stimulated by experimental work in the possibility of preserving nonclassical correlations in light-matter interactions mediated by scattering of photons and plasmons, it…
New material maintains borophene’s electronic properties, offers new advantages. For the first time, Northwestern University engineers have created a double layer of atomically flat borophene, a feat that defies the natural tendency of boron to form non-planar clusters beyond the single-atomic-layer limit. Although known for its promising electronic properties, borophene — a single-atom-layer-thick sheet of boron — is challenging to synthesize. Unlike its analog two-dimensional material graphene, which can be peeled away from innately layered graphite using something as simple…
Computational platform allows non-experts to create patient-specific, 3D models of nerves being electrically stimulated. Biomedical engineers at Duke University have developed an open-source software platform that automates 3D electrical nerve stimulation modeling. This may allow researchers to predict how specific nerves will respond to different patterns of stimulation from custom electrodes. The researchers hope the platform will help researchers create accurate models of new therapies for a variety of diseases, including diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and cardiovascular disease. Like a pacemaker…
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