Armed with a $26.5-million grant, a multi-institution collaboratory will tackle HIV in a new way. Over the last 40 years, HIV has shifted from a deadly and mysterious virus to one that can be controlled with daily drugs. But attempts to completely eliminate the virus from the bodies of people living with HIV, curing them for good, have failed. Now, with a $26.5-million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a multi-disciplinary group of researchers from institutions around the…
Researchers map the geothermal heat flow in West Antarctica; a new potential weak spot in the ice sheet’s stability is identified. Ice losses from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica are currently responsible for roughly four percent of the global sea-level rise. This figure could increase, since virtually no another ice stream in the Antarctic is changing as dramatically as the massive Thwaites Glacier. Until recently, experts attributed these changes to climate change and the fact that the glacier rests on…
Jülich researchers, together with Italian and German colleagues, have developed a particularly cost-effective infrared detector that can be easily integrated into existing camera chips and smartphones. The new sensor can make two technically important ranges of infrared radiation visible, which previously were not covered by conventional photodiodes. The findings were published in the journal ACS Photonics. The world looks much clearer in shortwave infrared, or SWIR: Cameras operating in this range of the spectrum produce images in greyscale that are…
Texas A&M researchers designed a blood vessel model that mimics its state of health and disease, paving the way for cardiovascular drug advancements with better precision. A team in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, co-led by associate professor Dr. Akhilesh Gaharwar and assistant professor Dr. Abhishek Jain, has designed a 3D-bioprinted model of a blood vessel that mimics its state of health and disease, thus paving the way for possible cardiovascular drug advancements with better precision. Vascular diseases such as…
Tandem solar cells with world-record efficiency of 29.52% could help rapidly scale up solar energy. Many countries around the world are committed to reducing emissions or reaching net-zero emissions to meet the United Nations’ climate goals of maintaining temperature increases below 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. Renewable energy technologies, particularly solar energy panels, will play a significant role in achieving these goals. To fully harness the potential of sunlight — the world’s most abundant energy resource — scientists have been…
Physicists find a way to make components for low-cost electronics using a material that’s highly rated for its performance in next-gen solar cells and LEDs. Physicists have found a way to make transistors using materials that are highly rated for their performance in next-generation solar cells and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The researchers have overcome the problem of the material’s ion content interfering with the flow of electronic current through a transistor. This breakthrough may pave the way for research into…
Research vessel SONNE starts expedition to the Benguela Upwelling System. On 20 August, the German research vessel SONNE sets off on the two-month expedition “SO285” towards South Africa and Namibia. Off the coasts of the two countries lies the Benguela Upwelling System, one of the most productive and fish-rich regions of the Atlantic Ocean. The research team on board the RV SONNE wants to find out how climate change affects the marine ecosystem in order to better assess consequences for…
Free electron laser insight… Recent research reveals a fundamental process of free electron lasing, opening new directions for the study and exploitation of laser-beam interactions. Free electron lasers (FELs) generate short-wavelength radiation with extreme brilliance on ultrafast timescales. Developed over the past three decades, FELs provide an important research tool for physics, biology, chemistry, and other areas. Unlike other synchrotron light sources, the amplification of FEL pulses comes from strong and continuous interaction of electromagnetic waves and relativistic electron beams…
When it comes to optical fibers, the underground optical cables that transmit tons of information at a time are more familiar to us. Few would ever associate optical fibers with earthquake detection. Recently, researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) successfully developed a Distributed Acoustic/Vibration Sensing (DAS/DVS) system with independent intellectual property rights. Taking advantage of the existing communication optical cables, this system can be applied to earthquake detection,…
Researchers have developed prototype technology that can double the power harvested from ocean waves, in an advance that could finally make wave energy a viable renewable alternative. The untapped potential of ocean wave energy is vast – it has been estimated that the power of coastal waves around the world each year is equivalent to annual global electricity production. But the challenges of developing technologies that can efficiently extract that natural power and withstand the harsh ocean environment have kept…
For a climate-neutral economy, every opportunity must be exploited to reduce energy requirements and use resources efficiently. Highly efficient industrial processes are a key element in this. To this end, in the R2R-Net network, 18 European partners from industry and research are further developing reel-to-reel systems and processes that are used in production in a variety of ways. Companies benefit from the expertise, the support during scale-up and ramping up of the production, and the technical exchange. On September 7,…
Expanding the possibilities with silver nanowires. Scientists improve the longevity of silver nanowires to enhance capabilities in electronic devices. Today’s nanoscale technologies are sophisticated enough to be applied in an endless number of useful devices, from sensors in touch screen devices and household appliances to wearable biosensors that can monitor chemical levels in our blood, muscle movement, breathing and pulse rate. In addition, there are technologies for precision devices such as high-resolution scanning probe microscopes which enable one to visualize…
The antiviral agent incorporates RNA-like building blocks into the genome of the virus. The United States recently secured 1.7 million doses of a compound that could help to treat Covid-19 patients. In preliminary studies, Molnupiravir reduced the transmission of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and the Julius Maximilians University Würzburg have now elucidated the underlying molecular mechanism. The antiviral agent incorporates RNA-like building blocks into the RNA genome of the virus….
Heavily enriched… The discovery of isotopes in the early 20th century marked a key moment in the history of physics and led to a much more refined understanding of the atomic nucleus. Isotopes are ‘versions’ of a given element of the periodic table that bear the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons, and therefore vary in mass. These differences in mass can radically alter certain physical properties of the atoms, such as their radioactive decay rates,…
Technique avoids RNA degradation and time-consuming extraction. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have developed a new sample preparation method to detect SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The method bypasses extraction of the virus’ genetic RNA material, simplifying sample purification and potentially reducing test time and cost. The method is the result of a collaboration among researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI), the NIH Clinical Center (CC), and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research…
SOF4 is a gas that was discovered over a hundred years ago but is rarely used because it is difficult to prepare and highly reactive. Now a collaboration of chemists including Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor John E. Moses, Nobel laureate K. Barry Sharpless and Associate Professor Peng Wu, both of Scripps Research, and Han Zuilhof of Wageningen University found a way to use the molecule safely as building blocks for new products. In a paper in Nature Chemistry, they describe a new set of modifiable…
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