Niemann-Pick disease type C, long thought to be tied to cholesterol metabolism, may eventually be treated with immune inhibitors. UT Southwestern researchers have identified an immune protein tied to the rare neurodegenerative condition known as Niemann-Pick disease type C. The finding, made in mouse models and published online in Nature, could offer a powerful new therapeutic target for Niemann-Pick disease type C, a condition that was identified more than a century ago but still lacks effective treatments. “Niemann-Pick disease has…
For the first time an autonomously flying quadrotor has outperformed two human pilots in a drone race. The success is based on a novel algorithm that was developed by researchers of the University of Zurich. It calculates time-optimal trajectories that fully consider the drones’ limitations. To be useful, drones need to be quick. Because of their limited battery life they must complete whatever task they have – searching for survivors on a disaster site, inspecting a building, delivering cargo –…
The fully autonomous, mobile charging robot finds its way independently to the parked electric vehicle (EV) and supplies it with energy. The prototype developed by TU Graz and the Austrian companies ALVERI and ARTI Robots is intended to contribute to the widespread use of e-mobility. It sounds convenient. The EV reports the need for charging and a mobile robot sets out to supply the parked car with energy – completely independently and without human intervention. The search for a charging…
With two of the most powerful radio telescopes on Earth, an MPIfR-led team of researchers created the most sensitive maps of the radio emission of large parts of the Northern Galactic plane so far. The data were taken with the VLA (New Mexico) in two different configurations and the Effelsberg telescope. This is covering all angular scales down to 1.5 arc-seconds, the apparent size of a tennis ball on the ground seen from a flying plane. Contrary to previous surveys,…
Drugs must be safe not just for the patients; in the case of pregnant patients, drugs must also be safe for the unborn children still in the womb. Therefore, at an early stage in the development of new medicines, candidate substances are tested in the Petri dish on embryonic stem cells from mouse cell lines. This is to avoid that an embryo-damaging effect would only be noticed at a later stage during tests with pregnant mice. However, these cell culture…
The breakthrough could have wide-reaching implications in quantum information, cryptography, and energy harvesting, according to a new study. A team of scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory propose that modulated quantum metasurfaces can control all properties of photonic qubits, a breakthrough that could impact the fields of quantum information, communications, sensing and imaging, as well as energy and momentum harvesting. The results of their study were released yesterday in the journal Physical Review Letters, published by the American Physical Society….
The oil industry, pharmaceutical companies and bioreactor manufacturers all face one common enemy: bubbles. Bubbles can form during the manufacturing or transport of various liquids, and their formation and rupture can cause significant issues in product quality. Inspired by these issues and the puzzling physics behind bubbles, an international scientific collaboration was born. Stanford University chemical engineer Gerald Fuller along with his PhD students Aadithya Kannan and Vinny Chandran Suja, as well as visiting PhD student Daniele Tammaro from the…
A new USC study of a common, yet poorly understood type of white blood cell reveals the immune cell’s response to pathogens differs greatly by sex and by age. In this mouse study, males proved much more susceptible to a condition called sepsis than females. However, the scientists also found that the female disease-defense system is hardly perfect; their system changes with age to become nearly as harmful as the males’. Those are the key findings in a study that…
The valence of Mn changes from 4 to 3 under various conditions. Professor Hiromi Nakano of Toyohashi University of Technology used a material with a unique periodical structure (smart material: Li-M-Ti-O [M = Nb or Ta]) as a host material to synthesize new Mn4+-activated phosphors that exhibit red light emissions at 685 nm when excited at 493 nm. Because the valence of the Mn ions in the material changes from Mn4+ to Mn3+ according to the sintering temperature, composition, and…
As multicellular life relies on cell-cell interactions, it is not surprising that this is not always peaceful: cells with higher fitness eliminate cells with lower fitness through cell competition. Cell competition has emerged as a quality control mechanism and occurs when cells differ, genetically or otherwise, from each other. In mammals, the process of cell competition has been observed e.g., in cancer, during organ homeostasis, and during development as a process to select the fittest cells in the embryo and…
Stronger than steel, tougher than Kevlar… Artificially designed, amyloid-silk hybrid protein developed in Zhang lab even outperforms some spider silks. Spider silk is said to be one of the strongest, toughest materials on the Earth. Now engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have designed amyloid silk hybrid proteins and produced them in engineered bacteria. The resulting fibers are stronger and tougher than some natural spider silks. Their research was published in the journal ACS Nano. To be precise, the…
Fraunhofer IWS evaluates thousand times faster beam shaping. Laser experts from Saxony and Israel are jointly testing a novel laser for industrial use at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS in Dresden. The system is based on the “Coherent Beam Combining” (CBC) method, which is still new for high-power lasers. The 13-kilowatt laser can generate different energy distribution patterns particularly quickly during operation and thus process even demanding high-tech materials very precisely and quickly. The Fraunhofer researchers…
ASTM Awards Contract to Fraunhofer ILT. The Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT has received an award for decades of development in the field of additive manufacturing: The Aachen-based institute won a competition conducted by ASTM International and is now working on a project towards standardization of machine condition monitoring in laser beam powder bed fusion (LB-PBF). It is focusing on selecting and qualifying imaging sensor technology that can be used to specifically monitor the condition of LB-PBF systems. Finally,…
As the world warms, sweeping changes in marine nutrients seem like an expected consequence of increased ocean temperatures. However, the reality is more complicated. New research suggests that processes below the ocean surface may be controlling what is happening above. Plankton are some of the most numerous and important organisms in the ocean. The balance of chemical elements inside them varies and is critical to shaping many marine processes, including the food web and the global carbon cycle. Temperature has…
Linear molecules can capture and bind free electrons through the permanent dipole moment interaction. Physicists from the University of Innsbruck have achieved laboratory confirmation of the existence of dipole-bound states. Such states can form an intermediate step in the creation of negatively charged molecules and explain the existence of negative ions in interstellar clouds in space. Interstellar clouds are the birthplaces of new stars, but they also play an important role in the origins of life in the Universe through…
Ten years of data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory combined with numerical models reveal the deep low musical notes of the Sun. These motions were measured by analyzing 10 years of observations from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Using computer models, the scientists have shown that the newly discovered oscillations are resonant modes and owe their existence to the Sun’s differential rotation. The oscillations will help establish novel ways to probe the Sun’s interior and obtain information about our star’s…
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