First global assessment of the extent of snow and ice cover on Earth’s surface–a critical factor cooling the planet through reflected sunlight–and its response to warming temperatures. The global cryosphere–all of the areas with frozen water on Earth–shrank by about 87,000 square kilometers (about 33,000 square miles), a area about the size of Lake Superior, per year on average, between 1979 and 2016 as a result of climate change, according to a new study. This research is the first to…
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most complex and protracted diseases of the human brain. Especially the onset of the disease proves to be extremely difficult to study. This is 15 to 30 years before patients become clinically conspicuous due to cognitive deficits, especially in the areas of language and memory. It is known that a disturbed calcium balance in neurons is present at the beginning of Alzheimer’s disease and probably contributes to the early memory failures. Professor Martin Korte…
A homemade directional antenna made of potato chip cans and two commercially available mini-computers are enough to hack Bluetooth locks made by the US manufacturer Tapplock in seconds, as proven by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology SIT in Darmstadt. The manufacturer was informed about the vulnerabilities and has since fixed them in one of its models. Cumbersome rummaging around for the bike lock or locker key is no longer necessary with a modern Bluetooth lock: You…
Hot vents in the deep sea are home to microbes that feed on ethane. They were discovered recently from scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology. Now the researchers from Bremen succeeded in finding an important component in the microbial conversion of the gas. They were able to decode the structure of the enzyme responsible for the ethane fixation. The structure highlights some common traits with the methane-fixing counterpart, but also revealed the key features for ethane specialization….
– both excited and probed by extreme ultraviolet light… MPIK physicists of the group around Christian Ott (division of Thomas Pfeifer) demonstrated for the first time an all-XUV (extreme ultraviolet) time-resolved absorption spectroscopy investigation of a small molecule: the photoinduced structural dynamics of diiodomethane. By means of the short wavelength of XUV laser pulses, individual atoms in the molecule can be addressed specifically via a well-defined electronic excitation. The experiment was performed at the free-electron laser in Hamburg (FLASH), leading…
Research and Industry Join Forces to Perform Long-Term Tests On Different System Designs. Floating photovoltaic power plants can contribute to the expansion of renewable energy without taking up land. The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, RWE Renewables and the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU) are working together to further develop this innovative technology with other partners. In the joint research project PV2Float, the partners are to test several floating PV systems with different structure designs under real…
Crystals have fascinated people through the ages. Who hasn’t admired the complex patterns of a snowflake at some point, or the perfectly symmetrical surfaces of a rock crystal The magic doesn’t stop even if one knows that all this results from a simple interplay of attraction and repulsion between atoms and electrons. A team of researchers led by Atac Imamoglu, professor at the Institute for Quantum Electronics at ETH Zurich, have now produced a very special crystal. Unlike normal crystals,…
Chip-integrated optical infrared components… Recognizing fake drugs? Testing water samples ourselves? Checking the quality of air? In the future, it could be possible to do all this using a smartphone in a quick, cost-effective and straightforward way. The process is being made possible by a spectrometer, weighing just one gram, from the Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems ENAS. The aim is to mass-produce this component for around a euro using conventional technologies. Websites sometimes offer drugs at a much…
Safe human-robot collaboration… The safety of people interacting with robots has top priority, especially when humans and robots are working side by side instead of being separated from each other by safety fencing. The Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF’s web-based design tool helps companies design their cobots. The Cobot Designer helps minimize the risk of accidents and increases employee safety. The tool is available as a free web application. Humans and robots are sharing workspace in more…
It´s a cellular process going on since one billion years, yet we are not able to replicate it, nor to fully understand it. Mitosis, the mechanism of cell division that is so important for life, involves more than 100 proteins at its core. Now, the group of Prof. Dr. Andrea Musacchio from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund has been able to fully reconstitute the engine of the mitosis machinery, called kinetochore. Being able to model a…
Max Planck researchers present a new deep neural network for predicting materials’ mechanical behaviour. Predicting the mechanical behaviour of all the systems that surround us, from vehicles and spaceships to bridges and skyscrapers, is essential for safety and design. Since more than 300 years, scientists know how to cast the underlying physics into a mathematical formulation, and thanks to technological progress a huge collection of numerical tools and methods have been developed to computationally solve the complex equations and predict…
Automated production of CFRP composite parts… Fast, lightweight and fuel efficient: RACER, the high-speed helicopter reaches flying speeds of up to 400 kilometers per hour. The components of its outer shell are made by an innovative, highly automated manufacturing process. A research team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Casting, Composite and Processing Technology IGCV developed the innovative, sustainable method together with Airbus Helicopters. At over 400 kilometers per hour, RACER — short for Rapid and Cost-Effective Rotorcraft — moves through…
Water in zeolites saves energy in the conversion of biomass into biofuel. Zeolites are extremely porous materials: Ten grams can have an internal surface area the size of a soccer field. Their cavities make them useful in catalyzing chemical reactions and thus saving energy. An international research team has now made new findings regarding the role of water molecules in these processes. One important application is the conversion of biomass into biofuel. Fuel made from biomass is considered to be…
Not only animals and humans host a complex community of microorganisms – plants do this as well. Researchers at ETH Zurich have recently published two new studies that shed light on fundamental aspects of these close – and often overlooked – relationships. Hundreds of different bacterial species live in and on leaves and roots of plants. A research team led by Julia Vorholt from the Institute of Microbiology at ETH Zurich, together with colleagues in Germany, first inventoried and categorised…
Technological breakthrough from Tel Aviv University. A scientific breakthrough: Researchers from Tel Aviv University have engineered the world’s tiniest technology, with a thickness of only two atoms. According to the researchers, the new technology proposes a way for storing electric information in the thinnest unit known to science, in one of the most stable and inert materials in nature. The allowed quantum-mechanical electron tunneling through the atomically thin film may boost the information reading process much beyond current technologies. The…
A new method for identifying quantum orbits enables photoelectron spectroscopy via tunneling ionization to provide attosecond temporal and subangstrom spatial resolution measurement of electron dynamics. Electron motion in atoms and molecules is of fundamental importance to many physical, biological, and chemical processes. Exploring electron dynamics within atoms and molecules is essential for understanding and manipulating these phenomena. Pump-probe spectroscopy is the conventional technique. The 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry provides a well-known example wherein femtosecond pumped laser pulses served to…
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