Coral reefs provide shelter, sustenance and stability to a range of organisms, but these vital ecosystems would not exist if not for the skeletal structure created by stony corals. Now, KAUST scientists together with an international team have revealed the underlying genetic story of how corals evolved from soft-bodied organisms to build the myriad calcified structures we see today. “While the processes involved in coral calcification are well understood, it is less clear how corals’ ability to grow calcium carbonate…
Analysis reveals complex forest connections that underscore diversity’s role in protecting ecosystem health. As the health of ecosystems in regions around the globe declines due to a variety of rising threats, scientists continue to seek clues to help prevent future collapses. A new analysis by scientists from around the world, led by a researcher at the University of California San Diego, is furthering science’s understanding of species interactions and how diversity contributes to the preservation of ecosystem health. A coalition…
Scientists at the University of Nottingham have developed an ultrasonic imaging system, which can be deployed on the tip of a hair-thin optical fibre, and will be insertable into the human body to visualise cell abnormalities in 3D. The new technology produces microscopic and nanoscopic resolution images that will one day help clinicians to examine cells inhabiting hard-to-reach parts of the body, such as the gastrointestinal tract, and offer more effective diagnoses for diseases ranging from gastric cancer to bacterial…
An ancient immune response regulates the development of beneficial symbioses … Microalgae of the dinoflagellate group are known for their ability to survive in other animal cells. These tiny single-cell organisms have engaged in mutually beneficial relationships with corals since primeval times. By passing on critical nutrients to their hosts, dinoflagellates allow corals to thrive even in barren areas. A research team from the Centre for Organismal Studies (COS) of Heidelberg University recently discovered that such symbioses within the cell…
Hydrogen in hybrid perovskites: Researchers identify the defect that limits solar-cell performance. Researchers in the materials department in UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering have uncovered a major cause of limitations to efficiency in a new generation of solar cells. Various possible defects in the lattice of what are known as hybrid perovskites had previously been considered as the potential cause of such limitations, but it was assumed that the organic molecules (the components responsible for the “hybrid” moniker) would…
Improving the Production of Battery Cells … Setting up high-performance production centers for battery cells is high on the current agenda of the automotive industry. The Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen is proactively working towards this goal: In the BMBF project “HoLiB” and the AiF project “MikroPuls”, for example, scientists from Aachen are investigating how laser technology can be used to economically contact and join dissimilar materials. The trend away from the combustion engine to the electric…
A new design of ultra-small silicon chip called a multiplexer will effectively manage terahertz waves which are key to the next generation of communications: 6G and beyond. Researchers from Osaka University, Japan and the University of Adelaide, Australia have worked together to produce the new multiplexer made from pure silicon for terahertz-range communications in the 300-GHz band. “In order to control the great spectral bandwidth of terahertz waves, a multiplexer, which is used to split and join signals, is critical…
Fraunhofer IKTS acquires the transparent ceramics division and the PERLUCOR brand from the ceramics company CeramTec-ETEC. An R&D center for transparent ceramics will be set up at the IKTS site in Hermsdorf. As of April 1, 2021, the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS will take over the transparent ceramics division of the company CeramTec-ETEC, known for its brand name PERLUCOR®. The institute thus significantly expands its existing competencies in the development of transparent ceramics. The technical infrastructure…
Removing pathogens from drinking water is especially difficult when the germs are too tiny to be caught by conventional filters. Researchers at Empa and Eawag are developing new materials and processes to free water from pathogenic microorganisms such as viruses Water is life, biology teaches us. Reality teaches us something different: Water contaminated with pathogens causes hundreds of thousands of deaths each year in places where water treatment is lacking or poorly functioning. To put an end to this, the…
A genetically encoded sensor to detect hallucinogenic compounds has been developed by researchers at the University of California, Davis. Named psychLight, the sensor could be used in discovering new treatments for mental illness, in neuroscience research and to detect drugs of abuse. The work is published April 28 in the journal Cell. Compounds related to psychedelic drugs such as LSD and dimethyltryptamine (DMT) show great promise for treating disorders such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance use disorder. These…
Researchers demonstrate that magnetism and superconductivity can coexist in graphene, opening a pathway towards graphene-based topological qubits. In the quantum realm, electrons can group together to behave in interesting ways. Magnetism is one of these behaviors that we see in our day-to-day life, as is the rarer phenomena of superconductivity. Intriguingly, these two behaviors are often antagonists, meaning that the existence of one of them often destroys the other. However, if these two opposite quantum states are forced to coexist…
The acidity of molecules can be easily determined, but until now it was not possible to measure this important property for atoms on a surface. With a new microscopy technique from the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), this has now been achieved. The degree of acidity or alkalinity of a substance is crucial for its chemical behavior. The decisive factor is the so-called proton affinity, which indicates how easily an entity accepts or releases a single proton. While it…
Like a chameleon of the night sky, the Moon often changes its appearance. It might look larger, brighter or redder, for example, due to its phases, its position in the solar system or smoke in Earth’s atmosphere. (It is not made of green cheese, however.) Another factor in its appearance is the size and shape of moon dust particles, the small rock grains that cover the moon’s surface. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are now…
The ability to turn on and off a physical process with just one photon is a fundamental building block for quantum photonic technologies. Realizing this in a chip-scale architecture is important for scalability, which amplifies a breakthrough by City College of New York researchers led by physicist Vinod Menon. They’ve demonstrated for the first time the use of “Rydberg states” in solid state materials (previously shown in cold atom gases) to enhance nonlinear optical interactions to unprecedented levels in solid…
Scientists characterized how these states depend on local chemical composition, narrowing the search for where to look compositionally to enable quantum computing. Scientists characterized how the electronic states in a compound containing iron, tellurium, and selenium depend on local chemical concentrations. They discovered that superconductivity (conducting electricity without resistance), along with distinct magnetic correlations, appears when the local concentration of iron is sufficiently low; a coexisting electronic state existing only at the surface (topological surface state) arises when the concentration…
The High-Performance Center Medical and Pharmaceutical Engineering was launched. With a focus on personalized implants and respiratory systems as well as individualized pharmaceutical production, the goal is to create a platform for research and the transfer of innovations into patient care. For this reason the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine ITEM in Hannover, the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST in Braunschweig and the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Individualized and Cell-Based Medical Engineering IMTE in…
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