NIAID research suggests protective effects of vaccination remain intact. WHAT: When variants of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) emerged in late 2020, concern arose that they might elude protective immune responses generated by prior infection or vaccination, potentially making re-infection more likely or vaccination less effective. To investigate this possibility, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues analyzed blood cell samples from 30 people who had…
Technological progress is not possible without raw materials from mines – e-mobility or digitalization come to mind. However, in order to minimize the subsequent ecological damages of mining, a consortium led by Fraunhofer IKTS puts efficient technologies for treating mine and mining waters to the test. These are intended to purify contaminated water, so that it can be used as process water and additional recyclables can be recovered. For pilot tests under real conditions, the research association secured itself access…
Scientists find evidence that antibody-based treatments in clinical trials for neurodegenerative diseases may trigger an inflammatory response in human brain immune cells, eroding their positive effects. A team led by scientists at Scripps Research has made a discovery suggesting that experimental antibody therapies for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s have an unintended adverse effect–brain inflammation–that may have to be countered if these treatments are to work as intended. Experimental antibody treatments for Parkinson’s target abnormal clumps of the protein alpha-synuclein, while experimental…
New research provides insights into the process of diffusion in living systems, with implications from novel active coatings to understanding how pathogens are cleared from lungs. A drop of food coloring slowly spreading in a glass of water is driven by a process known as diffusion. While the mathematics of diffusion have been known for many years, how this process works in living organisms is not as well understood. Now, a study published in Nature Communications provides new insights on…
UVS images faint auroral rings that likely originate at edge of gas giant’s magnetosphere. The SwRI-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) orbiting Jupiter aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft has detected new faint aurora features, characterized by ring-like emissions, which expand rapidly over time. SwRI scientists determined that charged particles coming from the edge of Jupiter’s massive magnetosphere triggered these auroral emissions. “We think these newly discovered faint ultraviolet features originate millions of miles away from Jupiter, near the Jovian magnetosphere’s boundary with the…
A team led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian has used advanced technology and analytics to map, at single-cell resolution, the cellular landscape of diseased lung tissue in severe COVID-19 and other infectious lung diseases. In the study, published online March 29 in Nature, the researchers imaged autopsied lung tissue in a way that simultaneously highlighted dozens of molecular markers on cells. Analyzing these data using novel analytical tools revealed new insights into the causes of damage in…
Fraunhofer researchers have developed an innovative process for the initial testing of sheet metal in production systems. The process involves combining tried and proven load tests with an AI software solution. Even before the first machining step, the software creates a prediction about how the material will behave during production and gauges whether it will meet quality requirements. This drastically reduces the risk of failure and amount of scrap. Sheet metal is now used as a material in practically every…
Rice University lab’s optimized flash process could reduce carbon emissions. This could be where the rubber truly hits the road. Rice University scientists have optimized a process to convert waste from rubber tires into graphene that can, in turn, be used to strengthen concrete. The environmental benefits of adding graphene to concrete are clear, chemist James Tour said. “Concrete is the most-produced material in the world, and simply making it produces as much as 9% of the world’s carbon dioxide…
Researchers from Kanazawa University fabricated a highly efficient perovskite solar cell with nearly the energy conversion efficiency of commercial silicon-based solar cells, which can be produced on a large scale. Solar cells are excellent renewable energy tools that use sunlight to drive an electrical current for power. They’ve been used to power homes since the 1980s, and their performance and production cost have improved dramatically since then. The most common solar cells, based on silicon, work well for a long…
Scientists at MIPT have found a possible explanation for the anomalously fast release of gas from nuclear fuel. Supercomputer simulations have uncovered an unexpected mechanism for accelerating the escape of gas bubbles from the uranium dioxide crystal matrix to the surface. The result points the way to eliminate the paradoxical discrepancy of several orders of magnitude between existing theoretical models and experimental results. The paper was published in the Journal of Nuclear Materials. The diffusion of gas bubbles during reactor…
For people with tooth decay, drinking a cold beverage can be agony. “It’s a unique kind of pain,” says David Clapham, vice president and chief scientific officer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). “It’s just excruciating.” Now, he and an international team of scientists have figured out how teeth sense the cold and pinpointed the molecular and cellular players involved. In both mice and humans, tooth cells called odontoblasts contain cold-sensitive proteins that detect temperature drops, the team reports…
Scientists at St. Jude are studying how signals sent from skeletal muscle affect the brain. How do different parts of the body communicate? Scientists at St. Jude are studying how signals sent from skeletal muscle affect the brain. The team studied fruit flies and cutting-edge brain cell models called organoids. They focused on the signals muscles send when stressed. The researchers found that stress signals rely on an enzyme called Amyrel amylase and its product, the disaccharide maltose. The scientists…
Growing cities tend to run out of land for waste management and new landfill sites. Artificial Intelligence can help city managers create more powerful long-term forecasts of solid waste volumes and landfill requirements, even with missing or inaccurate data. UJ researchers found that a 10-neuron model produced the best 30-year forecast for municipal solid waste in a growing city. All over the world, large cities are running out of space for municipal solid waste. Existing landfill sites are rapidly filling…
– expanding genome engineering … In a new publication in Nature Communications, associate professor of Plant Science at the University of Maryland Yiping Qi continues to innovate genome editing and engineering in plants, with the ultimate goal of improving the efficiency of food production. His recent work contributes six novel variants of CRISPR-Cas12a that have never before been proven in plants, testing them first in rice as a major global crop. In addition to allowing for a much broader scope…
During drought, plants use a signalling molecule known from animals to limit their water loss. The molecule provides them with a kind of memory of how dry the day was. “I‘ve been studying how plants regulate their water balance for over 35 years. To find a completely new and unexpected way for saving water has certainly been one of the most surprising discoveries in my life.” So says Professor Rainer Hedrich, plant scientist and biophysicist from Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in…
How mathematical methods from nonlinear algebra ensure an effective handling of huge amounts of data. The constant creation of information and its corresponding data are one of the hallmarks of the 21st century. A newly founded Emmy Noether Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences focuses on the interpretation, effective handling and usage of these huge amounts of data. By applying mathematical theories and developing appropriate software, the scientists aim to contribute to solving complex…
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