EU project RENergetic: A residential area in the Belgian city of Ghent, a university campus in Poznan, Poland, a hospital in Milan: at these three locations, the EU project RENergetic is investigating how citizen energy can be successful. The University of Passau is contributing expertise on artificial intelligence and sustainability. With the “Clean Energy Package”, the European Union focuses on the citizens. The package sees them generating the energy they need themselves from renewable sources in small, self-sufficient energy communities….
An international team of researchers from the MPSD (Max Planck institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science in Hamburg, the University of Toronto (Canada), the Diamond Light Source in Oxford (UK) and the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) Hamburg has found that two of the worlds brightest light sources offer more common research possibilities than originally anticipated. Although they operate on very different timescales, synchrotrons and XFELs can produce data of equivalent…
A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Germany, from Seoul National University in Korea and from Harvard University in the US, successfully developed a predictive model and closed-loop controller of a soft robotic fish, designed to actively adjust its undulation amplitude to changing flow conditions and other external disturbances. Their work “Modeling and Control of a Soft Robotic Fish with Integrated Soft Sensing” was published in Wiley’s Advanced Intelligent Systems journal, in a…
This unusual electronic energy structure could be harnessed for technologies of interest in quantum information science and electronics. Electrons in a solid occupy distinct energy bands separated by gaps. Energy band gaps are an electronic “no man’s land,” an energy range where no electrons are allowed. Now, scientists studying a compound containing iron, tellurium, and selenium have found that an energy band gap opens at a point where two allowed energy bands intersect on the material’s surface. They observed this…
Nature study finds transform faults play active role in shaping ocean floors. Forces acting inside the Earth have been constantly reshaping the continents and ocean basins over millions of years. What Alfred Wegener published as an idea in 1915 has finally been accepted since the 1960s, providing a unifying view about our planet. The fact that the theory of plate tectonics took so long to gain acceptance had two simple reasons. First, the geological formations that are most important for…
With the new “LaserNest” desktop lasers, laser and LED specialist Omicron provides higher flexibility and usability of diode lasers within laboratories. The new laser systems developed by Omicron called “LaserNest” are a symbiosis of the proven LuxX+ diode lasers and a desktop housing. This combination is an easy to use plug & play laser light source for science and research. Fast Modulation The innovative high-performance systems are equipped with one laser module with wavelengths from the UV to the near…
Biologists from the University of Jena publish study on the relationship between flying insects and light pollution Jena, the “city of light”, has its dark sides. If you look up at the night sky from the city centre, you can only make out the brightest stars. Lighting in the streets and shop windows is too bright, obscuring the view of the night sky. However, the consequences of this “light pollution” are much more devastating for nocturnal insects. Attracted by the…
Experts explore for the first time life on the seafloor in a region formerly covered by thick ice Roughly two weeks ago, a massive iceberg calved from the Antarctic Ice Sheet. As the only research vessel nearby, the Polarstern took the opportunity to enter the area between the iceberg and the Brunt Ice Shelf. The first images from the seafloor reveal an amazing level of biodiversity in a region that was covered by thick ice for decades. The sediment samples…
− “Zip codes” for odor sensors identified A team of scientists led by Dietmar Krautwurst from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich has now identified address codes in odorant receptor proteins for the first time. Similar to zip codes, the codes ensure that the sensor proteins are targeted from inside the cell to the cell surface, where they begin their work as odorant detectors. The new findings could contribute to the development of…
The electron is one of the fundamental particles in nature we read about in school. Its behavior holds clues to new ways to store digital data. In a study published in Nano Letters, physicists from Michigan Technological University explore alternative materials to improve capacity and shrink the size of digital data storage technologies. Ranjit Pati, professor of physics at Michigan Tech, led the study and explains the physics behind his team’s new nanowire design. “Thanks to a property called spin,…
Cancer cells have evolved mechanisms to escape the body’s immune defense. Agents that prevent immune escape are attractive targets for the development of new cancer therapies. A group of scientists led by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Herbert Waldmann and Dr. Slava Ziegler at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology (MPI) in Dortmund has now developed a new cell-based test system to identify immunoregulatory modulators. Screening a library of over 150,000 substances revealed several potent substances with unprecedented structure. Our…
The flying observatory SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy) has successfully completed its observation flights from Cologne Bonn Airport. On board, amongst others, were scientists from the University of Cologne and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, who gained new insights into the formation of new stars during the observations. SOFIA is a Boeing 747SP with a 2.7-m-diameter telescope on board, built for astronomical observations from the infrared to the submillimetre wavelength range. From 4 February to…
Layers of ice and rock obviate the need for “habitable zone” and shield life against threats. One of the most profound discoveries in planetary science over the past 25 years is that worlds with oceans beneath layers of rock and ice are common in our solar system. Such worlds include the icy satellites of the giant planets, like Europa, Titan and Enceladus, and distant planets like Pluto. In a report presented at the 52nd annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference…
Streetlights alter the number of flower visits by insects not just at night, but also during the daytime. Artificial light at night thus indirectly affects the entire plant-pollinator community, with unknown consequences for functioning of the ecosystem, as researchers from the University of Zurich and Agroscope have proven for the first time. The use of artificial light at night around the world has increased enormously in recent years, causing adverse effects on the survival and reproduction of nocturnal organisms. Artificial…
An international team of interdisciplinary researchers has identified mathematical metrics to characterize the fragility of financial markets. Their paper “Network geometry and market instability“ sheds light on the higher-order architecture of financial systems and allows analysts to identify systemic risks like market bubbles or crashes. With the recent rush of small investors into so-called meme stocks and reemerging interest in cryptocurrencies talk of market instability, rising volatility, and bursting bubbles is surging. However, “traditional economic theories cannot foresee events like…
The first images of mid-infrared optical waves compressed 1,000 times captured using a highly sensitive scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope. KAIST researchers and their collaborators at home and abroad have successfully demonstrated a new methodology for direct near-field optical imaging of acoustic graphene plasmon fields. This strategy will provide a breakthrough for the practical applications of acoustic graphene plasmon platforms in next-generation, high-performance, graphene-based optoelectronic devices with enhanced light-matter interactions and lower propagation loss. It was recently demonstrated that ‘graphene…
Feedback
