The first experimental observation of three-dimensional magnetic ‘vortex rings’ provides fundamental insight into intricate nanoscale structures inside bulk magnets, and offers fresh perspectives for magnetic devices. Magnets often harbour hidden beauty. Take a simple fridge magnet: Somewhat counterintuitively, it is ‘sticky’ on one side but not the other. The secret lies in the way the magnetisation is arranged in a well-defined pattern within the material. More intricate magnetization textures are at the heart of many modern technologies, such as hard…
Method measures naturally occurring electron transfers. Bacterial infections have become one of the biggest health problems worldwide, and a recent study shows that COVID-19 patients have a much greater chance of acquiring secondary bacterial infections, which significantly increases the mortality rate. Combatting the infections is no easy task, though. When antibiotics are carelessly and excessively prescribed, that leads to the rapid emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant genes in bacteria — creating an even larger problem. According to the Centers for…
A new electronic module safeguards self-driving vehicles against the total failure of onboard electrical systems. Autonomous electric vehicles draw power from two sources: a high-voltage battery and, additionally, a conventional 12-volt battery that supplies the vehicle when idling or in high-load situations while driving. Safety-critical systems such as brakes and steering can therefore be connected to two sources of power. But what happens when one of these has a fault – a short circuit, for example? In order to safeguard…
Medical products such as blood bags and tubing are often made from soft PVC, a plastic that contains phthalate plasticizers, which are suspected to be harmful to human health. These substances are not chemically bound to the polymer, which means they can leach into the blood bags and thus come into contact with human cells. A new method developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST prevents these harmful substances from migrating into the surrounding media….
Magnetic resonance imaging has become an indispensable tool for medical diagnostics. Using metamaterials – printed circuit boards whose properties can be systematically adjusted – can increase measurement sensitivity by a factor of five. Metamaterials can also make scans faster and quieter. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institutes for Digital Medicine MEVIS and for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR are working together to make examinations more pleasant for patients. Magnetic resonance imaging – MRI for short – lets doctors image…
The air we exhale contains information that can assist with the diagnosis of disease. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Project Hub for Microelectronic and Optical Systems for Biomedicine MEOS are now developing solutions designed to enable the analysis of breath gas for this purpose. Although their research focuses on the early detection of cancer, the same principle could also be applied to distinguish between COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases. Some diseases have a distinct odor. A faintly sweet and fruity acetone…
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) have the potential to convert into a wide variety of cell types and tissues. However, the “recipes” for this conversion are often complicated and difficult to implement. Researchers at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) at TU Dresden, Harvard University (USA) and the University of Bonn have found a way to systematically extract hundreds of different cells quickly and easily from iPS using transcription factors. Researchers can use this transcription factor source through the…
A material that mimics human skin in strength, stretchability and sensitivity could be used to collect biological data in real time. Electronic skin, or e-skin, may play an important role in next-generation prosthetics, personalized medicine, soft robotics and artificial intelligence. “The ideal e-skin will mimic the many natural functions of human skin, such as sensing temperature and touch, accurately and in real time,” says KAUST postdoc Yichen Cai. However, making suitably flexible electronics that can perform such delicate tasks while…
A unique stage of planetary system evolution has been imaged by astronomers, showing fast-moving carbon monoxide gas flowing away from a star system over 400 light years away, a discovery that provides an opportunity to study how our own solar system developed. Astronomers have detected fast-moving carbon monoxide gas flowing away from a young, low-mass star: a unique stage of planetary system evolution which may provide insight into how our own solar system evolved and suggests that the way systems…
Battery in Focus They are about the size of a shoebox, high-tech, and soon tens of thousands of them will be orbiting the earth – so called nano-satellites. They can, for example, take high-resolution photos of our planet, or reinforce telecommunications networks. However, these actions take energy and this resource is scarce in the compact high-tech devices. Computer scientists at Saarland University now show how the energy consumption of satellites can be planned in such a way that they always…
A team led by cell biologist Prof. Erez Raz from the University of Münster has investigated the role of the cell-cell adhesion protein E-cadherin in the targeted migration of germ cells in zebrafish embryos and found out that the protein mediates the interaction of the cells with their environment. It supports the localisation of certain proteins in a specific region of the cells by indirectly coupling these proteins to the surrounding cells. The study has been published in the journal…
The Christian Doppler Laboratory for Technology-Guided Electronic Component Design and Characterization investigates ways to better control electromagnetic interactions in smart networked devices, especially in the 5G frequency range. In smartphones and many other complex, wirelessly networked devices, sophisticated technologies are used to integrate the individual electronic components into the housing. While active components, such as semiconductors, are already well investigated, passive electronic elements such as antennas or filters are lagging behind. This is not only the case for the components…
The Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM in Dresden is part of the initiative “HySpeedInnovation”, which brings together a number of leading organisations in research and technology (RTOs) that offer pro-posals to speed up the development of water electrolysis as a green energy technology. Green hydrogen produced by electrolysis using renewable sources such as the sun and the wind plays a crucial role in the energy transition. But much remains to be done to produce this clean…
Scientists from Heidelberg University investigate which factors determine the stability of ice masses in East Antarctica. As temperatures rise due to climate change, the melting of polar ice sheets is accelerating. An international team of researchers led by geoscientist Dr Kim Jakob from Heidelberg University has now examined the dynamics of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet more closely. This is by far the largest ice mass on Earth and is assumed to be less sensitive to climate change than other…
European project “Spartacus” launched Faster charging, longer stability of performance not only for electric vehicles but also for smartphones and other battery powered products. What still sounds like science fiction today might be feasible in the future, not least thanks to innovations the recently started “Spartacus” research project wants to achieve. By utilizing advanced sensors and cell management systems, “Spartacus” aims to reduce charging times by up to 20 percent without compromising the reliability and service life of batteries. The…
Antibiotics have revolutionized medicine by providing effective treatments for infectious diseases such as cholera. But the pathogens that cause disease are increasingly developing resistance to the antibiotics that are most commonly used. Scientists at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany have discovered a molecule that influences the antibiotic-resistance of cholera bacteria. They have published their results in the scientific journal “Nature Communications”. Antibiotics work in different ways. Some, including penicillin, attack the cell wall of the bacteria by inhibiting their…
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