Over the last 40,000 years, ice sheets thousands of miles apart have been influencing each other through changes in sea level. An international team of researchers with the participation of the University of Bonn compared models of ice sheet changes during the latest ice age cycle with newly available geological records. The study, led by Natalya Gomez of McGill University in Montreal (Canada), shows for the first time that changes in the Antarctic ice sheet in the south during this…
Nature-inspired material designed by Berkeley Lab scientists removes copper from wastewater with atomic precision. We rely on water to quench our thirst and to irrigate bountiful farmland. But what do you do when that once pristine water is polluted with wastewater from abandoned copper mines? A promising solution relies on materials that capture heavy metal atoms, such as copper ions, from wastewater through a separation process called adsorption. But commercially available copper-ion-capture products still lack the chemical specificity and load…
Understanding how particles travel through a device is vital for improving the efficiency of solar cells. Researchers from KAUST, working with an international team of scientists, have now developed a set of design guidelines for enhancing the performance of molecular materials. When a packet of light, or photon, is absorbed by a semiconductor, it generates a pair of particles known as an exciton. An electron is one part of this pair; the other is its positively charged equivalent, called a…
Physicists from the University of Konstanz, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich) and the University of Regensburg have successfully demonstrated that ultrashort electron pulses experience a quantum mechanical phase shift through their interaction with light waves in nanophotonic materials, which can uncover the nanomaterials’ functionality. The corresponding experiments and results are reported in the latest issue of Science Advances. Nanophotonic materials and metamaterials Many materials found in nature can influence electromagnetic waves such as light in all different kinds of ways. However,…
The world’s fastest whole-body PET/CT scanner is being put into service today at Bern University Hospital’s Inselspital Department of Nuclear Medicine. This scanner of the latest generation opens up new dimensions in research, diagnostics and therapy planning. The manufacturer (Siemens Healthineers) chose Bern as the location for the first installation worldwide because of its top-class research, its proven concept for networked operation and its role as a leading center in medicine. Positron emission tomography (PET) is a diagnostic imaging procedure…
With an innovative research project, Hof University of Applied Sciences has declared war on one of the biggest annoyances of German motorists: marten damage. At the Institute for Applied Biopolymer Research (ibp) at Hof University of Applied Sciences, headed by Prof. Dr. Michael Nase, in cooperation with the automotive supplier UNIWELL Rohrsysteme GmbH & Co. KG, materials are currently being investigated and tested that are expected to withstand the bite of the common marten far better than the materials currently…
An exciting research project with current relevance and a wide range of possible applications is currently underway at Hof University of Applied Sciences: The Institute for Material Sciences (ifm) is doing research on antibacterial surface coatings. In the future, these paint compounds are going to be used in hospitals, doctors’ surgeries or even in public transport systems in particular and will inhibit the spread of bacteria and viruses. For the first time, a natural substance, which can be obtained by…
Scientists determine the structure of glass-shaping protein in sponges. Sponges are some of the oldest animals on Earth. They live in a wide range of waters, from lakes to deep oceans. Remarkably, the skeleton of some sponges is built out of a network of highly symmetrical glass structures. Researchers from TU Dresden and the Swiss Light Source at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland are the first to determine the three dimensional (3D) structure of a protein responsible for glass…
Reduced food intake, known as dietary restriction, leads to a longer lifespan in many animals and can improve health in humans. The molecular mechanisms underlying the positive effects of dietary restriction are still unclear. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing have now found one possible explanation in fruit flies: they identified a protein named Sestrin that mediates the beneficial effects of dietary restriction. By increasing the amount of Sestrin in flies, researchers were able to extend…
Data from Greenland and Antarctica show: under ice trace elements are mobilised at higher rates than previously assumed. Trace elements such as iron, manganese and zinc are an integral part of the biogeochemical processes on the Earth’s surface. As micronutrients, they play an essential role for the growth of all kinds of organisms and thus the Earth’s carbon cycle. Below ice sheets, which cover around ten percent of the Earth’s land surface, larger quantities of these substances are mobilised than…
Research team at Kiel University uses Aurelia aurita as an example to demonstrate the relationship between microbial colonization and reproduction in marine cnidarians The body tissue of all multicellular living beings is colonized by an unimaginably large number of microorganisms. Host organisms and microbes have developed together from the very beginning of the evolutionary history of multicellular life. The natural microbiome, i.e. the totality of these bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in and on a body, therefore plays a…
The greatest potential of digitalization in companies in which materials play a prominent role lies in the cross-process linking of materials data. This promises to shorten component development times, faster optimization of complex manufacturing processes and more reliable plant operation. The problem is the very heterogeneous nature of materials data, which makes linking within this data extremely complex. The research project MaterialDigital of the state of Baden-Württemberg under the leadership of the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in…
Researchers used a scanning tunneling microscope to visualize quantum dots in bilayer graphene, an important step toward quantum information technologies. Trapping and controlling electrons in bilayer graphene quantum dots yields a promising platform for quantum information technologies. Researchers at UC Santa Cruz have now achieved the first direct visualization of quantum dots in bilayer graphene, revealing the shape of the quantum wave function of the trapped electrons. The results, published November 23 in Nano Letters, provide important fundamental knowledge needed…
Faster, smaller, smarter and more energy-efficient chips for everything from consumer electronics to big data to brain-inspired computing could soon be on the way after engineers at The University of Texas at Austin created the smallest memory device yet. And in the process, they figured out the physics dynamic that unlocks dense memory storage capabilities for these tiny devices. The research published recently in Nature Nanotechnology builds on a discovery from two years ago, when the researchers created what was…
Form shapes function: Special feature discovered in the enamel of shark teeth. Shark teeth must function to the point during their short retention time: The Port Jackson shark feeds on hard-shelled prey such as sea urchins, starfish, mussels and snails. Its teeth must be able to withstand high mechanical stress. The special structure of the tooth enamel ensures this continuously high performance: “The special feature is that the inner layer of tooth enameloid provides mechanical stability, while the outer one…
The demand for lithium is rapidly growing, but Europe’s conventional resources are limited. Connecting European circular economy to global networks, the EIT RawMaterials Innovation Community and leading European research institutions initiated the European Lithium Institute eLi. The virtual institute will gather relevant stakeholders along the whole lithium battery value chain to generate focused international cooperation. eLi started its operational work and welcomes industrial actors as partners and members as well. European energy transition and electric mobility transition leads to a…
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