During one lifetime, the human body experiences ten quadrillion cell divisions. This biological process is essential to form and maintain tissues and organs within the body. Now, Professor Carl-Philipp Heisenberg and his team at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria discovered how mechanical tension from surrounding tissue influences the division process. The scientists published their study in the journal Developmental Cell. This study presents an entirely new influence on cell division and could also be important for tumor research….
Probably none! In their new study now published in Nature Communications, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization have deciphered a novel regularization mechanism encoded in the Navier-Stokes equations that offers a new direction in the exclusion of singularities. From stirring sugar in coffee to global weather patterns – turbulent currents constantly shape the life around us. Mathematically, they are described by the Navier-Stokes equations, as now known for almost two centuries. Despite the widespread use of…
Infections with two pathogens pose a serious threat in the clinics. Researchers from Würzburg and Jena have developed a technique that provides new insights into this process and can be used as an early warning system. Organ and stem cell transplants are proven and frequently used methods in everyday modern clinical practice. However, even when performed regularly in specialized centers, some patients still experience a number of serious complications afterwards. Among other things, infections with fungi and viruses can jeopardize…
The quantum dynamics of hydrogen is central to many problems in nature, being strongly influenced by the environment in which it takes place. In their contribution to PRL, members of the Lise Meitner Group at the MPSD address hydrogen transfer within a supported molecular switch, showing that the surface support can play a decisive role in the tunneling reaction. In the constant quest to miniaturize technological components, molecule-based nanotechnology becomes an ever-growing field of interest. In this field, single molecules…
After the summer harvest, fruits are sold as dried products suitable for the current season. However, if fruit or vegetables are dried with heat, nutrients can be destroyed and flavors can be reduced. This is why non-thermal drying of food – i.e. without heating – is preferred by the industry. Among other things, fans are used for this purpose. A new drying process developed at Empa using ionic wind promises to make the non-thermal drying of food much more energy-efficient,…
Dotty graphene and doping: Whatever it takes for Russia’s record plasmonics to shine. Physicists from MIPT and Vladimir State University, Russia, have achieved a nearly 90% efficiency converting light energy into surface waves on graphene. They relied on a laser-like energy conversion scheme and collective resonances. The paper came out in Laser & Photonics Reviews. Manipulating light at the nanoscale is a task crucial for being able to create ultracompact devices for optical energy conversion and storage. To localize light…
Bringing huge amounts of protons up to speed in the shortest distance in fractions of a second — that’s what laser acceleration technology, greatly improved in recent years, can do. An international research team from the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung and the Helmholtz Institute Jena, a branch of GSI, in collaboration with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA, has succeeded in using protons accelerated with the GSI high-power laser PHELIX to split other nuclei and to analyze them. The results…
Imaging technology offers advantages for diagnostics, other uses. Current state-of-the-art techniques have clear limitations when it comes to imaging the smallest nanoparticles, making it difficult for researchers to study viruses and other structures at the molecular level. Scientists from the University of Houston and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center have reported in Nature Communications a new optical imaging technology for nanoscale objects, relying upon unscattered light to detect nanoparticles as small as 25 nanometers in diameter. The…
With just a 50-million-electron jumpstart, sensors can power themselves for more than a year. Shantanu Chakrabartty’s laboratory has been working to create sensors that can run on the least amount of energy. His lab has been so successful at building smaller and more efficient sensors, that they’ve run into a roadblock in the form of a fundamental law of physics. Sometimes, however, when you hit what appears to be an impenetrable roadblock, you just have to turn to quantum physics…
Researchers at the the University of Regensburg and the MPSD in Hamburg have developed a groundbreaking method to detect the dynamics of light on such a small scale with high temporal resolution. Since the 17th century, researchers have explored tiny objects in their most fundamental detail using light and optical microscopes. However, because visible light has a wavelength more than a thousand times larger than the size of an atom, today’s most advanced microscopes routinely image the atomic world with…
The right material for the mobile communication standard of tomorrow. The performance of radio-frequency applications such as 5G or radar depends mainly on the materials and interconnects used. In order to investigate and optimize these, a new research group has been founded at Fraunhofer IZM in Berlin. Drawing on the expertise of the researchers, radio-frequency structures are assembled in such a way that facilitates optimal wave transmission. According to a study by technology analysts Yole Développement, the market for radio…
The protein complex TFIIH is responsible for essential cellular functions such as reading genes or repairing DNA damage. These processes must be carried out with extreme precision in order to prevent serious diseases, such as cancer. The enzyme XPB is part of the TFIIH complex and is indispensable for both processes. How XPB is simultaneously activated and repressed by its interaction partners p8/p52 within the TFIIH complex has now been demonstrated by a Würzburg research group. The results improve the…
Using NASA satellite imagery and software processing approaches, a group of geoscientists has discovered a landslide-generated tsunami threat in Barry Arm, Alaska, that will likely affect tourists and locals in the surrounding area in the next 20 years. The Barry Arm Glacier has diminished rapidly in the last decade due to climate change, causing the surrounding terrain to become unstable. The researchers found that the mountainside near the Barry Arm Glacier has moved 394 feet (120 meters) over the seven-year…
Research in C. elegans shows how melatonin activates the BK channel in the brain. Melatonin is used as a dietary supplement to promote sleep and get over jet lag, but nobody really understands how it works in the brain. Now, researchers at UConn Health show that melatonin helps worms sleep, too, and they suspect they’ve identified what it does in us. Our bodies produce melatonin in darkness. It’s technically a hormone, but you can readily buy melatonin as a supplement…
A simple method developed at KAUST uses laser beams to create graphene electrodes that have better performance than those produced through older methods. Electrodes consisting of graphene, an atypical form of carbon, may transform the way electroactive substances are detected and measured in numerous fields ranging from food safety and clinical diagnosis to environmental monitoring1,2,3. Graphene comprises multiple ultrathin and highly ordered sheets of interconnected honeycomb-shaped rings of carbon atoms. This multilayered architecture provides the material with exceptional electronic properties,…
Deep learning, also called machine learning, reproduces data to model problem scenarios and offer solutions. However, some problems in physics are unknown or cannot be represented in detail mathematically on a computer. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed a new method that brings physics into the machine learning process to make better predictions. The researchers used turbulence to test their method. “We don’t know how to mathematically write down all of turbulence in a useful way. There are…
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