Researchers add second dating technique to prototype spaceflight instrument. A new study by Southwest Research Institute scientists describes how they have expanded the capabilities of the prototype spaceflight instrument Chemistry Organic and Dating Experiment (CODEX), designed for field-based dating of extraterrestrial materials. CODEX now uses two different dating approaches based on rubidium-strontium and lead-lead geochronology methods. The instrument uses laser ablation resonance ionization mass spectrometry (LARIMS) to obtain dates using these methods. “The central aim of CODEX is to better…
Advanced ink formulations could be the key to turning perovskite solar cells (PSCs) from heroes of academic labs into commercially successful products. Researchers at KAUST have developed a perovskite ink tailor-made for a mass manufacturing process called slot-die coating, producing PSCs that captured solar energy with high efficiency. The ink could also be coated onto silicon to create perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells that capture even more of the Sun’s energy. “PSCs have shown a lot of promise in lab-scale work…
The Professorship of Production Systems and Processes at Chemnitz University of Technology receives award for project on safe human-robot cooperation in the warehouse. The Professorship of Production Systems and Processes (Prof. Dr. Martin Dix (German)) at Chemnitz University of Technology received the “3Dsensation Innovation Award” in the community award category for its FOLLOWme project on safe human-robot cooperation in the warehouse. At the same time, a second project within the 3Dsensation innovation alliance received the jury prize. The 3Dsensation Innovation…
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…
A project jointly initiated by the Austrian Society for Construction Technology (ÖBV), TU Graz and OTH Regensburg provides a more systematic understanding of shotcrete applications and forms the basis for new, even more durable concrete mixes and thus for more durable tunnels. The service life of tunnels today is designed to last at least for one hundred years – in the case of the Brenner basis tunnel it is even 200 years. The problem with this: “The service life is…
Researchers from Jena and Cambridge develop glass materials with novel combinations of properties. Linkages between organic and inorganic materials are a common phenomenon in nature, e.g., in the construction of bones and skeletal structures. They often enable combinations of properties that could not be achieved with just one type of material. In technological material development, however, these so-called hybrid materials still represent a major challenge today. A new class of hybrid glass materials Researchers from the Universities of Jena (Germany)…
Carbon monoxide is a very poisonous gas. Humans die within minutes when they inhale it. However, some microorganisms tolerate carbon monoxide and even use it to breathe and replicate. Knowledge about how these bacteria survive opens a window into the primeval times of the earth and the origin of life. At the same time, they might be very useful for the future as they can be used to clean waste gases and produce biofuels. In this context, scientists from the…
Specialized reflective panels located on top of buildings and deployed widely across a city could significantly improve network coverage, shows a KAUST modeling study. Next-generation cellular networks (5G and beyond) will provide communication coverage to wider rural areas, while improving data exchange rates to meet rapidly rising demand. In urban areas in particular, obstacles in the form of buildings and other structures can impede wireless communication links, reducing mobile device signals and slowing data exchange. Research has shown that reconfigurable…
Removing one charged molecule from a one-dimensional array causes the others to alternately turn ‘on’ or ‘off,’ paving the way for information transfer in tiny circuits. Small electronic circuits power our everyday lives, from the tiny cameras in our phones to the microprocessors in our computers. To make those devices even smaller, scientists and engineers are designing circuitry components out of single molecules. Not only could miniaturized circuits offer the benefits of increased device density, speed, and energy efficiency —…
When you cool down liquid water, it crystallizes into ice. Consider a bucket filled with water, for example. When the water is liquid, the water molecules can be anywhere inside the bucket. In this sense, every point inside the bucket is equivalent. Once the water freezes, however, the water molecules occupy well-defined positions in space. Thus, not every point inside the bucket is equivalent anymore. Physicists refer to this phenomenon as spontaneous symmetry breaking. Here the translation symmetry in space…
Liquids aren’t as well behaved in space as they are on Earth. Inside a spacecraft, microgravity allows liquids to freely slosh and float about. This behavior has made fuel quantity in satellites difficult to pin down, but a new prototype fuel gauge engineered at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) could offer an ideal solution. The gauge, described in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, can digitally recreate a fluid’s 3D shape based on its electrical properties. The…
Electronic shirts that keep the wearer comfortably warm or cool, as well as medical fabrics that deliver drugs, monitor the condition of a wound and perform other tasks, may one day be manufactured more efficiently thanks to a key advance by Oregon State University researchers. The breakthrough involves inkjet printing and materials with a crystal structure discovered nearly two centuries ago. The upshot is the ability to apply circuitry, with precision and at low processing temperatures, directly onto cloth –…
New study identifies a region of the thalamus as a key source of signals encoding past experiences in the neocortex. The brain encodes information collected by our senses. However, to perceive our environment and to constructively interact with it, these sensory signals need to be interpreted in the context of our previous experiences and current aims. In the latest issue of Science, a team of scientists led by Dr. Johannes Letzkus, Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for…
Rice, MD Anderson team models complex that immune system uses to recognize viruses. “Position 4” didn’t seem important until researchers took a long look at a particular peptide. That part of the peptide drawn from a SARS-CoV virus turned out to have an unexpected but significant influence on how it stably binds with a receptor central to the immune system’s ability to attack diseased cells. In a study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at…
Against the background of the global energy transition, the development of new technologies and characterization methods for thermochemical and electrochemical systems is becoming more significant. In context of the National Innovation Programme for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE has expanded its R&D infrastructure and now operates one of the few facilities worldwide for High Temperature Near-Ambient Pressure X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (HT-NAP-XPS). With this, the institute sets yet another milestone for the development of…
Tübingen University researchers uncover mechanism by which bacteria dissolve arsenic-bearing minerals – leading to groundwater contamination in Vietnam Arsenic is a toxin now widely present in rivers and groundwater in countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam. It is released by the activity of microorganisms. Yet for a long time it was unclear what the microorganisms ate to release the arsenic. A team of geomicrobiologists led by Professor Andreas Kappler from the University of Tübingen has shown that the microbes break…
Feedback
