Scientists typically prefer to work with ordered systems. However, a diverse team of physicists and biophysicists from the University of Groningen found that individual light-harvesting nanotubes with disordered molecular structures still transport light energy in the same way. By combining spectroscopy, molecular dynamics simulations and theoretical physics, they discovered how disorder at the molecular level is effectively averaged out at the microscopic scale. The results were published on 28 September in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The double-walled…
As a result of modern Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, the use of radar technology has become indispensable for the automotive sector. With the installation of a large and growing number of sensors together with the limited availability of suitably exposed space for them on the vehicle body, there is almost no space left for the installation of sensors. The Fraunhofer Institute FEP and its two partners are jointly developing a solution for the integration of radar sensors into the front…
This pest insect uses sugar from its food to prevent the activation of the mustard oil bomb in cruciferous plants. Worldwide dreaded crop pest of hundreds of plant species Whiteflies are a family of sap-sucking insects which feed on the sugar-containing phloem of plants. The silverleaf whitefly Bemisia tabaci is particularly widespread worldwide and is greatly feared as an agricultural pest. Strictly speaking, it is not a single species, but a complex of about two dozen barely distinguishable species. The…
A molecule that can mimic the function of zaxinone, a natural growth-promoting plant metabolite, has been designed and fabricated by an international team led by KAUST and the University of Tokyo. Their successful mimic may have wide-reaching applications in plant biology and agriculture. “We identified zaxinone in a previous study and found that it both stimulates the growth of rice plants and appears to reduce infestation by the root parasite Striga (witchweed),” says Jian You Wang, Ph.D. student under the…
It is usually believed that ferroelectricity can appear in insulating or semiconducting materials rather than in metals, because conducting electrons of metals always screen out the internal static electric field arising from the dipole moments. In 1965, Anderson and Blount proposed the concept of ‘ferroelectric metal’, pointing out that the electric polarization may appear in certain martensitic transitions due to the inversion symmetry breaking [Anderson et al. Phys Rev Lett 1965, 14, 217-219]. However, after exploration of more than a…
For over 15 years, ETH Professor Andreas Hierlemann and his group have been developing microelectrode-array chips that can be used to precisely excite nerve cells in cell cultures and to measure electrical cell activity. These developments make it possible to grow nerve cells in cell-culture dishes and use chips located at the bottom of the dish to examine each individual cell in a connected nerve tissue in detail. Alternative methods for conducting such measurements have some clear limitations. They are…
A team of researchers from Cologne and Helsinki has discovered a mechanism that prevents hair loss: hair follicle stem cells, essential for hair to regrow, can prolong their life by switching their metabolic state in response to low oxygen concentration in the tissue. The team was led by Associate Professor Sara Wickström (University of Helsinki and Max Planck Institute for the Biology of Ageing) and the dermatologist Professor Sabine Eming (University of Cologne), and included researchers from the University of…
Scientists often refer to the neutrino as the “ghost particle.” Neutrinos were one of the most abundant particles at the origin of the universe and remain so today. Fusion reactions in the sun produce vast armies of them, which pour down on the Earth every day. Trillions pass through our bodies every second, then fly through the Earth as though it were not there. “While first postulated almost a century ago and first detected 65 years ago, neutrinos remain shrouded in mystery because…
Widespread wildfires in the far north aren’t just bigger; they’re different. “Zombie fires” and burning of fire-resistant vegetation are new features driving Arctic fires–with strong consequences for the global climate–warn international fire scientists in a commentary published in Nature Geoscience. The 2020 Arctic wildfire season began two months early and was unprecedented in scope. “It’s not just the amount of burned area that is alarming,” said Dr. Merritt Turetsky, a coauthor of the study who is a fire and permafrost…
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists have taught computers to recognize a neuron in microscope images of the brain more efficiently than any previous approach. The researchers improved the efficiency of automated methods for tracing neurons and their connections, a task that is increasingly in demand as researchers work to map the brain’s densely interconnected circuits. They did it by teaching the computer to recognize different parts of neurons, each of which have different characteristics. Such connection maps are critical…
Mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cells, generating energy that supports life. A giant molecular proton pump, called complex I, is crucial: It sets in motion a chain of reactions, creating a proton gradient that powers the generation of ATP, the cell’s fuel. Despite complex I’s central role, the mechanism by which it transports protons across the membrane has so far been unknown. Now, Leonid Sazanov and his group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) have…
A marine heatwave (ocean heatwave) is an extended period of time in which the water temperature in a particular ocean region is abnormally high. In recent years, heatwaves of this kind have caused considerable changes to the ecosystems in the open seas and at the coast. Their list of negative effects is long: Marine heatwaves can lead to increased mortality among birds, fish and marine mammals, they can trigger harmful algal blooms, and greatly reduce the supply of nutrients in…
We humans need oxygen to breath – for a lot of microbes it is a lethal poison. That is why microorganisms have developed ways to render oxygen molecules harmless. Microbiologists from Bremen, Marburg and Grenoble have now succeeded in decrypting such a mechanism. They show, how methane-generating microbes transform oxygen into water without causing any damage to the cell. These findings are relevant for future bio-inspired processes. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that plays a central role in the…
The immune system will memorize the pathogen after an infection and can therefore react promptly after reinfection with the same pathogen. Now, scientists at the University of Würzburg have deciphered new details of this process. After an infection of the human body with a pathogen, a cascade of reactions will usually be set into motion. Amongst others, specific cells of the immune system known as T cells get activated in the lymph node and will subsequently divide and proliferate. At…
A new 3D-printing method will make it easier to manufacture and control the shape of soft robots, artificial muscles and wearable devices. Researchers at UC San Diego show that by controlling the printing temperature of liquid crystal elastomer, or LCE, they can control the material’s degree of stiffness and ability to contract–also known as degree of actuation. What’s more, they are able to change the stiffness of different areas in the same material by exposing it to heat. As a…
In the coming years and decades, various nations want to explore the moon, and plan to send astronauts there again for this purpose. But on our inhospitable satellite, space radiation poses a significant risk. The Apollo astronauts carried so-called dosimeters with them, which performed rudimentary measurements of the total radiation exposure during their entire expedition to the moon and back again. In the current issue (25 September) of the prestigious journal Science Advances, Chinese and German scientists report for the…
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