Researchers have revealed a new molecular mechanism by which bacteria adhere to cellulose fibers in the human gut. Thanks to two different binding modes, they can withstand the shear forces in the body. Scientists of the University of Basel and ETH Zurich published their results in the journal “Nature Communications”. Cellulose is a major building block of plant cell walls, consisting of molecules linked together into solid fibers. For humans, cellulose is indigestible, and the majority of gut bacteria lack…
Prof. DONG Zhenchao and Prof. HOU Jianguo from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) improved the spatial resolution from 8 nm to ~8 Å of photoluminescence imaging. It realized sub-molecular resolution with single molecule photofluorescence imaging for the first time. This study was published in Nature Photonics on August 10. To reach atomic resolution with light has always been one of the ultimate goals in nano-optics. The advent of scanning near-field optical…
Understanding the skin damage caused by rubbing could lead to better topical skin treatments and help prevent the formation of new routes for viral and bacterial infection. Tohoku University biomechanical engineers have developed a better understanding of the damage that can be caused by something rubbing against the skin. The study was published in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics. Kenji Kikuchi, who was involved in the study, says their findings suggest that damaged skin from rubbing face masks and coverings…
Strong interaction between plasmonic nanoparticles and free-space light induced the evanescently confined modes on the nanoparticle surfaces, which holds great promise in plasmonic nanophotonic technologies. Plasmonic nanoparticle with the capability of generating energetic charges makes it being widely exploited in the field of photocatalysis, providing a new paradigm for conversion renewable sunlight to useful fuels and high-value chemicals. Plasmon metal nanoparticles/semiconductors with Schottky barrier at interface are well-received photocatalysts that can achieve charge spatial separation to prolong the lifetime of…
A protein that’s common throughout the body plays a key role in regulating glucose levels, says new research conducted in the Cell Signal Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) and Riken Center of Integrative Medical Sciences. Called CNOT3, this protein was found to silence a set of genes that would otherwise cause insulin-producing cells to malfunction, which is related to the development of diabetes. Diabetes is a common disorder that causes very high blood…
Carnegie Mellon system uses social media posts to assess building damage It wasn’t long after Hurricane Laura hit the Gulf Coast Thursday that people began flying drones to record the damage and posting videos on social media. Those videos are a precious resource, say researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who are working on ways to use them for rapid damage assessment. By using artificial intelligence, the researchers are developing a system that can automatically identify buildings and make an initial…
Changes to water masses which are stored on the continents can be detected with the help of satellites. The data sets on the Earth’s gravitational field which are required for this, stem from the GRACE and GRACE-FO satellite missions. Using the South American continent as an example, the Earth system modellers at the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ, have developed a new Deep-Learning-Method, which quantifies small as well as large-scale changes to the water storage with the help of…
Stem cell technologies are revolutionizing the biomedical field. Scientists at the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) in collaboration with research partners of the Cluster of Excellence “Multiscale Bioimaging” (MBExC) and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease (DZNE) combined induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and their deep knowledge in the bioengineering of human organoids to for the first time bioengineer the human brain at the macroscale level with comprehensive network function. The so called Bioengineered Neuronal Organoids (BENOs) recapitulate important morphological…
HelioControl Project Completed Among solar thermal power plants, solar tower systems are considered to have the greatest potential in terms of efficiency and cost reduction. In particular, costs can be saved on mirrors (heliostats), which account for between 30 and 40 percent of the investment. Frequent calibration or control of the heliostat aim points is one approach. In the HelioControl project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE developed a calibration and control system based on digital image processing…
Project “KItatta” launched In Germany, more than 9,000 corneal transplantations are performed annually. Despite strict quality criteria, about 4-5% of the transplants show postoperative wart-like changes that impair the cornea’s functionality. So far, it cannot be excluded with certainty whether and to what extent the so-called guttae are present. This can lead to the transplantation of pathologically changed corneas. In a joint project, the Saarland University Clinic for Ophthalmology and DFKI want to develop a method to better assess the…
Heavy metals suppress enzyme activity in the soil by 3-3.5 times and have especially prominent effect on the enzymes that support carbon and sulfur circulation. This was discovered by a soil scientist from RUDN together with his colleagues from Chile, Germany, the UK and Venezuela. The data obtained by the team can lead to more efficient use and fertilization of agricultural lands. The results of the study were published in the Science of the Total Environment journal. Soil enzymes promote…
New spectroscopic technique for studying nanostructures demonstrates that stibnite nanodots can act as high-optical-quality waveguides and are promising candidates as photoswitchable materials for future applications. Antimony sulfide, or stibnite (Sb2S3), has been investigated intensively in recent years as a promising material for nontoxic, environmentally friendly solar cells. It is now possible to fabricate thin photovoltaic films from an ink containing nanoparticles of stibnite, and to nanopattern those films for 2D and 3D structures of pretty much any shape. Such simple,…
Researchers from Kiel and Düsseldorf use the freshwater polyp Hydra as an example to investigate how environmental factors and microorganisms influence individual development All multicellular living beings are colonized by an unimaginably large number of microorganisms and have developed together with them from the very beginning of multicellular life. The natural microbiome, i.e. the totality of these bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in and on a body, is of fundamental importance for the entire organism: it supports, for example,…
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common muscle disease in children and is passed on by X-linked recessive inheritance. Characteristic is a progressive muscular atrophy. The disease often results in death before the third decade of life. Researchers of the Universities of Maynooth (Ireland) and Bonn have found a connection between dystrophic muscles and the lymphatic system in mice with Duchenne disease. The results have now been published in the journal “iScience”. The muscular atrophy in Duchenne disease is…
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have discovered a metal-free carbon-based catalyst that has the potential to be much less expensive and more efficient for many industrial concerns, including manufacturing of bio- and fossil fuels, electrocatalysis, and fuel cells. At their most fundamental, these industry processes involve splitting strong chemical bonds, like hydrogen-hydrogen, carbon-oxygen, and carbon-hydrogen bonds. Traditionally this has been accomplished with catalysts that use transition or precious metals, many of them expensive and low in…
When a meteorite hurtles through the atmosphere and crashes to Earth, how does its violent impact alter the minerals found at the landing site? When a meteorite hurtles through the atmosphere and crashes to Earth, how does its violent impact alter the minerals found at the landing site? What can the short-lived chemical phases created by these extreme impacts teach scientists about the minerals existing at the high-temperature and pressure conditions found deep inside the planet? New work led by…
Feedback
