NASA JPL team uses TACC’s Maverick2 system to develop software, trains models NASA’s Mars rovers have been one of the great scientific and space successes of the past two decades. Four generations of rovers have traversed the red planet gathering scientific data, sending back evocative photographs, and surviving incredibly harsh conditions — all using on-board computers less powerful than an iPhone 1. The latest rover, Perseverance, was launched on July 30, 2020, and engineers are already dreaming of a future…
NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite kept an eye on Hurricane Genevieve overnight and provided infrared imagery to forecasters who were monitoring the storm’s strength, structure and size. Because Genevieve is close to the coast of western Mexico, warnings and watches were still in effect. NASA’s Night-Time View of Genevieve The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP provided a nighttime image of Hurricane Genevieve on Aug. 18 at 8 p.m. EDT (Aug. 19 at 0000 UTC).The hurricane’s eye…
The construction industry is currently facing two major challenges: the demand for sustainable infrastructure and the need to repair deteriorating buildings, bridges and roads. While concrete is the material of choice for many construction projects, it has a large carbon footprint, resulting in high waste and energy expenditure. Today, researchers report progress toward a sustainable building material made from local soil, using a 3D printer to create a load-bearing structure. The researchers will present their results today at the American…
Aerogel is an excellent thermal insulator. So far, however, it has mainly been used on a large scale, for example in environmental technology, in physical experiments or in industrial catalysis. Empa researchers have now succeeded in making aerogels accessible to microelectronics and precision engineering: An article in the latest issue of the scientific journal “Nature” shows how 3D-printed parts made of silica aerogels and silica composite materials can be manufactured with high precision. This opens up numerous new application possibilities…
The airborne transmission of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 via aerosol particles in indoor environment seems to be strongly influenced by relative humidity. This is the conclusion drawn by researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Leipzig and the CSIR National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi from the analysis of 10 most relevant international studies on the subject. Therefore, they recommend controlling the indoor air in addition to the usual measures such as social distancing and masks. A relative…
ERA-NET project NExT on translational research on cancer Since autumn 2019, the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT coordinates the BMBF-funded ERA-NET project “NExT” that aims to detect endocrine pancreatic tumors at an earlier stage and to improve therapies in cooperation with international research partners. The consortium is setting up a tissue bank, developing patient-specific cell models and identifying corresponding biomarkers with the aid of a microfluidic chip system. Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs) are rare tumors of the pancreas and…
A research team led by Hokto Kazama at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan has combined brain imaging and models of brain activity to explain how smells can be generalized into categories. The team examined a region of the fly brain that plays a central role in forming olfactory memories and discovered clustered representations of mixtures and groups of odors that are conserved across individual flies. This study, published in Neuron, explains how varying odors are perceived…
The mystery of why zebras have their characteristic stripes has perplexed researchers for over a century. Over the last decade, Professor Tim Caro at the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences has examined and discredited many popular theories such as their use as camouflage from predators, a cooling mechanism through the formation of convection currents and a role in social interactions. Stripes acting to confuse predators is another common explanation, but it too is flawed when looking at the…
We are surrounded by electronic devices. Transistors are used to power telephones, computers, televisions, hi-fi systems and game consoles as well as cars, airplanes and the like. Today’s silicon-based electronics, however, consume a substantial and ever-increasing share of the world’s energy. A number of researchers are exploring the properties of materials that are more complex than silicon but that show promise for the electronic devices of tomorrow – and that are less electricity-hungry. In keeping with this approach, scientists from…
Some bacteria become increasingly infectious when they have to move from cell to cell in order to survive In the environment, they are often found inside unicellular organisms. A research team led by Matthias Horn at the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science at the University of Vienna has made use of laboratory experiments to gain a better understanding of how these bacteria adapt to their host cell over time. This is due to changes in the genome and…
Huddersfield researchers publish study that found that dexamethasone could reduce death rates in hospitalised COVID-19 patients early in the pandemic. A study from early in the global coronavirus pandemic that evidenced the benefits of using steroids to combat COVID-19 in severely ill patients could have saved lives, according to the University of Huddersfield researchers involved. Dr Hamid Merchant and Dr Syed Shahzad Hasan assessed the results of using corticosteroid such as dexamethasone on hospitalised COVID-19 patients with acute respiratory distress…
Using high-resolution data from the joint NASA-U.S. Geological Survey Landsat program, researchers have created the first map of the causes of change in global mangrove habitats between 2000 and 2016 – a valuable tool to aid conservation efforts for these vital coastline defenders. Mangroves are hardy trees and shrubs that grow in the salty, wet, muddy soils of Earth’s tropical and subtropical coastlines. They protect the coastlines from erosion and storm damage; store carbon within their roots, trunks, and in…
Imagine reading by the light of an exploded star, brighter than a full moon – it might be fun to think about, but this scene is the prelude to a disaster when the radiation devastates life as we know it. Killer cosmic rays from nearby supernovae could be the culprit behind at least one mass extinction event, researchers said, and finding certain radioactive isotopes in Earth’s rock record could confirm this scenario. A new study led by University of Illinois,…
Sorghum, a common food item in regions of Africa and Asia, has one missing puzzle piece. The missing piece? Protein digestibility, which researchers in the Department of Agronomy at Kansas State University are trying to find. “Sorghum is an important food crop grown in Africa,” said Tesfaye Tesso. “It grows well in their climate because it requires less moisture and nutrients than other crops.” Tesso is a researcher at Kansas State University. The biggest flaw of sorghum is how difficult…
Observations of magnetic fields in interstellar clouds of gas and dust indicate that these clouds are strongly magnetized, and that magnetic fields influence the formation of stars. The orientation of their internal structure is closely related to that of the magnetic field. The filamentary network of the dense gas surrounding a young star cluster was observed with with the HAWC+ polarimeter on board SOFIA at infrared wavelengths. In some filaments the magnetic field succumbs to the flow of matter and…
To combat the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, research has been stepped up in search of new vaccines and treatments. To enter the cells, the virus needs the spike protein on its surface. Researchers of the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut in co-operation with some research groups in Germany (EMBL at Heidelberg, MPI for Biophysics at Frankfurt) have analysed the spike protein in its natural environment using high resolution imaging and computer-assisted methods. In doing so, they have discovered a degree of mobility of the spikes on…
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