Proteins choreograph the infinitesimal dance of living cells and functional biomaterials. An interdisciplinary research team at Lehigh University has unraveled how functional biomaterials rely upon an interfacial protein layer to transmit signals to living cells concerning their adhesion, proliferation and overall development. According to an article published today in Scientific Reports, the nanoscale features and properties of an underlying substrate do not impact the biological response of cells directly. However, these properties indirectly influence cell behavior through their control over…
Researchers from the University of Basel have developed a virtual reality app for smartphones to reduce fear of heights. Now, they have conducted a clinical trial to study its efficacy. Trial participants who spent a total of four hours training with the app at home showed an improvement in their ability to handle real height situations. Fear of heights is a widespread phenomenon. Approximately 5% of the general population experiences a debilitating level of discomfort in height situations. However, the…
An effort led by Lin Li, Ph.D., assistant professor of physics at The University of Texas at El Paso, in collaboration with students and faculty from Howard University, has identified key variants that help explain the differences between the viruses that cause COVID-19 and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). A team comprised of researchers from UTEP and the historically Black research university in Washington, D.C., discovered valuable data in comparing the fundamental mechanisms of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV)…
While glass is a truly ubiquitous material that we use on a daily basis, it also represents a major scientific conundrum. Contrary to what one might expect, the true nature of glass remains something of a mystery, with scientific inquiry into its chemical and physical properties still underway. In chemistry and physics, the term glass itself is a mutable concept: It includes the substance we know as window glass, but it may also refer to a range of other materials…
INRS professor Federico Rosei collaborated with an international research team to modify the properties of graphene for its use in electronics. An international research team involving Professor Federico Rosei of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) has demonstrated a novel process to modify the structure and properties of graphene, a one atom thick carbon. This chemical reaction, known as photocycloaddition, modifies the bonds between atoms using ultraviolet (UV) light. The results of the study were recently published in…
The research, involving URV researcher Vladimir Baulin, opens the door to the development of new bactericide materials as an alternative to antibiotics. Finding alternatives to antibiotics is one of the biggest challenges facing the research community. Bacteria are increasingly resistant to these drugs, and this resistance leads to the deaths of more than 25,000 around the world. Now, a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, the University of Grenoble (France), the University of Saarland (Germany) and…
Collaborative work of research groups at the University of Würzburg and the TU Dresden has provided important new insights for cancer research. During cell division specific target proteins have to be turned over in a precisely regulated manner. To this end specialized enzymes label the target proteins with signaling molecules. However, the enzymes involved in this process can also label themselves, thus initiating their own degradation. In a multidisciplinary approach, the researchers identified a mechanism of how enzymes can protect…
Gliding movements to invade host cells. In biological terms, gliding refers to the type of movement during which a cell moves along a surface without changing its shape. This form of movement is unique to parasites from the phylum Apicomplexa, such as Plasmodium and Toxoplasma. Both parasites, which are transmitted by mosquitoes and cats, have an enormous impact on global heath. Plasmodium causes 228 million malaria infections and around 400,000 deaths per year. Toxoplasma, which infects even one third of…
Interdisciplinary research team of Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute and Jena University Hospital receives 4.5 million euros in funding from the Carl Zeiss Foundation As the saying goes: “You’re only as old as you feel”, suggesting that it is not simply the number of years lived that determines a person’s age. Biological age depends on many factors and is also subject to psychological influences. It is perfectly possible for contemporaries to differ…
Traditionally, neuroscience regards the brain as being made up of two basic tissue types. Until very recently, not much was known about the interface between the white and grey matter – the so-called superficial white matter. Little was known about this thin region linking the grey and white matter because methods were lacking to study it in living human brains. Yet, previous investigations had suggested the region to be implicated in devastating conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and autism. Now…
Interdisciplinary team of researchers combines image-based particle analysis with artificial intelligence. From pollen forecasting, honey analysis and climate-related changes in plant-pollinator interactions, analysing pollen plays an important role in many areas of research. Microscopy is still the gold standard, but it is very time consuming and requires considerable expertise. In cooperation with Technische Universität (TU) Ilmenau, scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) have now developed a method that…
Meta-analysis by research team from the universities of Bielefeld and Jena shows that in animals, difficult living conditions increase risk-taking behaviour in later life The lives of animals in the wild are full of risky situations with uncertain outcomes. Whether they are exploring new habitats in unfamiliar terrain or searching for new food sources, they run the risk of being caught and killed by a predator. In many instances, their very survival depends on a single decision. Whether an animal…
An interdisciplinary team of scientists at the Max Planck Institutes for Intelligent Systems and Solid State Research has developed a biocompatible microswimmer made of carbon nitride, which they can propel forward through light. The particle can also store solar energy similar to miniature solar cells equipped with batteries, and can thus also swim in the dark using the stored energy. Even if the illumination is turned off, it can move forward for about half an hour with just 30 seconds…
Rice researchers find potentially useful electrical phenomenon in gold nanowires Though the Summer Olympics were postponed, there’s at least one place to see agile hurdlers go for the gold. You just need a way to view these electron games. Using a novel optical detection system, researchers at Rice University found that electricity generated by temperature differences doesn’t appear to be affected measurably by grain boundaries placed in its way in nanoscale gold wires, while strain and other defects in the…
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…
Study shows the need to shield qubits from natural radiation, like cosmic rays from outer space A multidisciplinary research team has shown that radiation from natural sources in the environment can limit the performance of superconducting quantum bits, known as qubits. The discovery, reported today in the journal Nature, has implications for the construction and operation of quantum computers, an advanced form of computing that has attracted billions of dollars in public and private investment globally. The collaboration between teams…
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