Nanoparticles (which have sizes ranging between 3–500 nm), and sub-nanoclusters (which are around 1 nm in diameter) are utilized in many fields, including medicine, robotics, materials science, and engineering. Their small size and large surface-area-to-volume ratios give them unique properties, rendering them valuable in a variety of applications, ranging from pollution control to chemical synthesis. Recently, quasi-sub-nanomaterials, which are about 1-3 nm in scale have attracted attention because they have a dual nature–they can be regarded as nanoparticles, as well…
Biologists from ETH Zurich have discovered speargun-like molecular injection systems in two types of bacteria and have described their structure for the first time. The special nanomachines are used by the microbes for the interaction between cells and could one day be useful as tools in biomedicine. Many bacteria have sophisticated molecular injection devices that are used to do some amazing things. For example, a bacterium inoculates certain molecules into a worm larva via such a nanomachine composed of proteins,…
Massive study of the relationships among grasses provides insight to the evolution of a type of photosynthesis involved in heat and drought tolerance. The evolutionary relationships among grasses—including important crop plants like wheat, rice, corn, and sugarcane—have been clarified in new molecular study of the grass family tree. Having a clear picture of the relationships among the grasses can help understanding of how important crop traits like seed size or disease resistance evolves and eventually could inform manipulation of these…
More than 20 years after the first release of the human genome, scientists at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany, have for the first time deciphered the highly complex genome of the potato. Their impressive technical feat, published in Nature Genetics, will accelerate efforts to breed superior varieties. Shopping for potatoes on a market today, it is well possible that the buyer will be going home with a variety that was…
One of the grand challenges with using CRISPR-based gene editing on humans is that the molecular machinery sometimes makes changes to the wrong section of a host’s genome, creating the possibility that an attempt to repair a genetic mutation in one spot in the genome could accidentally create a dangerous new mutation in another. But now, scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have redesigned a key component of a widely used CRISPR-based gene-editing tool, called Cas9, to be…
Genomes are made up of thousands of individual pieces – genes – which are expressed at different levels. Researchers at EMBL have shed light on how the placement of a gene affects its expression, as well as that of its neighbours. The celebrated physicist Richard Feynman is credited with the quote, “What I cannot create, I do not understand.” As well as informing Feynman’s approach to theoretical physics, it’s a good way of describing the motivations of synthetic biologists, with…
Noah rode out his flood in an ark. Winnie-the-Pooh had an upside-down umbrella. Fire ants (Solenopsis invicta), meanwhile, form floating rafts made up of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of individual insects. A new study by engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder lays out the simple physics-based rules that govern how these ant rafts morph over time: shrinking, expanding or growing long protrusions like an elephant’s trunk. The team’s findings could one day help researchers design robots that…
In humans, only nerves and muscle cells are electrically excitable, whereas in plants almost all cells are. This is due to a sophisticated mechanism in an ion channel of the vacuole. Plant cells use electrical signals to process and transmit information. In 1987, as a postdoc of Erwin Neher in Göttingen, biophysicist Rainer Hedrich discovered an ion channel in the central vacuole of the plant cell, which is activated by calcium and electrical voltage, using the patch-clamp technique (Nobel Prize…
Special shell protects Antarctic scallop from ice build-up. Airplane wings that don’t ice up or solar cells that generate electricity even in winter – ice-free surfaces are important for many applications. A team of scientists led by Konrad Meister, professor at the University of Alaska Southeast and group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, has now studied an Antarctic scallop species that opposes the icing process with the help of its shell surface. Due to their special…
Record-breaking and readily available… Chemists at the University of Jena, Germany have set a new record, having discovered a fluorescent aluminium complex with the highest quantum yield known to date. For virtually every photon absorbed by the substance, a photon is emitted. This could be of benefit in applications such as LED technology. “This discovery was literally a case of serendipity,” explains Robert Kretschmer, Junior Professor for Inorganic Chemistry of Catalysis at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. “We actually wanted to…
In cooperation with the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH), the Universität Hamburg, the University of Applied Sciences (HAW) and the University of Aachen (RWTH), researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon Institute for Coastal Environmental Chemistry investigated changes in pollutant levels in the North Sea over an interval time. The results showed that a diverse cocktail of chemicals has been polluting the environment, especially during the last 100 years. They also found out that a decrease in pollution only became apparent…
Bayreuth biologists explain protein exchange during vertebrate evolution. The electrical synapses in vertebrates are made of different, but by no means more powerful proteins than the electrical synapses in far older invertebrates. Animal physiologists at the University of Bayreuth have now found an explanation for this evolutionary puzzle. In the early phase of vertebrate evolution, there was a loss of diversity in precisely those proteins that had been used for signal transmission in older invertebrates. The scientists have published their…
To address climbing economic losses from swine that contract the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, Virginia Tech researchers in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine are developing a vaccine to combat the disease that has a near 100 percent mortality rate in newborn piglets. The disease emerged in the United States in 2013 and has since caused around $600 million in annual losses to swine producers. When combined with increased food prices for consumers and decreased exports of…
UC researchers develop new probe, imaging technique that can aid future studies. In the field of scientific research, details matter. The minutia of processes and structures are explained with specificity, data points are reported to the most precise decimal and seeing is believing. Now, University of Cincinnati cancer biologists have developed a new piece of technology and a new imaging technique that will help researchers glean more detailed data points and see cells in more precise detail when studying the…
Spectacular structure of chain-mail may explain the success of C.diff at defending itself against antibiotics and immune system molecules. The spectacular structure of the protective armour of superbug C.difficile has been revealed for the first time showing the close-knit yet flexible outer layer – like chain mail. This assembly prevents molecules getting in and provides a new target for future treatments, according to the scientists who have uncovered it. Publishing in Nature Communications, the team of scientists from Newcastle, Sheffield…
Divide, differentiate or die? Making decisions at the right time and place is what defines a cell’s behavior and is particularly critical for stem cells of an developing organisms. Decision making relies on how information is processed by networks of signaling proteins. The teams around Christian Schröter from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund and Luis Morelli from IBioBa have now revealed for the first time, that ERK, a key player in stem cell signaling processes information…
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