An international team of researchers from the MPSD (Max Planck institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science in Hamburg, the University of Toronto (Canada), the Diamond Light Source in Oxford (UK) and the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) Hamburg has found that two of the worlds brightest light sources offer more common research possibilities than originally anticipated. Although they operate on very different timescales, synchrotrons and XFELs can produce data of equivalent…

A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Germany, from Seoul National University in Korea and from Harvard University in the US, successfully developed a predictive model and closed-loop controller of a soft robotic fish, designed to actively adjust its undulation amplitude to changing flow conditions and other external disturbances. Their work “Modeling and Control of a Soft Robotic Fish with Integrated Soft Sensing” was published in Wiley’s Advanced Intelligent Systems journal, in a…

Biologists from the University of Jena publish study on the relationship between flying insects and light pollution Jena, the “city of light”, has its dark sides. If you look up at the night sky from the city centre, you can only make out the brightest stars. Lighting in the streets and shop windows is too bright, obscuring the view of the night sky. However, the consequences of this “light pollution” are much more devastating for nocturnal insects. Attracted by the…

− “Zip codes” for odor sensors identified A team of scientists led by Dietmar Krautwurst from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich has now identified address codes in odorant receptor proteins for the first time. Similar to zip codes, the codes ensure that the sensor proteins are targeted from inside the cell to the cell surface, where they begin their work as odorant detectors. The new findings could contribute to the development of…

Cancer cells have evolved mechanisms to escape the body’s immune defense. Agents that prevent immune escape are attractive targets for the development of new cancer therapies. A group of scientists led by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Herbert Waldmann and Dr. Slava Ziegler at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology (MPI) in Dortmund has now developed a new cell-based test system to identify immunoregulatory modulators. Screening a library of over 150,000 substances revealed several potent substances with unprecedented structure. Our…

New experimental findings cast in doubt 90-year-old theoretical model of the transition state in chemical reactions. Research by a team of chemists at the University of Toronto, led by Nobel Prize-winning researcher John Polanyi, is shedding new light on the behaviour of molecules as they collide and exchange atoms during chemical reaction. The discovery casts doubt on a 90-year old theoretical model of the behavior of the “transition state”, intermediate between reagents and products in chemical reactions, opening a new…

Cryoprotectants are used to protect biological material during frozen storage They have to be removed when defrosting, and how much to use and how exactly they inhibit ice recrystallisation is poorly understood The polymer poly(vinyl)alcohol (PVA) is arguably the most potent ice recrystallisation inhibitor and researchers from the University of Warwick have unravelled how exactly it works. This newly acquired knowledge base provides novel guidelines to design the next generation of cryoprotectants When biological material (cells, blood, tissues) is frozen,…

Optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy innovation enables simultaneous multicontrast imaging with shorter imaging time and improved accuracy. Optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM), a new hybrid imaging technique, allows us to listen to the sound of light and see the color of biological tissue itself. It can be used for live, multicontrast functional imaging, but the limited wavelength choice of most commercial lasers and the limitations of the existing scanning methods have meant that OR-PAM can obtain only one or two different types of…

International team of researchers investigates how evolution forms the structure and function of a newly emerged protein in flies. Proteins are the key component in all modern forms of life. Haemoglobin, for example, transports the oxygen in our blood; photosynthesis proteins in the leaves of plants convert sunlight into energy; and fungal enzymes help us to brew beer and bake bread. Researchers have long been examining the question of how proteins mutate or come into existence in the course of…

Research teams from UNIGE have discovered that the cytoskeleton of the malaria parasite comprises a vestigial form of an organelle called conoid, initially thought to be absent from this species and which could play a role in host invasion. Plasmodium is the parasite causing malaria, one of the deadliest parasitic diseases. The parasite requires two hosts –the Anopheles mosquito and the human– to complete its life cycle and goes through different forms at each stage of its life cycle. Transitioning…

Researchers at Osaka University create voltage-controlled nanopores that can trap particles as they try to pass through, which may lead to single-molecule sensors, along with cheaper and faster genomic sequencing. Scientists from the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research at Osaka University fabricated nanopores in silicon dioxide, that were only 300 nm, in diameter surrounded by electrodes. These nanopores could prevent particles from entering just by applying a voltage, which may permit the development of sensors that can detect very…

Study identifies the key genes in the brain involved in encoding memories. UT Southwestern scientists have identified key genes involved in brain waves that are pivotal for encoding memories. The findings, published online this week in Nature Neuroscience, could eventually be used to develop novel therapies for people with memory loss disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Making a memory involves groups of brain cells firing cooperatively at various frequencies, a phenomenon known as neural oscillations….

Smoke from local wildfires can affect the health of Colorado residents, in addition to smoke from fires in forests as far away as California and the Pacific Northwest. Researchers at Colorado State University, curious about the health effects from smoke from large wildfires across the Western United States, analyzed six years of hospitalization data and death records for the cities along the Front Range, which reaches deep into central Colorado from southern Wyoming. They found that wildfire smoke was associated…

A new study carried out by a team of laser physicists, molecular biologists and physicians based at LMU Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics has confirmed the temporal stability of the molecular composition of blood in a population of healthy individuals. The data provide a basis for a new method of monitoring the constituents of blood and detecting alterations that reveal changes in a person’s state of health. The molecular composition of the blood provides information regarding…

… how developing zebrafish keep RNA levels in check Mature egg cells and early embryos do not generate their own RNA molecules – instead, they rely on stored maternal RNAs to synthesise their proteins. As the embryo develops, some of these RNAs become superfluous and need to be degraded. Researchers at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) pinpointed Ski7 as a regulator of normal RNA levels in early zebrafish embryos. Their findings were published in the journal “PLOS Genetics”….

Recent advances in technology have opened many possibilities for using wearable and implantable sensors to monitor various indicators of patient health. Wearable pressure sensors are designed to respond to very small changes in bodily pressure, so that physical functions such as pulse rate, blood pressure, breathing rates and even subtle changes in vocal cord vibrations can be monitored in real time with a high degree of sensitivity. Such responses occur when a substance in the sensor “gates,” or allows selected…