Latest News

Safety of Anthrax Vaccine

Findings from the Anthrax Vaccine Expert Committee (AVEC) do not suggest a high frequency of medically important adverse events associated with anthrax vaccination

Between March 1998 and March 2002 525,000 US military personnel were vaccinated against anthrax. In the case of an outbreak, this vaccine could be extended to civilians, as occurred in December 2001. The Anthrax Vaccine Expert Committee (AVEC), a civilian panel of physicians and scientists set up to monitor the safety of vaccinati

Milk in rice could curdle

Biotech human breast milk growing but not bottled.

Genetically modified (GM) rice carrying a protein from human breast milk could be used to enhance infant formula, researchers hope. But at present, the protein would not gain approval for use in the United States.

Nutritionists agree that breast milk is best for a baby; infant formula is not as nourishing as the real thing. So for mothers unable to breast-feed, the biotech industry is engineering crops or animals to make huma

Big bangs spark row

Cosmologists claim Universe has been forming and reforming for eternity.

The Universe was not born in one Big Bang, it has been going through cycles of creation and annihilation for eternity, according to a controversial new mathematical model 1 .

It’s a compelling claim. The new cyclic model removes a major stumbling block common to existing theories of the Universe – namely, that physics can’t explain what came before the Big Bang.

Becaus

Genetically modified eggplants (aubergines) shown to be 30% more productive

Research, published in the online journal, BMC Biotechnology shows how researchers in Italy have used genetically modified eggplants made by the introduction of a gene that increases the level of the plant hormone indole acetic acid (IAA) to produce seedless fruits. Furthermore, these genetically modified eggplants are 30-35% more productive than conventional varieties in both greenhouse and field trials.

The public have a special liking for seedless fruits for two reasons, firstly seeds a

ESA finds a black-hole flywheel in the Milky Way

Far away among the stars, in the Ara constellation of the southern sky, a small black hole is whirling space around it. If you tried to stay still in its vicinity, you couldn’t. You’d be dragged around at high speed as if you were riding on a giant flywheel.

In reality, gas falling into the black hole is whirled in that way. It radiates energy, in the form of X-rays, more intensely than it would do if space were still by tapping into the black hole’s internal energy stream.

"Acquittal" for Suspected Schizophrenia Gene

Just under one per cent of all Germans suffer from schizophrenia. The susceptibility to contracting this severe psychological disease is inherited; various studies indicate that a gene on chromosome 1 shares responsibility for the outbreak of the disease. However, in what is the biggest control study to date, which is being published in the May edition of the prestigious scientific journal Science, the researchers conclude that the suspect gene plays a less important role than was expected. Centres o

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Physics and Astronomy

NASA’s Fermi finds new feature in brightest gamma-ray burst yet seen

In October 2022, astronomers were stunned by what was quickly dubbed the BOAT — the brightest-of-all-time gamma-ray burst (GRB). Now an international science team reports that data from NASA’s Fermi…

Researchers control electronic properties of moiré crystals

A research team led by Prof Ursula Wurstbauer from the Institute of Physics at the University of Münster has investigated how electrons in two-dimensional crystals can be collectively excited and…

Is a gamma-ray laser possible?

Federal funding will allow University of Rochester scientists and their European collaborators to study the feasibility of coherent light sources beyond x-rays. Since the laser was invented in the 1960s,…

Life Sciences and Chemistry

Faster, more energy-efficient way to manufacture an industrially important chemical

Zirconium combined with silicon nitride enhances the conversion of propane — present in natural gas — needed to create in-demand plastic, polypropylene. Polypropylene is a common type of plastic found…

Folded peptides are more electrically conductive than unfolded peptides

Researchers combined single-molecule experiments, molecular dynamics simulations and quantum mechanics to validate the findings published in PNAS. What puts the electronic pep in peptides? A folded structure, according to a…

Fighting leukaemia by targeting its stem cells

By identifying mechanisms unique to leukaemia-causing cells, a French-Swiss team has discovered a new way to fight the disease. Acute myeloid leukaemia is one of the deadliest cancers. Leukaemic stem…

Materials Sciences

Shining light on similar crystals reveals photoreactions can differ

Distinctive processes could provide hints on how to use next-generation materials. A rose by any other name is a rose, but what of a crystal? Osaka Metropolitan University-led researchers have…

Nanoscale device simultaneously steers and shifts frequency of optical light

… pointing the way to future wireless communication channels. It is a scene many of us are familiar with: You’re working on your laptop at the local coffee shop with…

Foam fluidics showcase Rice lab’s creative approach to circuit design

Next-generation soft robotics and wearable technologies could sport foam-based fluidic circuits. When picturing next-generation wearables and robotics, the foam filling in your couch cushions is likely not the first thing…

Information Technology

Quantum sensor for the atomic world

… developed through international scientific collaboration. In a scientific breakthrough, an international research team from Germany’s Forschungszentrum Jülich and Korea’s IBS Center for Quantum Nanoscience (QNS) developed a quantum sensor…

‘WordValue’ Turns Texts into Rainbows

Linguist from Chemnitz University of Technology and computer science graduate from LMU Munich have developed a free web application that enables colourful, intuitive text analyses for research, for teaching or…

Spin qubits go trampolining

Researchers at QuTech developed somersaulting spin qubits for universal quantum logic. Researchers at QuTech developed somersaulting spin qubits for universal quantum logic. This achievement may enable efficient control of large…