Chemical processes are all around us. From novel materials to more effective medicines or plastic products – chemical reactions play a key role in the design of the things we use every day. Scientists constantly search for better ways to control these reactions, for example to develop new materials. Now an international research team led by the MPSD has found an explanation why chemical reactions are slowed down inside mirrored cavities, where molecules are forced to interact with light. Its…

Surrounded by a vast ocean underneath a thick ice shell, Enceladus is a hot candidate for potentially harboring alien life. A team of researchers led by the University of Arizona concluded that a future mission could provide answers even without landing on the tiny world. The mystery of whether microbial alien life might inhabit Enceladus, one of Saturn’s 83 moons, could be solved by an orbiting space probe, according to a new study led by University of Arizona researchers. In…

Georgia Tech researchers developed a new nanoelectronics platform based on graphene – a single sheet of carbon atoms. A pressing quest in the field of nanoelectronics is the search for a material that could replace silicon. Graphene has seemed promising for decades. But its potential faltered along the way, due to damaging processing methods and the lack of a new electronics paradigm to embrace it. With silicon nearly maxed out in its ability to accommodate faster computing, the next big…

Two Dresden Research Institutes want to Reduce the Number of Animal Experiments in Radiopharmaceutical Research with a New Idea. Radioactivity can save lives. When neither chemotherapy or surgery nor radiation from the outside help against a tumor, modern medicine uses so-called radiopharmaceuticals. These radioactive drugs not only detect cancer cells, they also enable targeted radiation from the inside to destroy the tumor. However, before such substances become available for use in humans, extensive animal testing is currently required during their…

… for efficient biomass energy production. Scientists discover new regulatory mechanisms in molds, potentially enabling a comprehensive high production method for various enzymes that degrade plant biomass. Filamentous fungi have long been a good friend of sake brewers, but they might soon also be a sidekick for environmentalists. Osaka Metropolitan University researchers have revealed the regulatory mechanisms of enzyme production in a filamentous fungus that allows for efficient degradation of plant biomass, an alternative energy resource to petroleum. Filamentous fungi…

Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, scientists have identified an Earth-size world, called TOI 700 e, orbiting within the habitable zone of its star – the range of distances where liquid water could occur on a planet’s surface. The world is 95% Earth’s size and likely rocky. Astronomers previously discovered three planets in this system, called TOI 700 b, c, and d. Planet d also orbits in the habitable zone. But scientists needed an additional year of TESS…

Within the framework of the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat, excitons were generated in a topological insulator for the first time. A breakthrough in quantum research, based on material design from Würzburg. An international team of scientists collaborating within the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat has achieved a breakthrough in quantum research – the first detection of excitons (electrically neutral quasiparticles) in a topological insulator. This discovery paves the way for a new generation of light-driven computer chips and quantum…

New OHSU, OSU research uses lipid nanoparticles to target light-sensitive cells in the eye. Using nanotechnology that enabled mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, a new approach to gene therapy may improve how physicians treat inherited forms of blindness. A collaborative team of researchers with Oregon Health & Science University and Oregon State University have developed an approach that uses lipid nanoparticles — tiny, lab-made balls of fat — to deliver strands of messenger ribonucleic acid, or mRNA, inside the eye. To treat blindness, the…

Translating electrochemical performance of large format batteries to microscale power sources has been a long-standing technological challenge, limiting the ability of batteries to power microdevices, microrobots and implantable medical devices. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers have created a high-voltage microbattery (> 9 V), with high-energy and -power density, unparalleled by any existing battery design. Material Science and Engineering Professor Paul Braun (Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering, Materials Research Laboratory Director), Dr. Sungbong Kim (Postdoc, MatSE, current assistant professor at Korea…

Discovery of previously unknown effect makes compact, ultra-fast control of spin qubits possible. Australian engineers have discovered a new way of precisely controlling single electrons nestled in quantum dots that run logic gates. What’s more, the new mechanism is less bulky and requires fewer parts, which could prove essential to making large-scale silicon quantum computers a reality. The serendipitous discovery, made by engineers at the quantum computing start-up Diraq and UNSW Sydney, is detailed in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. “This…

Technology helps sensor and camera systems perform optimally by keeping optics transparent. Researchers have developed an optical coating system that combines antifogging and antireflective properties. The new technology could help boost the performance of lidar systems and cameras. “Walking into a warm room from the cold outside can cause glasses to fog up, blinding the user,” said research team leader Anne Gärtner from Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, both in Jena, Germany….

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has imaged the inner workings of a dusty disk surrounding a nearby red dwarf star. These observations represent the first time the previously known disk has been imaged at these infrared wavelengths of light. They also provide clues to the composition of the disk. The star system in question, AU Microscopii or AU Mic, is located 32 light-years away in the southern constellation Microscopium. It’s approximately 23 million years old, meaning that planet formation has…

The quantum nature of objects visible to the naked eye is currently a much-discussed research question. A team led by Innsbruck physicist Gerhard Kirchmair has now demonstrated a new method in the laboratory that could make the quantum properties of macroscopic objects more accessible than before. With the method, the researchers were able to increase the efficiency of an established cooling method by an order of a magnitude. With optomechanical experiments, scientists are trying to explore the limits of the…

Synthesis of fumaric acid by a new method of artificial photosynthesis, using sunlight. In recent years, environmental problems caused by global warming have become more apparent due to greenhouse gases such as CO2. In natural photosynthesis, CO2 is not reduced directly, but is bound to organic compounds which are converted to glucose or starch. Mimicking this, artificial photosynthesis could reduce CO2 by combining it into organic compounds to be used as raw materials, which can be converted into durable forms…

In preclinical models, investigators uncovered a novel mechanism underlying the development of diabetic cataracts that undermines current hypothesis. New findings from investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, contradict previous notions about sugar’s role in the onset of diabetic cataracts. Using an animal model that more closely recapitulates type 2 diabetes in humans, the research team found early signs of damage in the eye before the onset of type 2 diabetes,…

Researchers find ways to improve the storage time of quantum information in a spin rich material. An international team of scientists have demonstrated a leap in preserving the quantum coherence of quantum dot spin qubits as part of the global push for practical quantum networks and quantum computers. These technologies will be transformative to a broad range of industries and research efforts: from the security of information transfer, through the search for materials and chemicals with novel properties, to measurements…

A study of the upper atmosphere’s composition has successfully measured an increased presence of 18O, a heavier oxygen issotope with 10 instead of eight neutrons. Helmut Wiesemeyer (MPIfR Bonn) and his colleagues have measured the 18O fraction of the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere for the first time, using the GREAT instrument aboard SOFIA and found that the upper atmosphere has an 18O fraction close to that of the lower atmosphere. A better understanding to what extent biological effects permeate Earth’s atmosphere…

Wyss Institute’s eRapid electrochemical sensor technology enables detection of SARS-CoV-2 antigen-specific antibodies to detect virus and assess vaccine-induced immunity. Not all SARS-CoV-2 infections are created equal. We have learned this through multiple virus waves are taking their toll on the world’s population. Improving vaccines and new anti-viral therapies that target distinct viral molecules (antigens) and the changes they undergo over time have helped to soften this blow. However, to control the disease even better and everywhere, we have to be…

Engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, have finished testing the high-gain antenna for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. When it launches by May 2027, this NASA observatory will help unravel the secrets of dark energy and dark matter, search for and image exoplanets, and explore many topics in infrared astrophysics. Pictured above in a test chamber, the antenna will provide the primary communication link between the Roman spacecraft and the ground. It will downlink the…

Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry sheds light on the biosynthesis of pungency. How do plants make those pungent substances, anyway? The Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB) is working intensively on this topic. Recently, a group of scientists led by Dr. Thomas Vogt have pinpointed the crucial enzyme that gives the fruits of the pepper plant (lat. Piper nigrum) the distinctive, pungent taste. The enzyme in question, piperine synthase, catalyzes the final step towards biosynthesizing pungent piperine. Now the biochemists…