The new method enables faster and easier reading of RNA modifications which can be applied to clinical samples, the study of plant RNA, or understanding their role in diseases. A team of researchers from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a software method that accurately predicts chemical modifications of RNA[1] molecules from genomic data. Their method, called m6Anet, was published in Nature Methods on 10 November 2022. Within the…

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument reveals compelling evidence of a mass migration of stars into a galaxy other than the Milky Way. Over the course of billions of years, galaxies grow and evolve by forging new stars and merging with other galaxies through aptly named “galactic immigration” events. Astronomers try to uncover the histories of these immigration events by studying the motions of individual stars throughout a galaxy and its extended halo of stars and dark matter. Such cosmic archaeology,…

Only one in 100,000 people suffer from a pheochromocytoma, a tumor of the adrenal gland. If the tumor has already metastasized, a radioactive compound can be used to detect malignant cells that have spread to other parts of the body, and to irradiate them from the inside. However, the preparation containing the beta emitter Lutetium-177 can only bind to the tumor if it has sufficient target molecules, which is not always the case. By administering two approved drugs prior to…

Thanks to artificial intelligence: Engineering novel molecules and materials with specific properties can yield significant advances for industrial processes, drug discovery and optoelectronics. However, the search for novel molecules and materials is comparable to looking for a needle in a haystack, since the number of molecules in chemical space is of the unimaginable order of 10 to the power of 60. That is significantly more molecules than there are stars in the known universe. Scientists at Leipzig University and the…

Fraunhofer ISE Hands Over Plant to Local NGO. In the SolCoolDry project, funded by the German Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (BLE), the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, together with the company Innotech Ingenieursgesellschaft mbH and Kenyan partners, has developed a system that uses solar thermal and photovoltaic energy to generate drying heat and produce ice. The lack of electricity in rural areas makes it difficult for fishermen and farmers in Africa to preserve or refrigerate their…

Thanks to a new method developed by researchers at the University of Bern and Empa, greenhouse gas concentrations in 1.5 million year old ice can be measured even more accurately. Ice cores are a unique climate archive. Thanks to a new method developed by researchers at the University of Bern and Empa, greenhouse gas concentrations in 1.5 million year old ice can be measured even more accurately. The EU project “Beyond EPICA” with the participation of the University of Bern…

In a chemical reaction, molecules in different substances meet one another to form new molecules causing changes in the bonds of their atoms. The molecules collide at an extremely close distance—a nanometer or less—in an extremely short amount of time. This makes investigating the details of chemical reactions at the molecular scale difficult. Most experimental knowledge, used to explain single-molecule reaction dynamics, was obtained by studying reactions in gases. However, the overwhelming majority of chemical reactions take place in liquids,…

School of Veterinary Medicine researchers teamed with scientists at the University of Texas at San Antonio to transform blood cells to regain a flexible fate, growing into a precursor of sperm cells. Different cell types—say, heart, liver, blood, and sperm cells—possess characteristics that help them carry out their unique jobs in the body. In general, those characteristics are hard-wired. Without intervention, a heart cell won’t spontaneously transform into a liver cell. Yet researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of…

Study on mice shows male-specific effects on health. Insulin is not only a regulator of blood sugar, but also has an influence on life expectancy. If the insulin signalling pathway is inhibited, animals live longer. But which tissue is crucial for this? And do males and females react in the same way? Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne have specifically lowered insulin pathway levels in different tissues of male and female mice. Their study…

Infections with the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus are difficult to fight – especially because the fungus forms a biofilm and can thus protect itself from antifungal drugs and the immune defence system. The cancer drug Imatinib prevents the compartmentalisation. There are up to 10,000 fungal spores in every cubic metre of air that can enter our bodies when we breathe them in. Some of these belong to the species Aspergillus fumigatus, a widespread fungus found everywhere in the environment. In immunocompromised…

The seismic reflection method involves sending acoustic waves thousands of meters under the Earth’s surface. The reflected signals provide scientists with information about the characteristics of the subsurface. This is how oil and gas deposits can be discovered. While these will eventually no longer be extracted as we move away from fossil fuels, accurate knowledge of rock structures is important for better understanding known reservoirs. The Earth’s subsurface could be a key place to store greenhouse gases. With improved machine…

… confirms existence of a new family of quantum matter. Like finding a hidden world, physicists dialing up the magnetic field on a semiconducting material have discovered the first in a new family of matter that flowers from the bizarre realm of the quantum scale. In what researchers dubbed the bubble phase of composite fermions, pairs of quasiparticles – particle-like entities arising from the interaction of particles – align in a crystalline pattern, allowing electricity to flow along the edge of…

New technology useful for cancer therapy. Cell membranes are barriers that maintain cellular homeostasis, and the intracellular delivery of biologically functional molecules, including peptides, proteins, and nucleic acids to manipulate cellular functions. Conventional intracellular uptake processes require high concentrations of biofunctional molecules with low permeability to pass through the cell membrane. This results in low drug activity because the probability of the biofunctional molecules entering target cells and their organelles is low. In addition, many drugs damage healthy cells as…

This ultrafast infrared spectroscopy method would fulfill many unmet needs in experimental molecular science, revealing various high-speed phenomena in detail. Infrared spectroscopy is a non-invasive tool to identify unknown samples and known chemical substances. It is based on how different molecules interact with infrared light. You may have seen this tool at airports, where they screen for illicit drugs. The technique has many applications: liquid biopsy, environmental gas monitoring, contaminant detection, forensic analyses, exoplanet search, etc. But the traditional infrared spectroscopy…

An international team with researchers from the University of Bayreuth presents a potentially groundbreaking discovery for nitrogen chemistry in “Nature Chemistry”. For the first time, a compound containing aromatic rings of nitrogen atoms has been synthesized. The compound of nitrogen and potassium was produced under extremely high pressures and temperatures. It has a very complex structure, but its major building block is the planar ring of six nitrogen atoms, which is called hexazine anion, as it has a negative charge….

Innovative battery researchers have cracked the code to creating real-time 3D images of the promising but temperamental lithium metal battery as it cycles. A team from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have succeeded in observing how the lithium metal in the cell behaves as it charges and discharges. The new method may contribute to batteries with higher capacity and increased safety in our future cars and devices. “We’ve opened a new window in order to understand – and in the…

Transferring data at 200 gigabits per second. Researchers at IHP – Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics have set a new world speed record. The circuit designed by the scientists in Frankfurt (Oder) can transmit data wirelessly at up to 200 gigabits per second. Researchers at IHP – Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics have set a new world speed record. The circuit designed by the scientists in Frankfurt (Oder) can transmit data wirelessly at up to 200 gigabits per…

Not melted meteorites, according to scientists. WHOI is part of a collaborative study, offering new insight into the extraterrestrial origins of our lakes, rivers and oceans. Water makes up 71% of Earth’s surface, but no one knows how or when such massive quantities of water arrived on Earth. A new study published today in the journal Nature brings scientists one step closer to answering that question. Sune Nielsen, associate scientist, Geology & Geophysics at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) co-authored the study,…

How can people be prevented from being affected again after a stroke? In order to find new therapeutic approaches for prevention, the international CRESCENDO consortium led by the MHH is conducting research at the molecular level. In Germany, 270,000 people suffer a stroke every year. This can result in severe disabilities: Paralysis, speech disorders and problems walking. Often, it does not remain a one-time event. Many patients experience a recurrence of the stroke and further deterioration of their health. How…

A team including physicists of the University of Bern has for the first time detected subatomic particles called neutrinos created by a particle collider, namely at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A team including physicists of the University of Bern has for the first time detected subatomic particles called neutrinos created by a particle collider, namely at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The discovery promises to deepen scientists’ understanding of the nature of neutrinos, which are among the most abundant…