Gene mutations in the RAS-MAPK signaling pathway disrupt lung development in the womb. Most rare diseases are congenital – including CPAM (congenital pulmonary airway malformations). These are airway malformations of the lungs that can lead to severe breathing problems in some affected newborns and can be associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. Researchers at Hannover Medical School (MHH) and Magdeburg University Hospital (UMMD) have now succeeded in identifying the genetic causes of the disease in a study. Cysts…

Thanks to ESA satellites, an international team including UNIGE researchers has detected a giant eruption coming from a magnetar, an extremely magnetic neutron star. While ESA’s satellite INTEGRAL was observing the sky, it spotted a burst of gamma-rays – high-energy photons – coming from the nearby galaxy M82. Only a few hours later, ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray space telescope searched for an afterglow from the explosion but found none. An international team, including researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), realised…

Scientists develop novel liquid metal alloy system to synthesize diamond under moderate conditions. Did you know that 99% of synthetic diamonds are currently produced using high-pressure and high-temperature (HPHT) methods?[2] A prevailing paradigm is that diamonds can only be grown using liquid metal catalysts in the gigapascal pressure range (typically 5-6 GPa, where 1 GPa is about 10,000 atm), and typically within the temperature range of 1300-1600 °C. However, the diamonds produced using HPHT are always limited to sizes of…

Compact, low-power system opens doors for photon-efficient drone and satellite-based environmental monitoring and mapping. Researchers have developed a compact and lightweight single-photon airborne lidar system that can acquire high-resolution 3D images with a low-power laser. This advance could make single-photon lidar practical for air and space applications such as environmental monitoring, 3D terrain mapping and object identification. Single-photon lidar uses single-photon detection techniques to measure the time it takes laser pulses to travel to objects and back. It is particularly…

Potential alternative to widely used contrast agent gadolinium. Some of the world’s greatest discoveries happened by accident. While the discovery of diamond dust’s potential as a future MRI contrast agent may never be considered a turning point in science history, its signal-enhancing properties are nevertheless an unexpected finding which may open-up new possibilities: Diamond dust glows brightly even after days of being injected. Does that mean it could perhaps one day become an alternative to the widely used contrast agent…

The hydrogen atom was once considered the simplest atom in nature, composed of a structureless electron and a structured proton. However, as research progressed, scientists discovered a simpler type of atom, consisting of structureless electrons (e– ), muons (μ– ), or tauons (τ– ) and their equally structureless antiparticles. These atoms are bound together solely by electromagnetic interactions, with simpler structures than hydrogen atoms, providing a new perspective on scientific problems such as quantum mechanics, fundamental symmetry, and gravity. To…

A new nucleosynthesis process denoted the νr-process has been suggested by scientists from GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Technische Universität Darmstadt, and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. It operates when neutron-rich material is exposed to a high flux of neutrinos. The theoretical proposal, which was recently published in “Physical Review Letters”, may be the solution to a long-standing issue related to the production of a group of rare isotopes present in the solar system but whose origin is still poorly…

Conditions on Saturn’s moon Enceladus simulated in the laboratory. In 2018, very large organic molecules were discovered in ice particles on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. It is still unclear whether they indicate the existence of life or were created in some other way. A recent study could help to answer this question. It is possible, that conditions that support or maintain life in extraterrestrial oceans could leave molecular traces in grains of ice. The research on this was conducted at the…

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in millions of deaths. Despite an unparalleled collaborative research effort that led to effective vaccines and therapies being produced in record-breaking time, a complete understanding of the structure and lifecycle of the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 is still lacking. Scientists used the biolabs and the SPB/SFX instrument at the European XFEL to study the main protease, or Mpro, of the virus to understand how it protects itself from oxidative damage. The results add key knowledge to…

Spherical pyrite from black smokers puts Tübingen and Göttingen researchers on the trail of the first microbes that lived billions of years ago. A team of researchers at the Universities of Tübingen and Göttingen has found that certain minerals with characteristic shapes could indicate the activity of bacteria in hydrothermal vents – or black smokers – in the deep ocean several billion years ago. This represents a major step in our understanding of the origin of life. The study, led…

HIPS researchers discover new family of bacteria with high pharmaceutical potential. Most antibiotics used in human medicine originate from natural products derived from bacteria and other microbes. Novel microorganisms are therefore a promising source of new active compounds – also for the treatment of diseases such as cancer or viral infections. A team from the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) has now been able to isolate a completely new family of bacteria that has particularly high potential for…

TU Graz Opens New CD Lab. The “CD Laboratory for EMC-Aware Robust Electronic Systems” carries out research on the impact of electromagnetic emissions on electronic components in production and operation in order to eliminate the causes of failures. Electrical components, such as semiconductors, are becoming smaller and smaller thanks to technological advances. However, this reduction in size makes them potentially more sensitive to external influences such as electrostatic discharges or electromagnetic emissions from other electronic components. This not only increases…

Due to the complex structures of microporous crystals known as MOFs, reliable simulations of their properties have been difficult until now. Machine learning provides the solution. Hydrogen storage, heat conduction, gas storage, CO2 and water sequestration – metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have extraordinary properties due to their unique structure in the form of microporous crystals, which have a very large surface area despite their small size. This makes them extremely interesting for research and practical applications. However, MOFs are very complex…

A new type of pure synthetic leather meets the high requirements of the European Ecodesign Regulation. Made from a bio-based plastic, it is biodegradable and meets the requirements for a closed recycling process. Many synthetic leathers consist of a textile substrate to which a polymer layer is applied. The polymer layer usually consists of an adhesive layer and a top layer, which is usually embossed. The textile backing and the top coat are usually completely different materials. Woven, knitted, or…

Researchers find that air turbulence in earth’s thermosphere is governed by the same principles as those in the troposphere. In a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers have discovered that the turbulence in the thermosphere exhibits the same physical laws as the wind in the lower atmosphere. Furthermore, wind in the thermosphere predominantly rotates in a cyclonic direction, in that it rotates counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. The findings reveal a new unified…

Technology eliminates optical-electronic conversions, holds promise for revolutionizing edge intelligence. Researchers have demonstrated a new intelligent photonic sensing-computing chip that can process, transmit and reconstruct images of a scene within nanoseconds. This advance opens the door to extremely high-speed image processing that could benefit edge intelligence for machine vision applications such as autonomous driving, industrial inspection and robotic vision. Edge computing, which performs intensive computing tasks like image processing and analysis on local devices, is evolving into edge intelligence by…

Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC are co-leading an effort to develop advanced electronic bandages and other tools to improve chronic wound monitoring and healing. Chronic wounds, which include diabetic ulcers, surgical wounds, pressure injuries, and other problems, are deadlier than many people realize. Patients with chronic wounds have a five-year survival rate around 70%, worse than that of breast cancer, prostate cancer and other serious diseases. Treating wounds is also expensive, costing an estimated $28 billion…

The potential of quantum computers is currently thwarted by a trade-off problem. Quantum systems that can carry out complex operations are less tolerant to errors and noise, while systems that are more protected against noise are harder and slower to compute with. Now a research team from Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden, has created a unique system that combats the dilemma, thus paving the way for longer computation time and more robust quantum computers. For the impact of quantum computers…

With speeds over 200 times faster than traditional methods, new technology could benefit autonomous driving, industrial inspection and security applications. Researchers have developed a new 3D method that can be used to track fast-moving objects at unprecedented high speeds. The real-time tracking approach, which is based on single-pixel imaging, could be used to improve autonomous driving, industrial inspection and security surveillance systems. “Our approach does not require reconstructing the object’s image to calculate its position, which significantly reduces data storage…

… Visiting Websites and Watching Videos. Online activities can be monitored in detail simply by analysing latency fluctuations in the internet connection, researchers at Graz University of Technology have discovered. The attack works without malicious code or access to the data traffic. The team from the Institute of Applied Information Processing and Communications at TU Graz that discovered and analysed the security vulnerability (from left): Fabian Rauscher, Jonas Juffinger, Stefan Gast, Simone Franza, Daniel Gruss, Roland Czerny. (c) IAIK –…