In recent years, an entirely new class of robot inspired by natural forms and built using soft, flexible elastomers has taken the field by storm, with designs capable of gripping objects, walking, and even jumping. In one demonstration, Rothemund explained, the valve was built into a multifingered gripper, but a small vent was added to … Read more
A new collaborative study led by a research team at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Washington could provide engineers new design rules for creating microelectronics, membranes and tissues, and open up better production methods for new materials. At the same time, the research, … Read more
Using a 25-year record of ESA satellite data, recent research shows that the pace at which Greenland is losing ice is getting faster. The research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, uses radar altimetry data gathered by the ERS, Envisat and CryoSat missions between 1992 and 2016. Radar altimeters record the height of the … Read more
A new study by MIT researchers finds that the growing practice of compiling massive, anonymized datasets about people’s movement patterns is a double-edged sword: While it can provide deep insights into human behaviour for research, it could also put people’s private data at risk. Companies, researchers, and other entities are beginning to collect, store and … Read more
MIT engineers have come up with a conceptual design for a system to store renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, and deliver that energy back into an electric grid on demand. The system may be designed to power a small city not just when the sun is up or the wind is high … Read more
Scientists mapping out the quantum characteristics of superconductors materials that conduct electricity with no energy loss have entered a new regime. Using newly connected tools named OASIS at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, they’ve uncovered previously inaccessible details of the “phase diagram” of one of the most commonly studied “high-temperature” superconductors. The … Read more
Researchers from the CNRS, the University of Orléans, and the company Artimmune, in collaboration with Turkish clinicians from Atatürk University, have identified a key mechanism of lung inflammation induced by silica exposure, which leads to silicosis, an incurable disease. Their study in mice and patients, published in Nature Communications, shows that this inflammation can be … Read more
Researchers from the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the La Jolla Institute for Immunology have identified a new type of T cell called a phospholipid-reactive T cell that is able to recognize phospholipids, the molecules that help form cells’ outer membranes. The scientists also discovered that phospholipids compete with glycolipids, another type of molecule … Read more
Rising ocean temperatures and acidification are known to be altering the way fish grow and reproduce and now research shows these climate change side-effects may also change how fish think and act. As animals and invertebrates adapt to rising ocean temperatures, their brains might be changing, too. A recent study by a group at Macquarie … Read more
The world’s most powerful particle accelerator has gone quiet. Particles took their last spin around the Large Hadron Collider on December 3 before scientists shut the machine down for two years of upgrades. Located at the particle physics laboratory CERN in Geneva, the accelerator has smashed together approximately 16 million billion protons since 2015, when … Read more
NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft completed its 1.2 billion-mile (2 billion-kilometre) journey to arrive at the asteroid Bennu Monday. The spacecraft executed a manoeuvre that transitioned it from flying toward Bennu to operating around the asteroid. Now, at about 11.8 miles (19 kilometres) from Bennu’s Sun-facing surface, OSIRIS-REx will begin … Read more
Scientists from the Theory Department of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) in Hamburg, Germany have shown through theoretical calculations and computer simulations that the force between electrons and lattice distortions in an atomically thin two-dimensional superconductor can be controlled with … Read more
Scientists have identified four more ghostly signals of massive collisions in outer space, including of the largest to date, bringing their total haul of gravitational-wave detections to 11 in just a few years. And even better, that wealth of observations is large enough to let scientists make broader discoveries about the world around us and … Read more
Everybody knows that the DNA you inherit from each biological parent is an even split. I mean, hopefully, everybody knows: you get half from the egg and half from the sperm that combines to make you. Well, almost. But those37 genes are found in your mitochondria, those little energy factories of cells and that mitochondrial … Read more
Mitochondrial DNA is the small circular chromosome found inside mitochondria. These organelles found in cells have often been called the powerhouse of the cell. The mitochondria and thus mitochondrial DNA, are passed only from mother to offspring through the egg cell. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed from a mother to her children. Fathers cannot pass … Read more