As mammals age, their sense of smell deteriorates. In a study published in the journal Cell Reports, an interdisciplinary research team at Helmholtz Zentrum München and the University Medical Centre Mainz investigated why this is the case. For their study, the researchers tracked the development of stem cells in the brains of mice using what … Read more
Researchers at the Universities of Zurich and Cambridge have discovered a new, exotic class of planets outside our solar system. These so-called super-Earths were formed at high temperatures close to their host star and contain high quantities of calcium, aluminium and their oxides—including sapphire and ruby. Twenty-one light years away from Earth in the constellation … Read more
Researchers have demonstrated a new technique that can store more optical data in a smaller space than was previously possible on-chip. This technique improves upon the phase-change optical memory cell, which uses light to write and read data, and could offer a faster, more power-efficient form of memory for computers. In Optica, The Optical Society’s … Read more
Two news items about Sunnyvale, California-based Alta Devices drew attention recently. Alta Devices, first of all, has set a solar efficiency record for its single junction solar cell. Actually, this is the seventh time the company achieved such a distinction. As optics.org said, this was “the latest in a long series of cell or module records … Read more
Nuclear fission is a process in which a heavy nucleus split into two. Most of the actinides nuclei (plutonium, uranium, curium, etc) fission asymmetrically with one big fragment and one small. Empirically, the heavy fragment presents on average a xenon element (with charge number Z=54) independently from the initial fissioning nucleus. To understand the mechanism … Read more
New research has discovered how plant roots sense the availability of moisture in soil and then adapt their shape to optimise acquisition of water. The discovery could enable crops to be bred which are more adaptive to changes in climate conditions, such as water scarcity, and help ensure food security in the future. These findings, … Read more
The age of the water in the world’s oceans is critical for understanding ocean circulation, especially for the transport of gases from the atmosphere into the deep ocean. Researchers from Heidelberg University recently used an atomic physics technique they developed to determine the age of deep ocean water ranging from 50 to 1,000 years. This … Read more
Enzymes—biocatalysts made of proteins—are hugely important molecules that catalyze the reactions and processes in living organisms. Ongoing work to understand their structures and reaction mechanisms is therefore vital to broaden our knowledge and contribute to scientific and medical advances. X-ray crystallography—in which protein crystals are exposed to an X-ray beam, resulting in specific diffraction patterns … Read more
Pollutants from wild fires affect crop and vegetation growth hundreds of kilometres from impact zone, research shows The startling extent to which violent wild fires, similar to those that ravaged large swathes of California recently, affect forests and crops way beyond the boundaries of the blaze has been revealed. A pioneering new study by Professor Nadine … Read more
The steady production of sperm relies on the number of sperm stem cells in the testis remaining constant. Researchers including Assistant Professor Yu Kitadate and Professor Shosei Yoshida (developmental biologists at the National Institute for Basic Biology within the National Institutes of Natural Sciences in Japan) and Professor Benjamin Simons (a theoretical physicist at the … Read more
A technique that enables biologically active enzymes to survive the rigors of inkjet printing presents a promising alternative to routine blood screening finger jabs for diabetic blood sugar levels. The KAUST-led team used this approach to make disposable devices that can measure glucose concentrations in human saliva. Strips of pH-sensitive paper are commonly used to … Read more
Long-term assessment of likely regional and local climate impacts is critical to enabling municipalities, businesses, and regional economies to prepare for potentially damaging and costly effects of climate change—from prolonged droughts to more frequent and intense extreme events such as major storms and heatwaves. Unfortunately, the tools most commonly used to project future climate impacts, … Read more
Children born prematurely often develop neuromotor and cognitive developmental disabilities. The best way to reduce the impacts of those disabilities is to catch them early through a series of cognitive and motor tests. But accurately measuring and recording the motor functions of small children is tricky. As any parent will tell you, toddlers tend to … Read more
Approximately 98 percent of the human genome is made up of noncoding DNA, including enhancers, promoters, and other elements that regulate gene activity. The methods for studying these regions tend to be expensive, labor-intensive, and largely low-throughput. To really understand the functional geography of the noncoding genome, however, researchers need a way to isolate and … Read more
In 1973, Russian physicist A.B. Migdal predicted the phenomenon of pion condensation above a critical, extremely high—several times higher than that for the normal matter— nuclear density. Although this condensation has never been observed, it is expected to play a key role in the rapid cooling process of the core of neutron stars. These city-size … Read more