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Blog – Page 2694

Zachary Schug, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis Program of the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center at The Wistar Institute, has published a new paper in the journal Nature Cancer. Schug’s paper, titled “Acetate acts as a metabolic immunomodulator by bolstering T-cell effector function and potentiating antitumor immunity in breast cancer,” demonstrates a double-acting mechanism for fighting a particularly aggressive, difficult-to-treat form of breast cancer. Schug’s research shows how silencing a certain gene, ACSS2, may improve existing treatments for patients.

Triple-negative , or TNBC, affects 10–15% of patients with breast cancer in the US. TNBC is called “triple-negative” because the cancer lacks an , a , and a HER2 (human epidermal growth factor) receptor. The absence of any of these receptors—receptors that when present in other forms of breast cancer, can be effectively targeted during treatment—makes treating TNBC quite difficult, and patients with TNBC have limited treatment options.

TNBC’s notorious aggression makes the technical challenge of finding a reliably effective treatment target all the more serious: compared to other breast cancers, TNBC grows faster and resists treatment more stubbornly. All these factors contribute to the fact that TNBC patients suffer from worse prognoses.

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Magnetic skyrmions have received much attention as promising, topologically protected quasiparticles with applications in spintronics. Skyrmions are small, swirling topological magnetic excitations with particle-like properties. Nevertheless, the lower stability of magnetic skyrmions only allow them to exist in a narrow temperature range, with low density of the particles, thus implying the need for an external magnetic field, which greatly limits their wider applications.

In a new report published in Science Advances, Yuzhu Song and a team of researchers formed high-density, spontaneous magnetic biskyrmions without a magnetic field in ferrimagnets via the thermal expansion of the lattice.

The team noted a strong connection between the atomic-scale ferrimagnetic structure and nanoscale magnetic domains in a ferrimagnet compound by using neutron powder diffraction and Lorentz transmission electron microscopy measurements.

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Conventional manufacturing methods such as soft lithography and hot embossing processes can be used to bioengineer microfluidic chips, albeit with limitations, including difficulty in preparing multilayered structures, cost-and labor-consuming fabrication processes as well as low productivity.

Materials scientists have introduced digital light processing as a cost-effective microfabrication approach to 3D print microfluidic chips, although the fabrication resolution of these microchannels are limited to a scale of sub-100 microns.

In a new report published in Microsystems and Nanoengineering, Zhuming Luo and a scientific team in , and chemical engineering in China developed an innovative digital light processing method.

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The Earth’s oldest surface layer forming continents, termed its crust, is approximately 4 billion years old and is comprised of 25–50km-thick volcanic rocks known as basalts. Originally, scientists thought that one complete lithospheric crust covered the entire planet, compared to the individual plates we see today which were believed to have only begun formation 1 billion years later. However, attitudes towards this hypothesis are being challenged.

The formation mechanism of this is somewhat enigmatic, with academics now suggesting it may have been driven by , the movement of Earth’s major surface plates across the globe over billions of years, forming the landmasses and topographic features which we see today.

One theory focuses on when the plates converge, often causing one to subduct beneath the other, resulting in partial melting to change magma composition, while another studies mechanisms occurring within the itself (at less than 50km depth) that are entirely separate from plate boundaries but also cause partial melting.

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Summary: Researchers pioneered a groundbreaking method called “CHOOSE” to investigate genes tied to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) within human tissue. This technique allows for simultaneous examination of key transcriptional regulator genes linked to autism in a single organoid.

Utilizing CHOOSE, the team pinpointed mutations in 36 genes known to heighten autism risk, shedding light on how they influence brain development. The revelations from these organoids mirrored clinical observations, underscoring the potential of this method in advancing our understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders.

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Living things act with purpose. But where does purpose come from? How do humans make sense of their relation to the world and realize their ability to effect change? These fundamental questions of “agency”—acting with purpose—have perplexed some of the greatest minds in history including Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Erwin Schrödinger and Niels Bohr.

A Florida Atlantic University (FAU) study reveals groundbreaking insight into the origins of agency using an unusual and largely untapped source— . Since goal-directed action appears in the first months of human life, the FAU research team used young infants as a test field to understand how spontaneous movement transforms into purposeful action.

For the study, infants began the experiment as disconnected observers. However, when researchers tethered one of the infants’ feet to a crib-mounted baby mobile, infants discovered they could make the mobile move. To catch this moment of realization like lightning in a bottle, researchers measured infant and mobile movement in 3D space using cutting-edge motion capture technology to uncover dynamic and coordinative features marking the “birth of agency.”

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Some 2,000 years ago in ancient Rome, glass vessels carrying wine or water, or perhaps an exotic perfumes, tumble from a table in a marketplace, and shatter to pieces on the street. As centuries passed, the fragments were covered by layers of dust and soil and exposed to a continuous cycle of changes in temperature, moisture, and surrounding minerals.

Now these tiny pieces of are being uncovered from construction sites and archaeological digs and reveal themselves to be something extraordinary. On their surface is a mosaic of iridescent colors of blue, green and orange, with some displaying shimmering gold-colored mirrors.

These beautiful glass artifacts are often set in jewelry as pendants or earrings, while larger, more complete objects are displayed in museums.

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We’ve highlighted a lot of bright innovators over the years, usually before they become household names. Sergey Brin of Google was on the list in 2002. JB Straubel was honored in 2008 when he was CTO of Tesla. That year also saw Andrew Ng make the list (he’s one of the biggest names in AI right now, and he came back this year to write an intro essay, which I highly recommend.)

As I looked through the folks who made the list in the climate and energy category in 2023, I noticed a few trends. In particular, there was a concentration in two areas I think a lot about: batteries and fuels. So let’s take a closer look at a few of this year’s innovators and consider what their work could mean for the future of climate action.

As you probably know if you’re a frequent reader here, I see batteries as one of the most crucial pieces of technology in the fight to address climate change. Not only are powerful, long-lasting batteries crucial to electrifying vehicles and other forms of transportation, but they are expected to play a growing role on the grid, storing energy from intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar for when it’s most needed.

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While semiconductor lithography gets the bulk of the attention in chipmaking, other processes are equally important in producing working integrated circuits (ICs). Case in point: packaging. An IC package provides the electrical, thermal, and mechanical transition from the semiconductor die or chip to the circuit board, which is often called a motherboard. One key element of the IC package is the substrate, which is essentially a miniature circuit board with copper traces that bonds to the input/output (I/O), power and ground pads on the chip and electrically connects these pads to the circuit board. The substrate provides a solid mechanical home for the chip and is also thermally matched to… More.

The release also quotes Babak Sabi, Intel senior vice president and general manager of Assembly and Test Development, who said: “After a decade of research, Intel has achieved industry-leading glass substrates for advanced packaging. We look forward to delivering these cutting-edge technologies that will benefit our key players and foundry customers for decades to come.”

Research into using glass substrates for chipmaking is nothing new. As Intel’s release says, the company has been working on this technology for at least a decade, as have other organizations such as the 3D Systems Packaging Research Center located at Georgia Tech, which was founded in 1994 – nearly 30 years ago. Last year, the Georgia Tech PRC launched an industry advisory board with Intel Fellow Ravi Mahajan as one of the initial board members. Intel has already spent more than a billion dollars to develop a glass-substrate manufacturing facility at its site in Chandler, Arizona.

So, if glass IC substrates are nothing new, why would Intel announce this particular development now, after ten years of corporate development and several years before these substrates find their way into products? On the technical side, it’s because existing ceramic and organic substrates are reaching the end of their ability to provide the electrical, thermal, and mechanical transitions for today’s most advanced semiconductors, which is doubly true as the industry adopts chiplets as an increasingly common way to put more transistors into a package.

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