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Genetic engineering reduces plant’s chromosome number without affecting its growth

Higher yields, greater resilience to climatic changes or diseases—the demands on crop plants are constantly growing. To address these challenges, researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are developing new methods in genetic engineering.

In cooperation with other German and Czech researchers, they succeeded for the first time in leveraging the CRISPR/Cas molecular scissors for changing the number of chromosomes in the Arabidopsis thaliana model organism in a targeted way—without any adverse effects on plant growth. This discovery opens up new perspectives for plant breeding and agriculture. The results have been published in Science.

The CRISPR/Cas molecular scissors enabled the KIT researchers in recent years to alter not only genes, but also chromosomes. This way, it is possible to combine wanted traits or eliminate unwanted ones in plants in a targeted manner.

Physicists explore optical launch of hypersound pulses in halide perovskites

A German-French team of physicists from TU Dortmund University, University of Würzburg, and Le Mans Université has succeeded in launching shear hypersound pulses with exceptionally large amplitudes in metal halide perovskites using pulsed optical excitation.

This discovery is published in the journal Science Advances.

Whereas the material has been of high interest for photovoltaics so far, the new results turn it into a candidate to be used for optically driven devices capable of generating and detecting sound waves at sub-terahertz frequencies, with potential applications across electronic, photonic, magnetic, and biomedical devices.

Stunning Results: Revolutionary Retinal Chip Lets Patients With Severe Vision Loss Read Again

A wireless implant helped patients with severe macular degeneration regain usable vision. The results point toward a new future for vision restoration. A wireless retinal implant has been shown to restore central vision in people with advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to

If Quantum Computing Is Solving “Impossible” Questions, How Do We Know They’re Right?

A new Swinburne study is addressing a core paradox: if quantum computing is solving problems that cannot be checked by conventional methods, how can we be certain the results are correct? Quantum computing has the potential to tackle problems once thought unsolvable in areas including physics, me

Quantum Breakthrough Unlocks Potential of “Miracle Material” for Future Electronics

Graphene is a remarkable “miracle” material, consisting of a single, atom-thin layer of tightly connected carbon atoms that remains both stable and highly conductive. These qualities make it valuable for many technologies, including flexible screens, sensitive detectors, high-performance batteries, and advanced solar cells.

A new study, carried out by the University of Göttingen in collaboration with teams in Braunschweig and Bremen in Germany, as well as Fribourg in Switzerland, shows that graphene may be even more versatile than previously believed.

For the first time, researchers have directly identified “Floquet effects” in graphene. This finding settles a long-running question: Floquet engineering – an approach that uses precise light pulses to adjust a material’s properties – can also be applied to metallic and semi-metallic quantum materials like graphene. The work appears in Nature Physics.

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