Even spider love lives show an effect of climate uncertainty: Stressed males may offer a bit of silk-wrapped junk rather than a tasty insect treat.
NIH scientists used multiphoton imaging of live human arteries and other research tools to gain a new and unexpected understanding of how hemoglobin helps regulate blood vessel dilation. The research may lead to new ways to treat malaria and other vascular diseases. Learn more about these studies.
A look inside human arteries reveals a new picture of hemoglobin’s role there and may lead to treatments for malaria and other vascular diseases.
This innovative sterilizer is ideal for remote areas, promoting sanitation and eco-friendly farming.
Seoul, South Korea, December 9: A South Korean company, Palsoo, has unveiled a portable sterilization system that utilizes regular tap water to eliminate 99.8% of airborne bacteria and viruses effectively.
This technology, which combines plasma activation with solar charging, offers a sustainable solution for sanitation in areas lacking electricity or facing harsh conditions.
Continue reading “Portable plasma slays 99.8% germs, turns water into bacteria-killer” »
Discovering liquid water oceans inside the moons of Uranus would transform our thinking about the range of possibilities for where life could exist.
Scientists at UCL and the IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) have created a temporary tattoo with light-emitting technology used in TV and smartphone screens, paving the way for a new type of “smart tattoo” with a range of potential uses.
The technology, which uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), is applied in the same way as water transfer tattoos. That is, the OLEDs are fabricated onto temporary tattoo paper and transferred to a new surface by being pressed on to it and dabbed with water.
The researchers, who described the process in a new paper in the journal Advanced Electronic Materials, say it could be combined with other tattoo electronics to, for instance emit light when an athlete is dehydrated, or when we need to get out of the sun to avoid sunburn. OLEDs could be tattooed on packaging or fruit to signal when a product has passed its expiry date or will soon become inedible, or used for fashion in the form of glowing tattoos.
New research suggests Alzheimer’s drugs may improve cognition by increasing Aβ42 levels rather than just reducing plaques, challenging the amyloid cascade hypothesis and pointing to new therapeutic strategies focused on restoring soluble Aβ42 to maintain brain health.
Currently, dark matter detection requires specialized laboratories with costly equipment. ODIN has the potential to overcome this limitation.
“ODIN’s sensitivity is primarily dependent on phonon density rather than target volume, in contrast to existing systems. This feature may enable compact, low-cost detectors, with the ability to perform lock-in dark matter detection by periodically depopulating the phonon mode,” the study authors explain.
Moreover, the proposed device design features only one optomechanical cavity. Instruments with multiple cavities could result in more exciting results.
In 2021, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, reported an astonishing new form of symbiosis: They found a unique bacterium that lives inside a ciliate—a unicellular eukaryote—and provides it with energy. The symbiont’s role is thus strongly reminiscent of mitochondria, with the key difference that the endosymbiont derives energy from the respiration of nitrate, not oxygen.
Now the researchers from Bremen set out to learn more about the environmental distribution and diversity of these peculiar symbionts. “After our initial discovery of this symbiont in a freshwater lake, we wondered how common these organisms are in nature,” says Jana Milucka from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology. “Are they extremely rare and therefore eluded detection so long? Or do they exist elsewhere and if so, what are their metabolic capacities?”
The universe is a stage filled with extreme phenomena, where temperatures and energies reach unimaginable levels. In this context, there are objects such as supernova remnants, pulsars, and active galactic nuclei that generate charged particles and gamma rays with energies far exceeding those involved in nuclear processes like fusion within stars. These particles, as direct witnesses of extreme cosmic processes, offer key insights into the workings of the universe.
Gamma rays, for instance, have the ability to traverse space without being altered, providing direct information about their sources of origin. However, charged particles, known as cosmic rays, face a more complex journey. When interacting with the omnipresent magnetic fields of the cosmos, these particles are deflected and lose part of their energy, especially high-energy electrons and positrons, referred to as cosmic-ray electrons (CRe). With energies surpassing one teraelectronvolt (TeV)—a thousand times more than visible light— these particles gradually fade away, complicating the identification of their point of origin.
Detecting high-energy particles such as CRe is a monumental task. Space instruments, with their limited detection areas, fail to capture sufficient particles at these extreme energies. On the other hand, ground-based observatories face an additional challenge: distinguishing particle cascades triggered by cosmic-ray electrons from the far more frequent ones generated by protons and heavier cosmic-ray nuclei.
