Scientists report the development of a new technology that controls gene transcription using light. Gene transcription is the process that allows the conversion of DNA into RNA, a crucial step in producing proteins that impact how cells function.
The researchers used single yeast cells genetically engineered to respond to blue light. When the light is present, the cells activate a transcription factor and thereby promote the transcription of a specific gene.
Currently, the technique only works under the microscope, so the applications are limited. However, it is very useful for research, tissue engineering and, stem cells. Further studies will be conducted to expand the applicability of the discovery.
Read the full story: ETH Zurich
Scientific publication: Molecular Cell
Technology for telecommunications is expected to benefit from graphene, which enables ultra-wide bandwidth communications with low power consumption, researchers report. While current semiconductor technologies are approaching their physical limitations, graphene may offer solutions to enable the realization of 5G, the Internet-of-Things, and Industry 4.0, as it enhances the performance of key components for optical and radio communications to levels that are even beyond the requirements. It is thus expected that graphene-based optical components, integrated on a silicon platform, will become key components in the 5G era.
Read the full story: Graphene Flagship
Scientific publication: Nature Reviews Materials
A new study reports the production of a new self-healing polymer that is cheap and can be applied to for instance the coating of cell phone screens, plastics, and paints. The researchers took advantage of interactions between co-polymers that look like spaghetti strands with little brushes on the side. When they get longer, they become more entangled, and the side groups interlock so that it becomes harder to pull them apart. Also, when they are being pulled out, they come back together, and are self-healing like our skin. Researchers expect that the polymers can be synthesized at an industrial scale relatively soon.
Read the full story: Clemson University
Scientific publication: Science
Researchers have established that feeding the bacterium Moorella thermoacetica with gold clusters of 1 nm in size transforms them into an artificial photosynthesis system. The bacteria take up the gold particles quite efficiently, and have thus a sunlight-absorbing metal inside that is close to the enzymes involved in photosynthesis and electron transfer to generate energy. This energy can be used for the production of useful chemicals, including biofuel.
Read the full story: UC Berkeley – College of Chemistry
Scientific publication: Nature Nanotechnology
The development of real fusion power plants is facing several problems. For example: how to get rid of the excess heat that would cause structural damage to the plant?
Now, a group of scientists came up with a possible solution to this problem: using an innovative approach the scientists can compact fusion reactors using superconducting magnets.
The new design has several added advantages, like allowing the replacement of critical components, which is not possible in typical fusion plants designs.
Read the full story: MIT
Scientific publication: Fusion Engineering and Design
Researchers have designed and tested a prototype of an implantable, biodegradable, and wireless device that accelerates the regeneration of nerves. This example of bioelectronic medicine delivers regular pulses of electricity to damaged peripheral nerves in rats. It is about the size of a dime, as thin as a sheet of paper, and is degraded within two weeks by the body. This type of technology could be used in patients in the future to deliver care at the location in the body where it is needed, during a clinically relevant period, and is therefore expected to cause less side effects or risks associated with implants that are in use today.
Read the full story: Northwestern University (through Eurekalert)
Scientific publication: Nature Medicine
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have developed a model that can predict if a given retail business will succeed or not, with an accuracy of 80%.
To predict the future of a business, scientists used social media data and transport information. Their model included over 71 million check-ins from location-based social network and 181 million taxi trips. The data showed that across all ten cities tested, venues that are popular around the clock, rather than just at certain points of the day, are more likely to succeed.
The model suggests that to ensure the success of a business, owners should consider the ways that people move to and through that neighbourhood at different times.
Read the full story: University of Cambridge
Scientific publication: ACM Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp)
Detecting fake news is not an easy task, and many companies invest millions in this direction.
Now, researchers from MIT have developed a new approach, based on machine learning, to identify fake news right at the source. The system automatically collects data about different websites and after analyzing about 150 articles it can reliably estimate whether a news source is trustable.
The system is still in development however, it helped already establish a database of 1,000 news sources, annotated with factuality and bias scores, that is the world’s largest database of its kind.
Read the full story: MIT
The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Frances H. Arnold from California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA, George P. Smith from the University of Missouri, Columbia, USA and Sir Gregory P. Winter from MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK.
Frances H. Arnold conducted the first directed evolution of enzymes and he received half of the award. George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter shared the other half for developing and perfecting a method to evolve new proteins using a phage system.
They have used the principles of evolution to produce new molecules in a process called directed evolution. Their work allowed production of new enzymes and proteins with particular properties that are now used in many applications, from research and medicine to fuel production.
Read the full story: Nobel Prize
Scientists have developed a system that can store solar energy for later use. Importantly, this system is circular, completely free of emissions, and does not damage the molecules that store the energy. This molecule is made from carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, and changes into an energy-rich isomer when hit by sunlight. Energy can be released with the aid of a catalyst that acts as a filter through which liquid flows, and creates a reaction which warms the liquid by 63 centigrades. The molecule then changes back to its energy-free form. Applications are endless, for instance storing sun energy in the summer, and releasing it in the winter for domestic heating. The developers expect that the new technology could be in commercial use within ten years.
Read the full story: Chalmers University of Technology
Scientific publication: Energy & Environmental Science
One of the strongest chemical bounds know is the carbon-fluorine bond. An international team of scientists just discovered that this bound can be broken using single atoms of platinum.
The platinum atoms work as an efficient catalyst for breaking the carbon-fluorine bonds. Using an advanced transmission electron microscope (TEM) scientists were able to visualize their new catalyst and assess its performance.
The discovery is an important step for environmental decontamination and chemical synthesis.
Read the full story: Brookhaven National Laboratory
Scientific publication: ACS Catalysis
This year, three scientist share the Nobel Prize in Physics: Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, N.J., Gérard Mourou of École Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France, and Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada.
They discovered groundbreaking methods to manipulate light. Ashkin invented the optical tweezers, a tool that uses beams of light to capture and move small particles, including viruses and living cells.
Mourou and Strickland invented a way to compress light into extremely short and intense pulses (chirped pulse amplification).
Read the full story: ScienceBriefss
Scientific publication: Nobel Prize
European authorities have decided that research funded by public funding has to be published free of charge to the reader.
This is a real revolution in scientific publishing, in which access to scientific articles is often behind a paywall in the form of a subscription to a journal.
To make such “open access” publishing a success, hurdles have to be taken that include publishing costs (that will have to be paid by the universities), giving less importance to scientific publications alone to estimate scientific quality and making science understandable to the general public.
Sciencebriefss will play a role in the latter, especially by providing short science news articles for non-experts, putting new research findings into a broader context, and highlighting the importance of scientific results for society and science.
Read the full story: ScienceBriefss Editorial
Scientists have developed a new type of nanoparticles that can be used for artificial photosynthesis, producing hydrogen fuel from water and sunlight. The nanoparticles are 3 nm in diameter consist of a core of indium phosphide, with a thin layer of zinc sulfide and sulfide ligands wrapped around it. These are all environmental-friendly materials, and appear to be highly efficient. These nanoparticles have great potential for the generation and storage of clean energy.
Read the full story: University of Zürich
Scientific publication: Nature Communications
CERN and Fermilab announced a big step in the DUNE (Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment) project which involves 1000 physicists from 32 countries. They have just recorded the first particle tracks, using the largest liquid-argon neutrino detector in the world. DUNE’s scientific mission is dedicated to unlocking the mysteries of neutrinos, the most abundant (and most mysterious) matter particles in the universe. “The completion of the protoDUNE detector, a so-called single phase liquid argon Time Projection Chamber, is an important milestone on the way to realizing a neutrino detector capable of observing differences between neutrinos and anti-neutrinos - a key observation towards a full understanding of the early universe”, said professor Gary Barker from University of Warwick.
Read the full story: ScienceBriefss
Scientific publication: DUNE Project
We use technology and digital devices all the time, but could they have an impact on parenting and in consequence on the behavior of our children? This is the question that a new study tried to answer. The researchers followed 183 couples with a young child and discovered that problem behaviors of children were associated with increased use of technology by their parents. One explanation is that many parents stressed by the bad behavior of their children find an escape in using technology, at the expense of parent-child interactions. Moreover, more time spent using technology (like smartphones) may influence externalizing and withdrawal behaviors of children.
Read the full story: Medicalxpress
Scientific publication: Pediatric Research
Humans are masters of dexterity, while robots are still struggling with grabbing and manipulating objects. Now, a key development was achieved, allowing robots to improve their dexterity. Thus, a robot can now inspect random objects and visually understand them enough to accomplish specific tasks without ever having seen them before. This lets robots better understand and manipulate items and it even allows them to pick up a specific object among a cluster of similar ones. This breakthrough opens many possibilities for using robots in industry and even around the house.
Read the full story: MIT
Scientific publication: Arxiv
Researchers have developed a new method to split water into hydrogen and oxygen in a process that is based on photosynthesis in plants. They created semi-natural conditions by combining natural and man-made components into one device, which produced energy more efficiently than plants. This technological breakthrough may lead to the development of a new platform for developing new solar technologies.
Read the full story: St. John’s College – University of Cambridge
Scientific publication: Nature Energy
Researchers from the MIT lab have now taken a giant step towards solving a longstanding problem of wireless communication: direct transmission of information between underwater and airbone devices. Traditionally, underwater devices cannot share information with those on the land since they use a different wireless signal, which can operate only in their respective mediums. Now, researchers have developed a system, such that an underwater transmitter sends sonar signals to the surface of the water, which causes tiny vibrations. These signals are then picked up by sensitive receivers on the water surface and then transmit it upwards. Just above this transmitter is a high-frequency radar, which can then process these signals.
Read the full story: MIT news
Several imaging techniques in medicine require cutting open people or making them swallow large tubes with attached cameras. However, scientists have developed an in-body GPS system called ReMix. Now, one can track accurately the location of ingestible implants using a wireless signal. Importantly, the marker inside the body doesn't need to transmit any wireless signal, rather it reflects the signals which are transmitted from a device outside the body. Further, the marker inside the body doesn't need any battery or external energy source. An important application for ReMix is the proton therapy which is used in cancer treatments to kill cancer cells with magnetically controlled protons.
Read the full story: MIT news
Scientists found that the enzyme GPAT1 is the rate-limiting factor in the accumulation of oils called triacylglycerols in red algae. This is of importance for the production of biofuel, as triacylglycerols can be converted to biodiesel. Red algae normally store triacylglycerols under adverse condition such as nitrogen deprivation, and use them as energy source. Overexpressing GPAT1 increases triacylglycerols by more than 50%, without compromising algae survival or growth, suggesting that upregulation of the enzyme may serve to increase the production of biofuel.
Read the full story: Tokyo Institute of Technology
Scientific publication: Scientific Reports
Peer pressure is a common psychological phenomenon, but now a new study shows that it doesn’t necessarily take a human to induce it. As the research shows, robots can induce peer pressure too. In an experiment, humanoid robots influenced children to make bad decisions. However, adults remained immune to the peer pressure from the robots but were influenced by human peers. According to the paper, this reinforces the idea of humans treating computers and robots as social beings, “attributing human-like qualities to technology.”
Read the full story: Popular Mechanics
Scientific publication: Science Robotics
Scientists have developed a clay-based platform for the delivery of growth factors into the body to stimulate the growth of blood vessels. It makes use of a two-dimensional clay (nanosilicates) that slowly release growth factors, so that the secretion of these proteins is prolonged. This method prevents problems such as abnormal, abrupt tissue formation, and eliminates a major hurdle for efficient wound repair and tissue implants.
Read the full story: Texas A&M University
Scientific publication: Advanced Biosystems
Researchers managed to create textiles and fibers that incorporate high-speed optoelectronic semiconductor devices, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and diode photodetectors. The tiny electronic devices were embedded within the fibers that were then woven into soft, washable fabrics. As a result, “smart” clothing can be obtained that behave like communication systems. This discovery, the researchers say, could unleash a rapid development for smart fabrics. The capabilities of fibers could grow rapidly and exponentially over time, just as the capabilities of microchips have grown over decades.
Read the full story: MIT
Scientific publication: Nature
Laser light may appear to be a single, focused beam. In fact, it is an electromagnetic field, vibrating in an ellipse shape at each point in space (the light is polarized). Now, scientists have been able to use holographic technology to twist a polarized laser beam into knots. This way, one can study the topology of the knotted light fields. The researchers were able to create knots of much greater complexity than previously possible. Understanding how light flows through space provides important information for the fields on optics and polarization and could lead to the creation of new devices which process information through customized complex light structures.
Read the full story: University of Bristol
Scientific publication: Nature Physics
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