Tech
During the COVID-19 pandemic, one unexpected outcome in cities around the world has been a reduction in air pollution, as people stay home to avoid contracting the coronavirus. Based on data collected in Delhi, India, researchers report that this cleaner air has led to more sunlight reaching solar panels, resulting in the production of more clean energy. The work appears June 19 in the journal Joule.
Researchers have created a Bose-Einstein condensate with record speed, creating the fascinating phase of matter in about 100 femtoseconds. To get an idea of how quick that is, hundred femtoseconds compared to one second is proportionally the same as a day compared to the age of the universe. The project was the result of a collaboration between Aalto University the and University of Eastern Finland.
Tsukuba, Japan - Lurking inside pipes and on the surfaces of indwelling medical devices, slimy layers of bacteria, called biofilms, cause problems ranging from largescale product contamination to potentially fatal chronic infections. Biofilms are notoriously difficult to eliminate--not surprising given that one of their main functions is to protect encased bacteria from threats such as predation, antibiotics, and chemical cleaning agents.
Direct reprogramming or Transdifferentiation is a way of inducing changes in the cell type from one lineage into another lineage, bypassing pluripotency. This approach is an innovative choice to replace the lost cardiomyocytes after an end-stage myocardial infraction because transplantation is the only feasible remedial option at present. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, a staggering 17.9 million casualties are reported worldwide each year due to myocardial infarction.
Small-scale water bodies with areas less than 0.1 km2, such as natural ponds, constitute the quantitative bulk of global inland water bodies, and are very susceptible to human disturbances and environmental change. In agricultural regions of China, water quality in ponds has deteriorated by high loads of nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural sources. Many natural water bodies and farmlands in rural China have recently been converted into fish farming ponds as part of an economic development strategy.
Washington, DC - June 20, 2020 - Two types of tests are used to track SARS-CoV-2. Reverse transcriptase PCR (rt-PCR) tests for current infection. Antibody tests reveal that an infection has taken place, even long after the fact.
The concept of chirality is well-established in science: when an object cannot be superimposed on its mirror image, both the object and its mirror image are called chiral. In drug industry, for instance, more than 50% of the pharmaceutically active molecules used nowadays are chiral molecules. While one of the "enantiomers" is life-saving, its counterpart with opposite handedness may be poisonous. Another concept which has found widespread interest in contemporary materials science is topology as many so-called topological materials feature exotic properties.
Treating a rare type of malignant lung cancer could improve, thanks to near-infrared irradiation and a cancer-targeting compound. Nagoya University oncologist Kazuhide Sato and colleagues tested the treatment and published their findings in the journal Cells.
Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a rare type of cancer that affects the lung lining. It rarely spreads to other parts of the body, but is usually diagnosed too late, leading to a poor prognosis and very limited treatment options.
A research group at Nagoya University has developed a new technology that can drastically conserve the energy used to capture carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the greenhouse gases, from facilities such as thermal power plants. Conventionally, a significant amount of energy (3 to 4 GJ/ton-CO2) or high temperatures exceeding 100 deg.C has been required to capture CO2 from gases exhausted from a concentrated source, and there are expectations of the development of CO2 capture technology that consumes less energy.
The life span of the Aedes aegypti mosquito ranges from two to four weeks depending on environmental conditions, during which the female lays about one thousand eggs in water-filled containers close to human environments, because it needs human blood in order to reproduce and to complete its life cycle. Male mosquitos lack a blood-feeding system, so only the females are in contact with humans, acting as vectors of the Mayaro, Dengue, Chikunguya, Yellow Fever, and Zika viruses, as well as other pathogens. To date, there are no totaly effective methods to avoid this
The low thermal transport properties are important for applications in thermoelectrics and thermal barrier coatings. Nowadays, the strategies to acquire low thermal conductivity in bulk materials include multi-scale defect (atomic, nano- and meso-scale), heavy molecular weight, complex crystal structure, larger unit cell and strong anharmonicity.
Researchers at the University of Exeter have developed a pioneering production method for heterostructure devices, based on 2D materials such as graphene.
The new study, published in Nature Communications, focuses on a production method, based around mechanical abrasion, where multilayer structures are formed through directly abrading different Van der Waals material powders directly on top of one another.
How did the continents form? Although to a certain extent this remains an open question, the oceanic plateau of the Kerguelen Islands may well provide part of the answer, according to a French-Australian team led by the Géosciences Environnement Toulouse laboratory (CNRS/Université Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier/IRD/CNES) (1).
A 'smart' system that controls the storage and release of energy from wind turbines will reduce the risk of power cuts and support the increase of wind energy use world-wide, say researchers at the University of Birmingham.
The system uses the variable speed of the rotors in wind turbine systems to more closely regulate the supply of power to the grid. This means that when electricity demand is high, stored kinetic energy in the turbines can be used intelligently to keep the grid stable. University of Birmingham Enterprise has applied for a patent to protect the system.
Colloids are complex mixtures in which microscopic particles of one substance are suspended evenly throughout another. They can be prepared in many different ways, but to achieve desirable properties in the final mixture, researchers must maintain a delicate control over the interactions which take place between the particles.