Tech
Researchers suggest that modulation of local CO2 concentration improves the selectivity, conversion rate, and electrode stability, and shed a new light on the electrochemical CO2 reduction technology for controlling emissions at a low cost.
Osaka, Japan - Many common household items and devices have a coating that improves performance. For example, the thin Teflon coating on cookware helps prevent food from sticking to the surface. However, it's difficult to prepare—at room temperature—the strongly adhering, high-performance ceramic coatings that are commonly used in many applications, such as electronics. Now, researchers from Japan have solved this problem.
The past 60 years have not seen any fundamental change to the design of bridge decks for suspensions bridges - best known in Denmark from the Great Belt Link. To accommodate the request for ever longer bridges, the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and COWI, studied how to optimise structures to reduce the weight of the bridge deck, in particular increasing the span. Recently published in the recognised scientific magazine Nature Communications, the results of that research project indicate vast potential.
Anyone who is injured hopes for a speedy recovery. But wounds that heal too quickly can heal badly: if the concentration of certain growth factors becomes too high and the healing process overshoots the mark, then bulging (in technical jargon: hypertrophic) scars form and even the surrounding skin loses some of its elasticity. This is the conclusion that Sabine Werner, at the Institute for Molecular Health Sciences, and Edoardo Mazza, at the Institute for Mechanical Systems, and their two research groups have reached following joint investigations.
Complex interactions
The tremendous increase in the use of mobile technology, wearable electronics, and a wide range of portable devices in general over the past few decades, has driven scientists worldwide to seek out the next breakthrough in rechargeable batteries. Lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs)--composed of a sulfur-based cathode and lithium anode submerged in a liquid electrolyte--are promising candidates to replace the ubiquitous lithium-ion battery because of their low cost and the non-toxicity and abundance of sulfur.
Animal experiments are typically conducted under highly standardized laboratory conditions. While standardization is meant to improve reproducibility of scientific results, in reality reproducibility is surprisingly low. To produce more robust results, experts from different fields of research now recommend introducing biological variation into the design of animal experiments.
Black women have the highest prevalence of low birthweight babies compared to other racial and ethnic groups, but black immigrants typically have much better outcomes than their U.S.-born counterparts. Yet, little has been known about whether this "healthy immigrant" effect persists across generations.
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is one of the most common forms of blood cancer among adults and is associated with a low survival rate, and leads to the inhibition of normal blood formation. Now, a research team at Lund University in Sweden has identified one of the genes that is the basis for leukemia stem cells' survival and multiplication. The study is published in Cell Reports.
Vienna, Austria, June 3, 2020 - AFFiRiS, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel disease-modifying specific active immunotherapies (SAITs), today announced that detailed preclinical results with its monoclonal antibody mAB C6-17 to treat Huntington's Disease (HD) were published in the peer-reviewed journal Neurobiology of Disease.
Scientists from IFJ PAN in cooperation with researchers from the Nara Women's University (Japan) and the Jagiellonian University (Poland) took another important step towards building a functional quantum computer. Using material containing terbium ions and dedicated experimental tools, they performed a detailed analysis of dynamic magnetic properties in individual molecular magnets concerning their orientation in a magnetic field. Discovered strong anisotropy of these properties is vital in the construction of molecular electronics components.
According to a recent report by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers, artificial intelligence (AI) should be used to expand the role of chest X-ray imaging -- using computed tomography, or CT -- in diagnosing and assessing coronavirus infection so that it can be more than just a means of screening for signs of COVID-19 in a patient's lungs.
A new paper has shown how large structures in the distribution of galaxies in the Universe provide the most precise tests of dark energy and cosmic expansion yet.
The study uses a new method based on a combination of cosmic voids - large expanding bubbles of space containing very few galaxies - and the faint imprint of sound waves in the very early Universe, known as baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), that can be seen in the distribution of galaxies. This provides a precise ruler to measure the direct effects of dark energy driving the accelerated expansion of the Universe.
Researchers from Monash University and the CSIRO have set a record for carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) using technology that resembles a sponge filled with tiny magnets.
Using a Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) nanocomposite that can be regenerated with remarkable speed and low energy cost, researchers have developed sponge-like technology that can capture carbon dioxide from a number of sources, even directly from air.
Turning to a tub of ice cream after a break-up may be a cliché, but there's some truth to eating in response to negative emotions. Eating serves many functions - survival, pleasure, comfort, as well as a response to stress. However, emotional overeating - eating past the point of feeling full in response to negative emotions, is a risk factor for binge eating and developing eating disorders such as bulimia.
The collection of more than 25,000 fragments of ancient manuscripts known as the Dead Sea Scrolls include, among other ancient texts, the oldest copies of books of the Hebrew Bible. But finding a way to piece them all together in order to understand their meaning has remained an incredibly difficult puzzle, especially given that most pieces weren't excavated in an orderly fashion. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Cell on June 2 have used an intriguing clue to help in this effort: DNA "fingerprints" lifted from the animal skins on which the texts were written.