Tech
WASHINGTON, June 2, 2020 -- Advanced tissue engineering technologies allow scientists to mimic the structure of a uterus, enabling crucial research on fertility and disease.
In an APL Bioengineering article, by AIP Publishing, researchers present two mechanobiology tools for experiments on synthetic or artificial uterine tissue. They wanted to study the negative effects of hyperperistalsis, contractions of the uterine wall that occur too frequently.
In group decision-making, swing voters are crucial...or so we've heard. Whether it's a presidential election, a Supreme Court vote, or a congressional decision --and especially in highly partisan environments, where the votes of the wings are almost guaranteed -- the votes of the few individuals who seem to be in the middle could tip the scales.
Forming memory is essential for us to learn and acquire knowledge. In the 20th century, Richard Semon introduced the idea of an "engram," a physical substrate of a memory: as an animal learns, information is stored in an engram in the brain. Later, this information is retrieved. "Where are the engrams? This was one of the questions we asked", explains Peter Jonas. "Synaptic plasticity, the strengthening of communication between neurons, explains memory formation at the subcellular level. To find the engram, we, therefore, explored structural correlates of synaptic plasticity."
WASHINGTON, June 2, 2020 -- Microcapsules for the storage and delivery of substances are tiny versions of the type of capsule used for fish oil or other liquid supplements, such as vitamin D. A new method for synthesizing microcapsules, reported in AIP Advances, by AIP Publishing, creates microcapsules with a liquid core that are ideal for the storage and delivery of oil-based materials in skin care products. They also show promise in some applications as tiny bioreactors.
A global campaign to help find a mate for a left-coiling snail called 'Jeremy' has enabled scientists to understand how mirror-image garden snails are formed.
The findings, published today in the journal Biology Letters, show that the rare left-spiralling shell of some garden snails is usually a development accident, rather than an inherited condition.
Working with computer models to predict the likely impact of climate change on invasive weed propagation, Dr Farzin Shabani from Flinders University's Global Ecology Lab found a likely increase in areas of habitat suitability for the majority of invasive weed species in European countries, parts of the US and Australia, posing a great potential danger to global biodiversity.
In predicting the impact of climate change on current and future global distributions of invasive weed species, Dr Shabani also found that existing attempts to eradicate invasive populations are inadequate.
Overview
Recycling plastic faces several challenges, one of which is recycling different types of plastics together, because they have varying properties, each of which need to be addressed accordingly. Separating and treating each type of plastic adds to the cost of recycling plastic, which reduces the incentive to do so, despite the irreversible and detrimental biological cost of plastics in the environment.
Korea Brain Research Institute (KBRI, President Pann Ghill Suh) announced on May 26 that a joint research team, led by Prof. Joung-Hun Kim and Dr. Joo Han Lee at the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Dr. Ja Wook Koo at the KBRI, and Prof. Eric Nestler at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discovered that dopamine D2 receptors (DRD2s) in cholinergic interneurons (ChINs) play a crucial role in cocaine addiction.
With the continuous upgrading of electronic products, the development of high-energy power supplies has become a key link in the future development of science and technology. However, the shortage of lithium resources and the difficulty of recycling have become important factors in limiting their development.
The use of high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT) to assess bone microarchitecture in clinical studies has continued to grow rapidly. Thus, there is an urgent need for guidance and consensus on the methods for and reporting of HR-pQCT imaging so that different studies can be compared to each other.
Although the 2D semiconductor transistors keep the promise for future nanoelectronics, their applications are severely limited by the large contact resistance from the Schottky barrier between the deposited metal electrode and 2D semiconductor interface in the short-channel electronics for scaling integrated circuits.
An international team with ties to UCF has cracked a challenge that could herald a new era of ultra-high-density computing.
Computer hard drives of the future could be made up of smart molecules.
Researchers have discovered a single molecule 'switch' that can act like a transistor and offers the potential to store binary information - such as the 1s and 0s used in classical computing.
The molecule is around five square nanometres in size. This means that more than one billion of them would fit onto the cross-section of a human hair.
Researchers have developed a new easy-to-use smart optical film technology that allows smart window devices to autonomously switch between transparent and opaque states in response to the surrounding light conditions.