Tech
The prompt, precise, and massive detection of a virus is the key to combat infectious diseases such as Covid-19. A new viral diagnostic strategy using reactive polymer-grafted, double-stranded RNAs will serve as a pre-screening tester for a wide range of viruses with enhanced sensitivity.
Currently, the most widely using viral detection methodology is polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnosis, which amplifies and detects a piece of the viral genome. Prior knowledge of the relevant primer nucleic acids of the virus is quintessential for this test.
Roboticists at the University of California San Diego have developed flexible feet that can help robots walk up to 40 percent faster on uneven terrain such as pebbles and wood chips. The work has applications for search-and-rescue missions as well as space exploration.
"Robots need to be able to walk fast and efficiently on natural, uneven terrain so they can go everywhere humans can go, but maybe shouldn't," said Emily Lathrop, the paper's first author and a Ph.D. student at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego.
A research group led by Kobe University's Professor MATOBA Osamu (Organization for Advanced and Integrated Research) has successfully created 3D fluorescence and phase imaging of living cells based on digital holography (*1). They used plant cells with fluorescent protein markers in their nuclei to demonstrate this imaging system.
First-principles quantum Monte Carlo is a framework used to tackle the solution of the many-body Schrödinger equation by means of a stochastic approach. This framework is expected to be the next generation of electronic structure calculations because it can overcome some of the drawbacks in density functional theory and wavefunction-based calculations. In particular, the quantum Monte Carlo framework does not rely on exchange-correlation functionals, the algorithm is well suited for massively parallel supercomputers, and it is easily applicable to both isolated and periodic systems.
A team of engineers have trained a robot to prepare an omelette, all the way from cracking the eggs to plating the finished dish, and refined the 'chef's' culinary skills to produce a reliable dish that actually tastes good.
A new method for recycling old batteries can provide better performing and cheaper rechargeable hydride batteries (NiMH) as shown in a new study by researchers at Stockholm University.
"The new method allows the upcycled material to be used directly in new battery production," says Dag Noréus, professor at the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry at Stockholm University who, together with other researchers, has conducted the study published in the scientific journal Molecules.
Researchers of Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) approached the creation of a solid-state thin-film battery for miniature devices and sensors. The results of the study were published in the special issue dedicated to improved materials for lithium and sodium-ion batteries (Energies Journal, MDPI Publishing House).
Charities can now begin accessing millions of pounds more in donations thanks to a small shift in how people can donate.
Gift Aid is a UK government tax relief which allows registered charities to claim the tax the donor has already paid on the funds.
For every £10 that is donated to a UK charity, the charity can claim a further £2.50 in Gift Aid.
But in any year, more than £500 million - the Gift Aid on about a third of all donations - goes unclaimed because both donors and charities haven't got the time or inclination to do the paperwork needed to claim it.
WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is one of the most devastating adult-onset neurodegenerative diseases. Patients, including the late actor/playwright Sam Shepard, become progressively weaker and eventually paralyzed as their motor neurons degenerate and die.
Quasiperiodic structures, which are ordered but are not strictly periodic, are the source of extraordinary beauty in nature, art, and science. For physicists, quasiperiodic order is both aesthetically and intellectually appealing. Numerous physical processes that are well described in periodic structures fundamentally change their character when they happen in quasiperiodic systems. Add quantum mechanics, and striking new phenomena can emerge that remain not fully understood.
Man's best friend may also be man's best bet for figuring out how environmental chemicals could impact our health. Researchers from North Carolina State University and Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment used silicone dog tags as passive environmental samplers to collect information about everyday chemical exposures, and found that dogs could be an important sentinel species for the long term effects of environmental chemicals.
The anaesthetic drug ketamine has been shown, in low doses, to have a rapid effect on difficult-to-treat depression. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet now report that they have identified a key target for the drug: specific serotonin receptors in the brain. Their findings, which are published in Translational Psychiatry, give hope of new, effective antidepressants.
PULLMAN, Wash. - Washington State University (WSU) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers have created a sodium-ion battery that holds as much energy and works as well as some commercial lithium-ion battery chemistries, making for a potentially viable battery technology out of abundant and cheap materials.
New York, NY--May 29, 2020--As embryos develop, tissues flow and reorganize dramatically on timescales as brief as minutes. This reorganization includes epithelial tissues that cover outer surfaces and inner linings of organs and blood vessels. As the embryo develops, these tissues often narrow along one axis and extend along a perpendicular axis through cellular movement caused by external or internal forces acting differently along various directions in the tissue (anisotropies).
Scientists do not yet know if Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19 - can be transmitted by blood transfusion. But given the unknowns around this new pathogen, researchers at Colorado State University used existing technologies to show that exposing the coronavirus to riboflavin and ultraviolet light reduces pathogens in human plasma and whole-blood products.
The study, "Pathogen reduction of SARS-CoV-2 virus in plasma and whole blood using riboflavin and UV light," was published May 29 in PLOS ONE.