Tech
Survival often depends on animals' ability to make split-second decisions that rely on imagining alternative futures: If I'm being chased by a hungry predator, do I zag left to get home safely or zig right to lead the predator away from my family? When two paths diverge in a yellow wood, which will lead me to breakfast and which will lead me to become breakfast? Both look really about the same, but imagination makes all the difference.
WASHINGTON -- Researchers have developed a new laser-based method that provides an unprecedented view of sprays such as the ones used for liquid fuel combustion in vehicle, ship and plane engines. The technique could provide new insights into these atomizing sprays, which are also used in a variety of industrial processes such as painting and producing food powders and drugs.
CHAPEL HILL -- A discovery by University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers could allow scientists to fine-tune genetically engineered immune cells to heighten their killing power against tumors or to decrease their activity level in the case of severe side effects.
Providing a method for eliminating some of the guesswork from crystal structure determination, a machine learning-based approach to determining crystal symmetry and structure from unknown samples may greatly improve the speed and accuracy of this process. The new method brings crystallography into the high-throughput world of artificial intelligence (AI). From geology to biology to materials science, identifying crystal structure is critical to understanding its general characteristics and properties.
Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a computer-based method that could make it less labor-intensive to determine the crystal structures of various materials and molecules, including alloys, proteins and pharmaceuticals. The method uses a machine learning algorithm, similar to the type used in facial recognition and self-driving cars, to independently analyze electron diffraction patterns, and do so with at least 95% accuracy.
The work is published in the Jan. 31 issue of Science.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990's, food production on the island of Cuba was disrupted--as the supply of Russian fertilizers, pesticides, tractors, and oil dried up. Under the stress of an imminent food crisis, the island quickly rebuilt a new form of diversified farming--including many urban organic gardens--that depended less on imported synthetic chemicals. Over the last two decades, Cuba blossomed into a world-class showcase of conservation agriculture, with improved soils and cleaner water.
At least that's been a popular story among journalists.
During the past decade, the gene editing tool CRISPR has transformed biology and opened up hopeful avenues to correct deadly inherited diseases. Last fall, scientists began the first human clinical trials using CRISPR to combat diseases like cancer. They remove some of a person's cells, CRISPR edit the DNA, and then inject the cells back in, where hopefully, they will cure the disease.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Using a type of genetic screen that had previously been impossible in the mammalian brain, MIT neuroscientists have identified hundreds of genes that are necessary for neuron survival. They also used the same approach to identify genes that protect against the toxic effects of a mutant protein that causes Huntington's disease.
The patterns created by neurons in the brain can be used to shine a light on how the brain functions, and take us a step closer to creating intelligent robots, scientists claim.
Publishing their research today in PLoS Computational Biology, the international team from the universities of Newcastle and Zurich, ETH Zurich and the California Institute of Technology, show that the way the neurons are structured and the patterns they make can be used to explain how they behave and function.
LA JOLLA--(January 30, 2020) Due to the modern tendency to postpone childbirth until later in life, a growing number of women are experiencing issues with infertility. Infertility likely stems from age-related decline of the ovaries, but the molecular mechanisms that lead to this decline have been unclear. Now, scientists from the U.S. and China have discovered, in unprecedented detail, how ovaries age in non-human primates.
Overview
A research team consisting of Toyohashi University of Technology, Nagoya Institute of Technology, and the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) have clarified the mechanism by which the crystal structure of a red phosphor material obtained by adding P2O5 and Eu2O3 to a silicate (Ca2SiO4)-based material at various heat treatment temperatures changes in photoluminescence intensity due to differences in these factors.
A team of chemists at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich has successfully coupled the directed motion of a light-activated molecular motor to a different chemical unit - thus taking an important step toward the realization of synthetic nanomachines.
It is well known that quantum properties of individual atoms can be controlled and manipulated by laser light. Even large clouds of hundreds of millions of atoms can be pushed into the quantum regime, giving rise to macroscopic quantum states of matter such as quantum gases or Bose-Einstein condensates, which nowadays are also widely used in quantum technologies. An exciting next step is to extend this level of quantum control to solid state objects.
A new study, lead by researchers at Stockholm university and published in Science Advances, now demonstrate that the amount of methane presently leaking to the atmosphere from the Arctic Ocean is much lower than previously claimed in recent studies.
Methane is well known as a major contributor to global warming. Understanding the natural sources of this gas, especially in the fast-warming Arctic, is critical for understanding the future climate.
North Carolina State University engineers have demonstrated a flexible device that harvests the heat energy from the human body to monitor health. The device surpasses all other flexible harvesters that use body heat as the sole energy source.