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Physicists from the University of Cologne are developing new possibilities in organic electronics

2015-04-13

(Press-News.org) Silicon based chips and transistors have been at the heart of all electronic devices since the 1950s. Driven by economic and environmental factors, and by the need for renewable energy resources, there is currently an enormous scientific and technological interest in transitioning away from silicon based electronics to new organic electronic devices. Just like living organisms, organic electronics use carbon in complex molecules as their key functional component. These new organic electronic devices are less expensive, more environmentally friendly and better recyclable than the older ones. Today the most commercially successful organic electronic devices are OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes) found in smart phone displays. Other promising devices include very inexpensive solar cells for low-cost and low-carbon electricity generation, and ultra-efficient building lighting which could substantially lower electricity consumption. Yajun Gao and Professor Paul H.M. van Loosdrecht from the University of Cologne have now made substantial progress in this field in collaboration with researchers from Jilin University (China) and the University of Nottingham (UK). The team was able to design an organic electronic device in which charge generated by light lived approximately 10,000 times longer than was previously thought possible. They did this by designing a small device based on organic molecules in which the built-in electric field creates a well which traps and protects charge carriers. This opens up the possibility of creating entirely new classes of organic electronic devices, such as ultra-sensitive photo detectors to image distant stars, or flexible memory elements which could be used in wearable computers. The findings of the research team are described in the article "Organic Electronics: Engineering Ultra Long Charge Carrier Lifetimes in Organic Electronic Devices at Room Temperature", published in the journal "Advanced Materials Interfaces".

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U-M researchers find protein that may signal more aggressive prostate cancers

2015-04-13

ANN ARBOR--University of Michigan researchers have discovered a biomarker that may be a potentially important breakthrough in diagnosing and treating prostate cancer. Biomarkers in the body are analogous to the warning lights in cars that signal something might need repairing. In our bodies, they indicate if something's wrong or if we're about to get sick or if we're predisposed to certain illnesses. "(In the context of prostate cancer) there's a big interest in trying to find biomarkers to discriminate between aggressive and nonaggressive disease," said Renny Franceschi, ...

An exoplanet with an infernal atmosphere

2015-04-13

As part of the PlanetS National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR), astronomers from the Universities of Geneva (UNIGE) and Bern, Switzerland, have come to measure the temperature of the atmosphere of an exoplanet with unequalled precision, by crossing two approaches. The first approach is based on the HARPS spectrometer and the second consists of a new way of interpreting sodium lines. From these two additional analyses, researchers have been able to conclude that the HD189733b exoplanet is showing infernal atmospheric conditions: wind speeds of more than 1000 kilometres ...

HPV vaccination of adolescent boys may be cost-effective for preventing oropharyngeal cancer

2015-04-13

A new study indicates that vaccinating 12-year-old boys against the humanpapilloma virus (HPV) may be a cost-effective strategy for preventing oropharyngeal squamous cell cancer, a cancer that starts at the back of the throat and mouth, and involves the tonsils and base of the tongue. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study provides important information about HPV vaccination, which has proven effective against HPV-related disease in both sexes but remains controversial, especially in males. Many western countries ...

Brazilian study suggests adjustments on the treatment of cancer patients with pneumonia

2015-04-13

This news release is available in Portuguese. Cancer patients are more likely to get infections. Pneumonia is the most frequent type of infection in this group and a frequent cause of ICU admission and mortality. A study conducted by researchers from the D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR) in partnership with Brazilian hospitals and universities analyzed the factors associated with severe pneumonia in hospitalized cancer patients and suggests that more personalized treatment protocols can reduce mortality in these patients. Until now, there was a consensus ...

Telomeres and cancer mortality: The long and the short of it

2015-04-10

Telomeres are short stretches of repeated nucleotides that protect the ends of chromosomes. In somatic cells, these protective sequences become shorter with each cellular replication until a critical length is reached, which can trigger cell death. In actively replicating cells such as germ cells, embryonic stem cells, and blood stem cells of the bone marrow, the enzyme telomerase replenishes these protective caps to ensure adequate replication. Cancer cells also seem to have the ability to activate telomerase, which allows them to keep dividing indefinitely, with ...

Can humans get norovirus from their dogs?

2015-04-10

Washington, D.C. - April 10, 2015 - Human norovirus may infect our canine companions, according to research published online April 1 in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. That raises the possibility of dog-to-human transmission, said first author Sarah Caddy, VetMB, PhD, MRCVS, a veterinarian and PhD student at the University of Cambridge, and Imperial College, London, UK. Norovirus is the leading cause of food-borne illness in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ...

ACA provision for young adults leaves racial disparities intact among trauma patients

2015-04-10

CHICAGO (April 9, 2015): The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed millions of young adults to retain health care coverage through their parents' insurance plans, but new research finds that many young African-American and Hispanic adults who need coverage for trauma care may not get it. The results of the study are published online as an "article in press" in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons and will appear in a print edition later this year. Before the dependent care provision of the Affordable Care Act became law in September 2010, approximately 30 percent ...

Accelerating universe? Not so fast

2015-04-10

Certain types of supernovae, or exploding stars, are more diverse than previously thought, a University of Arizona-led team of astronomers has discovered. The results, reported in two papers published in the Astrophysical Journal, have implications for big cosmological questions, such as how fast the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang. Most importantly, the findings hint at the possibility that the acceleration of the expansion of the universe might not be quite as fast as textbooks say. The team, led by UA astronomer Peter A. Milne, discovered that type ...

The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology: Being underweight in middle age associated with increased dementia risk

2015-04-10

Middle-aged people who are underweight (with a Body Mass Index [BMI] less than 20 kg/m2 [1]) are a third more likely to develop dementia than people of similar age with a healthy BMI, according to new research published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal. The findings, which come from the largest ever study to examine the statistical association between BMI and dementia risk, also show that middle-aged obese people (BMI greater than 30 kg/m2) are nearly 30% less likely to develop dementia than people of a healthy weight, contradicting findings from some previous ...

A mother's genes can influence the bacteria in her baby's gut

2015-04-10

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Researchers at UC Davis have found that a gene, which is not active in some mothers, produces a breast milk sugar that influences the development of the community of gut bacteria in her infant. The sugars produced by these mothers, called "secretors," are not digested by the infant, but instead nourish specific bacteria that colonize the babies' guts soon after birth. Mothers known as "non-secretors" have a non-functional fucosyltransferase 2 (FUT2) gene, which alters the composition of their breast milk sugars and changes how the microbial community, ...

New ways to see light and store information

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