As our society and transportation systems become increasingly electrified, scientists worldwide are seeking more efficient and higher capacity storage systems. Researchers at KAUST have made an important contribution by modifying lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries to suppress a problem known as polysulfide shuttling. "The bottleneck in the utilization of renewable energy, especially in transportation, is the need for high-density batteries," says Eman Alhajji, Ph.D. student and first author of the research paper. Li-S batteries have several potential advantages over ...

Bobtail and bottletail squids are tiny marine invertebrates that are found throughout the world's oceans and are useful model animals for research There are 68 recognized species of bobtail squid and five recognized species of bottletail squid, but the timing of their divergence from one another is still relatively unknown Researchers at OIST, Hiroshima University and the National University of Ireland Galway, collected 32 species of bobtail and bottletail squids They looked at the genetic variations across the entire genomes of these species to estimate their evolutionary relationships The results showed that the divergence of these species aligned with major ...

Tel Aviv University's groundbreaking technology may revolutionize the treatment of cancer and a wide range of diseases and medical conditions. In the framework of this study, the researchers were able to create a new method of transporting RNA-based drugs to a subpopulation of immune cells involved in the inflammation process, and target the disease-inflamed cell without causing damage to other cells. The study was led by Prof. Dan Peer, a global pioneer in the development of RNA-based therapeutic delivery. He is Tel Aviv University's Vice President for Research and Development, head of the Center for Translational Medicine and a member of both the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, George S. Wise Faculty ...

What if electricity could be squeezed out of something? It turns out some materials have this property. Piezoelectricity is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solids when mechanical stress is applied on them. Piezoelectric materials, like bismuth ferrite thin films, when grown on a single lanthanum aluminate substrate give rise to highly strained epitaxial thin films that exhibit excellent electromechanical and ferroelectric properties. In bismuth ferrite thin films "doped" or polluted with lanthanum (BLFOs), piezoelectricity is attributed to the presence of "mixed-phase structures" with stripe patterns. The formation of stripe patterns and controlling the mixed-phase structures of BLFO have been the ...

A FLEET theoretical study out this week has found a 'smoking gun' in the long search for the topological magnetic monopole referred to as the END ...

HARWELL, UK (29 June 2021) Researchers working on the Faraday Institution project on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries (ReLiB) at the Universities of Leicester and Birmingham have solved a critical challenge in the recovery of materials used in electric vehicle batteries at the end of their life, enabling their re-use in the manufacture of new batteries. The new method, which uses ultrasonic waves to separate out valuable material from the electrodes, is 100 times quicker, greener and leads to a higher purity of recovered materials relative to current separation methods. The research has been published in Green Chemistry and the team have applied for a patent for the technique. To ...

Patients with mild Covid-19 infections experience a significantly increased longer lasting reduced sense of taste and smell. This is also the case for long-term shortness of breath, although relatively few people are affected. And women and the elderly are particularly affected. This is shown by new research findings from Aarhus University Aarhus University Hospital and Regional Hospital West Jutland The last 14 months have taught us that there are different symptoms and outcomes of Covid-19. However, the vast majority of people who fall ill with Covid-19 experience mild symptoms and get over ...

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) affects about 7% of children, with a two out of three chance of persisting into adulthood. This neurodevelopmental disorder is characterised by concentration difficulties, increased distractibility, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Today, ADHD is treated with pharmaceutical drugs that may have unwanted side effects. This is why scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), Switzerland, explored a new technique called 'neurofeedback', which enables ADHD patients to train their attention, based on instant feedback from the level of their brain activity. The team of neuroscientists found that not only did the training have a positive effect on patients' concentration abilities, but also that the ...

An international team of researchers has identified a novel mechanism in barley plants, which could help crop growers achieve high yields as temperatures rise. With grain production highly sensitive to changing environmental conditions, rising temperatures are known to reduce the number of seeds that can be produced on each plant. One solution is to increase the number of flowers or branches on each 'spike', which is the reproductive structure from which grain is harvested. In a study published in Nature Plants, research led by Professor Dabing Zhang from the University of Adelaide's Waite Research Institute and Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Joint Lab for Plant Science and Breeding, explored the possibility of increasing seed production through ...

Tsukuba, Japan - As far back as the 1930s, inventors have commercialized fuel cells as a versatile source of power. Now, researchers from Japan have highlighted the impressive chemistry of an essential component of an upcoming fuel cell technology. In a study recently published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, researchers from the University of Tsukuba have revealed successive proton transport--energy transfer--in an advanced carbon-based crystal for future fuel cells, and the chemistry that underpins this phenomenon. Such crystals are exciting as solid electrolytes--energy transfer media--in upcoming fuel cell technologies. Solid electrolytes have advantages, such as high power efficiency and long-term ...

Researchers have revealed that praying mantis (mantids) infected with parasitic hairworms are attracted to horizontally polarized light that is strongly reflected off the surface of water, which causes them to enter the water. In a world-first, these research results demonstrate that parasites can manipulate the host's specific light perception system to their advantage, causing the host to behave in an abnormal manner. This discovery was made by an international research group consisting of Graduate student OBAYASHI Nasono, Associate Professor SAKURA Midori and Associate Professor SATO Takuya of Kobe University's Graduate School of Science, Associate Professor IWATANI Yasushi (Faculty of Science and Technology, Hirosaki University), ...

A team of scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed a test kit for malaria that delivers results in 30 minutes. The kit could facilitate the diagnosis of malaria in the field, as the equipment needed is anticipated to be lightweight, easy-to-use, and able to detect the disease in its early stages. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an estimated 229 million people suffered from malaria in 2019. The disease, transmitted by mosquitoes, caused the deaths of 409,000 people across 87 mainly developing countries. Efforts to treat and control malaria in ...

A microfilter device that can easily separate and capture trace amounts of cancer cells in blood has been developed by a Kumamoto University research group. The palm-sized device is expected to contribute to the development of new cancer diagnostic technologies based on cancer cells in the blood, such as early detection by blood test, postoperative management, and recurrence monitoring. The blood of people with cancer contains trace amounts of cancer cells (CTCs) that have detached from the primary cancer site. However, the amount of these cells is only a few per milliliter, whereas red or white blood cells number in the billions, making ...

INDIANAPOLIS - With the growing prevalence of chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and other symptom-based conditions, physicians and the healthcare systems for which they work are increasingly considering how to augment the care they can provide within the limited time allotted for patient appointments. According to Regenstrief Institute Research Scientist Kurt Kroenke, M.D., writing in the Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM), collaborative care can and should play a major role targeting the treatment of symptoms and functional decline, both too frequently marginalized in medically oriented care delivery. Collaborative care is a team-based ...

Neoadjuvant immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) is a promising treatment for melanoma and other cancer types, and has recently been shown to provide a modest survival benefit for patients with recurrent glioblastoma. To improve the treatment efficacy, researchers are looking for vulnerabilities in surgically removed glioblastoma tissues, but this has been difficult due to the vast differences within the tumor and between patients. To address this challenge, researchers at Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) and their collaborators developed a new way to study tumors. The method builds ...

Sophia Antipolis - 29 June 2021: Heart attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic were more likely to result in heart failure compared with heart attacks one year earlier, according to research presented today at Heart Failure 2021, an online scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 "Heart attack patients waited an average of 14 hours to get help during the pandemic, with some delaying for nearly two days. That compares to a delay of six hours in the previous year," said study author Dr. Ali Aldujeli of the Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania. "This gap may have been one contributor to the higher incidence of subsequent heart failure." Urgent treatment for heart attacks is essential to restore the flow of oxygen-rich ...

Scientists have for the first time detected black holes eating neutron stars, "like Pac Man", in a discovery documenting the collision of the two most extreme and enigmatic objects in the Universe. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US and the Virgo gravitational-wave observatory in Italy have captured the gravitational waves from the death spiral and merger of a neutron star with a black hole, not once but twice. The findings are published today. The researchers say their observations will help unlock some of the most complex mysteries of the Universe, including the building blocks of matter and the workings of space and time. More than 1,000 scientists were involved with the ...

As smoky air becomes more common during Washington's wildfire season, many wildlife enthusiasts wonder: What happens to the birds? Few studies have looked at wildfire smoke impacts on animals, let alone birds. And as Washington and the larger West Coast continue to experience more massive wildfires and smoke-filled air, understanding how birds are affected by smoke -- and how air pollution may influence our ability to detect birds -- are important factors for bird conservation. Researchers from the University of Washington now provide a first look at the probability of observing common birds as air pollution worsens during wildfire seasons. They found that smoke affected the ability to detect more than a third of the bird species studied ...

For the first time, researchers have confirmed the detection of a collision between a black hole and a neutron star. In fact, the scientists detected not one but two such events occurring just 10 days apart in January 2020. The extreme events made splashes in space that sent gravitational waves rippling across at least 900 million light-years to reach Earth. In each case, the neutron star was likely swallowed whole by its black hole partner. Gravitational waves are disturbances in the curvature of space-time created by massive objects in motion. During the five years since the waves were first measured, a finding that led to the END ...

A long time ago, in two galaxies about 900 million light-years away, two black holes each gobbled up their neutron star companions, triggering gravitational waves that finally hit Earth in January 2020. Discovered by an international team of astrophysicists including Northwestern University researchers, two events -- detected just 10 days apart -- mark the first-ever detection of a black hole merging with a neutron star. The findings will enable researchers to draw the first conclusions about the origins of these rare binary systems and how often they merge. "Gravitational ...

Gravitational wave detectors have observed a new type of cataclysmic event in the cosmos: the merger of a neutron star with a black hole. The phenomenon was detected twice in January 2020. Several hypotheses could explain the existence of such mixed pairs. Further observations will be needed in order to settle the question. Another missing piece has just been added to our knowledge of cosmic phenomena. The LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA collaborations have announced the first detection of gravitational waves (1) resulting from the 'mixed' merger between a black hole and a neutron star (2). The discovery, published on June 29, 2021 in Astrophysical Journal Letters, involves CNRS researchers working within ...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Historically, most large-scale immunogenomic studies - those exploring the association between genes and disease - were conducted with a bias toward individuals of European ancestry. Corey T. Watson, Ph.D., assistant professor in the University of Louisville Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, is leading a call to actively diversify the genetic resources he and fellow immunogenomics researchers use in their work to advance genomic medicine more equitably. Watson, along with UofL post-doctoral fellow Oscar Rodriguez, Ph.D., and visiting fellow Yana Safonova, Ph.D., are part of an international group of researchers ...

PHILADELPHIA -- (June 29, 2021) -- New biomarkers that predict HIV remission after antiretroviral therapy (ART) interruption are critical for the development of new therapeutic strategies that can achieve infection control without ART, a condition defined as functional cure. These biomarkers can also provide critical clues into the biological mechanisms that control HIV replication after stopping therapy, and can help design novel strategies to cure HIV. Scientists at The Wistar Institute have identified metabolic and glycomic signatures in the blood of a rare population of HIV-infected individuals who can naturally sustain viral suppression after ART cessation, known as post-treatment controllers. These findings were published in Nature ...

Scientists at the University of Sydney and Japan's National Institute for Material Science (NIMS) have discovered that an artificial network of nanowires can be tuned to respond in a brain-like way when electrically stimulated. The international team, led by Joel Hochstetter with Professor Zdenka Kuncic and Professor Tomonobu Nakayama, found that by keeping the network of nanowires in a brain-like state "at the edge of chaos", it performed tasks at an optimal level. This, they say, suggests the underlying nature of neural intelligence is physical, and their discovery opens an exciting avenue for the development of artificial intelligence. The study is published today in Nature Communications. "We used wires 10 micrometres long and no thicker than 500 nanometres ...

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have identified a protein that could be used to aid in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Findings from the new study suggest that a protein called pentraxin 3 (PTX3) may be a specific diagnostic biomarker - or biological measure - for pancreatic cancer, with the ability to differentiate pancreatic cancer from other non-cancerous conditions of the pancreas. The research was published today in npj Precision Oncology, and primarily funded by the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund, Barts Charity and Cancer Research UK. PTX3 levels elevated in patients with pancreatic ...