Like our oceans, today’s continents are brimming with life. Yet billions of years ago, before the advent of plants, continents would have appeared barren. These apparently vacant land forms were believed to play no role in the early biochemical clockwork known as the nitrogen cycle, which most living things depend on for survival. Researchers discover ancient biocrusts played an important role in the nitrogen cycle.
gold nanoparticles, coated with a semiconductor, can produce hydrogen from water over four times more efficiently than other methods – opening the door to improved storage of solar energy and other advances that could boost renewable energy use and combat climate change, according to Rutgers University–New Brunswick researchers.
Platforms for kidney exchanges such as the National Kidney Registry and the Alliance for Paired Donation provide a lifeline for people on the waiting list by expanding the pool of potential donors by matching potential recipients with living donors they’ve never met.
The study, carried out by a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter (Beijing), looked at the interactions of water molecules with various graphene-covered surfaces.
MIT researchers have developed the first molecular clock on a chip, which uses the constant, measurable rotation of molecules — when exposed to a certain frequency of electromagnetic radiation — to keep time. The chip could one day significantly improve the accuracy and performance of navigation on smartphones and other consumer devices.
Neutrinos, Italian for “little neutral ones,” are often described as “ghost particles,” for their extremely weak interactions with ordinary matter. Indeed, billions of neutrinos stream through our fingernails every second, without ruffling so much as a molecule of matter. And yet, on Sept. 22, 2017, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, based at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, detected a neutrino in signals picked up by its detectors buried deep in the Antarctic ice. Researchers there quickly sent out alerts to ground- and space-based telescopes in hopes of finding the neutrino’s cosmic source.
Gerresheimer will acquire the Swiss technology company Sensile Medical and thereby significantly expand its business offerings. For the Sensile Medical business, this will open up new opportunities and synergies with existing and potential new customers.
The research involved kinesin proteins: tiny, protein-based motors that interact with microtubules inside cells. The motors convert chemical energy into mechanical energy to generate the directional movements and forces necessary to sustain life. Microtubules are microscopic tubular structures that have two distinct ends: a fast-growing plus end and a slow-growing minus ends. Microtubules help make up a cell’s skeleton.
Today PPC Flexible Packaging announced it has completed the first phase of a greater than $2 million facilities and equipment investment aimed at expanding and further upgrading production capacities for its Precision Clean™ cleanroom packaging business. The company purchased its Buffalo Grove based business as Fisher Container Corporation in February 2017.
X-Ray Experiment – Over the last decade, scientists have used supercomputers and advanced simulation software to predict hundreds of new materials with exciting properties for next-generation energy technologies. Now they need to figure out how to make them. To predict the best recipe for making a material, they first need a better understanding of how it forms, including all the intermediate phases it goes through along the way – some of which may be useful in their own right.
“It was as long ago as 1991 when we discovered that, in many elderly people infected with HSV1, the virus is present also in the brain, and then in 1997 that it confers a strong risk of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain of people who have a specific genetic factor.”
