Tech

For the first time, LEGO ® has been cooled to the lowest temperature possible in an experiment which reveals a new use for the popular toy.

Its special properties mean it could be useful in the development of quantum computing.

A world leading team of ultra-low temperature physicists at Lancaster University decided to place a LEGO ® figure and four LEGO ® blocks inside their record-breaking dilution refrigerator.

This machine - specially made at the University - is the most effective refrigerator in the world, capable of reaching 1.6 millidegrees above absolute zero (minus 273.15 Centigrade), which is about 200,000 times colder than room temperature and 2,000 times colder than deep space.

The results - published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports - were surprising.

Dr Dmitry Zmeev, who led the research team, said: ""Our results are significant because we found that the clamping arrangement between the LEGO ® blocks causes the LEGO ® structures to behave as an extremely good thermal insulator at cryogenic temperatures.

"This is very desirable for construction materials used for the design of future scientific equipment like dilution refrigerators."

Invented 50 years ago, the dilution refrigerator is at the centre of a global multi-billion dollar industry and is crucial to the work of modern experimental physics and engineering, including the development of quantum computers.

The use of ABS plastic structures, such as LEGO ®, instead of the solid materials currently in use, means that any future thermal insulator could be produced at a significantly reduced cost.

Researchers say the next step is to design and 3D print a new thermal insulator for the next generation of dilution refrigerators.

NIMS and AIST developed a liquid electret material capable of semi-permanently retaining static electricity. They subsequently combined this material with soft electrodes to create the first bendable, stretchable vibration-powered device in the world. Because this device is highly deformable and capable of converting very subtle vibrations into electrical signals, it may be applicable to the development of healthcare-devices, such as self-powered heartbeat and pulse sensors.

An electret material capable of semi-permanently retaining an electrical charge can generate voltage as its distance to the associated electrode changes. Because of this property, electret materials may be applicable to the development of vibration-powered (piezoelectric) devices and sensors capable of converting externally applied vibration and pressure into electrical signals. However, conventional electret materials are solid or in film form, and as such are inflexible and incapable of deformation into complex shapes, making them unsuitable for use in the development of wearable heartbeat and pulse sensors. A great deal of interest therefore exists in the development of bendable and stretchable vibration-powered devices that can be processed into a variety of shapes and used as such sensors.

This research group shielded porphyrin--an organic compound--with a flexible yet insulating structure (i.e., branched alkyl chains), thereby developing a liquid material at room temperature which is able to stably retain static charge on the porphyrin unit. The group subsequently developed a bendable and stretchable vibration-powered device. First, a high voltage was applied to this liquid material, thereby electrically charging it. The liquid material was then allowed to soak into a stretchable textile and the soaked textile was then sandwiched between soft, polyurethane electrodes integrated with silver-plated fibers as a wiring material. When the surface of the device is pressed with a fingertip, it generates a voltage in a range of ±100-200 mV and operates stably for at least 1.5 months.

In future research, the group hopes to achieve healthcare use of this device by enhancing the ability of the liquid electret material to retain static electricity and making modifications to the processing techniques applied to the device. The group will also pursue potential use of this vibration-powered device as a power source for IoT devices by combining it with a voltage-current conversion system and capacitor, etc.

A new study led by NIMS researchers reveals that, in solid electrolytes, a Si anode composed only of commercial Si nanoparticles prepared by spray deposition -- the method is a cost-effective, atmospheric technique -- exhibits excellent electrode performance, which has previously been observed only for film electrodes prepared by evaporation processes. This new result therefore suggests that a low-cost and large-scale production of high-capacity anodes for use in all-solid-state Li batteries is possible.

Si has a theoretical capacity of ~4,200 mAh/g, which is approximately 11 times higher than that of the graphite commonly used as the anode-active material in commercial Li-ion batteries. Replacing the traditional graphite by Si can extend significantly the driving range per charge of electric vehicles. However, its huge volume change (~300%) during lithiation and delithiation -- charge and discharge -- hinders its practical application in the batteries. In conventional liquid electrolytes, the use of polymeric binders is necessary to hold the active material particles in the electrode together and maintain their adhesion to the surface of metal current collectors. The repeated huge volume change of Si causes the particle isolation and thus leads to losing the active material, which results in a continuous capacity loss. In solid-state cells, the active material is placed between two solid components -- solid electrolyte separator layer and metal current collector --, which enables avoidance of tackling the problem -- electrical isolation of the active material --. In fact, as reported previously by the team of NIMS researchers, the sputter-deposited pure Si films delivering practical areal capacities exceeding 2.2 mAh/cm2 exhibit excellent cycling stability and high-rate discharge capabilities in solid electrolytes. Nonetheless, cost-effective and industrially scalable synthesis of the anode for all-solid-state Li batteries remains a great challenge.

The team of NIMS researchers has taken another synthesis approach toward develop the high-performance anode for all-solid-state Li batteries with commercial Si nanoparticles, and found a unique phenomenon to the nanoparticles in the solid-state cell: upon lithiation, they undergo volume expansion, structural compaction, and appreciable coalescence in the confined space between the solid electrolyte separator layer and metal current collector to form a continuous film similar to that prepared by the evaporation process. The anode composed of nanoparticles prepared by spray deposition therefore exhibits excellent electrode performance, which has previously been observed only for sputter-deposited film electrodes. The spray deposition method is a cost-effective, atmospheric technique that can be used for large-scale production. Hence, the findings will pave the way for low-cost and large-scale production of high-capacity anodes for use in all-solid-state Li batteries.

Continuing efforts by the team of NIMS researchers to improve the cyclability in the anode having the increased areal mass loading of nanoparticles are in progress to meet the requirements of electric vehicles.

When you search your lost keys with a flash lamp, when bats detect obstacles during their night flight, or when car radars locate other cars on the road, the very same physical principle works. Be it light, sound, or an electromagnetic wave in general, a probe beam is sent ahead, and a reflected wave of the same kind carries the relevant information back to the detector. That also explains why stealth aircrafts can escape radars: by absorbing radar energy, no signal is reflected back, and they become invisible. The absorbed energy is then converted to heat that was believed to be "useless" until now, only to increase the target temperature.

Researchers at the Center for Soft and Living Matter, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea) found that the temperature increase caused by the probe beam could be utilized to generate a signal per se for detecting objects. Notably, this so-called "active thermal detection" enables super-resolution imaging at all scales, compared to conventional techniques whose application are confined to microcopy only. Super-resolution unveils the small details of an image, making it possible to resolve previously hidden figures. Francois Amblard, the second author of the study says, "Nobody tried to use thermal radiation for super-resolution, even though this signal is so noticeable that it cannot be missed. Our first and deceptively simple idea is to detect objects with their obvious signal, the thermal radiation."

When an object is illuminated by a probe beam with enough energy to cause its temperature to jump, its thermal radiation soars. In fact, we can find the application of such temperature increase in our everyday life, e.g. for screening feverish passengers at airport controls. When an object undergoes a temperature increase, it emits an intense thermal radiation. The researchers theoretically verified the super-linearity of thermal radiation. They gave an exact quantification of the number of photons emitted by a heated object and showed that even a small temperature increase resulted in a huge change in the emission of light. This process, together with active heating and a detection scheme, could help detecting objects at a very high resolution.

Moreover, the super-resolution factor can be arbitrarily cranked up if a sufficiently high temperature is reached. "Our theory predicts that the emission spatial profile can be made arbitrarily narrow, leading to an improved localization of objects, and even in principle to an arbitrarily large super-resolution. One expects then to be able to better resolve two nearby targets, or to better detect the shape of a target," explains, Guillaume Graciani, the first author of the study.

Super resolution techniques allowed us to see what was previously unseen, but its magic has been working only in microscopy so far. Notably, this study presents the thermal radiation and its intrinsic super-linearity as a universal way to super resolve objects at all scales from microscopic imaging to flying objects such as planes. The active thermal detection also finds applications in thermal imaging for non-destructive testing, Lidar and Radar technologies for self-driving cars, mid- or long-range detection of stealth objects. It also opens a new field of applications for the most recent thermal photodetectors, such as superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors or HgCdTe avalanche photodiodes. Finally, new kind of thermal probes could be designed for super-resolved thermal detection or imaging at microscopic scales.

Crystalline silicon solar panels could be just as effective when incorporated into stretchy wearable electronics or flexible robot skin as they are when used as rigid rooftop panels. KAUST researchers have devised a way to turn rigid silicon into solar cells that can be stretched by a record-breaking 95 percent, while retaining high solar energy capture efficiency of 19 percent.

Although many new solar materials are being investigated, silicon remains by far the photovoltaic industry's favorite. "Monocrystalline silicon remains the material of choice in the PV industry due to its low cost, nontoxicity, excellent reliability, good efficiency and maturity of the manufacturing process," says Nazek El-Atab, a postdoctoral researcher in the labs of Muhammad Mustafa Hussain, who led the research.

One drawback of silicon, for certain applications, is its rigidity, unlike some thin film solar cells. However, these flexible cells either consist of low-cost, low-efficiency organic materials or more efficient but very expensive inorganic materials. Hussain and his team have now taken a significant step toward overcoming this limitation by developing low-cost, high-efficiency, silicon-based stretchy solar cells.

The key step was to take a commercially available rigid silicon panel and coat the back of the panel with a highly stretchable, inexpensive, biocompatible elastomer called ecoflex. The team then used a laser to cut the rigid cell into multiple silicon islands, which were held together by the elastomer backing. Each silicon island remained electrically connected to its neighbors via interdigitated back contacts that ran the length of the flexible solar cell.

The team initially made rectangle-shaped silicon islands, which could be stretched to around 54 percent, Hussain says. "Beyond this value, the strain of stretching led to diagonal cracks within the brittle silicon islands," he says. The team tried different designs to push the stretchability further, mindful that each slice of silicon they removed reduced the area available for light capture. The team tried a diamond pattern before settling on triangles. "Using the triangular pattern, we achieve world record stretchability and efficiency," Hussain says.

The team plans to incorporate the stretchy silicon solar material to power a multisensory artificial skin developed by Hussain's lab. Making solar panels that stretch with even greater flexibility is also a target. "The demonstrated solar cells can be mainly stretched in one direction--parallel to the interdigitated back contacts grid," Hussain says. "We are working to improve the multidirectional stretching capability."

New species was named Buccinatormyia gangnami, after a famous hit by a South Korean singer PSY. It was described based on six impression fossils found near Jinju city in South Korea. On average, members of this species were twice larger than the common house fly, with a proboscis length up to 5 mm. Their darkish abdomenon were embellished with four pairs of light spots, very similar to yellowjacket patterns which typically displayed by hoverflies and other extant flower-loving Diptera active during the day.

The chief model for modern yellowjacket mimics are social wasps united into the Vespidae family. In our time these wasps as really common as everyone knows who has ever seen them stuck in his or her jam. However, judging by the fossil record, vespid wasps were rare and represented by exclusively solitary taxa in the Early Cretaceous. So probably Buccinatormyia gangnami mimicked something else, or, alternatively, vespid wasps radiated early than currently thought.

Buccinatormyia gangnami belongs to Zhangsolvidae, a dipteran family which prospered during the Early Cretaceous, but then went extinct due to unknown causes. &laquoThere were several lineages of long-proboscid flies during the Mesozoic, and all they were initially associated with gymnosperms. Some were managed to survive into our time, while others disappeared, probably due to their inability to adapt themselves to angiosperm-dominated worlds. Why zhangsolvids were destined to lose, we cannot explain yet», said Alexander Khramov, study's leading author and a senior researcher at the Borissiak Paleontological Institute (Moscow).

A new study published in Science Advances found that certain types of materials have a "memory" of how they were processed, stored, and manipulated. Researchers were then able to use this memory to control how a material ages and to encode specific properties that allow it to perform new functions. This creative approach for designing materials was the result of a collaboration between Penn's Andrea Liu and Sidney R. Nagel, Nidhi Pashine, and Daniel Hexner from the University of Chicago.

Liu and Nagel have worked together for many years on the physics of disordered systems. In contrast to ordered systems, which have systematic and repeating patterns, disordered systems are arranged randomly. An illustrative example is a natural wall made of tightly packed dirt, where individual grains aren't neatly stacked but instead clump together to form a rigid structure. Researchers are interested in these systems because their randomness allows them to be easily transformed into new mechanical metamaterials with unique mechanical properties.

One important property that materials scientists would like to control is how a material responds when an external force is applied. When most materials are stretched in one direction, they shrink perpendicularly, and when compressed they expand perpendicularly, like a rubber band--when it is stretched it becomes thin, and when compressed becomes thicker.

Materials that do the opposite, ones that shrink perpendicularly when compressed and become thicker when stretched, are known as auxetics. These materials are rare but are suspected to be better at absorbing energy and be more fracture-resistant. Researchers are interested in creating auxetic materials to help improve the function of materials that, among other things, could absorb shock.

In this study, the researchers wanted to see if they could use a disordered material's "memory" of the prior stresses it had encountered to transform the material into something new. First, they ran computer simulations of normal materials under pressure and selectively altered atomic bonds to see which changes could make the material auxetic. They discovered that, by cutting the bonds along the areas with the most external stress, they could digitally create an auxetic material.

Using this insight, the team then took a Styrofoam-like material and added "memory" by allowing the material to age under specified stresses. To make the material auxetic they applied a constant pressure to the material and let it age naturally. "With the whole thing under pressure, it adjusted itself. It turned itself from a normal material into a mechanical metamaterial," says Liu.

This incredibly simple and effective process is a step closer towards a materials science "holy grail" of being able to create materials with specific atomic-level structures without the need for high-resolution equipment or atomic-level modifications. The approach described in this paper instead only requires a bit of patience while the system gains "memory" and then ages naturally.

Liu says that it is a "totally different" way to think about making new materials. "You start with a disordered system, and if you apply the right stresses you can make it come out with the properties you want," she says.

This work also has a strong connection to structures in biology. Organs, enzymes, and filament networks are natural examples of disordered systems that are difficult to emulate synthetically because of their complexity. Now, researchers could use this simpler approach as a starting point to create complex human-made structures that take inspiration from the wide range of properties seen in biology.

Nagel is optimistic about the future. "In addition to making auxetic materials," he says, "we have also used a computer to design in precise mechanical control of distant parts of the material by applying local stresses. This too is inspired by biological activity. We now need to see if this, too, can be made to work by aging a real material in the laboratory."

"The possibilities at this stage seem limitless," says Nagel. "Only by further theoretical work and experimentation will we begin to understand what are the limits to this new concept of material design."

Families with higher carbon footprints are likely to consume more confectionary, alcohol, and restaurant food, according to a new study by Japanese and European researchers published in One Earth.

Considering the spectrum of traditional to urban lifestyles across Japan, Associate Professor Keiichiro Kanemoto of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan, and his colleagues analyzed the carbon footprints of the diets of 60,000 households across Japan's 47 prefectures. Using a life-cycle approach which details food supply chains around the country, they found that meat consumption was relatively constant per household - but carbon footprints were not.

The study shows that meat consumption could explain less than 10 per cent of the difference seen in carbon footprints between Japanese families. Instead, households with higher carbon footprints tended to consume more food from restaurants, as well as more vegetables and fish. However, it was the amount of confectionary and alcohol consumption - 2-3 times more than low carbon footprint households - that really stood out.

Meat has earned a reputation as an environmentally damaging food, as beef production emits 20 times more greenhouse gases than bean production for the same amount of protein. However, Associate Professor Kanemoto cautions against a one-size-fits-all policy.

"If we think of a carbon tax, it might be wiser to target sweets and alcohol if we want a progressive system," proposes Kanemoto.

Japan's population is one of the oldest in the world, a trend that many industrial countries are following. This suggests that successful policies for dietary change and energy efficiency in Japan could act as models for many countries in the next decade or two. The Japanese also have a relatively healthy diet, which is frequently attributed to them having the world's longest lifespan by country.

"If we are serious about reducing our carbon footprints, then our diets must change. Our findings suggest that high carbon footprints are not only a problem for a small number of meat lovers in Japan. It might be better to target less nutritious foods that are excessively consumed in some populations," believes Kanemoto.

Nevertheless, Kanemoto agrees eating less meat is also a good choice.

"Meat is a high carbon footprint food. Replacing red meat consumption with white meat and vegetables will lower a family's carbon footprint," he says.

A co-author of the study, Dr. Christian Reynolds from the Institute of Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England, highlights that these results show that all countries need to take into account regional differences in diet and food production when giving advice on healthy sustainable diets.

"Due to wealth, culture, and farming practices, different regions in a country consume food differently. Japan alone has prefectures with more than 10 million people and others with fewer than one million," Dr. Reynolds notes. "These regional and income differences in food consumption are also found in the UK, Europe, Australia, and the USA. All countries are facing challenges in how to shift diets to be healthier and more sustainable. This evidence from Japan demonstrates that research can help us to identify what to focus on. The same patterns of dietary change in terms of sugar, alcohol and dining out need to be considered in the UK, Australia, the US and Europe."

What is the common ground between making a cup of tea and putting on your shoes? Both actions consist of several movements in a row. "Just like language, which is composed of syllables arranged into sentences, many behaviors are comprised of several, sequential movements," explains Duncan Mearns. "To understand how the brain generates behavior, we need to know the "syllables", the building blocks of the behavior." Aided by artificial intelligence, Mearns and his colleagues from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology have broken down the hunting behavior of larval zebrafish into its basic building blocks. They show how these building blocks combine to form longer sequences.

Although shorter than half a millimeter, zebrafish larvae already master all the behaviors they need to survive. Catching prey is such an innate behavioral sequence, fine-tuned by experience. However, how do neuronal circuits steer and combine the components of this behavior in order to lead to a successful prey capture?

The neurobiologists from the Baier department developed a high-tech assay to investigate the details of the fish behavior. High-speed cameras recorded eye, tail and jaw movements of the fish while the animals roamed freely in a small bowl. Specially designed computer algorithms then evaluated the recorded images and assigned them to a computer-learned behavioral component. The results of thousands of fish movements revealed three components of the prey capture behavior: orientation, approach and capture.

The motions of the fish tail are subject to continuous modulation depending on the position of the prey. Nevertheless, the computer algorithms were able to recognize three defined motion patterns for the three prey capture components. These motion patterns then always followed each other in the same stereotypic sequence. "This is much too fast to see with your eyes and even in slow motion we couldn't separate the behavioral components as precisely from each other as the computer," explains Duncan Mearns who developed the assay with his colleagues as part of his PhD thesis. When the prey was right in front of the fish's mouth, the computer could even differentiate between two distinct movement types the fish use to capture their prey.

The prey always in view

The investigations confirmed that the fish need both eyes to take aim at their prey - and then to choose the appropriate catching behavior. Depending on the estimated distance, the fish decide between a quick sprint and gulp or a strong sucking movement. Thanks to these results, the researchers now know to look for neurons active on both sides of the brain, helping to determine how far away the prey is at this point in time.

The neurobiologists also received information on stimulus processing during prey capture behavior, when they replaced the prey with a virtual dot. Whenever the simulated prey dot disappeared, the fish aborted their hunting behavior - independent of when this happened during the behavior. "This shows us that the fish needs continuous feedback from the eyes about the prey to be able to display the entire hunting sequence," says Mearns.

Search for behavior in the brain

With their experimental setup, the neurobiologists disassembled a complex behavior into individual components recognizable by the computer. The fact that the investigated behavior belongs to the zebrafish is no coincidence. The transparent fish larvae and available genetic and optogenetic methods enable the scientists to now search specifically for the neuronal circuits underlying the described behavioral components. "We now know much better what we are looking for and where we might find it," explains Mearns.

Men are twice as likely as women to consider themselves to be good at lying and at getting away with it, new research has found.

People who excel at lying are good talkers and tell more lies than others, usually to family, friends, romantic partners and colleagues, according to the research led by Dr Brianna Verigin, at the University of Portsmouth.

Expert liars also prefer to lie face-to-face, rather than via text messages, and social media was the least likely place where they'd tell a lie.

Dr Verigin, who splits her time between the Universities of Portsmouth and Maastricht, in the Netherlands, said: "We found a significant link between expertise at lying and gender. Men were more than twice as likely to consider themselves expert liars who got away with it.

"Previous research has shown that most people tell one-two lies per day, but that's not accurate, most people don't lie everyday but a small number of prolific liars are responsible for the majority of lies reported.

"What stood out in our study was that nearly half (40 per cent) of all lies are told by a very small number of deceivers. And these people will lie with impunity to those closest to them.

"Prolific liars rely on a great deal on being good with words, weaving their lies into truths, so it becomes hard for others to distinguish the difference, and they're also better than most at hiding lies within apparently simple, clear stories which are harder for others to doubt."

Dr Verigin quizzed 194 people, half men and half women, with an average age of 39.

They were asked a series of questions including how good they were at deceiving others, how many lies they'd told in the past 24 hours, the type of lies they'd told, who to, and whether they'd done so face-to-face or via other means.

She said: "Time after time, studies have shown we are not as good at detecting lies as we think we are. At best, most of us have a 50:50 chance of getting it right when someone is pulling the wool over our eyes.

"We wanted to focus on those who are good at lying and try to understand how they do it and to whom."

The study found one of the key strategies of liars is to tell plausible lies that stay close to the truth, and to not give away much information. And the better someone thinks they are at lying, the more lies they'll tell.

The most commonly used strategy among all those who admitted to lying, whether experts or poor liars, was to leave out certain information. But expert liars added to that an ability to weave a believable story embellished with truth, making the lies harder to spot.

In contrast, those who thought they weren't good at lying resorted, when they did lie, to being vague.

Overall, of the 194 people, the most common types of deception, in descending order, were 'white lies', exaggerations, hiding information, burying lies in a torrent of truth and making up things.

Most people chose to lie face-to-face, then via text message, a phone call, email, and last, via social media.

Most expert liars lie most often to family, friends or colleagues. Employers and authority figures were least likely to be lied to.

The study showed no link between level of education and lying ability.
Dr Verigin said more research needs to be done, particularly on better understanding good liars' expertise at embedding lies within truthful information, and at using facts that were impossible to check.

Predator-prey cycles are among the fundamental phenomena of ecological systems: the population sizes of predators and their prey, for instance foxes and hares, are frequently subject to regular oscillations. In a long-term experiment, an international team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Bernd Blasius from the University of Oldenburg, Germany, observed these oscillations in rotifer and unicellular algae populations across 50 cycles - a record period of time for this kind of study.

In an article published in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature, the researchers report that although there were brief periods when the regular oscillations in the two populations were interrupted by random swings, they always returned to their normal rhythm on their own.

"Our experiments confirm the theoretical concept of self-generated predator-prey cycles," says lead author Blasius, who heads the Mathematical Modelling group at the University of Oldenburg's Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM).

Predator-prey cycles are based on a feeding relationship between two species: if the prey species rapidly multiplies, soon afterwards the number of predators increases - until the predators eventually eat so many prey that the prey population goes down again. Soon afterwards, predator numbers likewise decrease due to starvation. This in turn leads to a rapid increase in the prey population and a new cycle begins.

To predict such oscillations, scientists use simple mathematical models according to which populations of predator and prey species can theoretically coexist indefinitely. But the question of how long these cyclical fluctuations last in real-life communities had not been clarified: in field conditions, such oscillations frequently extend over a period of several years, so biologists have mainly relied on experiments with short-lived species.

In previous experiments, however, one of the two species died out after a few oscillations or the oscillations gradually disappeared. This led to the assumption that in real life, predator-prey cycles do not last on their own over extended periods of time, but are driven by an external factor, for example seasonal fluctuations in the food supply.

To clarify this question, Blasius and his colleagues from the University of Potsdam and McGill University in Canada brought together Brachionus calyciflorus, a planktonic rotifer species that occurs in fresh water, and unicellular green algae in experimental containers. This system allowed the researchers to define continuous external conditions, for example a constant amount of nutrients for the algae.

In the experiments, which were carried out at the University of Potsdam, the rotifers were the predators and the green algae the prey. As in other predator-prey relationships, a constant cycle was established: algae numbers fluctuated over a period of 6.7 days, as did rotifer numbers but with a time lag of about 40 hours.

The researchers observed the two populations over a period of approximately one year, which corresponded to more than 50 oscillations and about 300 generations of rotifers. They ran several trials and produced time series representing a total of about 2000 measurement days.

"We chose organisms that reproduce quickly so that we would be able to produce multiple predator-prey cycles in a relatively short amount of time," says co-author Prof. Dr. Gregor Fussmann, a biologist from the McGill University in Canada. "It still took us more than ten years to accumulate the experimental evidence necessary to make our point."

Using modern data analysis methods, the team observed various oscillations in the system and determined the time sequence of these oscillations. Blasius and his team observed for example that the life stages of the rotifers (egg, sexually mature, and dead) also fluctuated periodically.

"We mainly observed regular oscillations in the predator and prey populations recurring at almost constant intervals," says Blasius. "Unexpectedly, however, these regular oscillations were repeatedly interrupted by short, irregular periods without any discernible external influences," Blasius explained.

During these periods, rotifer and algae numbers continued to fluctuate, but the team was unable to observe a fixed time span between the fluctuations. After a short time, however, the original sequence was automatically re-established. The researchers were able to reproduce similar alterations in their mathematical models: "They are proof of the resilience of the ecological system, in other words the ability to independently return to the original state after random disruptions," Blasius says.

The researchers' analysis also demonstrates that the predator-prey cycle is based on a regular sequence of different processes in the ecological community. In the study, the team presents a mathematical method, a kind of fingerprint, for determining these regular processes in other oscillating biological systems. With this method it is possible for example to identify interactions between different species and cyclic or seasonal sequences in complex sets of data, the researchers say.

Extremely acute vision and the ability to rapidly process different visual impressions - these two factors are crucial when a peregrine falcon bears down on its prey at a speed that easily matches that of a Formula 1 racing car: over 350 kilometres per hour.

The visual acuity of birds of prey has been studied extensively and shows the vision of some large eagles and vultures is twice as acute as that of humans. On the other hand, up to now researchers have never studied the speed of vision among birds of prey, i.e. how fast they sense visual impressions.

"This is the first time. My colleague Simon Potier and I have examined the peregrine falcon, saker falcon and Harris's hawk and measured how fast light can blink for these species to still register the blinks", says Almut Kelber, professor at the Department of Biology, Lund University.

The results show that the peregrine falcon has the fastest vision and can register 129 Hz (blinks per second) provided the light intensity is high. Under the same conditions, the saker falcon can see 102 Hz and the Harris's hawk 77 Hz. By comparison, humans see a maximum of 50-60 Hz. At the cinema, a speed of 25 images per second is sufficient for us to perceive it as film, and not as a series of still images.

The speed at which the different birds of prey process visual impressions corresponds with the needs they have when hunting: the peregrine falcon hunts fast-flying birds, whereas the Harris's hawk hunts small, slower mammals on the ground.

Even though the vision speed of birds of prey has never been measured before, there are studies about the speed at which small insect-eating birds such as flycatchers and blue tits can take in visual impressions.

"They also have fast vision. Therefore, we draw the conclusion that bird species that hunt prey that flies fast have the fastest vision. Evolution has provided them with the ability because they need it", says Almut Kelber.

"It is something of a competition. A fly flies quite fast and has fast vision, therefore the flycatcher must see the fly quickly in order to catch it. The same applies to the falcon. To capture a flycatcher, the falcon must detect its prey sufficiently early in order to have time to react", says Simon Potier.

The new knowledge can hopefully contribute to better conditions for birds held in captivity.

"Those who keep birds in cages must take care with the lighting and use cage lighting that does not shimmer, flicker or blink, because the birds will not feel well", concludes Almut Kelber.

The scientists research a building block of organic molecules needed for medical chemistry development. Spirocycles in nature is an element, that chemists are crazy about. This element presents in artemisinin, the most effective group of drugs against malaria.

IKBFU Research Professor, Head of the Institute of Chemistry research group of Saint Petersburg State University, Mikhail Krasavin:
«Living plants are a unique source of a wide variety of natural compounds. Vivid examples of the importance of finding and establishing the exact structure of new natural compounds are molecules that eventually became drugs. For example, artemisinin is a drug against malaria, taxol is an anti-cancer drug. Both of these drugs were previously isolated from plants».

According to the scientist, the uniqueness of natural compounds lies in the fact that their "evolution" was parallel to the evolution of all living matter on Earth, which means they are biocompatible.

A review on the building block of organic molecules, the spiro cycle in nature, was published in the scientific journal Molecules. The work "Spirocyclic motifs in natural products" contains not only information about natural sources with such unique molecules, but also their biological properties.

The information structured by us has already inspired us to synthesize new compounds that are naturally interesting for medicinal chemistry and in the near future we will publish new experimental results.

An international research team in which Spanish experts participate has shown that sparse species are associated spatially in 90 % of the animal and plant communities studied.

"Animal and plant communities are organised in a similar way to cities, ghettos or ethnic neighbourhoods," the researchers say. "This organisation could be behind the persistence of rare species since they could avoid the competitive pressure of the most abundant species, either because they cooperate with each other or because they prefer specific microhabitats or both at the same time," they point out.

The results of this research, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, suggest a general explanation for the maintenance of biodiversity in competitive environments, clarifying the principle of competitive exclusion whereby species with the lowest competitive abilities should be excluded by more efficient competitors. "This pattern could explain how species that compete for the same resources are able to coexist," biologists say.

Spanish institutions participating in this study are the National Museum of Natural Sciences and the Doñana Biological Station (both of the CSIC), the University of Alcalá, the Complutense University of Madrid, the Rey Juan Carlos University, the Autonomous University of Madrid , the University of Castilla-La Mancha, the University of the Basque Country.

From conservation to the study of diseases

To carry out the study, more than three hundred worldwide ecological communities of mosses, herbs, trees, insects, arachnids and corals, among others, have been analysed.

The researchers explain that they used the network theory to detect ghettos or groups, while they applied numerical simulations to study the mechanisms that gave rise to them. The results of these simulations confirm that the grouping between sparse species is necessary to explain the coexistence patterns observed all around the world.

These findings may have profound implications for the understanding of the formation of ecological communities. Among their applications, experts highlight conservation planning or even the study of human diseases related to the intestinal microbiome, "where the coexistence of species is essential."

"However, the specific interactions and mechanisms that allow associations of rare species are still unknown, which should also boost a new research agenda in various fields of life sciences," researchers acknowledge.

A study published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry underscores that the release of pollutants in one region can have implications beyond its borders; emphasizing the dire need for global collaboration on environmental issues. The study suggests that coal-burning activities in the Asia-Pacific region have influenced environmental conditions in the United States Pacific Northwest.

It is well established that concentrations of substances in sediment or ice cores as a function of depth can reveal what was present in the atmosphere in the area across a number of previous years. Given that, to evaluate the extent and source of pollutants coming into the Pacific Northwest, scientists from Whitman College analyzed the concentrations of coal-related metals and metalloids in sediment layers in Deep Lake, located in northeastern Washington state (USA). The researchers found that arsenic, barium, selenium and mercury (all coal-related elements) in sedimentary deposits from Deep Lake have increased over recent years. Most notably, they showed that mercury deposition has increased by around 400-fold between 1996 and 2014, while barium, selenium and arsenic increased 956-fold, 2.4-fold and 1.3-fold respectively. This was thought to be attributed to coal burning. Lead author, Professor Frank Dunnivant, explained that while atmospheric inputs of mercury can be natural (from volcanoes), other studies have shown human activities contribute at least 52% of mercury to the atmosphere. Further, a review of Asian coal consumption data and weather patterns suggests these metals originated from coal-burning activities in the Asia-Pacific region. This is not surprising given the fact that Chinese coal consumption has quadrupled since 1975, nearly tripling from 1998 to 2013 alone, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China. Coal-burning is known to release natural elements such as mercury, barium, selenium and arsenic to the atmosphere if stack exhaust is not captured and mitigated.

These findings emphasize the need for global cooperation to improve environmental conditions. They also show the interconnectedness of human impact. Hyper-civilization and western consumer patterns that have driven increased industrialization, without due environmental controls in some regions, are not without consequence to the west.