Tech
By measuring brain signals and implementing a clever feedback scheme, researchers from India and the UK have reduced the positional error in brain-controlled robot arms by a factor of 10, paving the way to greatly enhancing the quality of life for people suffering from strokes and neuro-muscular disorders.
Recently, observation of new topological magnetic structures represented by skyrmions is expected to provide new paths in constructing spintronic devices. In magnetic bubbles, although these are "ancient" cylinder domains, the type-I bubbles (renamed as skyrmion bubbles with the same topology as skyrmions) have remotivated general scientific interests.
Life during COVID-19 has not been a uniform experience. There have been distinct differences in how people have contended with lockdown, depending on whether they have access to safe, secure and decent accommodation.
New research from the University of Huddersfield has looked at how people were coping while living with poor housing conditions in the north of England during the first lockdown, between May and July 2020. We spoke to 50 households: 40 in the private rented sector and 10 owner-occupiers, as well as eight housing workers.
Photocatalysis, converting solar energy into chemical energy, has been recognized to be a very promising solution to the current energy and environmental issues. The performance of the photocatalytic system depends largely on the surface charge state of active sites (usually, i.e., co-catalysts), as the Schottky junction between photosensitizer and co-catalyst facilitates charge transfer between them and finally to reactant molecules, promoting the adsorption and activation of the latter.
SARS-CoV-2 outbreak investigation in meat processing plant suggests aerosol transmission in confined
Heidelberg, 28 October 2020 - The importance of maintaining high quality air flow to restrict transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in confined workspaces has been strongly indicated by the investigation of an outbreak of the virus at a German meat processing plant during May and June 2020. The study, published in EMBO Molecular Medicine, found that the outbreak originated from a single worker on the meat processing production line.
The University of Surrey has unveiled a device with unique functionality that could signal the dawn of a new design philosophy for electronics, including next-generation wearables and eco-disposable sensors.
In a study published in Advanced Intelligent Systems, researchers from the University of Surrey detail how their device, called the Multimodal Transistor (MMT), overcomes long-standing challenges and can perform the same operations as more complex circuits.
Stem cells are considered one of the most promising tools in the field of regenerative medicine because they are a cell type that can give rise to all the cells in our bodies and that has the potential to be used to treat tissue loss due to damage or disease. Stem cells that are similar to the ones of embryonic origin can be generated in the laboratory and they are known as induced stem cells (which can obtained from skin cells, for example).
How can scientists measure and define the performance of neural electrodes if there are no uniform standards? Freiburg microsystems engineer Dr. Maria Asplund together with Dr. Christian Böhler and Prof. Dr. Thomas Stieglitz, as well as Prof. Dr. Luciano Fadiga and Dr. Stefano Carli from the Italian Institute of Technology at the University of Ferrara, Italy, have developed guidelines to standardize the testing of the performance of electrodes for neural interfaces and bioelectronic systems. The researchers have published their tutorial in Nature Protocols.
Researchers at the University of Basel have developed a precisely controllable system for mimicking biochemical reaction cascades in cells. Using microfluidic technology, they produce miniature polymeric reaction containers equipped with the desired properties. This "cell on a chip" is useful not only for studying processes in cells, but also for the development of new synthetic pathways for chemical applications or for biological active substances in medicine.
Mountain gorilla groups are friendly to familiar neighbours - provided they stay out of "core" parts of their territory - new research shows.
Gorillas live in tight-knit groups, foraging, resting and sleeping together around a "core home range" and a wider "peripheral" range.
These groups sometimes split permanently, separating gorillas that may have lived together for years and may be closely related.
Chemists studying how life started often focus on how modern biopolymers like peptides and nucleic acids contributed, but modern biopolymers don't form easily without help from living organisms. A possible solution to this paradox is that life started using different components, and many non-biological chemicals were likely abundant in the environment.
The state of mature ecosystems must be taken into account before launching massive reforestation plans in sub-Saharan Africa, according to geo-ecologist Julie Aleman, a visiting researcher in the geography department of Université de Montréal.
"The biomes of the region we studied, which includes all the countries south of the Sahara, are divided into two fairly distinct types: savannah at about 70 per cent and tropical forest for the rest," said Aleman, co-author of a major new study on African biomes.
In the past two decades, researchers have shown that biological traits in both species and individual cells can be shaped by the environment and inherited even without gene mutations, an outcome that contradicts one of the classical interpretations of Darwinian theory.
But exactly how these epigenetic, or non-genetic, traits are inherited has been unclear.
Only a small fraction of the galaxies emits gamma rays, which is the most extreme form of light. Astronomers believe that these highly energetic photons originate from the vicinity of a supermassive black hole residing at the centers of these galaxies. When this happens, they are known as active galaxies. The black hole swallows matter from its surroundings and emits jets or, in other words, collimated streams of matter and radiation. Few of these active galaxies (less than 1%) have their jets pointing by chance toward Earth.
The rapid changes in the chemical industry are connected one hand with the depletion of natural resources and deepening of environmental concerns, on the other hand with the growth of environmental awareness. Green, environmentally friendly chemistry is playing an increasingly important role in the sustainable chemical industry.