259 articles from TUESDAY 16.6.2020

If there is life out there, can we detect it?

Instruments aboard future space missions are capable of detecting amino acids, fatty acids and peptides, and can even identify ongoing biological processes on ocean moons in our solar system. These are the exciting conclusions reached by two studies from an international team led by scientists of the Planetary Sciences research group at Freie Universität Berlin. The two studies were published in...

Scientists grow optical chips in a petri dish

The modern photonics industry is constantly working on making its devices more compact, be it computing systems or sensors and lidars. For this, it is necessary to make lasers, transistors and other elements smaller. A team of scientists led by ITMO researchers proposed a quick and affordable method to create optical chips right in a Petri dish. The research was published in ACS Nano.

How plants' vascular cells turn into holes

Theoretical biologists have solved a unique puzzle in the structure of plants' vascular tissue. Two mutations that had opposite effects appear to lead to the same result. Professor of Computational Developmental Biology Kirsten ten Tusscher has shown that both accelerating or delaying the transport of auxin through the plant's vascular tissue result in the creation of a Swiss-cheese-like pattern...

A small protein transports electrons between the two photosystems involved in plant photosynthesis

The emergence of oxygenic photosynthesis made it possible for complex multicellular life-forms to evolve on Earth. By utilizing solar energy to turn carbon dioxide into sugars, while also generating molecular oxygen from water, photosynthesis provides the basis for both plant and animal life. These two processes are carried out by distinct, but functionally connected complexes called photosystems...

The smallest motor in the world

A research team from Empa and EPFL has developed a molecular motor which consists of only 16 atoms and rotates reliably in one direction. It could allow energy harvesting at the atomic level. The special feature of the motor is that it moves exactly at the boundary between classical motion and quantum tunneling - and has revealed puzzling phenomena to researchers in the quantum realm.

A 'pause button' for light particles

How do you stop something that is faster than anything else, intangible and always in motion by nature? A team led by physicists Dr. Thorsten Peters and Professor Thomas Halfmann is doing the seemingly impossible: stopping light for tiny fractions of a second. They then end the stopover at the push of a button letting the light pulse continue its journey. The researchers are even stopping...

Persistent DNA damage in the placenta affects pregnancy outcomes

Scientists have shown that a dysfunctional placenta can play a previously unrecognized role during the earliest stages of development in mouse models of Cornelia de Lange syndrome. People with this rare genetic disorder often harbor mutations in cohesins, ring-like proteins that help DNA organize and repair itself.

Quantum material research facilitates discovery of better materials

By means of the state-of-art quantum many-body simulations, performed on the world's fastest supercomputers, researchers have achieved accurate model calculations for a rare-earth magnet TmMgGaO4 (TMGO). They found that the material, under the correct temperature regime, could realize the the long-sought-after two-dimensional topological Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) phase, which completed the pursuit...

Simulated sea slug gets addicted to drug

Scientists built a computer model of a simple brain network based on that of a sea slug, taught it how to get food, gave it an appetite and the ability to experience reward, added a dash of something called homeostatic plasticity and then exposed it to a very intoxicating drug. To no one's surprise, the creature became addicted.