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82 articles from PhysOrg

International team visualizes properties of plant cell walls at nanoscale

To optimize biomaterials for reliable, cost-effective paper production, building construction, and biofuel development, researchers often study the structure of plant cells using techniques such as freezing plant samples or placing them in a vacuum. These methods provide valuable data but often cause permanent damage to the samples.

Unfreezing waters in ligand binding sites to aid in drug discovery

Cryogenic (frozen) protein structures are central to understanding function and developing drugs. Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have created an algorithm to reveal when freezing the proteins may create "artifacts,"—errors that cause misleading results. The research appeared recently in Angewandte Chemie International Edition and highlighted the importance of water networks...

NASA's Europa Clipper Mission completes main body of the spacecraft

The main body of NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft has been delivered to the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Over the next two years there, engineers and technicians will finish assembling the craft by hand before testing it to make sure it can withstand the journey to Jupiter's icy moon Europa.

Multilevel polarization switching in ferroelectric thin films

Ferroelectric materials have found widespread use in everyday technology mainly owing to their electric polarization that can be switched between two distinct states. Overcoming the binary limit of ferroelectrics in order to achieve any arbitrary value of the polarization has been a long-standing challenge, but has the potential to vastly expand the scope of ferroelectric applications, for...

Scientists develop new method to improve mapping of bird migrations

More than forty scientists from the National Audubon Society and other leading bird and wildlife research and conservation groups published a new study modeling a novel approach to mapping seasonal migration pathways for birds. The study, published recently in Ecological Applications, combines some of the best-available forms of migration data for 12 species of migratory birds that represented...

PDAT regulates phosphatidylethanolamine as transient carbon sink alternative to triacylglycerol in nannochloropsis

Nannochloropsis is a group of unicellular eukaryotes that belong to the class Eustigmatophyceae. Currently, there are seven identified species in this genus that have high photosynthetic efficiency, biomass and oil content (triacylglycerol, or TAG), and are rich in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), making them high-quality raw materials for the industrial production of EPA.   

Deciphering the migratory pattern of the smallest seabird in the Mediterranean

It had always been thought that the Mediterranean population of the European storm petrel —the smallest seabird in the Mediterranean—spent the year in this sea and that only a small part of the population migrated to the Atlantic during the winter season. Now, a study reveals that most of the European storm petrels that nest in the western Mediterranean move to the Atlantic Ocean as their main...

'Ugly' reef fishes are most in need of conservation support

What's the relationship between people's perception of beauty and animals' conservation needs? According to a machine-learning study by Nicolas Mouquet at the University of Montpellier, France, and colleagues, publishing June 7th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, the reef fishes that people find most beautiful tend to be the lowest priority for conservation support.

Clean doping strategy produces more responsive phototransistors

The library of two-dimensional (2D) layered materials keeps growing, from basic 2D materials to metal chalcogenides. Unlike their bulk counterparts, 2D layered materials possess novel features that offer great potential in next-generation electronics and optoelectronics devices.

Large ensemble simulations with a global climate system model reveal the role of internal climate variability

Since the Industrial Revolution era began, global warming, Arctic sea ice melting, and increasing sea-level rise are likely attributed to human activity, according to the IPCC AR6 report. The climate change response to external forces (including human activity) is non-linear and is affected by internal variabilities (IVs) generated mainly from internal processes in the climate or Earth system....

Scientists develop novel computational model for aptamer generation, with wide applications

Oligonucleotides are short, single strands of synthetic DNA or RNA. Although they are small, these molecules play an important role in molecular and synthetic biology applications. One type of oligonucleotide—aptamers—can selectively bind to specific targets such as proteins, peptides, carbohydrates, viruses, toxins, metal ions and even live cells. As they are similar to antibodies, they have...