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Categories: Chemistry: Biochemistry, Paleontology: Dinosaurs

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Enzymes from microorganisms can produce hydrogen (H2) under certain conditions, which makes them potential biocatalysts for biobased H2 technologies. In order to make this hydrogen production efficient, researchers are trying to identify and eliminate possible limiting factors. These include formaldehyde, which occurs naturally as a metabolic product in cells and inhibits the particularly efficient [FeFe] hydrogenase.

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Blood tests are a common, yet often painful, step in health care. But what if we could skip the needles altogether? Saliva and blood contain many of the same biomarkers, and collecting spit is as simple as drooling into a container. Researchers have developed a device that detects glucose and adenosine monophosphate (AMP) biomarkers in saliva with high sensitivity, which could help make at-home health monitoring easier and without a poke.

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Researchers have designed and developed a novel diagnostic device to detect traumatic brain injury (TBI) by shining a safe laser into the eye.

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Researchers characterize nearly 600 microbial genomes collected from goldmine. The study illuminates 'microbial dark matter' residing below the surface. Microbes divide into two groups: minimalists that have one, specialized job or maximalists that are prepared to use any available resource. Study has implications for how underground activities, like mining and carbon storage, could affect or be affected by microbial life. The lifestyle of these 'intraterrestrial' microbes also provides hints to what organisms could be living on other planets.

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Researchers have demonstrated a compact particle accelerator less than 20 meters long that produces an electron beam with an energy of 10 billion electron volts (10 GeV). There are only two other accelerators currently operating in the U.S. that can reach such high electron energies, but both are approximately 3 kilometers long. This type of accelerator is called a wakefield laser accelerator.

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Nearly a third of the world's mine tailings are stored within or near protected conservation areas, new research has found.

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Hospital MRI scanners, using 3 Tesla magnets, provide poor spatial resolution in brain imaging. More recent 7T MRIs are better but used mainly in the rare research lab. Scientists have now supercharged the standard 7T scanner to improve the resolution by nearly a factor of 10 -- a 50-times improvement over standard 3T MRIs. The NexGen 7T can track signals through the brain and perhaps tie functional changes to brain maladies.

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Experiments have provided the first direct evidence that electricity seems to flow through 'strange metals' in an unusual liquid-like form.

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Engineers have achieved a world first by manufacturing the first back-contact micrometric photovoltaic cells.

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Researchers have devised a way to produce chemicals used in medicine and agriculture for a fraction of the usual cost. Using oxygen as a reagent and copper as a catalyst to break organic molecules' carbon-carbon bonds and convert them into amines, which are widely used in pharmaceuticals. Traditional metal catalysis uses expensive metals such as platinum, silver, gold and palladium, but the researchers used oxygen and copper -- an abundant base metal.

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Researchers create transistors combining silicon with biological silk, using common microprocessor manufacturing methods. The silk protein can be easily modified with other chemical and biological molecules to change its properties, leading to circuits that respond to biology and the environment.

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Tandem solar cells based on perovskite semiconductors convert sunlight to electricity more efficiently than conventional silicon solar cells. In order to make this technology ready for the market, further improvements with regard to stability and manufacturing processes are required. Researchers have succeeded in finding a way to predict the quality of the perovskite layers and consequently that of the resulting solar cells: Assisted by Machine Learning and new methods in Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is possible assess their quality from variations in light emission already in the manufacturing process.

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Some enzymes, such as the one derived from fungi and investigated in this study, are able to produce valuable substances such as the fragrance (R)-1-phenylethanol. To this end, they convert a less expensive substrate using a co-substrate. A research team came up with the idea of supplying them with this co-substrate using a plasma -- a somewhat crazy idea, as plasmas generally have a destructive effect on biomolecules. However, by employing several tricks, the researchers did indeed succeed. They have now refined one of these tricks and thus improved the process: They attach the enzymes to tiny beads in order to hold them in place at the bottom of the reactor, where they are protected from the damaging effects of the plasma.

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Researchers have developed a new method for the accurate determination of the water content of water-soluble compounds. This plays a significant role in various areas, including determining drug dosages.

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Scientists have pioneered a novel approach to develop intelligent healthcare sensors using various gold nanowires.  

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Quantum scientists have discovered a rare phenomenon that could hold the key to creating a 'perfect switch' in quantum devices which flips between being an insulator and superconductor.

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Biological materials are made of individual components, including tiny motors that convert fuel into motion. This creates patterns of movement, and the material shapes itself with coherent flows by constant consumption of energy. Such continuously driven materials are called 'active matter'. The mechanics of cells and tissues can be described by active matter theory, a scientific framework to understand shape, flows, and form of living materials. The active matter theory consists of many challenging mathematical equations. Scientists have now developed an algorithm, implemented in an open-source supercomputer code, that can for the first time solve the equations of active matter theory in realistic scenarios. These solutions bring us a big step closer to solving the century-old riddle of how cells and tissues attain their shape and to designing artificial biological machines.

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A novel surgical implant was able to kill 87% of the bacteria that cause staph infections in laboratory tests, while remaining strong and compatible with surrounding tissue like current implants. The work could someday lead to better infection control in many common surgeries, such as hip and knee replacements, that are performed daily around the world.  Bacterial colonization of the implants is one of the leading causes of their failure and bad outcomes after surgery. Using 3D-printing technology, the researchers added 10% tantalum, a corrosion-resistant metal, and 3% copper to the titanium alloy typically used in implants. When bacteria come into contact with the material's copper surface, almost all of their cell walls rupture. Meanwhile, the tantalum encourages healthy cell growth with surrounding bone and tissue leading to expedited healing for the patient.

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A novel technology to manage demands on mobile networks from multiple users using Terahertz frequencies has been developed by computer scientists.

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Bio-based plastics often end up in recycling streams because they look and feel like conventional plastic, but the contamination of these compostable products makes it much harder to generate functional material out of recycled plastic. Scientists have now developed a biology-driven process to convert these mixtures into a new biodegradable material that can be used to make fresh products. The scientists believe the process could also enable a new field of biomanufacturing wherein valuable chemicals and even medicines are made from microbes feeding off of plastic waste.