Science Daily May 23, 2019 The global spread of antibiotic resistance is a major public health issue. The spread of antibiotic resistance is for the most part due to the capacity of bacteria to exchange genetic material through a process known as bacterial conjugation. The ability of the bacterium to expel the antibiotic before it can exert its destructive effect using “efflux pumps” found on its membrane. Experimenting with E. Coli researchers in France have revealed that in just 1 to 2 hours, the single-stranded DNA fragment of the efflux pump was transformed into double-stranded DNA and then translated into […]
Good fellows: 2019 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellows announced
EurekAlert May 22, 2019 The VBFF is the Department of Defense’s most prestigious single-investigator award and supports basic research with the potential for transformative impact. Each Fellow receives up to $3 million over a five-year term to pursue their research. The fellowship is funded by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering–and administered by the Office of Naval Research. The VBFF is named for Dr. Vannevar Bush, director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development after World War II…read more.
‘Metasurfaces’ that manipulate light at tiny scales could find uses in consumer technology
Phys.org May 22, 2019 Metasurfaces etched with individual features can create patterns that enable the surface to scatter light very precisely if the exact pattern needed to produce a desired optical effect is known. A team of researchers in the US (MIT, Harvard) has developed a computational technique that can quickly map out patterns for a range of desired optical effects. Instead of having to solve Maxwell’s equations for every single nanometer-sized pixel in a square centimeter of material, the researchers solved these equations for pixel “patches.” Using their technique, the researchers quickly came up with optical patterns for several […]
New organic flow battery brings decomposing molecules back to life
Eurekalert May 28, 2019 Researchers at Harvard University found that the organic anthraquinone molecules that powered their ground-breaking organic aqueous flow battery were slowly decomposing over time, reducing the long-term usefulness of the battery. They figured out the mechanism of decomposition and devised a way to mitigate it. In an experiment the mitigation technique recovered 70 percent of the lost capacity. According to the team the decomposition and rebirth mechanisms are likely to be relevant for all anthraquinones, and anthraquinones have been the best-recognized and most promising organic molecules for flow batteries…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Researchers crack an enduring physics enigma
Science Daily May 28, 2019 The equations used to describe the large variety of phenomena occurring in fluid flows are well known. But when turbulence comes into play, the solutions to the equations become non-linear, complex and chaotic. This makes it impossible, for example, to predict weather over an extended time horizon. Yet turbulence has a surprising tendency to move from chaos to a highly structured pattern of turbulent and laminar bands. Until now, researchers didn’t have powerful enough mathematical tools to verify this. Researchers in Switzerland combined dynamical systems theory, with existing theories on pattern formation in fluids and […]
Scientists create new aluminum alloy with flexibility, strength, lightness
Phys.org May 27, 2019 At present aluminum is reinforced mainly with the help of nanopowders, but this is an extremely expensive and time-consuming process. Researchers in Russia have demonstrated that if a melting technique is used, after Al-Ni-La crystallization, the diameter of doping particle does not exceed 30-70 nanometers. Due to natural crystallization, particles are distributed uniformly, forming a reinforcing structure. Hence, the composite becomes stronger and more flexible than its powder analogues. The important feature of the new development is the high reinforcing ability of the chemical compounds with ultrafine structure: the diameter of the reinforcing elements does not […]
Scientists Have Found a Way to Preserve Vaccines Without Refrigeration For Months
Science Alert May 26, 2019 While other tactics have focused on reengineering the vaccines or modifying their vectors, new method invented by researchers in Canada is based on the simple addition of sugar. The viruses are mixed and then dried into a sugary film, created from a combination of two FDA-approved food preservatives, called pullulan and trehalose. Suspended in this solution, the vaccines can be transported without the need for constant cooling. To reactive them, local clinicians need only add water before administering them to patients, as fresh as if they came from a fridge. So far, the effectiveness has […]
Sound waves bypass visual limitations to recognize human activity
Phys.org May 28, 2019 For human activity recognition (HAR) one or a few ultrasonic sensors are used to receive signals, which require many feature quantities of extraction from the received data to improve recognition accuracy. An international team of researchers (China, Japan) has developed a device based on a two-dimensional acoustic array and convolutional neural networks which uses a single feature quantity to characterize the sound of human activities and identify them. They tested their approach using a two-dimensional acoustic array with 256 receivers and four ultrasonic transmitters to gather data related to four different human activities—sitting, standing, walking and […]
Spanish flu may have lingered two years before 1918 outbreak and vaccine could have treated it
Science Daily May 23, 2019 A team of researchers in the UK revisited the literature published in Europe and the United States, and the notes left by physicians who lived at the time. According to them the science of 2018 provides us with tools which did not exist at the time. Two such tools are ‘gain of function’ where a potential pandemic virus, such as influenza A (H5N1), can be deliberately mutated in the laboratory in order to change its virulence and spreadability. Key mutations can then be identified. A second tool lies in phylogenetics, combined with molecular clock analysis. […]
US Army Approves Plans for Microwave, Laser and Hypersonic Weapons
Next Big Future May 26, 2019 Starting in 2021, the Army will test-fire hypersonic weapons twice a year. A fully assembled canister for launching the glide vehicle will be delivered to the first rocket artillery unit so they can train to load and reload the 400-inch long canister on the Transporter Erector Launcher. The Army’s main modernization priority is an array of Long-Range Precision Firepower weapons, from rocket-propelled, precision-guided howitzer shells to hypersonics firing over 1,000 miles…read more.