News Articles

When lasers illuminate material it usually warms up, so laser beams are used for cutting sheet steel, for welding or even as scalpels. But this effect can also be reversed. When the frequency of the laser beam makes the irradiated material just not absorbing its light and slightly more energy (of the photons, as physicists call the light particles) is needed for that, this photons “take” this missing energy from the oscillation energy of the material’s atoms.
Such oscillation energy (“phonons”) is equivalent to the vibration of atoms which is also called temperature and which is slightly reduced by this: the material is cooled down. A team of scientists from Technische Universität Dortmund and Ruhr-Universität Bochum has just carried out the first detailed experimental study regarding this process (known as “photoluminescence up-conversion”) in semiconductor nanostructures. Based on this, the development of a vibration-free cooling of semiconductors might be possible.

A research team of scientists from Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands has succeeded in further unravelling and manipulating the glycosylation of proteins in plants.
The scientists expect that this knowledge will allow plants to be applied more often in the production of therapeutic proteins, an important type of medicine.
The discovery fits in with technology developed by the Wageningen UR research institute Plant Research International for the production of biopharmaceuticals in plants.
Proteins in plants, animals and people are equipped with various sugar chains in a process known as glycosylation. The sugar chains are of significance to the functioning of many proteins.

Rates of sexually transmitted infections have doubled among the over 45 population in less than a decade, reveals research in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.
Sexual behavior studies tend to ignore older age groups and focus on young people, say the authors. The period of analysis spanned eight years between 1996 and 2003 inclusive. Researchers monitored the numbers of sexually transmitted infections (STI) diagnosed in 19 sexual health clinics and reported to the Health Protection Agency's Regional Surveillance Unit in the West Midlands.
In total, 4445 STI episodes were identified among people aged 45 and older during that time. Most of these were in straight men and women.

Astronomers recently announced that they have found a novel explanation for a rare type of super-luminous stellar explosion that may have produced a new type of object known as a quark star.
Three exceptionally luminous supernovae explosions have been observed in recent years. One of them was first observed using a robotic telescope at the California Institute of Technology's (Caltech) Palomar Observatory.
Data collected with Palomar's Samuel Oschin Telescope was transmitted from the remote mountain site in southern California to astronomers via the High-Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Nearby Supernova Factory research group at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory reported the co-discovery of the supernova, known as SN2005gj.

When tomatoes ripen in our gardens, we watch them turn gradually from hard, green globules to brightly colored, aromatic, and tasty fruits. This familiar and seemingly commonplace transformation masks a seething mass of components interacting in a well-regulated albeit highly complex manner.
For generations, agriculturalists and scientists have bred tomatoes for size, shape, texture, flavor, shelf-life, and nutrient composition, more or less, one trait at a time. With the advent of molecular biology, mutagenesis and genetic transformation could produce tomatoes that were more easily harvested or transported or turned into tomato paste. Frequently, however, optimizing for one trait led to deterioration in another. For example, improving flavor could have a negative effect on yield.

A Low Carbon Society (LCS) is defined by proponents as one that will make an equitable contribution to the global effort of reducing greenhouse gases to a safe level, combining both a high level of energy efficiency and security.
They say the results of modelling activities and workshops have demonstrated that reducing global carbon emissions by 50% is technologically and economically feasible. Energy efficiency, consumer responses and the choice of technologies for electricity generation play crucial roles in cutting CO2 levels.
Thus they say the LCS is not a utopian vision, but is both technically and economically achievable and they publish their findings from the Japan-UK Low Carbon Society project in a special edition of Climate Policy.

The cognitive strategies humans use to regulate emotions can determine both neurological and physiological responses to potential rewards, a team of New York University and Rutgers University neuroscientists has discovered. The findings in Nature Neuroscience shed light on how the regulation of emotions may influence decision making.
Previous research has demonstrated these strategies can alter responses to negative events. However, less understood is whether such strategies can also efficiently regulate expectations of a future reward or a desired outcome. Scientists have already determined that the expectation of a potential reward brings about positive feelings and aids recognizing environmental cues that predict future rewards. Central to this process is the role of the striatum, a multi-faceted structure in the brain that is involved in reward processing—and which is especially engaged when potential rewards are predicted or anticipated.

Researchers led by scientists at the Medical Genetics Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have identified a gene mutation and molecular mechanism causing an inherited form of scoliosis.
Mutations in the TRPV4 gene cause a type of brachyolmia, a skeletal dysplasia. Those inheriting the disorder have a shorter-than-average trunk, limbs and fingers and toes, and are affected by scoliosis, primarily in the lumbar vertebrae.
Mutations of the TRPV4 gene appear to cause increased calcium in the cells of the developing skeleton. This is the first study to identify this mechanism as a contributor to skeletal dysplasias. The findings suggest that calcium channel balance is important in normal spine development. Also, for skeletal abnormalities caused by TRPV4 gene mutations, the use of calcium channel inhibitors could represent a future approach to treatment.

Research by two Kansas State University scientists could help with the large-scale cultivation and manufacturing of oil-rich algae in the oceans.
Algae are a diverse and simple group of organisms that live in or near water. Certain algal species are high in oil content that could be converted into such fuels as biodiesel, according to Pei and Yuan. Algae also have several environmentally-friendly advantages over corn or other plants used for biofuels, including not needing soil or fresh water to grow.

Nearly one in 10 obstetricians in a new study has considered giving up obstetric practice because of the emotional toll of stillbirths and infant deaths.

"In the beginning" were more than just words — they were the beginning of printing presses and typography that brought new depths of meaning and creativity to language. For some designers and printers, the ultimate challenge is the Bible, the design of which could be affected by politics and religious beliefs, as well as by aesthetic and commercial concerns.
Patsy Watkins studied five bibles created from the mid-15th through the 20th centuries to see if the designers’ motives could be discerned within their design and typefaces. The Visual Communication Quarterly published her findings, “Designing the Holy Bible: Arguing the TEXT Through the Form,” in its latest issue devoted to typography.
She chose the Gutenberg Bible, the Martin Luther Bible, the Doves Press Bible, the Washburn College Bible and the Pennyroyal Caxton Press Bible. What she found was that form indeed revealed function as well as the designers’ desire to shape the meaning and hence a reader’s understanding of this ancient text.

Homosexual behavior is largely shaped by genetics and random environmental factors, according to findings from the world's largest study of twins.
Researchers from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm report in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that genetics and environmental factors (which are specific to an individual, and may include biological processes such as different hormone exposure in the womb), are important determinants of homosexual behavior.
The team led by Dr Niklas Långström at Karolinska Institutet conducted the first truly population-based survey of all adult (20-47 years old) twins in Sweden. Studies of identical twins and non-identical, or fraternal, twins are often used to untangle the genetic and environmental factors responsible for a trait. While identical twins share all of their genes and their entire environment, fraternal twins share only half of their genes and their entire environment. Therefore, greater similarity in a trait between identical twins compared to fraternal twins shows that genetic factors are partly responsible for the trait.