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IMAGE: At the COSMIC Microscopy beamline, researchers probed the oxidation state of the chemical element cerium using scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) under operando conditions. It was a first demonstration of. view more
Credit: Chungnam National University
COSMIC, a multipurpose X-ray instrument at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory s (Berkeley Lab s) Advanced Light Source (ALS), has made headway in the scientific community since its launch less than 2 years ago, with groundbreaking contributions in fields ranging from batteries to biominerals.
COSMIC is the brightest X-ray beamline at the ALS, a synchrotron that generates intense light - from infrared to X-rays - and delivers it to dozens of beamlines to carry out a range of simultaneous science experiments. COSMIC s name is derived from coherent scattering and microscopy, which are two overarching X-ray techniques it is designed to carry out.
Credit: POSTECH
It is millions of trillions of times brighter than the sunlight and a whopping 1,000 trillionth of a second, appropriately called the instantaneous light. It is the X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) light that opens a new scientific paradigm. Combining it with AI, an international research team has succeeded in filming and restoring the 3D structure of nanoparticles that share structural similarities with viruses. With the fear of a new pandemic growing around the world due to COVID-19, this discovery is attracting the attention among academic circles for imaging the structure of the virus with both high accuracy and speed.
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Healthy human bodies are good at regulating: Our temperatures remain around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, no matter how hot or cold the temperature around us. The sugar levels in our blood remain fairly constant, even when we down a glass of juice. We keep the right amount of calcium in our bones and out of the rest of our bodies.
We couldn t survive without that regulation, called homeostasis. And when the systems break down, the results can cause illness or, sometimes, death.
In presentations at the American Association for the Advancement of Science s annual meeting, researchers argued that mathematics can help explain and predict those breakdowns, potentially offering new ways of treating the systems to prevent or fix them when things go wrong. The meeting was held virtually earlier this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Researchers are developing thin films, the elements for biomolecular electronics. Scientists believe that biological macromolecules such as nucleic acids, proteins, amino acids can become a promising material for modern electronics. It obtains several unique properties, for example, the self-organization ability, which is why the molecules can be assembled into certain structures, for example, into biomolecular films.