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IMAGE: Image of the SARS-CoV-2 spike in the active position. Dark blue glycans shield the spike from the immune system, participate in activation, and stabilize the active form. The receptor binding. view more
Credit: Image credit: Lorenzo Casalino, Amaro Lab, UCSD.
ROCKVILLE, MD - One thing that makes SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, elusive to the immune system is that it is covered in sugars called glycans. Once SARS-CoV-2 infects someone s body, it becomes covered in that person s unique glycans, making it difficult for the immune system to recognize the virus as something it needs to fight. Those glycans also play an important role in activating the virus. Terra Sztain-Pedone, a graduate student, and colleagues in the labs of Rommie Amaro at the University of California, San Diego and Lillian Chong at the University of Pittsburgh, studied exactly how the glycans activate SARS-CoV-2. Sztain-Pedone will present the research on Thursday, February 2
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Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have discovered new fundamental insights for developing lithium metal batteries that perform well at ultra-low temperatures; mainly, that the weaker the electrolyte holds on to lithium ions, the better. By using such a weakly binding electrolyte, the researchers developed a lithium metal battery that can be repeatedly recharged at temperatures as low as -60 degrees Celsius a first in the field.
Researchers report their work in a paper published Feb. 25 in
Nature Energy.
In tests, the proof-of-concept battery retained 84% and 76% of its capacity over 50 cycles at -40 and -60 degrees Celsius, respectively. Such performance is unprecedented, researchers said.
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IMAGE: Di-thiols structural diversity opens a world of possibilities to regulate the conductivity, adapting it to each specific application. view more
Credit: University of Strasbourg
The exfoliation of graphite into graphene layers inspired the investigation of thousands of layered materials: amongst them transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). These semiconductors can be used to make conductive inks to manufacture printed electronic and optoelectronic devices. However, defects in their structure may hinder their performance. Now, Graphene Flagship researchers have overcome these hurdles by introducing molecular bridges - small molecules that interconnect the TMD flakes, thereby boosting the conductivity and overall performance.
The results, published in
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IMAGE: Conventional epifluorescence (left) and super-resolved localisation microscopy images of gut bacteria (Escherichia coli), using the new RhoBAST-dye marker complex for fluorescence labelling. Scale bar: 1 μm. view more
Credit: Heidelberg University/Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is key to various fundamental biological processes. It transfers genetic information, translates it into proteins or supports gene regulation. To achieve a more detailed understanding of the precise functions it performs, researchers based at Heidelberg University and at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have devised a new fluorescence imaging method which enables live-cell RNA imaging with unprecedented resolution.
The method is based on a novel molecular marker called Rhodamine-Binding Aptamer for Super-Resolution Imaging Techniques (RhoBAST). This RNA-based fluorescence marker is used in combination with the dye rhodamine. Due to their dist
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A series of experiments at the ALTO particle accelerator facility in Orsay, France, has revealed that the fragments resulting from nuclear fission obtain their intrinsic angular momentum (or spin) after fission, not before, as is widely assumed. This result was made possible by the nu-ball collaboration, an international group of nuclear physicists from 37 institutes and 16 countries - among them scientists from TU Darmstadt s Institute of Nuclear Physics - which studied a wide range of nuclei and their structure. The collaboration is led by the Irène-Joliot-Curie Laboratory in Orsay.
Open questions since the 1930s
Nuclear fission, in which a heavy nucleus splits in two and releases energy, was already discovered at the end of the 1930s by the chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, and interpreted correctly by the physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch. However, open questions about the process persist to this day. The new scientific study addresses the question