Science

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How skin falls apart: The pathology of autoimmune skin disease is revealed at the nanoscale

University at Buffalo researchers and colleagues studying a rare, blistering disease have discovered new details of how autoantibodies destroy healthy cells in skin. This information provides new insights into autoimmune mechanisms in general and could help develop and screen treatments for patients suffering from all autoimmune diseases, estimated to affect 5-10 percent of the U.S. population.

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UB researchers have pinpointed important changes in cellular behavior that occur in Pemphigus Vulgaris, the rare, blistering skin disease shown in this microscopic image.

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Molecular self-assembly controls graphene-edge configuration

A research team headed by Prof. Patrick Han and Prof. Taro Hitosugi at the Advanced Institute of Materials Research (AIMR), Tohoku University discovered a new bottom-up fabrication method that produces defect-free graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with periodic zigzag-edge regions. This method, which controls GNR growth direction and length distribution, is a stepping stone towards future graphene-device fabrication by self-assembly.

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Graphene nanoribbons are fabricated by molecular assembly on a Cu(111) substrate. On this surface system, GNRs on grow in six azimuthal directions exclusively. White lines in the inset highlight the zigzag edges of a ribbon.

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This Star Cluster Is Not What It Seems

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This new image from the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in northern Chile shows a vast collection of stars, the globular cluster Messier 54. This cluster looks very similar to many others but it has a secret. Messier 54 doesn’t belong to the Milky Way, but is part of a small satellite galaxy, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. This unusual parentage has now allowed astronomers to use the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to test whether there are also unexpectedly low levels of the element lithium in stars outside the Milky Way.

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Rice chemist wins rare NSF Special Creativity Award: Grant extension will bolster Zubarev's effort to produce gold nanorods

Ounce for ounce, gold nanorods that are commercially available cost about 7,000 times more than bulk gold, but that may change, thanks to an award-winning research program in the laboratory of Rice University chemist Eugene Zubarev.

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Because gold nanorods are longer than they are wide, 3-D nanorod supercrystals have "anisotropic" properties, which means they have a different response to external fields in one direction than another.

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Light detector to revolutionise night vision technology

Researchers have developed a light detector that could revolutionise chemical sensing and night vision technology.

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Graphene

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Scientists Find Evidence of 'Diving' Tectonic Plates on Europa

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Scientists have found evidence of plate tectonics on Jupiter's moon Europa. This conceptual illustration of the subduction process (where one plate is forced under another) shows how a cold, brittle, outer portion of Europa's 20-30 kilometer-thick (roughly 10-20 mile) ice shell moved into the warmer shell interior and was ultimately subsumed. A low-relief subsumption band was created at the surface in the overriding plate, alongside which cryolavas may have erupted.

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Bright Clumps in Saturn Ring Now Mysteriously Scarce

pia17154-640_0.jpgCassini spied just as many regular, faint clumps in Saturn's narrow F ring, like those pictured here, as Voyager did, but it saw hardly any of the long, bright clumps that were common in Voyager images.

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New piezoelectrical positioning system for microscope revolver MIPOS R120

With the new MIPOS R120, piezosystem jena GmbH enhances the MIPOS series with a solution for the positioning of the complete microscope revolver.

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Banked blood grows stiffer with age, study finds

It may look like fresh blood and flow like fresh blood, but the longer blood is stored, the less it can carry oxygen into the tiny microcapillaries of the body, says a new study from University of Illinois researchers.

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Map of membrane fluctuations in a normal red blood cell, on average up to 50 nanometers. Measuring these fluctuations over time, researchers found that the membranes stiffen.

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Newly-Developed Nanosensor Controls Amount of Edible Dyes in Foodstuff Products

Iranian researchers from Tabriz University succeeded in the production of a nanosensor that is capable of measuring edible dyes sensitively, selectively and simultaneously.

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