Science

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New Technique Could Harvest More of the Sun's Energy

As solar panels become less expensive and capable of generating more power, solar energy is becoming a more commercially viable alternative source of electricity. However, the photovoltaic cells now used to turn sunlight into electricity can only absorb and use a small fraction of that light, and that means a significant amount of solar energy goes untapped.

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An ultra-sensitive needle measures the voltage that is generated while the nanospheres are illuminated.

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Biomimetic dew harvesters: Understanding how a desert beetle harvests water from dew could improve drinking water collection in dew condensers

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A preserved specimen of the Tenebrionind beetle (Physasterna cribripes) was used for this study, displaying the insect’s mechanisms of dew harvesting.

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Unusual Electronic State Found in New Class of Unconventional Superconductors: Finding gives scientists a new group of materials to explore to unlock secrets of some materials' ability to carry current with no energy loss

A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Columbia Engineering, Columbia Physics and Kyoto University has discovered an unusual form of electronic order in a new family of unconventional superconductors. The finding, described in the journal Nature Communications, establishes an unexpected connection between this new group of titanium-oxypnictide superconductors and the more familiar cuprates and iron-pnictides, providing scientists with a whole new family of materials from which they can gain deeper insights into the mysteries of high-temperature superconductivity.

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Top: Ripples extending down the chain of atoms breaks translational symmetry (like a checkerboard with black and white squares), which would cause extra spots in the diffraction pattern (shown as red dots in the underlying diffraction pattern). Bottom: Stretching along one direction breaks rotational symmetry but not translational symmetry (like a checkerboard with identical squares but stretched in one of the directions), causing no additional diffraction spots. The experiments proved these new superconductors have the second type of electron density distribution, called a nematic.

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Light propagation in solar cells made visible

How can light which has been captured in a solar cell be examined in experiments? Jülich scientists have succeeded in looking directly at light propagation within a solar cell by using a trick. The photovoltaics researchers are working on periodic nanostructures that efficiently capture a portion of sunlight which is normally only poorly absorbed.

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Through use of a glass fibre tip, the researchers were able to measure the amount of light that had actually been captured in the solar cell using a method called near-field optical microscopy.

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Endomagnetics receives IDE approval to initiate US trials

Cancer healthcare company Endomagnetics announced today that it has received Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to initiate a pivotal clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the SentiMag® and Sienna+® magnetic sentinel lymph node biopsy system in the management of breast cancer.

The SentiMag® and Sienna+® system gives surgeons the ability to locate the sentinel lymph nodes draining a tumour accurately and reliably as part of cancer staging - the process of determining whether cancer has spread.

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Nanosensor to Detect Naproxen Drug Produced in Iran

Iranian researchers from Shiraz University produced a nanosensor during a laboratorial research which can be used in measuring naproxen drug.

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Membrane nano-tomography in living cells: Label-free evanescent microscopy enables full-field and real-time tracking of membrane processes without signal fading and cell perturbation

Membranes play a pivotal role in numerous cell mechanisms, in particular for internalization, adhesion and motility studies. In terms of optical imaging of the membrane, special configurations are needed to remove the light coming from the inner part of the cell. French scientists now show that through-the-objective evanescent microscopy (epi-EM) is a powerful technique to image membranes in living cells.

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Warm Gas Pours 'Cold Water' on Galaxy's Star-Making

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A new feature in the evolution of galaxies has been captured in this image of galactic interactions.

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Nanocatalysts Can Reduce Pollution Caused by Diesel Engines

Iranian researchers succeeded in the production of a nanocatalyst with a very high level of distribution and stability in diesel engine fuels.

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New research paves the way for nano-movies of biomolecules: Scientists use X-ray laser as ultra slow-motion camera

An international team, including scientists from DESY, has caught a light sensitive biomolecule at work with an X-ray laser. The study proves that X-ray lasers can capture the fast dynamics of biomolecules in ultra slow-motion. "Our study paves the way for movies from the nano world with atomic spatial resolution and ultrafast temporal resolution", says Schmidt.

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Samples of the crystallized protein (right), called photoactive yellow protein or PYP, were jetted into the path of SLAC's LCLS X-ray laser beam (fiery beam from bottom left). The crystallized proteins had been exposed to blue light (coming from left) to trigger shape changes. Diffraction patterns created when the X-ray laser hit the crystals allowed scientists to recreate the 3-D structure of the protein (center) and determine how light exposure changes its shape.