Category archives: Science

Rewiring the brain: How blocking adenosine boosts stroke healing

Rewiring the brain: How blocking adenosine boosts stroke healing

DIPC NeurophysicsNeurobiology

By DIPC

Each year, millions of people experience an ischaemic stroke, a condition where a blood clot blocks the flow of oxygen and nutrients to part of the brain. Even when doctors act quickly to remove the clot, many survivors struggle with long-term challenges like difficulty moving, remembering, or managing emotions. While treatments like clot-dissolving drugs or […]

From 18- to 20-electron ferrocene derivatives

From 18- to 20-electron ferrocene derivatives

Chemistry

By Mapping Ignorance

For more than a century, a well-known 18-electron rule has guided the field of organometallic chemistry. Now, researchers at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), in collaboration with scientists from Germany, Russia, and Japan, have successfully synthesized a novel organometallic compound that challenges this longstanding principle. They have created a stable 20-electron derivative of […]

Mitigating health risks through targeted microbial interventions

Mitigating health risks through targeted microbial interventions

BiotechnologyChemical engineeringFood processingMicrobiologyMolecular biology

By Invited Researcher

Biogenic amines (BAs) are nitrogenous compounds formed primarily by microbial decarboxylation of amino acids. In food products, they can accumulate to levels that pose health risks, including histamine poisoning and hypertensive crises due to tyramine ingestion . Fermented foods, particularly cheeses, are significant sources of BAs due to their complex microbial consortia and the metabolic […]

Graphene’s magic twist: fast and slow electrons

Graphene’s magic twist: fast and slow electrons

Condensed matterDIPC Advanced materialsMaterials

By DIPC

Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern, is renowned for its ability to conduct electricity with ease. When two graphene sheets are stacked and twisted at a “magic angle” of about one degree, something remarkable happens: the electrons slow down dramatically, creating “flat bands” where they interact strongly. A new […]

Bees recognition of complex visual patterns could transform AI

Bees recognition of complex visual patterns could transform AI

BiologyComputer scienceNeurobiology

By Mapping Ignorance

A new discovery of how bees use their flight movements to facilitate remarkably accurate learning and recognition of complex visual patterns could mark a major change in how next-generation AI is developed, according to a University of Sheffield study. By building a computational model—or a digital version of a bee’s brain—researchers have discovered how the […]

Bending Ohm’s Law: How symmetry-broken crystals rewrite the rules of electronics

Bending Ohm’s Law: How symmetry-broken crystals rewrite the rules of electronics

Condensed matterMaterialsQuantum physics

By Invited Researcher

When Georg Ohm wired up pieces of copper in 1827, he struck a rule so robust that it still underpins every phone and supercomputer on Earth: double the current, double the voltage. Simple, linear, universal—or so we thought. Over the past decade physicists have discovered that this bedrock principle crumbles the moment a crystal loses […]

How pterosaurs learned to fly

How pterosaurs learned to fly

EvolutionGeosciences

By Invited Researcher

Authors: Davide Foffa, Research Fellow in Palaeobiology, University of Birmingham; Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, Royal Society Newton International Fellow in Palaeontology, UCL, and Emma Dunne, Assistant Professor in Paleobiology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Ever since the first fragments of pterosaur bone surfaced nearly 250 years ago, palaeontologists have puzzled over one question: how did these close cousins of […]