Article archives

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 […]

Vacuum fluctuations in optical cavities reveal hidden properties of embedded materials

Vacuum fluctuations in optical cavities reveal hidden properties of embedded materials

Quantum physics

By Mapping Ignorance

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) have theoretically demonstrated that photons trapped inside an optical cavity carry detailed information about a material placed within it. By measuring the properties of the photons leaking out of the cavity, researchers can probe how an optical cavity modifies the properties […]

Environmental DNA: Biodiversity data (like love) is in the air

Environmental DNA: Biodiversity data (like love) is in the air

BiologyEcologyGenetics

By Invited Researcher

DNA sequencing is getting cheaper than ever. This, coupled with advances in speed and portability, are allowing us to apply deep sequencing beyond the lab to environmental substrates, and analyse this eDNA to gain information and monitor biodiversity at a time where it is being lost at an unprecedented rate. This environmental DNA can be […]