Mysterious material properties are laying the groundwork for photon-electron channels communication devices: the TOCHA project

Typical activities in ordinary life consist of sending and receiving information. The news or notifications we see on smartphones, from magazine gossip to football scores, reach the device from a domestic Wi-Fi router or mobile phone mast, which receives input from a giant server network disseminated across the world.

Zooming in the path, two particles are information vehicles: photons, from servers to devices, and electrons inside the devices. These two communication mechanisms require different hardware platforms that, when combined, are often inefficient and dissipate energy. Could scientists improve on this process by producing more stable channels for information?

The TOCHA project is trying to send information with the smallest waste of energy by identifying efficient channels at the nanometre scale – one billionth of a meter. Set across nine European research institutions, the project is coordinated by the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) and funded by the EU’s FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) programme.

Immagine del cristallo che cattura la luce

Come una foglia artificiale, un cristallo, in cui sono integrati motori molecolari e molecole fotosensibili, può catturare la luce e trasformarla in energia, utile a generare un moto rotatorio unidirezionale.

E’ questo il risultato dello studio condotto dal gruppo di ricercatori guidato da Angiolina Comotti, Professore Ordinario presso il Dipartimento di Scienza dei materiali dell’Università di Milano-Bicocca (www.mater.unimib.it), in collaborazione con il team del Professor Ben Feringa dell’Università di Groningen, Premio Nobel nel 2016 per la scoperta delle macchine molecolari.

La ricerca internazionale, pubblicata su “Journal of American Chemical Society” (doi.org/10.1021/jacs.0c03063), rappresenta un approccio innovativo poiché consente di attivare un motore molecolare, sfruttando una fonte di energia largamente disponibile, qual è la luce visibile. Si garantisce in questo modo un processo energeticamente sostenibile.

The human immune system is reactive to more than just the viral protein on which researchers have focused to date. This is relevant for tests and potential vaccines.

Research teams from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and Essen University Hospital have identified the parts of the Sars-Cov-2 virus to which the human immune system reacts: in addition to the spike protein, which has been the focus so far, two other proteins can also trigger a strong immune response. This discovery is relevant for the development of diagnostic tests and vaccines. “We shouldn’t focus exclusively on the spike protein,” says the principal investigator of the study Professor Nina Babel from the Centre for Translational Medicine at Marien Hospital Herne, the RUB’s university hospital. The study, which is currently being reviewed by independent experts, is available online on a preprint server.

On 14 February, nine National University of Singapore (NUS) researchers hopped onboard a vessel to start a 37-day expedition to explore an understudied area nestled in the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ). Flat and deep — reaching down between 4,000 to 6,000 metres below the surface — the CCZ is often referred to as an abyssal plain.

The CCZ is characterised by polymetallic nodule fields which contain commercially valuable metals such as manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper, and rare earth elements, formed over millions of years. The expedition is part of Keppel-NUS Corporate Laboratory’s research, and it was led by Keppel Corporation’s subsidiary, Ocean Mineral Singapore (OMS) - the only Singapore company awarded an exploration contract for polymetallic nodules by the International Seabed Authority. The team aimed to conduct environmental studies and surveys for the collection of these polymetallic nodule deposits in an environmentally friendly way. This is the second such expedition involving NUS researchers to CCZ.

Polymetallic nodules contain cobalt, copper, nickel, manganese and other valuable ores which are used in electronics and green technologies, such as electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels.Mr Aziz Merchant, Director of OMS, said, “Keppel is committed to sustainable urbanisation and we are pleased to partner NUS in conducting feasibility studies to ensure that deep-sea mineral collection can be conducted with minimal disruption to the environment.”

L’ultimo numero della rivista Research*eu è ora disponibile in formato PDF, accessibile e gratuito.

La biodiversità rende possibile la vita: ci nutre, fornisce innumerevoli benefici per la salute e offre addirittura molte opportunità di lavoro e crescita economica (turismo, tecnologie verdi, sforzi di conservazione, ecc.). Sia che si tratti di un immacolato litorale sabbioso dall’acqua chiara e cristallina, di una brughiera brontiana selvaggia e battuta dal vento, di una foresta pluviale tropicale che pullula di vita o addirittura del parco locale in fondo alla via, gli esseri umani vivono all’interno di una relazione simbiotica complessa e sempre più fragile con la natura e la biodiversità che ci circonda.
Prima che la COVID-19 scuotesse il mondo, la tutela della biodiversità, la conservazione e, ovviamente, i cambiamenti climatici erano costantemente al centro dell’agenda globale. Una volta terminata la crisi attuale, tali questioni riacquisteranno molto probabilmente rilevanza. Forse verranno alla luce anche nuovi punti di vista di dibattito e analisi su questi argomenti che non godevano prima di una così alta considerazione, perché senza alcun dubbio, quando si sarà depositato il polverone della crisi attuale, molti scienziati, responsabili politici e cittadini potrebbero tutti essere troppo contenti per discutere della misura in cui la nostra attuale relazione con l’ambiente naturale abbia contribuito all’aumento e alla proliferazione della pandemia.

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) found quasi-periodic flickers in millimeter-waves from the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius (Sgr) A*. The team interpreted these blinks to be due to the rotation of radio spots circling the supermassive black hole with an orbit radius smaller than that of Mercury. This is an interesting clue to investigate space-time with extreme gravity.
“It has been known that Sgr A* sometimes flares up in millimeter wavelength,” tells Yuhei Iwata, the lead author of the paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and a graduate student at Keio University, Japan. “This time, using ALMA, we obtained high-quality data of radio-wave intensity variation of Sgr A* for 10 days, 70 minutes per day. Then we found two trends: quasi-periodic variations with a typical time scale of 30 minutes and hour-long slow variations.”

Astronomers presume that a supermassive black hole with a mass of 4 million suns is located at the center of Sgr A*. Flares of Sgr A* have been observed not only in millimeter wavelength, but also in infrared light and X-ray. However, the variations detected with ALMA are much smaller than the ones previously detected, and it is possible that these levels of small variations always occur in Sgr A*. The black hole itself does not produce any kind of emission. The source of the emission is the scorching gaseous disk around the black hole. The gas around the black hole does not go straight to the gravitational well, but it rotates around the black hole to form an accretion disk.

Uno studio firmato in collaborazione con esperti del Policlinico di Milano ha rivelato una differenza fondamentale tra tessuti sani e malati: si apre la strada a un possibile trattamento per contrastare la degenerazione dei muscoli distrofici

Nella distrofia muscolare i pazienti perdono progressivamente la capacità di utilizzare i muscoli e quindi di compiere i movimenti (persino quelli più elementari). Questo accade perché i muscoli danneggiati dalla malattia vanno incontro alla formazione di 'cicatrici' (fibrosi muscolare) che riducono l'elasticità e la capacità di contrarsi, e si riempiono di cellule adipose, vero e proprio grasso che si infiltra e a sua volta ostacola il movimento. Ora un nuovo studio ha scoperto che nelle persone sane esiste una popolazione di cellule del muscolo che impedisce l'accumulo di questo grasso: un risultato che migliora la conoscenza della patologia e che potrebbe aprire la strada a un possibile trattamento per le distrofie muscolari.

Zampa: “Il progetto ha l’obiettivo di contrastare la povertà educativa nel settore dell’apprendimento a distanza”

Apprendimento ed educazione a distanza: da queste due esigenze nasce il protocollo “CRESCERE SENZA DISTANZA. Cosa ci insegnano le esperienze dei ragazzi con patologie croniche sull’apprendimento a distanza”, siglato da Ministero della Salute, Ministero dell’Istruzione, Fondazione Zancan e Impresa Sociale ‘Con i bambini’.

Il Protocollo è rivolto a bambine e bambini ospedalizzati, e successivamente dimessi, che in questo periodo di emergenza sanitaria da Coronavirus e di sospensione delle attività didattiche hanno l’accresciuta necessità di una risposta efficace ai bisogni educativi. Costretti a recarsi in ospedale per le terapie ma al tempo stesso impediti a frequentare la scuola per l’obbligato distanziamento sociale, vivono una condizione che, di fatto, rischia di amplificare le differenze e le disuguaglianze nell’accesso all’istruzione e all’educazione. Dunque, una sofferenza doppia.

It is highly likely that children can transmit the new coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, but several factors suggest that children are unlikely to be the main drivers of the pandemic. Opening up schools and kindergartens is unlikely to impact COVID-19 mortality rates in older people, according to a systematic review that spanned 47 publications and was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The paper is published in the scientific journal Acta Paediatrica.

Globally to date, there are around five million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and more than 300,000 deaths from the disease. Many countries have implemented lockdowns to stop the spread of the disease, and closed kindergartens and schools. Opening up schools and kindergartens raises questions about the role of children in COVID-19 transmission. Now, a paper published in Acta Paediatrica summarises the findings of a systematic literature review on the current knowledge of COVID-19 transmission in children.

The ongoing situation and school closures as result of Covid-19 have a number of different implications for the education sector. Dr Emily Mann and Dr Jackie Shinwell of Northumbria University’s Healthy Living Lab explored the impact of the coronavirus crisis in terms of learning loss in this blog for Schools North East.

Since the World Health Organisation declared the Covid-19 outbreak as a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, the UK government announced school closures for all children, with the exception of vulnerable children and children of key workers, from 20 March 2020 and introduced social distancing measures on 23 March 2020, to reduce the spread of the virus. Most children have now been at home for seven weeks, approximately the same length of time of the school summer holidays. The UK government has recently announced that schools may extend their opening to nursery, reception, Year 1 and Year 6 pupils in England from June 1st..

We acknowledge that the safeguarding of children and the health of children, teachers and all school staff are paramount, however we will not debate the public health considerations regarding the proposed reopening of schools. Instead, we will reflect on the impact of school closures, particularly for disadvantaged children, and, drawing on our research on holiday provision and summer learning loss, will consider the potential implications for research informed short-, mid- and long-term strategies to address this issue.