A figure in red trudges across a blanket of white. Snow squeaks under the scientist's feet, too dry to be slick or soft. Only a line of flags and a few large buildings—the scientist's destination—break up the landscape. The sun hovers on the horizon, never quite setting against a blue sky devoid of clouds.
Spring is the season of blooming flowers and buzzing bees.
Few insects have a more gruesome lifestyle than Darwin wasps. Rather than simply hunting other animals, these parasitic wasps lay their eggs on or inside living hosts, including caterpillars, beetles and spiders. Their larvae then feed on their hosts, gradually consuming them and eventually killing them.
Traditional lenses and mirrors focus light using curved surfaces. Metasurfaces can achieve similar functions with a flat layer of nanoscale structures that locally control the phase of light. Extending these flat optics into the ultraviolet could support compact systems for high-resolution imaging, spectroscopy, and sensing, but it introduces a fundamental materials problem: many of the materials used to make metasurfaces strongly absorb UV light.
Metabolites are consumed by enzymes to produce other vital molecules as well as to control metabolite levels. But how do cells avoid consuming too much? Researchers from the MPI of Biochemistry, with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the de Duve Institute in Brussels, have deciphered such molecular regulation in tryptophan metabolism. The essential amino acid tryptophan binds to a second site on the enzyme TDO2, distinct from where it is consumed. This sequesters a region needed by two effectors, the kinase CK2 and the ubiquitin ligase CUL1–β-TrCP, which act sequentially to signal TDO2 degradation. The findings are now published in Molecular Cell.
Microplastics have been found in our bodies and the food we eat—and even in remote environments around the world, including seawater and ice in the Arctic. Despite their prevalence, little is known about how they move through the atmosphere. New CIRES-led research, which demonstrates a new method for sampling microplastics in the atmosphere using an uncrewed aerial system (UAS), aims to change that. The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
The extreme heat waves we have seen over the last few years may only serve as a preview of what is to come as a result of climate change. A new study led by researcher Philipp Aglas-Leitner from Freie Universität Berlin, published in Nature Communications, finds that future heat waves could last longer, impact larger areas, and be much more severe.
Throughout the drug development process, which can take a decade or more, tens of thousands of chemical compounds are produced that never go on to become medicines. A Florida State University researcher is part of a team that has discovered a new way to give some of these "dead ends" a second chance at becoming the foundation for tomorrow's blockbuster drugs.
For the first time, an international team of researchers from Germany, Thailand, India, China and the United States has created a three-component Hubbard system with tunable interactions in the laboratory. In doing so, the team used a quantum gas microscope to make the individual atoms visible. The study, published in Science, provides an important foundation for future quantum simulations of nuclear physics and materials science.
Forest areas can act both as carbon sinks and as vital habitats for thousands of species—but not necessarily at the same time. This has important implications for how Europe should manage its forests, says a University of Copenhagen researcher.
