New Method Developed to Isolate HIV Particles

The image shows PNF-coated magnetic microbeads that bind HIV particles to their surface.
Image Credit: Torsten John

Researchers at Leipzig University and Ulm University have developed a new method to isolate HIV from samples more easily, potentially making it easier to detect infection with the virus. They focus on peptide nanofibrils (PNFs) on magnetic microparticles, a promising tool and hybrid material for targeted binding and separation of viral particles. They have published their new findings in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

“The presented method makes it possible to efficiently capture, isolate and concentrate virus particles, which may improve the sensitivity of existing diagnostic tools and analytical tests,” says Professor Bernd Abel of the Institute of Technical Chemistry at Leipzig University. The nanofibrils used – small, needle-like structures – are based on the EF-C peptide, which was first described in 2013 by Professor Jan Münch from Ulm University and Ulm University Medical Center. EF-C is a peptide consisting of twelve amino acids that forms nanoscale fibrils almost instantaneously when dissolved in polar solvents. These can also be applied to magnetic particles. “Using the EF-C peptide as an example, our work shows how peptide fibrils on magnetic particles can have a completely new functionality – the more or less selective binding of viruses. Originally, fibrils of this kind were more likely to be associated with neurodegenerative diseases,” adds Dr Torsten John, co-first author of the study and former doctoral researcher under Professor Abel at Leipzig University. He is now a junior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany.

Key Ocean Current Contains a Warning on Climate

Scientists extracted a 5.3 million-year record of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current by drilling sediment cores in the Earth’s most remote waters. Here, the drill ship JOIDES Resolution makes its way through the far southeast Pacific.
Photo Credit: Gisela Winckler

It carries more than 100 times as much water as all the world’s rivers combined. It reaches from the ocean’s surface to its bottom, and measures as much as 2,000 kilometers across. It connects the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and plays a key role in regulating global climate. Continuously swirling around the southernmost continent, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is by far the world’s most powerful and consequential mover of water. In recent decades it has been speeding up, but scientists have been unsure whether that is connected to human-induced global warming, and whether the current might offset or amplify some of warming’s effects.

In a new study, an international research team used sediment cores from the planet’s roughest and most remote waters to chart the ACC’s relationship to climate over the last 5.3 million years. Their key discovery: During past natural climate swings, the current has moved in tandem with Earth’s temperature, slowing down during cold times and gaining speed in warm ones―speedups that abetted major losses of Antarctica’s ice. This suggests that today’s speedup will continue as human-induced warming proceeds. That could hasten the wasting of Antarctica’s ice, increase sea levels, and possibly affect the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

“This is the mightiest and fastest current on the planet. It is arguably the most important current of the Earth climate system,” said study coauthor Gisela Winckler, a geochemist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who co-led the sediment sampling expedition. The study “implies that the retreat or collapse of Antarctic ice is mechanistically linked to enhanced ACC flow, a scenario we are observing today under global warming,” she said.

New Nanoceramics Could Help Improve Smartphone and TV Displays

Nanoceramics are strong because they are made under high pressure.
Photo Credit: Anna Marinovich

Scientists from the Ural Federal University, together with colleagues from India and the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, have developed a nanoceramic that glows in three main colors - red, green, and blue. The new material is extremely strong because it is created under high pressure. Scientists believe that the characteristics of the new nanoceramics - luminescence, strength, and transparency - will be useful for creating screens with improved brightness and detail for smartphones, televisions, and other devices. The scientists published detailed information about the new nanoceramics and their properties in the journal Applied Materials Today. 

"We obtained optically transparent nanoceramics capable of luminescing in red, green, and blue colors. This was made possible by adding carbon particles that act as carbon nanodots. During the synthesis process, the carbon components are encapsulated between the ceramic particles, creating defects on their surface. We believe that these defects create several energy levels in the carbon nanodots, allowing the material to glow in different colors in the visible spectrum", explains Arseny Kiryakov, the co-author of the work, Associate Professor of the UrFU Department of Physical Techniques and Devices for Quality Control.

New rapid method to predict effects of conservation actions on complex ecosystems

From left: Dr Matthew Adams, Sarah Vollert, Professor Drovandi
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Queensland University of Technology

A new way to analyze the effects of conservation actions on complex ecosystems has cut the modelling time from 108 days to six hours, QUT statisticians have found:

• Some conservation efforts backfire, eg eradicating feral cats could lead to rabbit explosion

• Modeling predicts the cascading effects through species in a complex ecosystem, but is computationally slow

• New method cuts prediction time from 3.5 months to six hours

PhD researcher Sarah Vollert, from the School of Mathematical Sciences and the QUT Centre for Data Sciences, said it was impossible to predict exactly how conservation actions would affect each species.

“Though well-intentioned, conservation actions have the potential to backfire,” Ms. Vollert said.

“For example, if decision-makers decide to eradicate feral cats, it could lead to explosive populations of their prey species, like rabbits.

“Uncontrolled rabbit populations could then have devastating effects on the vegetation, destroying the habitat native species need to survive.

A Tiny Spot Leads to a Large Advancement in Nano-processing, Researchers Reveal

A conceptual illustration of single-shot laser processing by an annular-shaped radially polarized beam, focused on the back surface of a glass plate.
Illustration Credit: ©Y. Kozawa et al.

Focusing a tailored laser beam through transparent glass can create a tiny spot inside the material. Researchers at Tohoku University have reported on a way to use this small spot to improve laser material processing, boosting processing resolution.

Laser machining, like drilling and cutting, is vital in industries such as automotive, semiconductors, and medicine. Ultra-short pulse laser sources, with pulse widths from picoseconds to femtoseconds, enable precise processing at scales ranging from microns to tens of microns. But recent advancements demand even smaller scales, below 100 nanometers, which existing methods struggle to achieve.

The researchers focused on a laser beam with radial polarization, known as a vector beam. This beam generates a longitudinal electric field at the focus, producing a smaller spot than conventional beams.

Scientists have identified this process as promising for laser processing. However, one drawback is that this field weakens inside the material due to light refraction at the air-material interface, limiting its use.

A new type of cooling for quantum simulators

Tiantian Zhang and Maximilian Prüfer discussing measurements in the quantum lab
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Technische Universität Wien

Quantum experiments always have to deal with the same problem, regardless of whether they involve quantum computers, quantum teleportation or new types of quantum sensors: quantum effects break down very easily. They are extremely sensitive to external disturbances - for example, to fluctuations caused simply by the surrounding temperature. It is therefore important to be able to cool down quantum experiments as effectively as possible.

At TU Wien (Vienna), it has now been shown that this type of cooling can be achieved in an interesting new way: A Bose-Einstein condensate is split into two parts, neither abruptly nor particularly slowly, but with a very specific temporal dynamic that ensures that random fluctuations are prevented as perfectly as possible. In this way, the relevant temperature in the already extremely cold Bose-Einstein condensate can be significantly reduced. This is important for quantum simulators, which are used at TU Wien to gain insights into quantum effects that could not be investigated using previous methods.

Researchers Identify Microbes That Help Plants Thwart Parasite

Sorghum crops in sub-Saharan Africa suffer heavy losses from the parasitic plant witchweed (Striga hermonthica). A new study shows how soil microbes can help protect sorghum from this pest and could be the basis for a soil probiotic treatment.
Photo Credit: Sabine

Bacteria that could help one of Africa’s staple crops resist a major pest have been identified by researchers at the University of California, Davis. Their findings, published in Cell Reports, could improve yields of sorghum, a mainstay of food and drink in West and East African countries.

About 20 percent of Africa’s sorghum crop is lost due to witchweed (Striga hermonthica), a parasitic plant that steals nutrients and water by latching onto the plant’s roots.

In a new study, UC Davis researchers show that soil microbes induce changes in sorghum roots that make the plant more resistant to infection by witchweed. They identified specific strains of bacteria that trigger these resistance traits and could be applied as a soil “probiotic” to improve sorghum yields in future.

“These microbes have great promise as soil additives that can help farmers grow sorghum successfully in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Siobhan Brady, a professor in the Department of Plant Biology and Genome Center and a senior author on the paper. 

Scientists propose a new way to search for dark matter

(Left) The new dark matter detection proposal looks for frequent interactions between nuclei in a detector and low-energy dark matter that may be present in and around Earth. (Right) A conventional direct detection experiment looks for occasional recoils from dark matter scattering.
Image Credit: Anirban Das, Noah Kurinsky and Rebecca Leane

Ever since its discovery, dark matter has remained invisible to scientists, despite the launch of multiple ultra-sensitive particle detector experiments around the world over several decades. 

Now, physicists at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are proposing a new way to look for dark matter using quantum devices, which might be naturally tuned to detect what researchers call thermalized dark matter.

Most dark matter experiments hunt for galactic dark matter, which rockets into Earth directly from space, but another kind might have been hanging around Earth for years, said SLAC physicist Rebecca Leane, who was an author on the new study. 

“Dark matter goes into the Earth, bounces around a lot, and eventually just gets trapped by the gravitational field of the Earth,” Leane said, bringing it into an equilibrium scientists refer to as thermalized. Over time, this thermalized dark matter builds up to a higher density than the few loose, galactic particles, meaning that it could be more likely to hit a detector. Unfortunately, thermalized dark matter moves much more slowly than galactic dark matter, meaning it would impart far less energy than galactic dark matter – likely too little for traditional detectors to see.

New machine to enhance understanding of nuclear weapons’ behavior

Bob Webster, deputy Laboratory director for Weapons (far right); Mike Furlanetto, Scorpius Advanced Sources and Detection project director (center); and Geoffrey Zehnder, project engineer (far left); discuss the prototype module Lab employees constructed for Scorpius' first accelerator cells and modules.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory

On March 7, assembly began at Los Alamos National Laboratory on a groundbreaking machine that will allow scientists to use real plutonium in experiments while studying the conditions immediately before the nuclear phase of a weapon's functioning. The machine will prove instrumental in the Laboratory's stockpile stewardship mission, which ensures the safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons through computational tools and engineering test facilities, rather than underground testing.

Although the plutonium used will never reach criticality — the condition that forms a self-sustaining nuclear reaction — the tests performed as part of the Scorpius Advanced Sources and Detection (ASD) project will provide essential knowledge about how the key element in nuclear weapons behaves.

The components being built will be the first two accelerator cell modules for Scorpius.

"This means we have officially started building, and I am so looking forward to seeing this experiment in my lifetime," said Bob Webster, deputy Laboratory director for Weapons.

New Genetic Analysis Tool Tracks Risks Tied to CRISPR Edits

UC San Diego researchers have created a new system that reveals specific categories of potentially risky mutations resulting from CRISPR edits. This high magnification image reveals CRISPR-based DNA transcription of the homothorax gene in fruit fly embryos.
Image Credit: Bier Lab, UC San Diego

Since its breakthrough development more than a decade ago, CRISPR has revolutionized DNA editing across a broad range of fields. Now scientists are applying the technology’s immense potential to human health and disease, targeting new therapies for an array of disorders spanning cancers, blood conditions and diabetes.

In some designed treatments, patients are injected with CRISPR-treated cells or with packaged CRISPR components with a goal of repairing diseased cells with precision gene edits. Yet, while CRISPR has shown immense promise as a next-generation therapeutic tool, the technology’s edits are still imperfect. CRISPR-based gene therapies can cause unintended but harmful “bystander” edits to parts of the genome, at times leading to new cancers or other diseases.

Next-generation solutions are needed to help scientists unravel the complex biological dynamics behind both on- and off-target CRISPR edits. But the landscape for such novel tools is daunting, since intricate bodily tissues feature thousands of different cell types and CRISPR edits can depend on many different biological pathways.