Sortiwa Portal

For any disordered medium (such as a sugar cube, for example), special light waves can be found which are practically not changed by the medium, only attenuated. These ‘scattering invariant light modes’ could play a major role in new imaging technologies. Why is sugar not transparent? Because light that penetrates a piece of sugar is […] More

Origami may sound more like art than science, but a complex folding pathway that proteins use to determine their shape has been harnessed by molecular biologists, enabling them to build some of the most complex synthetic protein nanostructures to date. Using EMBL Hamburg’s world-class beamline P12 at DESY’s PETRA III synchrotron, a team of Slovenian […] More

A new source of energy expending brown fat cells has been uncovered by researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center, which they say points towards potential new therapeutic options for obesity. According to the new report, published in Nature Metabolism on 12 March 2021, the key lies in the expression of a receptor called Trpv1 (temperature-sensitive […] More

The plasticisers contained in many everyday objects can impair important brain functions in humans. Biologists from the University of Bayreuth warn of this danger in an article in Communications Biology. Their study shows that even small amounts of the plasticisers bisphenol A and bisphenol S disrupt the transmission of signals between nerve cells in the […] More

A team led by University of Minnesota researchers has discovered that deep-sea bacteria dissolve carbon-containing rocks, releasing excess carbon into the ocean and atmosphere. The findings will allow scientists to better estimate the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, a main driver of global warming. The study is published in The ISME Journal: Multidisciplinary […] More

In the earliest stage of life, animals undergo some of their most spectacular physical transformations. Once merely blobs of dividing cells, they begin to rearrange themselves into their more characteristic forms, be they fish, birds or humans. Understanding how cells act together to build tissues has been a fundamental problem in physics and biology. Now, […] More

An amber fossil of a Cretaceous beetle has shed some light on the diet of one of the earliest pollinators of flowering plants. The animal’s remains were unearthed by researchers at the University of Bristol and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) who were able to study […] More

Spanking may affect a child’s brain development in similar ways to more severe forms of violence, according to a new study led by Harvard researchers. The research, published recently in the journal Child Development, builds on existing studies that show heightened activity in certain regions of the brains of children who experience abuse in response […] More

When winter storms threaten to make travel dangerous, people often turn to salt, spreading it liberally over highways, streets and sidewalks to melt snow and ice. Road salt is an important tool for safety, because many thousands of people die or are injured every year due to weather related accidents. But a new study led […] More

What exactly happens when the corona virus SARS-CoV-2 infects a cell? In an article published in Nature, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry paints a comprehensive picture of the viral infection process. For the first time, the interaction between the coronavirus and a cell is […] More

Smoking cannabis when you’re young may increase your risk of developing heart disease later, according to a recent University of Guelph study. In the first study to look at specific risk indicators for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in young, healthy cannabis users, researchers found subtle but potentially important changes in heart and artery function. Cigarette smoking […] More

Deep in a Jamaican cave is a treasure trove of bat feces, deposited in sequential layers by generations of bats over 4,300 years. Analogous to records of the past found in layers of lake mud and Antarctic ice, the guano pile is roughly the height of a tall man (2 meters), largely undisturbed, and holds […] More

Almost half of all recreational runners incur injuries, mostly relating to knees, calves or Achilles tendons, and the level of risk is equally high whatever your age, gender or running experience. These are the findings of a thesis within sport science. Doctoral student Jonatan Jungmalm recruited a little over 200 recreational runners from the list […] More