From the tension of contracting muscle fibers to hydrodynamic stresses within flowing blood, molecules within our bodies are subject to a wide variety of mechanical forces that directly influence their form and function. ...
Bio & Medicine
Mar 17, 2016
0
10
When the body loses its ability to fold proteins into the correct shapes, the result can be irreversible and tragic. The accumulation of unfolded or misfolded proteins in the brain causes many devastating neurodegenerative ...
Biochemistry
Feb 26, 2016
1
327
A shock-absorbing football helmet system being developed at the University of Michigan could blunt some dangerous physics that today's head protection ignores.
Engineering
Feb 9, 2016
1
98
Development of future technologies will be greatly aided by understanding and extracting molecular-level characteristics. A University of Tsukuba research group has established a three-dimensional probe that can depict the ...
Nanophysics
Feb 2, 2016
0
14
Perovskites, substances that perfectly absorb light, are the future of solar energy. Now, a rapid and environmentally safe method of production has been developed by chemists from Warsaw, Poland. Perovskites can now be synthesized ...
Materials Science
Jan 15, 2016
0
17
Researchers have developed a new way to use atomic force microscopy to rapidly measure the mechanical properties of cells at the nanometer scale, an advance that could pave the way for better understanding immune disorders ...
Nanophysics
Dec 17, 2015
0
105
State-of-the-art atomic force microscopes (AFMs) are designed to capture images of structures as small as a fraction of a nanometer—a million times smaller than the width of a human hair. In recent years, AFMs have produced ...
Nanophysics
Dec 14, 2015
1
22
Just as we can feel whether we are lying on a soft blanket or hard rocks, our cells sense whether they are in a soft or rigid mechanical environment. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying cells' ability to detect tissue ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 3, 2015
0
1087
As hide-outs for bacteria, biofilms cause problems for antibiotic treatment or the cleaning of medical tubes. They contribute to the spreading of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. A biofilm is created when bacteria ...
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 30, 2015
0
12
Ancient memory devices such as handwriting were based on mechanical energy—but in the modern world they have given way to devices based generally on electrical manipulation.
General Physics
Oct 13, 2015
0
420
