News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Novel grafted plants -- consisting of rootstock epigenetically modified to "believe" it has been under stress -- joined to an unmodified scion, or above-ground shoot, give rise to progeny that are more vigorous, productive and resilient than the parental plants.

A Purdue University scientist and entrepreneur is working to use simple LED light to help determine if certain chemotherapy options will work for specific patients.

The "mismatch hypothesis" argues that our bodies evolved to digest the foods that our ancestors ate, and that human bodies will struggle and largely fail to metabolize a radically new set of foods. This intuitive idea is hard to test directly, but the Turkana, a pastoralist population in remote Kenya, present a natural experiment: genetically homogenous populations whose diets stretch across a lifestyle gradient from relatively "matched" to extremely "mismatched" with their recent evolutionary history.

Computer modeling of the COVID-19 virus on supercomputers showed that the spike protein visits an intermediate state before it can dock to the receptor protein on the host cell membrane. This intermediate state can be useful for drug targeting to prevent the spike protein to initiate viral infection. The initial findings, which showed the existence of an intermediate semi-open state of the spike protein, was published in the Journal of Chemical Physics.

Some people love spicy food -- the hotter, the better. Others go out of their way to avoid the palate-singeing burn of capsaicin, the compound that gives chili peppers their kick. Now, researchers have developed a portable device (whimsically shaped like a chili pepper) that can reveal how much capsaicin a pepper contains, before biting into it. They report their results in ACS Applied Nano Materials.

Chameleons can famously change their colors to camouflage themselves, communicate and regulate their temperature. Scientists have tried to replicate these color-changing properties for stealth technologies, anti-counterfeiting measures and electronic displays, but the materials have limitations. Now, researchers have developed a flexible film that changes color in response to stretching, pressure or humidity. They report their results in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

According to the Mayo Clinic, about 15% of couples are infertile, and male infertility plays a role in over one-third of these cases. Often, problems with sperm development are to blame. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have found a way to deliver a protein important for sperm cell production directly to mouse testicles, where it restored normal sperm development and allowed previously infertile mice to father pups.

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University have together developed a new human motion capture system that consists of a single ultra-wide fisheye camera mounted on the user's chest. The simplicity of their system could be conducive to a wide range of applications in the sports, medical and entertainment fields.