The Sun, the essential engine that sustains life on Earth, generates its tremendous energy through the process of nuclear fusion. At the same time it releases a continuous stream of neutrinos— particles that serve as messengers of its internal dynamics. Although modern neutrino detectors unveil the Sun’s present behavior, significant questions linger about its stability over periods of millions of years—a timeframe that spans human evolution and significant climate changes. Finding answers to this is the goal of the LORandite EXperiment (LOREX) that requires a precise knowledge of the solar neutrino cross section on thallium. This information has now been provided by an international collaboration of scientists using the unique facilities at GSI/FAIR's Experimental Storage Ring ESR in Darmstadt to obtain an essential measurement that will help to understand the long-term stability of the Sun. The results of the measurements have been published in the scientific journal “Physical Review Letters”.

How can aromatic compounds be separated from so-called aliphatic compounds efficiently without having to rely on energy-intensive processes? In the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie (Applied Chemistry), chemists from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) present an innovative molecular sieve made of partially fluorinated macrocycles that can separate these compounds selectively.

For the first time, scientists have observed a collection of particles, also known as a quasiparticle, that's massless when moving one direction but has mass in the other direction. The quasiparticle, called a semi-Dirac fermion, was first theorized 16 years ago, but was only recently spotted inside a crystal of semi-metal material called ZrSiS. The observation of the quasiparticle opens the door to future advances in a range of emerging technologies from batteries to sensors, according to the researchers.

The Carl Zeiss Foundation is contributing EUR 6 million to a research project on the regeneration of the nervous system at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The new Interactive Biomaterials for Neural Regeneration (InteReg) project will bring together researchers from the fields of neurobiology, neuroimmunology, chemistry, and polymer research to develop precision engineered synthetic biomaterials for the treatment of neurological disorders.

A new biotechnological process just detailed in the Journal of American Chemical Society shows how Berl Oakley at the University of Kansas and collaborators at the University of Southern California break down and remove the matrix from carbon fiber reinforced polymers so that recovered carbon fiber plies exhibit mechanical properties comparable to those of virgin manufacturing substrates.

BUFFALO, NY- December 10, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as “Aging (Albany NY)” and “Aging-US” by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 21 on November 18, 2024, entitled, “Prostaglandin E2 regulates senescence and post-senescence neoplastic escape in primary human keratinocytes.”