ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) has captured an image of a planet orbiting b Centauri, a two-star system that can be seen with the naked eye. This is the hottest and most massive planet-hosting star system found to date, and the planet was spotted orbiting it at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun. Some astronomers believed planets could not exist around stars this massive and this hot -- until now.

Researchers have figured out a way to use lasers to alter materials without the creation of damaging heat.

If researchers can detect Q-balls in gravitational waves, it could help explain why more matter than anti-matter was left over after the Big Bang.

Scientists at Berkeley Lab and the University of Massachusetts Amherst have demonstrated the first self-powered, aqueous robot that runs continuously without electricity. The technology has potential as an automated chemical synthesis or drug delivery system for pharmaceuticals.

No longer just a dream of vegetarians and vegans, fake meat is becoming more widely available in grocery stores and restaurants. And more options are almost certainly on the way. One team has now developed a new combination of plant-based ingredients tailored for 3D printing meat alternatives. Their most successful recipes required an odd-sounding addition: cocoa butter, derived from cocoa beans of chocolate fame.

The bipartisan infrastructure bill recently signed into law by President Joe Biden includes a requirement for automakers to install driver monitoring systems that detect intoxicated or impaired drivers. Current systems rely on cameras, which have limitations. Now, researchers have made heat-resistant, pressure-detecting sensors that, when attached to seats, can tell whether a driver is drowsy or has a sudden illness, signaling a future smart car to take action.

Some studies have shown that nicotine, an addictive substance in electronic cigarettes, increases the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory disorders. But to get a full understanding of its potential health effects, a real-time nicotine monitoring device is needed. Such a device could also help vapers -- as well as non-vapers who encounter second-hand smoke -- measure their exposure. Now, researchers report that they have developed a battery-free, wearable device that could accomplish this task.

Sonodynamic therapy uses ultrasound in combination with drugs to release harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS) at the site of a tumor. However, the treatment isn't very effective because cancer cells can activate antioxidant defense systems to counteract it. Now, researchers have breached these defenses with CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, allowing sonodynamic therapy to effectively shrink tumors in a mouse model of liver cancer.

Over the years, hundreds of new synthetic drugs that mimic the effects of illegal and legal substances have emerged. The underground nature of each drug's development and distribution makes its international popularity hard to track. Now, using wastewater from the days near the 2021 New Year holiday, researchers report an increased international usage of some synthetic drugs, including eutylone and 3-methylmethcathinone (3-MMC) compared to the previous year.

Using artificial intelligence, a team of researchers has developed a novel system that models the progression of chronic diseases as patients age.

Measuring plant phenotypes, a term used to describe the observable characteristics of an organism, is a critical aspect of studying and improving economically important crops. Phenotypes central to the breeding process include traits like kernel number in corn, seed size in wheat, or fruit color in grape. These features are visible to the naked human eye but are in fact driven by microscopic molecular and cellular processes in the plant. Using three-dimensional (3D) imaging is a recent innovation in the plant biology sector to capture phenotypes on the 'whole-plant' scale: from miniscule cells and organelles in the roots, up to the leaves and flowers. However, current 3D imaging processes are limited by time-consuming sample preparation and by imaging depth, usually reaching only a few layers of cells within a plant tissue.

Scientists have for the first time obtained stem cells from livestock that grow under chemically defined conditions, paving the way for manufacturing cell cultured meat and breeding enhanced livestock.

Researchers have developed the first metal-organic framework (MOFs) antibody-drug delivery system that has the potential to fast-track potent new therapies for cancer, cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases.

Scientists have developed a new sodium metal anode for rechargeable batteries that resists the formation of dendrites, a common problem with standard sodium metal anodes that can lead to shorting and fires.

Researchers have optimized a special X-ray process -- known as soft X-ray tomography -- to deliver high-resolution three-dimensional images of entire cells and their molecular structure in just a few minutes.

An engineer is changing what we know about when water freezes as he pushes the limit and gets the best look yet at tiny drops of water as they freeze.

A sodium-sulfur battery solves one of the biggest hurdles that has held back the technology as a commercially viable alternative to the ubiquitous lithium-ion batteries that power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.

Iron is an essential nutrient that almost all life requires to grow and thrive. Iron's importance goes all the way back to the formation of the planet Earth, where the amount of iron in the Earth's rocky mantle was 'set' by the conditions under which the planet formed and went on to have major ramifications for how life developed. Now, scientists have uncovered the likely mechanisms by which iron influenced the development of complex life forms, which can also be used to understand how likely (or unlikely) advanced life forms might be on other planets.

Astronomers have found no trace of dark matter in the galaxy AGC 114905, despite taking detailed measurements over a course of forty hours with state-of-the-art telescopes.

A new test could measure patient immunity against multiple COVID-19 variants such as Omicron and Delta at once and inform which synthetic monoclonal antibody to use for treatments.

Quantum computing is taking a new leap forward due to new research. The team of researchers have proposed a scheme to reduce the number of calculations needed to read out data stored in the state of a quantum processor. This, in turn, will make quantum computers more efficient, faster, and ultimately more sustainable.