https://phys.org/ en-us Latest news from Tokyo Institute of Technology Many cellular functions in the human body are controlled by biological droplets called liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) droplets. These droplets, made of soft biological materials, exist inside living cells but are not enclosed by membranes like most cell structures. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-scientists-method-synthetic-dna-droplet.html Bio & Medicine Thu, 26 Sep 2024 14:00:10 EDT news646578001 The growth in population, rise in income, and changes in dietary preferences, have led to an increase in the demand for livestock products globally, highlighting the need for smart livestock technologies. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-elucidating-smart-livestock-technology-farmers.html Biotechnology Agriculture Mon, 23 Sep 2024 15:33:04 EDT news646324382 The research groups led by Prof. Kei Sakaguchi from the School of Engineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology and Prof. Walid Saad from Virginia Tech have jointly realized a Smart Mobility Digital Twin that replicates physical space's traffic conditions in cyber space in real-time. https://techxplore.com/news/2024-09-smart-mobility-digital-twin-replicates.html Automotive Machine learning & AI Thu, 19 Sep 2024 15:36:54 EDT news645979010 .Researchers have uncovered a novel mechanism underlying the skeletal reduction and asymmetry of emu wings. Their research reveals that the absence of distal muscle formation results in a lack of mechanostress during development, leading to the observed bone abnormalities. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-mechanism-uncovered-reduction-emu-wings.html Plants & Animals Evolution Thu, 19 Sep 2024 05:00:01 EDT news645896568 One of the most promising avenues for actively reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere is recycling it into valuable chemicals via electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reactions. With a suitable electrocatalyst, this can be achieved under mild conditions and at a low energy cost. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-exploring-ternary-metal-sulfides-electrocatalysts.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Fri, 13 Sep 2024 13:06:21 EDT news645451573 Biodiesel, a green alternative to conventional diesel, has been shown to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 74%. Biodiesel is produced through transesterification, converting triglycerides into biodiesel and producing glycerol as a low-value byproduct. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-boosting-glycerol-biodiesel-profitable.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 03 Sep 2024 15:32:03 EDT news644596322 A recently developed block copolymer could help push the limits of integration and miniaturization in semiconductor manufacturing, report scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo (TOK). Chemically tailored for reliable directed self-assembly, the proposed compound can arrange itself into perpendicular lamellar structures whose half-pitch width is less than 10 nanometers, outperforming conventional and widely used block copolymers. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-advances-semiconductor-patterning-block-copolymer.html Nanomaterials Thu, 29 Aug 2024 10:03:03 EDT news644144581 As industrialized food markets harm the environment, sustainable food systems emerge as an effective solution. This includes reducing the distance between where the food is produced and consumed, ensuring that people eat locally produced food. One promising approach is community-supported agriculture (CSA), where consumers buy a share of the expected harvest in advance, providing farmers with financial stability and a fixed consumer base while offering consumers fresh, local food. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-consumers-community-agriculture.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Wed, 21 Aug 2024 17:04:04 EDT news643478642 Polymers are materials made out of long, repeating chains of molecules, and it is the interaction between these chains that dictates most of a polymer's physicochemical properties. In accordance with this intuitive understanding of polymers, which dates back to the 1930s, external forces acting on polymers are mainly regarded as destructive. For example, stretching a polymer can disentangle or break apart some of its constituent chains, weakening the overall material. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-photopolymerization-efficient.html Polymers Analytical Chemistry Mon, 19 Aug 2024 11:10:06 EDT news643284601 Electron transfer is an elementary process in which an electron is transferred or relocated from a donor molecule or atom to another such entity, called the acceptor. This process is fundamental to chemical reactions, electronic devices, and even living organisms. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-electron-highly-efficient-upconversion-oleds.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Thu, 15 Aug 2024 11:25:39 EDT news642939935 In materials science, substances are often classified based on defining factors such as their elemental composition or crystalline structure. This classification is crucial for advances in materials discovery, as it allows researchers to identify promising classes of materials and explore new ones with similar functions and properties. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-machine-based-cluster-analysis-method.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 06 Aug 2024 10:11:22 EDT news642157877 In a new study, a multinational research team led by Dr. Adnan Sljoka (RIKEN) and Prof. Akio Kitao (Tokyo Tech), in collaboration with Prof. Scott Prosser (University of Toronto), has carried out experimental and computational studies to elucidate the mechanisms behind G protein selectivity and efficacy in the human adenosine A2A receptor (A2AR). https://phys.org/news/2024-08-elucidate-mechanisms-protein-adenosine-receptor.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 01 Aug 2024 12:10:01 EDT news641732629 Controlling the crystal phase of cobalt nanoparticles leads to exceptional catalytic performance in hydrogenation processes, report scientists from Tokyo Tech. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-energy-efficient-reusable-versatile-catalytic.html Materials Science Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:26:07 EDT news641723164 Shibazuke is a traditional Japanese eggplant pickle produced by the process of fermentation using lactic acid bacteria (LAB). LAB which are commonly present in vegetables cause the spontaneous fermentation of vegetables, resulting in the distinctive acidic flavor of pickles. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-exploring-effects-microbiota-microbial-succession.html Cell & Microbiology Agriculture Fri, 26 Jul 2024 13:43:44 EDT news641220221 As 5G technologies continue to evolve, scientists and engineers are already exploring new ways to turn things up a notch for 6G. One of the biggest challenges to address in both 5G and 6G is the many detrimental effects that operating at extremely high frequencies has on wireless communications. At frequencies nearing the terahertz range, problems such as signal attenuation and interference are more prominent, and maintaining signal integrity becomes much harder. https://techxplore.com/news/2024-07-deep-polyimides-high-frequency-wireless.html Engineering Telecom Fri, 26 Jul 2024 13:43:03 EDT news641220178 Cycloaddition reactions are an efficient strategy for constructing cyclic compounds that are important building blocks for other chemicals. In these processes, π-electrons from different unsaturated molecules, such as alkenes, alkynes, or dienes accommodate to form new cyclic structures in a single step. π-electrons are those responsible for the π-bonds in double and triple bonds. In a double bond, one of the C-C bonds is a π-bond, while in a triple bond, two of the C-C bonds are π-bonds. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-blocks-future-rhodium-catalyzed-cycloaddition.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Fri, 26 Jul 2024 11:51:17 EDT news641213475 Residential buildings account for a large percentage of global energy consumption, and many countries around the world are looking into effective solutions to this issue amidst the ongoing energy crisis. Consistent with global efforts to shift away from fossil fuels, an attractive option is to make houses self-sufficient by having them generate their electricity—something that is usually achieved using photovoltaic (PV) systems. https://techxplore.com/news/2024-07-net-energy-houses-optimizing-size.html Engineering Energy & Green Tech Wed, 24 Jul 2024 15:22:03 EDT news641053321 All around the world, scientists are striving towards next-generation energy technologies that can help us move away from fossil fuels. Using hydrogen as an energy carrier and clean energy source is perhaps one of the most promising solutions on the horizon. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-crystalline-solid-function-hydrogen-carrier.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Wed, 24 Jul 2024 09:51:08 EDT news641033465 Imagine a thin film, just nanometers thick, that could store gigabytes of data—enough for movies, video games, and videos. This is the exciting potential of ferroelectric materials for memory storage. These materials have a unique arrangement of ions, resulting in two distinct polarization states analogous to 0 and 1 in binary code, which can be used for digital memory storage. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-aluminum-scandium-nitride-enabling-gen.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 22 Jul 2024 13:15:03 EDT news640872901 Among the vastly different ways of tackling a disease, controlling the genetic expression of cells is undoubtedly one of the most powerful. Over the past few decades, scientists have come up with dozens of innovative strategies that involve using messenger RNA (mRNA) to "force" cells to build specific proteins. These mRNA-based therapies have recently gained prominence as vaccines against infectious diseases like COVID-19. Additionally, they hold significant potential for treating cancer and genetic disorders. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-mrna-nanocarriers-therapies.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 22 Jul 2024 12:27:35 EDT news640870051 For a long time, scientists associated crystal structures with an ordered arrangement of atoms in a repeating lattice-like pattern, believing it to be the most stable configuration. However, by the 1960s, advancements in crystallography revealed materials that did not fit the traditional model. These structures exhibit a non-periodic or non-repeating pattern and are called aperiodic crystals. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-hexagonal-metallic-approximants-bridge-gap.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Thu, 11 Jul 2024 05:00:01 EDT news639846480 A 28GHz time-division multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) receiver with eight radio frequency elements, each occupying just 0.1 mm2, has been developed by researchers at Tokyo Tech using 65nm CMOS technology. This innovative design reduces chip size for beamforming. Achieving -23.5 dB error vector magnitude in 64-quadrature amplitude modulation and data rates up to 9.6 Gbps, this receiver offers the highest area efficiency and fastest beam switching among reported MIMO receivers. https://techxplore.com/news/2024-07-compact-scalable-multiple-output-future.html Hardware Telecom Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:08:55 EDT news639846532 Immobilizing small synthetic molecules inside protein crystals proves to be a promising avenue for studying intermediate compounds formed during chemical reactions, report scientists from Tokyo Tech. By integrating this method with time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography, they successfully visualized reaction dynamics and rapid structural changes occurring within reaction centers immobilized inside protein crystals. Their study was published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-scientists-fast-reaction-dynamics-synthetic.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Mon, 08 Jul 2024 09:42:03 EDT news639650521 Researchers from Tokyo Tech have identified hexagonal perovskite-related Ba5R2Al2SnO13 oxides (R = rare earth metal) as materials with exceptionally high proton conductivity and thermal stability. https://techxplore.com/news/2024-07-hexagonal-perovskite-oxides-electrolytes-generation.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 08 Jul 2024 09:42:01 EDT news639650517 The use of wearable electronics that continuously monitor biosignals has transformed the health care and fitness industries. These devices are becoming increasingly common and are projected to reach a market valuation of approximately USD 572.06 billion by 2033. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-flexible-durable-bioelectrodes-future-health.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Wed, 03 Jul 2024 09:46:03 EDT news639218762 Aside from being an essential building block for life, carbon is being actively researched due to its versatility as an engineering material. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), in particular, have demonstrated tremendous potential for aerospace, semiconductor, and medical applications, mostly owing to their high strength and low weight. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-insights-mechanical-weakness-carbon-nanotube.html Nanomaterials Wed, 26 Jun 2024 11:18:47 EDT news638619523 Glomerulus, the fundamental filtering unit of the kidney, is an intricate network of capillaries—small blood vessels that regulate the movement of ions, water, and metabolites while maintaining impermeability to essential macromolecules such as proteins. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-unraveling-role-adgrf5-insights-kidney.html Genetics Endocrinology & Metabolism Fri, 21 Jun 2024 13:23:03 EDT news638194981 Encapsulating copper nanoparticles within hydrophobic porous silicate crystals has been shown by scientists at Tokyo Tech to significantly enhance the catalytic activity of copper-zinc oxide catalysts used in methanol synthesis via CO2 hydrogenation. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-catalysts-methanol-production-carbon-dioxide.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Fri, 21 Jun 2024 12:47:04 EDT news638192821 Chemical sensors whose signals can be amplified by various triggers hold huge potential in multidisciplinary sciences. However, developing such systems was considered a highly challenging task, until a team of researchers from Tokyo Tech recently came up with a novel signal-amplification system that can be flexibly manipulated by a dynamic allosteric effector or a trigger. This new chemosensor system exhibited exceptional signal amplification by altering the sumanene monomer concentrations. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-amplification-chemosensors-flexibly-allosteric-trigger.html Biochemistry Polymers Wed, 19 Jun 2024 10:33:02 EDT news638011978 An innovative synthesis strategy has opened the way to 2D/3D fused frameworks using inexpensive quinolines as feedstock, report scientists from Tokyo Tech. By leveraging a light-sensitive borate intermediate, the scientists could transform quinoline derivatives into a great variety of 2D/3D fused frameworks in a straightforward and cost-effective manner. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-inexpensive-quinolines-complex-drug-candidates.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Wed, 19 Jun 2024 10:25:04 EDT news638011502