Scientists studying the body’s natural defenses against bacterial infection have identified a nutrient—taurine—that helps the gut recall prior infections and kill invading bacteria, such as Klebsiella pneumoniae (Kpn). The finding, published in the journal Cell by scientists from five institutes of the National Institutes of Health, could aid efforts seeking alternatives to antibiotics. Read More
A refractive index of zero induces a wave vector with zero amplitude and undefined direction. Therefore, light propagating inside a zero-index medium does not accumulate any spatial phase advance, resulting in perfect spatial coherence. Such coherence brings several potential applications, including arbitrarily shaped waveguides, phase-mismatch-free nonlinear propagation, large-area single-mode lasers, and extended super radiance. A …
Plant pathologists working at universities across 26 corn-producing states in the United States and in Ontario, Canada, compiled data about annual corn reductions caused by diseases. Estimated loss from each disease varied greatly by region. Read More
Like a person breaking up a cat fight, the role of catalysts in a chemical reaction is to hurry up the process—and come out of it intact. And, just as not every house in a neighborhood has someone willing to intervene in such a battle, not every part of a catalyst participates in the reaction. …
Some ideas for new consumer products introduced at CES 2021 get five stars, others get five question marks Read More