Findings may have implications for contraceptive
A study led by scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has determined that a novel enzyme in sperm is essential for sperm motility and male fertility. The new study may offer a potential target for an effective, non-hormonal male contraceptive, the researchers said. The findings will be published today (Nov. 15) in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A report also will appear Nov. 23 in the journal’s print edition. Collaborating with UNC were scientists from the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS); Fudan University in Shanghai, China; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Sperm motility, produced by the coordinated movement of the extremely long sperm tail, requires substantial energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, the major energy currency of the cell. Specialized cellular structures known as mitochondria were thought to provide a substantial portion of the ATP needed for sperm motility. In contrast, Dr. Deborah A. O’Brien, associate professor of cell and developmental biology at UNC’s School of Medicine, and her colleagues found that sperm motility and ATP production depend primarily on a metabolic pathway known as glycolysis. This pathway uses sugar to produce energy, a common process in animal and plant cells.
Leslie H. Lang | EurekAlert!
Smart Data Transformation – Surfing the Big Wave
02.12.2016 | Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik FIT
Climate change could outpace EPA Lake Champlain protections
18.11.2016 | University of Vermont
A multi-institutional research collaboration has created a novel approach for fabricating three-dimensional micro-optics through the shape-defined formation of porous silicon (PSi), with broad impacts in integrated optoelectronics, imaging, and photovoltaics.
Working with colleagues at Stanford and The Dow Chemical Company, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign fabricated 3-D birefringent...
In experiments with magnetic atoms conducted at extremely low temperatures, scientists have demonstrated a unique phase of matter: The atoms form a new type of quantum liquid or quantum droplet state. These so called quantum droplets may preserve their form in absence of external confinement because of quantum effects. The joint team of experimental physicists from Innsbruck and theoretical physicists from Hannover report on their findings in the journal Physical Review X.
“Our Quantum droplets are in the gas phase but they still drop like a rock,” explains experimental physicist Francesca Ferlaino when talking about the...
The Max Planck Institute for Physics (MPP) is opening up a new research field. A workshop from November 21 - 22, 2016 will mark the start of activities for an innovative axion experiment. Axions are still only purely hypothetical particles. Their detection could solve two fundamental problems in particle physics: What dark matter consists of and why it has not yet been possible to directly observe a CP violation for the strong interaction.
The “MADMAX” project is the MPP’s commitment to axion research. Axions are so far only a theoretical prediction and are difficult to detect: on the one hand,...
Broadband rotational spectroscopy unravels structural reshaping of isolated molecules in the gas phase to accommodate water
In two recent publications in the Journal of Chemical Physics and in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, researchers around Melanie Schnell from the Max...
The efficiency of power electronic systems is not solely dependent on electrical efficiency but also on weight, for example, in mobile systems. When the weight of relevant components and devices in airplanes, for instance, is reduced, fuel savings can be achieved and correspondingly greenhouse gas emissions decreased. New materials and components based on gallium nitride (GaN) can help to reduce weight and increase the efficiency. With these new materials, power electronic switches can be operated at higher switching frequency, resulting in higher power density and lower material costs.
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE together with partners have investigated how these materials can be used to make power...
16.11.2016 | Event News
01.11.2016 | Event News
14.10.2016 | Event News
02.12.2016 | Medical Engineering
02.12.2016 | Agricultural and Forestry Science
02.12.2016 | Physics and Astronomy