Energy

Sun 7 Feb 2010 Breakthrough for Hybrid Solar Cells. Scientists at the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) and the Freiburg Materials Research Center (FMF) have succeeded in developing a method for treating the surface of nanoparticles which greatly improves the efficiency of organic solar cells. The researchers were able to attain an efficiency of 2 percent by using so-called quantum dots composed of cadmium selenide. more

  Physics

Wed 20 Jan 2010 Physicists Tie Light in Knots. The remarkable feat of tying light in knots has been achieved by a team of physicists working at the universities of Bristol, Glasgow and Southampton, UK, reports a paper in Nature Physics this week. more

  Medicine

Tue 19 Jan 2010 Atomic Structure of a Major Cancer Drug Target Cracked. Researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen, Switzerland, have determined the crystal structure of the ligand binding domain of a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptor in complex with one of its ligands (VEGF-C).

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  Agriculture

Wed 13 Jan 2010 How plants 'feel' the temperature rise? Plants are incredibly temperature sensitive and can perceive changes of as little as one degree Celsius. New research shows how they not only 'feel' the temperature rise, but also coordinate an appropriate response -- activating hundreds of genes and deactivating others; it turns out it's all about the way that their DNA is packaged. The new findings may help to explain how plants will respond in the face of climate change and offer scientists new leads in the quest to create crop plants better able to withstand high temperature stress. more