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In some cases, immune cells in the lungs can contribute to worsening a virus attack. In a new study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden describe how different kinds of macrophages, develop in the lungs and which of them may be behind severe lung diseases. The study, which was published in Immunity, may contribute to future treatments for COVID-19, among other diseases.

The structure of the lungs exposes them to viruses and bacteria from both the air and the blood. Macrophages are immune cells that, among other things, protect the lungs from such attacks...

Diamond is the hardest material in nature. But out of many expectations, it also has great potential as an excellent electronic material. A joint research team led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has demonstrated for the first time the large, uniform tensile elastic straining of microfabricated diamond arrays through the nanomechanical approach. Their findings have shown the potential of strained diamonds as prime candidates for advanced functional devices in microelectronics, photonics, and quantum information technologies.

The research was co-led by Dr Lu Yang, Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engi...

When you think about it, early civilizations had a rough time when it came to dinnertime. With no supermarkets, McDonald’s, or Cheesecake Factories, you pretty much had to find and prepare your own meal every day. And since Uber would not be invented for another 14,000 years, primitive peoples around 12,000 BC had to walk, sometimes for miles, and learn to hunt, fish, gather and cook for their daily meals. In the rain. Even on Sundays.

Farming evolved quite a bit since then. But with a world population hurtling towards 8 billion, we face a problem. As the 18th century economist Thomas Malthus observed, human population increases geometrically, while food production increases only arithmetically...

A multitasking nanomachine that can act as a heat engine and a refrigerator at the same time has been created by RIKEN engineers. The device is one of the first to test how quantum effects, which govern the behavior of particles on the smallest scale, might one day be exploited to enhance the performance of nanotechnologies.

Conventional heat engines and refrigerators work by connecting two pools of fluid. Compressing one pool causes its fluid to heat up, while rapidly expanding the other pool cools its fluid...