PCN nanolayers under sunlight can split water. Credit: Nannan Meng /Tianjin University

One of the major challenges of the energy transition is to supply energy even when the sun is not shining. Hydrogen production by splitting water with the help of sunlight could offer a solution. Hydrogen is a good energy storage medium and can be used in many ways. However, water does not simply split by itself. Catalysts are needed, for instance Platinum, which is rare and expensive. Research teams the world over are looking for more economical alternatives. Now a team headed by Dr. Tristan Petit from the HZB, together with colleagues led by Prof. Bin Zhang from Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, has made important progress using a well-known class of metal-free photocatalysts.

Bin Zhang and his team ...

Mouse (left) and human (right) alveolar progenitor cells grow into large lung organoids in culture, and make multiple types of epithelial cells including gas exchange type 1 cells (red) and surfactant-producing type 2 cells (green). Credit: The lab of Ed Morrisey, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

Implications for new approaches to repair damaged lung disease. Researchers have identified a lung stem cell that repairs the organ’s gas exchange compartment, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. They isolated and characterized these progenitor cells from mouse and human lungs and demonstrated they are essential to repairing lung tissue damaged by severe influenza and other respiratory ailments.

The development of...

Pattern of radio waves on the sky caused by the combination of radiation from the first stars and the effect of dark matter. Blue regions are those where the dark matter cooled down the ordinary matter most strongly. If a similar pattern is detected with new radio telescopes over the next few years, this will confirm that the first stars have revealed the dark matter. Credit: Prof. Rennan Barkana.

Discovery offers first direct proof that dark matter exists and that it is made up of low-mass particles. A team of astronomers led by Prof...

A timeline of the universe, updated to show when the first stars emerged. This updated timeline of the universe reflects the recent discovery that the first stars emerged by 180 million years after the Big Bang. The research behind this timeline was conducted by Judd Bowman of Arizona State University and his colleagues, with funding from the National Science Foundation. Credit: N.R.Fuller, National Science Foundation

Within 180 million years of the Big Bang, Stars were Born. After 12 years of experimental effort, a team of scientists, led by Arizona State University astronomer Judd Bowman, has detected the fingerprints of the earliest stars in the universe...