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Orthovanadates have recently emerged as promising optical materials for birefringent solid-state laser applications. They can be also used in a number of applications including cathodoluminescent materials, thermophosphors, scintillators, and nuclear waste storage. Given the technological importance of zircon-type orthovanadates, their electronic and optical properties have been extensively studied but their mechanical properties, which are of interest in several areas of materials research, ...
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Today (5th Nov 2009) over 80 students from across Oxfordshire and beyond attended a careers day that focused on the wide range of exciting opportunities that exist for engineers in the UK.
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Rotaxanes are tiny molecular structures where a central straight molecule passes through a macrocycle, making a molecular machine in the shape of an axle inside a wheel. Bulky stoppers at either end of the straight molecules keep the wheel on the axle. These molecular machines have the potential to be used as molecular shuttles by moving the wheel along the axle, which is of interest for nanoscale electronic components and also in biology, where many biochemical functions are based on ...
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How can a disease that affects one species such as birds transfer to another such as humans? In the case of influenza, the answer could lie in a protein called hemagglutinin – the part of the flu virus that binds it to human cells when a person is infected. In the twentieth century there were three flu pandemics in 1918, 1957 and 1968. Scientists from the Medical Research Council have been using Diamond to study the structure of hemagglutinin from the virus strain that caused the 1957 ...
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EphA4 is a protein which is attached to the surfaces of many types of human cells and plays a role in a wide range of biological processes. EphA4 functions by binding to ephrin ligands, cell surface proteins which sit on opposing cells. The signalling cascades which result from this contact direct cells to move in a particular direction, to the right place in the body. This is critical in the development of the nervous system, and has also been linked with the suppression of melanoma tumours.
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On Monday 12th October, a team of scientists from the University of Bath became the first researchers to use the UK’s national synchrotron facility’s latest experimental station (I07).
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Why recognising sex pheromone components of the silkworm moth at the scale of atoms and molecules impacts on eco friendly agriculture.
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Understanding how viruses such as HIV function is vital in the search for more effective antiviral medicines, as well as opening up novel possibilities in gene therapy. A collaborative study involving researchers from Imperial College London, Yale University, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, led by Dr. Peter Cherepanov from the Division of Medicine at Imperial took advantage of Diamond’s I02 and I04 macromolecular crystallography beamlines to reveal important mechanistic aspects of ...
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Since the Stone Age humans have been adept at selecting materials for specific tasks based on the material’s properties. With the discovery of smelting man learned to manipulate materials to improve performance. Now new materials can be “built” on a nm scale with properties that are required for a host of applications, from solar cells to catalysts in industrial process.
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The self-assembly of peptides into fibrils is commonly observed. Such fibrils may have biological roles and may also be useful in nanotechnology applications, as scaffolds to create metal nanowires or to template the self-assembly of other inorganic materials, for biosensors or as supports for cell adhesion. The misfolding of proteins into so-called amyloid fibrils is also implicated in amyloid diseases such as Alzheimer’s and type II diabetes. It has been suggested that amyloid fibrils are ...
