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Microcatheters are medical devices that can snake through the body's blood vessels to deliver lifesaving therapies - for example to treat clogged arteries, or to stop bleeding.

Topological insulators usually only work at very low temperatures. Researchers at the University of Würzburg have now developed an insulator that exhibits the desired properties even at higher temperatures. A topological insulator can be imagined as a material that is a perfect insulator on the inside - it does not conduct electricity there.

The Mars rover Perseverance has collected numerous samples that are to be sent to Earth. Current studies are preparing for the future handling of this material. New report: An international team of researchers has published a report on how Mars samples should be handled from a scientific point of view when they arrive on Earth.

Study points to ways to better support this community, including enhanced training of service providers Homelessness services in Montreal are not well suited to the needs of 2SLGBTQ+ adults in Montreal, a study by McGill researchers has found. "Homelessness services are very binary, and often those who are non-binary are completely excluded," said Jayne Malenfant , Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education.

Current studies preparing for the future handling of this material   Mars is an inhospitable desert planet. Billions of years ago, things were different. In Jezero Crater, for example, fed by a vast river delta, there was probably a considerable body of water roughly the size of Lake Constance. Conditions conducive to life may have prevailed there.

Schizophrenia A specific type of brain cell is abnormally active in mice exhibiting behavior reminiscent of schizophrenia, according to a new study from the University of Copenhagen. By dampening the activity of these cells, researchers were able to restore the animals' behavior-an insight that may pave the way for a new preventive treatment.

Scientists have made a breakthrough in monitoring insect populations across the UK using an unexpected tool: weather radar. Traditionally used to track rainfall and storms, these radars are now helping researchers monitor the daily movements and long-term numbers of flying and floating creatures - including bees, moths, flies, spiders, and other arthropods.

Two new studies quantify key features of human and animal presence on Earth. The first study finds that the movement of human biomass today is 40 times greater than that of all wild land mammals, birds, and arthropods combined. Another study reveals that the combined biomass of wild land and marine mammals has plummeted by about 70 percent since 1850, whereas the biomass of humans has soared by roughly 700 percent and that of domesticated animals by 400 percent; those two categories have a combined biomass approaching about 1.1 billion tons.

UCL researchers are investigating how a UK-led team could design and build one of the core instruments on a flagship NASA mission, the Habitable Worlds Observatory, which will search for signs of life on distant planets. The mission is expected to launch in the early 2040s and is currently in an early preparatory phase.

Physicists at the University of Würzburg have developed extremely small pixels using optical antennas and a clever design. These can be used in compact AR glasses, for example. Smart glasses, i.e., glasses that display information directly in the field of vision, are considered a key technology of the future - but until now, their use has often failed due to cumbersome technology.

Rising seas are irreversible on human time scales and among the most severe consequences of climate change. Emissions released in the coming decades will determine how much coastlines are reshaped for centuries to come. New research shows that near-term mitigation could spare future generations around 0.6 meters of sea-level rise that would be caused by emissions between 2020 and 2090 following current policies, making today's decisions critical not only for limiting warming but also for coastal impacts.

Living in a neighbourhood where people trust each other is linked to an increased risk of severe mental illness among people from ethnic minority groups, despite the opposite being true for white majority populations, finds a new study in Sweden led by UCL researchers. People in Stockholm who live in neighbourhoods where they feel safe and supported have a lower risk of psychotic disorders and bipolar disorder - but only for people of Swedish or European origin, according to the Nature Mental Health study by researchers from UCL and Karolinska Institutet.

An international team led by researchers at the University of Waterloo has developed new material that can be used as flexible "artificial muscles" to replace rigid motors and pumps in robots and allow them to move more naturally and fluidly. Soft robots differ from hard robots in that they are pliable and flexible, making them safe for interaction with people, but the materials currently used for components enabling their movement aren't strong enough to be effective.

Workplace tension and effort-recognition imbalance create chronic stress leading to diseases such as angina pectoris and myocardial infarction If further proof were needed of the damaging effects of psychosocial stressors at work on the health of white-collar workers, it has just been provided by a study published in JACC: Advances , a scientific journal of the American College of Cardiology.

In an article published in Current Biology , scientists explore how auxin, a plant hormone, travels through the stem of a moss to shape its architecture. In vascular plants, such as most grasses or trees, it has been known for several decades that auxin is actively transported between cells via dedicated molecular pumps.

Is it moral, ethical or even acceptable for research projects to be carried out in countries of the "Global South" without any local scientists being involved? A new study has quantified this problem in the Dry Puna and Atacama Desert area of Latin America. An article by Gabriel A. Pinto in The Conversation.

A team led by UCL scientists has identified a key protein that triggers diabetic retinopathy - a condition caused by high blood sugar damaging the retina's blood vessels and a leading cause of sight loss among working-age adults. The research in mice, funded by Diabetes UK, Moorfields Eye Charity and Wellcome, has the potential to revolutionise how the disease is treated, shifting the treatment from managing late-stage damage to preventing vision loss before it begins.

A bacterial enzyme could be the key to sustainable production of the plastic building block ethylene The conventional production of ethylene releases large quantities of greenhouse gases. A bacterial enzyme from Rhodospirillum rubrum could make it possible in future to produce the plastic building block ethylene without CO2 emissions.

A test deployed in many fertility clinics to assess the viability of embryos for use in IVF is likely to overestimate the number of embryos with abnormalities, suggests a study published today. Most embryos fail to develop or to implant, and even those that are good quality may not be transferred.

Since 2017, the Centre de Recherche en Archéologie et Patrimoine (CReA-Patrimoine) has been exploring Brussels' Grand-Place and its surroundings. The aim: to understand how this central location of the city was built and transformed between the second Middle Ages and the end of the modern era. Here's a look back at these unusual excavations in one of the world's most beautiful squares.