Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC)

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive memory disorder that affects nearly one in three seniors and is on the rise, currently affecting 43 million people worldwide. Behind the memory impairments, there is a perfect storm of destruction in the brain, stemming in part from accumulations of a protein called tau. Normally a stabilizing structure inside of

UCSB researchers compare the performance of human subjects versus deep neural networks in visual searches Before you read on, look for toothbrushes in the photo above. Find them? Both of them? If you’re like the vast majority of people, you honed in on the one near the sink, but probably took a moment or two

Image via Wikipedia The winner was: Confucianism! An international study published last month looked at how students in 65 countries performed in math, science and reading. The winner was: Confucianism! At the very top of the charts, in all three fields and by a wide margin, was Shanghai. Three of the next top four performers were

Stable autonomous kill switches ensure biocontainment of living microbes designed as devices for medicine or the environment Synthetic biologists are fitting the genomes of microorganisms with synthetic gene circuits to break down polluting plastics, non-invasively diagnose and treat infections in the human gut, and generate chemicals and nutrition on long haul space flights. Although showing

The reversals have gripped Japan with a sense of national angst over its future A few years ago, the densely built-up coastal region around this port was called Panel Bay because of its concentration of factories making the sophisticated flat-panel screens that were symbols of Japan’s manufacturing prowess. But now the area has become a

Researchers have been able to tune ‘coherence’ in organic nanostructures due to the surprise discovery of wavelike electrons in organic materials, revealing the key to generating “long-lived charges” in organic solar cells – material that could revolutionise solar energy. By using an ultrafast camera, scientists say they have observed the very first instants following the

New 3-D printing process speeds up fabrication of multiple-material objects Researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering have developed a faster 3D printing process and are now using it to model and fabricate heterogeneous objects, which comprise multiple materials. Although 3D printing – or direct digital manufacturing – has the potential to revolutionize various