Tag Archives: Silk

Stunning Close-Up of Spider Silk Earns Scientific Photography Award

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spider silk

Martin J. Ramirez/Royal Society Publishing

The silk threads, surrounded by finer looped strands, originate from Australian cast-net spiders (Asianopis sublufa), known as exceptional ambush predators. Instead of crafting a web and waiting for their prey, these spiders utilize their four front legs to control the web and ensnare their unfortunate target. This electron microscopy image reveals the spider’s silk, which is uniquely tailored for this peculiar hunting method. The silk structure features an elastic core enveloped in a sheath of firmer fibers of varying thicknesses, ensuring it is both robust and highly flexible.

The photograph was captured by Martin J. Ramirez, whose team at Argentina’s Bernardino Rivadavia Museum of Natural Sciences clinched the top prize at the 2025 Royal Society Publication Photography Competition.

prairie chicken in mid-air

Peter Hudson/Royal Society Publishing

The standout photo in the behavior category depicts a confrontation between two male prairie chickens (Tympanuchus cupido). Captured by Peter Hudson from Pennsylvania State University, this image illustrates the males gathering in leks during mating season, engaging in aerial displays to compete for female attention.

tadpole

Filippo Carugati/Royal Society Publishing

Filippo Carugati from the University of Turin, Italy, earned recognition in the Ecology and Environmental Sciences category for capturing this tadpole during an expedition in Madagascar. This juvenile is believed to be a Gibemantis liber, residing in a gelatinous substance that clings to tree trunks.

atlas moth

Irina Petrova Adamatzky/Royal Society Publishing

The image was taken by Irina Petrova Adamatzky, a UK-based photographer and runner-up in the behavioral category. The Atlas moth (Attacus atlas), one of the largest moth species globally with wingspans reaching up to 30 centimeters, exhibits remarkable mimicry that resembles snake heads at the tips of its wings, providing camouflage against avian predators.

fog in the Atacama desert

Felipe Ríos Silva/Royal Society Publishing

In Chile’s Atacama Desert, stratocumulus clouds that flow in from the coast serve as a vital resource. Felipe Ríos Silva, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, is investigating ways to capture this fog and convert it into potable water for residents living in one of Earth’s driest regions. His photo earned him the runner-up spot in the Earth Science and Climatology category.

Antarctic sunrise

Dr. Aman Chokshi/Royal Society Publishing

This photograph captures the sun’s emergence after six months of darkness in Antarctica. Dr. Aman Chokshi, a runner-up in the astronomy category at McGill University in Canada, braved brutal -70°C (-94°F) winds and heated his camera to take a 360-degree panoramic shot of the horizon as the sun rose, transforming it into a three-dimensional image that resembles a small planet encircled by green and purple auroras alongside the Milky Way.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Explore two historic cities along the Silk Road in Uzbekistan

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These two medieval cities, named Tashbulak and Tugubulak, are among the largest cities ever recorded on the mountainous Silk Road, a vast network of ancient trade routes that connected Europe and East Asia. is.

A drone captured this image of Tugumburak in 2018. Image credit: M. Frachetti.

Tashbulac and Tugumbrac are located on rugged terrain between 2,000 and 2,200 meters above sea level (roughly comparable to Machu Picchu in Peru), making them rare examples of thriving mountain cities.

The small city of Tashbulak had an area of ​​about 12 hectares, while the larger city of Tugubulak reached 120 hectares, making it one of the largest provincial cities of the time.

“These would have been important urban centers in Central Asia, especially if they moved from lowland oases to more difficult highlands,” said archaeologist Professor Michael Frachetti of Washington University in St. Louis.

“Although typically seen as barriers to trade and movement on the Silk Road, the mountains were actually major centers of exchange.”

“Animals, minerals, and other valuable resources likely drove their prosperity.”

“The Tugumbrak site had an elaborate urban structure with a specific material culture that was very different from the sedentary culture of the lowlands,” added Dr. Farkhod Makhdov, director of the National Archaeological Center of Uzbekistan.

“It is clear that the people who lived in Tugumburak more than a thousand years ago were nomads who maintained their own independent culture and political economy.”

Combined lidar view of Tugumburak. Image credit: SAIElab / J.Berner / M. Frachetti.

Drone-based lidar scanning revealed squares, fortresses, roads and settlements in Tashbulak and Tugubulak.

“These are some of the highest resolution lidar images of the site ever published,” Dr. Frachetti said.

“They are made possible, in part, because of the unique erosion dynamics in this mountainous environment.”

“Both cities need more thorough testing,” he added.

“Preliminary excavations at one of the fortified structures in Tugumburak show that this fortification (a building protected by a three-meter-thick rammed earth wall) was constructed by a local metal smith who used the rich iron ore deposits to create steel. This suggests that it may have been a processing factory.

“Such an industry would have been an important feature of the city and its economy.”

It is already clear that Tashbulak and Tugubulak were not just remote outposts or resting places.

“The Silk Road was not just about China and its western terminus,” Dr. Frachetti said.

“Major political forces were active in Central Asia. Complex centers of networks were also drivers of innovation.”

team's result Published in this month's magazine nature.

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MD Frachetti others. 2024. Large-scale medieval urbanization tracked by UAV lidar in the highlands of Central Asia. nature 634, 1118-1124; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08086-5

Source: www.sci.news

Silk hydrogel battery could power pacemakers in mice

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SEI 2269283401

A small soft lithium-ion battery made from water droplets

oxford university

The smallest soft lithium-ion battery ever made consists of just three tiny droplets formed from a silk-based hydrogel. Droplet batteries can provide pacemaker-style control and deliver defibrillator shocks to beating mouse hearts, but could eventually be used in biomedical implants and wearable electronics for humans. It may supply electricity.

“Potentially, our small battery could be used as an implantable microrobotic battery, which could be moved to a target location by a magnetic field and release its energy for treatment.” . Yuka Zhang at Oxford University.

Zhang and colleagues designed the small battery as three connected droplets that can self-assemble in solution after injecting various components into the liquid with a microsyringe. One droplet contains lithium manganese oxide particles and serves as the battery's negative electrode. The second droplet contains lithium titanate particles and serves as the positive electrode. A central droplet filled with lithium chloride separates these electrodes. UV light energizes the battery by breaking down the layers that separate each droplet, allowing lithium ions to flow freely between the droplets.

Droplet batteries are one-tenth the length of traditional soft lithium-ion batteries. At just 600 micrometers, it is about six times as wide as a human hair. The battery is also 1000 times smaller in volume than similar flexible lithium-ion batteries. The central droplet can also incorporate magnetic nickel particles, allowing the battery to be controlled remotely via an external magnetic field.

Such a small battery also provides an unprecedented amount of energy considering its small size. Wei Gao at the California Institute of Technology. “This energy density is significantly higher than what has been achieved with other similarly sized batteries,” he says.

The droplet battery was tested on a mouse heart removed from the animal's body. These successfully functioned as defibrillators to restore normal heartbeats and as pacemakers to regulate heartbeats. Additional testing showed that the battery retained 77% of its original capacity after 10 charge/discharge cycles.

The simplicity and scalability of such droplet batteries could be a potential advantage over traditional battery manufacturing in the future, Gao said. He suggested that such batteries could power minimally invasive biomedical implants and biodegradable medical devices.

“What impressed me most is how this soft battery mirrors the aqueous environment of human tissue by being hydrogel-based,” Gao says. “However, we still need to consider the safety and biocompatibility of the materials used in this battery, especially as we move towards commercialization and further research applications.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com