Mammal’s ancestors evolved in size and appearance throught millions of years to avoid predators. Researchers from the University of Witswatersrand are on ID19 this weekend to find out whether whiskers played a role in this evolution.
Image: The team in the experimental hutch with one of the samples. Credits: C. Argoud
Butterfly colour has always amazed scientists, who are trying to find the origins of these vivid tones in order to maybe one day be able to reproduce them. Researchers from the University of Sheffield (UK) have come to the ESRF to study the subtle differences in the structural colour elements of Heliconius butterflies, and link them to the genetics that controls these structures.
Image credit: A Heliconius butterfly. Credit: Dany 13. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dany13/11465883596
A study published in Science Advances reveals a half billion year old fabrication concept, employed by nature, which only recently has been used by mankind to produce novel technologically relevant nanomaterials. Using data from three different X-ray imaging and analysis instruments at the ESRF, the European Synchrotron, Grenoble, France, the international team of scientists unravels how living organisms create very complex highly regular glass structures.
Image credit: Electron microscopy image of glass spicules form the sponge Geodia cydonium. Credits : Igor Zlotnikov, B CUBE–Center for Molecular Bioengineering, Technische Universität Dresden
Every data that could help them to solve a problem or to better understand materials or living matter. They have a new record with 30,000 publications being reached in September 2017.
The users of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility have published 30,000 publications in peer-reviewed journals since the facility first opened its doors in 1994. The publications included many breakthroughs that were achieved with ESRF data, such as the discovery of the structure of the ribosome that led to a Nobel prize shared by two of our users.
These 30,000 publications reflect the scientific vibrancy of our user community. Since 1994, ESRF users from all over the world, from different cultures and disciplines, have worked together to push back the frontiers of science, unlocking the secrets of materials and living matter. All the inventive research carried out at the ESRF propagates to society and boosts the scientific cultures, the economies and the competitiveness of the ESRF member states and beyond.
From high-school level to post-doctoral fellows, these future professionals have chosen the ESRF to gain that practical experience so valued on a CV. Meet some of our students and find out how their experience at the ESRF is shaping their future.
Emily Galvin, Katie Mordecai and William Spencer are in various stages of a 4-year technical apprenticeship with the STFC in the UK. They have spent three weeks in the ESRF mechanical workshop on a shared project, machining prototype parts from drawings using a computer numeric tool (CNC). The parts, which have been designed in-house, will be used on a slit positioning assembly through which the light beam is concentrated on the beamline.
“The software I’m using is completely new to me and of course it’s all in French, so I’m learning fast!”, says Katie. “These CNC machines are really expensive and I’ve never been allowed to operate one before. My supervisor has been great in showing us how it works and trusting us to use it.”
A team of theoretical and experimental physicists, including scientists from DESY, lead by the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK in Heidelberg, Germany) has developed and realized a method to “sharpen” spectrally broad X-ray pulses by purely mechanical means. It is based on fast motions, precisely synchronized with the pulses, of a target interacting with the X-ray light. Thereby, photons are redistributed within the X-ray pulse to the desired spectral region, as the scientists demonstrated at DESYs X-ray source PETRA III and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility ESRF (Grenoble, France). The researchers present their work in the journal “Science”.
The novel method can intensify the spectrally broad X-ray pulses in a narrow spectral region. Such X-ray pulses are desired for a number of fundamental physics experiments or are a prerequisite for some precision experiments. The key roles are played by a piezoelectric transducer which performs precise motions upon electric signals and by a thin iron foil. Precisely synchronized motions redistribute the photons within the X-ray pulse to a narrow wavelength region. “Our method doesn’t waste photons like a monochromator that only cuts off the undesired wavelengths”, explains Jörg Evers from the division of Christoph Keitel at MPIK. “On the other hand, we don’t need to increase the overall energy of the X-ray pulse.”
With high-pressure experiments at DESY’s X-ray light source PETRA III and other facilities, a research team around Leonid Dubrovinsky from the University of Bayreuth has solved a long standing riddle in the analysis of meteorites from Moon and Mars. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, can explain why different versions of silica can coexist in meteorites, although they normally require vastly different conditions to form. The results also mean that previous assessments of conditions at which meteorites have been formed have to be carefully re-considered.
The scientists investigated a silicon dioxide (SiO2) mineral that is called cristobalite. „This mineral is of particular interest when studying planetary samples, such as meteorites, because this is the predominant silica mineral in extra-terrestrial materials,“ explains first author Ana Černok from Bayerisches Geoinstitut (BGI) at University Bayreuth, who is now based at the Open University in the UK. „Cristobalite has the same chemical composition as quartz, but the structure is significantly different,“ adds co-author Razvan Caracas from CNRS, ENS de Lyon.
Picture: Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona [Source]
