NEWS RELEASES

A simple yet powerful method to characterize how lithium deposits in lithium metal batteries could lead to the development of safer, longer-lasting and more energy dense batteries for electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage.

In a major step toward next-generation electronics, researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have discovered a way to manipulate the direction of charge flow in ultrathin metallic films at room temperature using light.

Installing solar panels and battery packs can lower electricity costs and help people manage local and regional power outages affordably, a new Stanford study finds.

Rubisco activase is an ATP-dependent chaperone that facilitates dissociation of inhibitory sugar phosphates from the catalytic sites of Rubisco during photosynthesis. In Arabidopsis, Rubisco activase is negatively regulated by dark-dependent phosphorylation of Thr78. However, it is not clear whether this mechanism is relevant outside of Arabidopsis. To address this knowledge gap, researchers at the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI) investigated the prevalence of Thr78 in Rubisco activase across 91 plant species. Their results suggest that despite conservation of Thr78 in Rubisco activase from a wide range of species, a regulatory role for phosphorylation at this site is more limited. This provides a case study for how variation in post-translational regulation can amplify functional divergence across the phylogeny of plants beyond what is explained by sequence variation in a metabolically important protein.

MIT researchers developed a fully autonomous platform that can identify, mix, and characterize novel polymer blends until it finds the optimal blend. This system could streamline the design of new composite materials for sustainable biocatalysis, better batteries, cheaper solar panels, and safer drug-delivery materials.

A new theory-guided framework could help scientists probe the properties of new semiconductors for next-generation microelectronic devices, or discover materials that boost the performance of quantum computers.