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Latest News 2026/07
Latest news from laboratory, environment, chemistry, life science and quality control
- Quality assurance for 3D cell models
Three-dimensional cell models could fundamentally transform drug development - provided their quality can be reliably and efficiently controlled. Within the AutoSphere project, the LZH has advanced... - EFSA lowers safe level for exposure to TFA
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has reduced the safe level of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) in the diet based on new scientific evidence. TFA is a breakdown product of some pesticides. The E... - Taiga Forests Protect Permafrost Soils
From Alaska to Siberia, canopies of boreal forests shield the frozen ground from deeper thawing. This keeps the carbon stored in permafrost locked away and thus protects our climate. The boreal ... - New sample environment allows glimpse into thermocatalytic processes
A novel measurement cell allows, for the first time, soft and hard X-ray investigations under high pressures of up to 20 bar and temperatures of up to 400°C. This provides new insights into thermoc... - Newly discovered protein conformation offers a potential target for cancer drugs
Several types of cancer are triggered by mutations in a protein called BRAF. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have resolved a previously unknown conformation adopted by this protein d... - Starving Bacteria to Death
Researchers find a new way to tackle drug-resistant infections: Bacteria have spent decades evolving resistance to virtually every antibiotic we have thron at them. To stay ahead, new drugs must hi... - European Innovation Scoreboard 2026: Germany remains one of Europe's leading innovation locations
Germany continues to rank among Europe's strongest innovation performers. This is confirmed by the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) 2026 published by the European Commission. Germany ranks nint... - Producing essential chemicals in a climate-neutral way
Platform chemicals such as ethylene are most often made from fossil source materials and generate considerable CO2 emissions. The EU-funded project REACT, in which Empa is one of the partners, aims... - How bacteria sacrifice themselves to render antibiotics ineffective
Bacteria can defend themselves against antibiotics with the help of an enzyme released by dying cells. That is the conclusion reached by a research group made up of researchers from the Institute f... - A world-first lens brings neutrons into sharper focus
Researchers at Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have developed the world's first achromatic lens for neutron imaging. The lens overcomes a longstanding obstacle in the field: focusing neutrons of differ... - A new way to follow electronic and vibrational dynamics in real time
Researchers have captured how a molecule redistributes energy after absorbing light, differentiating the roles of individual atoms in the process. They used X-ray flashes from the European XFEL to ... - Bacteria convert uranium into a stable chemical compound
The radioactive heavy metal uranium is usually found in the soil in a mineral-bound form but can be converted into soluble forms by environmental influences or mining activities. If it enters the e... - One of nature's largest enzymes decoded
A research team at Marburg University has investigated one of the largest enzyme complexes found in nature to date and deciphered its remarkable structure. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jan... - The understanding of biological radiation damage
Radiation is the silent bogeyman of the chemical world. We know that ionizing radiation can do terrible damage to proteins and DNA. But how exactly does that damage start and develop, on the chemic... - Ultrafast scanning tunneling microscopy reaches the quantum mechanical space-time limit
Werner Heisenberg's famous uncertainty principle describes one of the most intriguing features of quantum physics: certain pairs of physical quantities describing a particle, such as position and m... - Laser light controls molecular structures
Researchers from the Molecular Physics and Physical Chemistry Departments of the Fritz Haber Institute have shown how two highly synchronized infrared (IR) laser beams can control molecules as they... - How our environment quietly shapes disease
From the air we breathe to the food we eat, we are constantly exposed to thousands of chemicals - yet how these exposures affect our health has remained surprisingly difficult to understand. A ... - Mystery of MOF thin film structure solved
MOF thin films, as porous materials, play a key role in many potential applications. Researchers at TU Graz have now demonstrated that the prototypical example for thin films has a completely diffe... - PFAS in medicines can often be replaced with alternatives
Certain medicines contain per- and polyfluorinated alkyl compounds, known as PFAS, which are causing increasing environmental harm due to their long-lasting effects. A report by the University ... - Interrogating molecules on surfaces with spectroscopic precision
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) have developed a technique for interrogating molecules on surfaces with spectroscopic precision and thereby reaching the ultima... - Breakthrough in tailor-made enzyme design
Enzymes are regarded as the key to sustainable chemistry. Despite major advances in protein design, creating artificial enzymes from scratch has so far remained a grand challenge. A research te... - Developing fluorine-free transducers for the market
Storing energy, moving robots, detecting vibrations: The innovative silicon materials developed by Empa researcher Dorina Opris can do all this - and much more. She has now received a Proof of Conc...