Latest news with #DESY
Forbes
3 days ago
- Health
- Forbes
Shark Skeletons Aren't Bones. They're Blueprints.
Blacktips are medium-sized coastal sharks commonly found in warm, shallow waters around the world, ... More including the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Sharks don't have bones. Instead, their skeletons are made from mineralized cartilage, an adaptation that has helped these predators move through the oceans for over 400 million years. A new study takes a deeper look — quite literally — at how this cartilage works. Using a combination of high-resolution 3D imaging and in-situ mechanical testing, a global team of scientists have mapped out the internal structure of shark cartilage and found it to be much more complex than it appears on the surface. The findings not only help explain how sharks maintain their strength and flexibility, but also open the door for developing tough, adaptable materials based on nature's own engineering. The research focused on blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) and involved a collaboration between the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University, the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Germany, and NOAA Fisheries. Blacktips are medium-sized coastal sharks commonly found in warm, shallow waters around the world, including the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They typically grow to about 5 feet (1.5 meters) in length, though some individuals can reach up to 8 feet (2.4 meters). Named for the distinctive black markings on the tips of their dorsal, pelvic, and tail fins, blacktip sharks primarily eat small fish, squid, and crustaceans, using quick bursts of speed to chase down prey. The team zoomed in on their cartilage using synchrotron X-ray nanotomography, a powerful imaging technique that can reveal details down to the nanometer scale. What they found was that the cartilage wasn't uniform. In fact, it had two distinct regions, each with its own structure and purpose. One is called the 'corpus calcareum,' the outer mineralized layer, and the other is the 'intermediale,' the inner core. Both are made of densely packed collagen and bioapatite (the same mineral found in human bones). But while their chemical makeup is similar, their physical structures are not. In both regions, the cartilage was found to be full of pores and reinforced with thick struts, which help absorb pressure and strain from multiple directions. That's especially important for sharks, since they are constantly in motion. Their spines have to bend and flex without breaking as they swim. The cartilage, it turns out, acts almost like a spring. It stores energy as the shark's tail flexes, then releases that energy to power the next stroke. The scientists also noted the presence of tiny, needle-like crystals of bioapatite aligned with strands of collagen. This alignment increases the material's ability to resist damage. Researchers also noted helical fiber structures in the cartilage, the twisting patterns of collagen helping prevent cracks from spreading. These structures work together to distribute pressure and protect the skeleton from failure; this kind of layered, directional reinforcement is something human engineers have tried to mimic in synthetic materials, but nature has been perfecting it for hundreds of millions of years. The intermediale cartilage of a blacktip shark, with arrows highlighting the internal mineralized ... More network that supports and reinforces the structure. Dr. Vivian Merk, senior author of the study and an assistant professor in the FAU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the FAU Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering, and the FAU Department of Biomedical Engineering, explained in a press release that this is a prime example of biomineralization: 'Nature builds remarkably strong materials by combining minerals with biological polymers, such as collagen – a process known as biomineralization. This strategy allows creatures like shrimp, crustaceans and even humans to develop tough, resilient skeletons. Sharks are a striking example. Their mineral-reinforced spines work like springs, flexing and storing energy as they swim.' Merk hopes that understanding how sharks pull this off can help inspire new materials that are both strong and flexible, perfect for medical implants, protective gear, or aerospace design. To test just how tough this cartilage really is, the team applied pressure to microscopic pieces of the shark's vertebrae. At first, they saw only slight deformations of less than one micrometer. Only after applying pressure a second time did they observe fractures, and even then, the damage stayed confined to a single mineralized layer, hinting at the material's built-in resistance to catastrophic failure. 'After hundreds of millions of years of evolution, we can now finally see how shark cartilage works at the nanoscale – and learn from them,' said Dr. Marianne Porter, co-author and an associate professor in the FAU Department of Biological Sciences. 'We're discovering how tiny mineral structures and collagen fibers come together to create a material that's both strong and flexible, perfectly adapted for a shark's powerful swimming. These insights could help us design better materials by following nature's blueprint.' Dr. Stella Batalama, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science, agreed: 'This research highlights the power of interdisciplinary collaboration. By bringing together engineers, biologists and materials scientists, we've uncovered how nature builds strong yet flexible materials. The layered, fiber-reinforced structure of shark cartilage offers a compelling model for high-performance, resilient design, which holds promise for developing advanced materials from medical implants to impact-resistant gear.' This research was supported by a National Science Foundation grant awarded to Merk; an NSF CAREER Award, awarded to Porter; and seed funding from the FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science and FAU Sensing Institute (I-SENSE). The acquisition of a transmission electron microscope was supported by a United States Department of Defense instrumentation/equipment grant awarded to Merk.
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Two-stage plasma trick helps electron beams behave better in tiny accelerators
When it comes to making groundbreaking discoveries in particle physics, scientists rely on large particle accelerators to conduct advanced experiments. These powerful machines use long tracks and magnets to push particles to high speeds. However, such accelerators are massive and considerably expensive. To overcome these limitations, scientists have been working on laser plasma acceleration, an exciting technology that can result in the development of smaller, cheaper, and more accessible accelerators. A laser-plasma accelerator is only a few centimeters in size, but can accelerate particles to very high speeds and energies needed for scientific experiments. In theory, it uses intense laser pulses and plasma waves instead of conventional magnets. Now, a team of researchers from the German research facility Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) have made significant progress in realizing the laser-plasma acceleration technology. In their latest study, scientists propose a new method to enhance the quality of electron beams produced by laser-plasma accelerators. 'Using a clever correction system, a research team was able to significantly improve the quality of electron bunches accelerated by a laser plasma accelerator. This brings the technology a step closer to concrete applications, such as a plasma-based injector for a synchrotron storage ring,' the study authors note. Currently, there are two main challenges with laser plasma acceleration technology: beam uniformity and energy distribution. These issues arise because not all the electron bunches (groups of electrons) accelerated by the plasma wave behave in the same way. Some gain more energy than others, leading to uneven and less predictable beams. The study authors have found a way to fix these problems using a two-stage correction method. First, they send the uneven electron bunches from the LUX (Laser and X-ray free electron laser) accelerator through a special arrangement of four magnets called a chicane. This chicane forces the electrons to take a detour, which stretches out the bunch in time and also separates them based on their energies. As a result, the faster, high-energy electrons end up at the front of the stretched-out bunch, and the slower, lower-energy ones end up at the back. Next, this stretched and sorted bunch of electrons goes into a device (a resonator) similar to those used in regular particle accelerators. This device uses radio waves to either slow down or speed up the electrons. 'If you time the beam arrival carefully to the radio frequency, the low-energy electrons at the back of the bunch can be accelerated, and the high-energy electrons at the front can be decelerated. This compresses the energy distribution,' said Paul Winkler, lead author of the study. The process ensures that the energy of all electrons in the bunch is more or less equal. Using this approach, the DESY team was able to make the energy differences within a bunch 18 times smaller and the overall energy of the bunches 72 times more consistent. These results made laser-plasma accelerated electron bunches almost as good as those produced by traditional, giant accelerators. The researchers at DESY are upbeat following their successful experiment which turned a theoretical idea into reality for the very first time. The two-stage correction method has never been experimentally demonstrated until now. 'What we have achieved is a big step forward for plasma accelerators. We still have a lot of development work to do, such as improving the lasers and achieving continuous operation, but in principle, we have shown that a plasma accelerator is suitable for this type of application," noted Wim Leemans, one of the study authors. The scientists understand how this technique could be used. They believe it might help create and speed up electron bunches that can be fed into powerful X-ray machines like PETRA III. PETRA is a large scientific facility at DESY that uses fast-moving electrons to produce extremely bright X-rays. These X-rays help scientists examine various materials, molecules, and biological samples in great detail. The study has been published in the journal Nature.
