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Just one week before the early bird tickets close, BSBF2018 can announce an exciting new assessment: At the conference, the nine Big Science organisations behind BSF2018 - CERN, EMBL, ESA, ESO, ESRF, ESS, European XFEL, F4E, and ILL - will present investments worth 10 billion euros for the next five years.The 10 billion euro investments represent exciting opportunities for European businesses and…

Photo ILL / Max Alexander Iron-based superconductors contain layers of iron and a pnictogen – such as arsenic or phosphorus – or a chalcogen, like oxygen or selenium. Previously dismissed eas weak candidates for superconductivity, iron-based superconductors took th…

From left to right: Fabien Lafont and Victor Buridon, post-docs ILL/BrightnESS, and Anton Khaplanov, ESS Multi-grid detectors, introduced at the ILL in 2010, have shown their great potential to replace Helium-3-based detectors, and as a result, they will equip seve…

Twice each year the UK honours its citizens who held high office or rendered extraordinary service.In the New Year’s Honours list just published, we are delighted to learn that Bill Stirling, formerly Director of the ILL and Director General of the ESRF, has been awarded the prestigious title of Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for services to British science and internati…

Credit Synthelis / Illusciencia January 2018p7 is a protein essential for the release of the hepatitis C virus, however little data is currently available on the way it interacts with its environment, hindering the development of vaccinations for itResearchers have…

Chemical structures of a PC lipid (a) and of the glycolipid DGDG (b) as representatives of two fundamentally different lipid classes found in nature: Lipids with a headgroup chemistry dominated by one large electric dipole and lipids whose headgroups comprise multiple small electric dipoles in th…

Left: Molecular structure of the (Cr7Ni)2 dimer Right: Constant-energy plots of the neutron scattering intensity: comparison of data (a,b) and calculations (c,d). Short-Q modulations are a portrayal of entanglement. Credit: E.Garlatti, et al., Nature Commun.(2017). …

The endofullerene HF@C60 has attracted great interest, as it allows the spectroscopic properties of the isolated hydrogen fluoride (HF) molecule to be examined under carefully controlled conditionsScientists produced the first samples of HF@C60 using molecular surgery, which involved encapsulation…

During the past three decades, lithium ion batteries have become the leading technology for powering consumer electronics. Energy is stored in the battery when positively charged lithium ions fl ow through an electrolyte from a positive lithium-containing electrode to a more negative electrode; el…

9 September 2016An experiment measuring gamma rays from the nucleus 133Sb provides new insights into the fundamental coupling between collective and single-particle structures in exotic nuclei.Nuclear reactions are among the most important processes that drive our Universe. In our Sun nuclear fusion provides the energy for the sun to radiate. In more violent cosmic events neutron capture reaction…

Newly discovered multiferroic nano-clusters might help to enable the next generation of processor and memory devices 24.06.2016A team of scientists from England, Germany and France recently discovered novel so-called multiferroic clusters. Results were published as a featured article in the journa…

HIV-1 protease in cartoon representation with bound clinical drug darunavir. Credit Jill Hemman and Andrey Kovalevsky (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) 08.05.2016HIV-1 protease is an enzyme which is essential for the replication of HIV, the retrovirus that causes AID…