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Press cuttings, news in brief, ESRF and User's news reported elsewhere.

Inauguration of ID24

by Claus Habfast — 16-11-2011

On 10 November, the ESRF inaugurated the first Upgrade Beamline, ID24, which will soon observe like in a time-lapse film sequence extremely rapid processes, whether laser-heating of iron to 10,000 degrees, charge reactions in new batteries or catalysts cleaning pollutants. … Read More…

BBC News on innovation, GIANT and the ESRF

by Claus Habfast — 25-10-2011

Successful innovation is increasingly seen as a process involving the close geographic proximity of fundamental science, applied research and hi-tech industry. … Read More…

The Guardian praises the ESRF

by Claus Habfast — 14-09-2011

An editorial in the UK newspaper The Guardian puts the contributions by the ESRF to recent research on fossils into an overall societal perspective.… Read More…

Nature speculates on a Nobel Prize

by Claus Habfast — 06-09-2011

The study of G-protein-coupled-receptors is one of today's hot topics in structural biology. A news feature in Nature tells why.… Read More…

Deutschlandfunk interviews Helen Walker

by Claus Habfast — 05-09-2011

The smallest atomic displacements ever were observed in an experiment led by ESRF scientist Helen Walker, published in SCIENCE dated 2 September 2011.… Read More…

National Geographic features A. Sediba

by Claus Habfast — 19-07-2011

The August 2011 issue of National Geographic tells the story of the discovery of Australopithecus Sediba, a new hominid species, by Lee Berger from Witwatersrand University in South Africa.… Read More…

The Engineer on Sepiolites

by Claus Habfast — 18-07-2011

Sepiolite is a porous clay material that can absorb more liquid than any other known mineral. A Franco-Spanish team of scientists used X-ray and electron single-crystal diffraction to resolve the structure of the tiny sepiolite crystals. The results open the path to their sy… Read More…

Scanning chemical bonds with X-rays

by Claus Habfast — 01-06-2011

German public radio Deutsche Welle reports on a new synchrotron technique developed at the ESRF which is sensitive to chemical bonds deep inside the bulk of materials.… Read More…

Frozen atomic monolayers

by Claus Habfast — 07-04-2011

Molecules forming extremely thin films can remain frozen at a temperature where the bulk material is already molten. Science Centric tells the story of this discovery with applications extending from organic solar cells to biosensors.… Read More…

Fading sunflowers

by Claus Habfast — 16-02-2011

X-rays reveal why van Gogh paintings loose their shine - this joint press release by the ESRF with five partners attracted global media coverage, generating several hundred articles worldwide, along with radio and TV coverage.… Read More…

Valentine's Day

by Claus Habfast — 16-02-2011

If flowers or a diamond are out of question as a Valentine's Day gift, you might go for chocolate. "Symmetry Breaking", the joint magazine by Fermilab and SLAC on the extra dimensions of particle physics, turns to the ESRF.… Read More…

Revealing the leg of an ancient snake

by Claus Habfast — 16-02-2011

Also the second ESRF press release in 2011 on a publication in "Vertebrate Palaeontology" attracted global media coverage. No wonder, snakes are fascinating, if not frightening animals. And if in addition, they have legs ... … Read More…

Neues ID01 Diffraktometer (in German)

by Claus Habfast — 02-02-2011

Since the last winter shutdown, ID01 is commissioning a new state-of-the-art diffractometer. The industrial supplier is very proud of this hi-tech piece of equipment, and before its shipment to Grenoble presented it to the Mayor of the town where the company is based.… Read More…

Moscovskaya Pravda (in Russian)

by Claus Habfast — 17-01-2011

The Russian boulevard newspaper Moscovskaya Pravda reports on ESRF scientists Irina and Anatoly Snigirev, along with Victor Kohn from the Kurchatov Institute and Bruno Lengeler from Aachen University, jointly receiving the 2010 BESSY Innovation Award on Synchrotron Radiati… Read More…

El litio le gusta a El Pais

by Claus Habfast — 14-01-2011

Scientists working at the ESRF and APS have discovered that under high pressure, lithium “prefers” the liquid state. At 0.5 Mbar, it is the elemental metal with by far the lowest melting point.… Read More…

An Ammonite's last supper

by Claus Habfast — 10-01-2011

The discovery on what fed Baculites, a major group of Ammonites, extinct distant relatives of the squid and the octopus, attracted major global media coverage. … Read More…

Discovery of equilibrium gels

by Claus Habfast — 21-12-2010

A soft cream or gel that does not disintegrate after a long time: this has become possible thanks to the discovery of a new state of soft matter. Leading media tell the story of these experiments made at the ESRF.… Read More…

Neanderthals' short childhood

by Claus Habfast — 23-11-2010

A study, performed at the ESRF, of the fossilized teeth of Neandertal children found that their permanent teeth grew significantly faster and erupted earlier than those of our own species, Homo sapiens. … Read More…

How sperm meets the egg

by Claus Habfast — 23-11-2010

Researchers in Sweden have cracked the mysteries behind the fusion of egg and sperm at the beginning of fertilisation, using protein crystallography at the ESRF.… Read More…

The secrets of "sfumato"

by Claus Habfast — 23-07-2010

How did Leonardo da Vinci produce the "sfumato" effect so characteristic for the "Mona Lisa"and other renaissance paintings? Scientists of the Louvre were helped by the ESRF with the analysis of the data when they put the Louvre's most famous painting under the X-ray machine… Read More…


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