Researchers at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and the Scintillon Institute in the USA have designed a sensor that can detect counterfeit olive oil labelled as extra virgin or protected designation of origin. The tool, a report on which has been published in Talanta, can distinguish between apparently similar oils that present notable differences…
The Engineering Work of Ants Can Influence Paleoclimatic Studies
Ants of the species Messor barbarus modify the grain size and mineralogical composition of the soils they inhabit, influencing the results obtained in palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental studies, according to research conducted by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN), the Institute of Geosciences (CSIC, UCM) and the Doñana Biological…
Nano-Sized Gold Particles Have Been Shaped to Behave as Clones in Biomedicine
Shaping nanometric gold particles – of the size of millionths of a millimeter – to improve their properties in biomedicine and photonics has been made possible thanks to a special laser system in a work carried out at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and now published in Science. The research, in which the CIC biomaGUNE…
Biosensor Quickly Detects Horse Meat Posing as Beef
The adulterating of beef with horse meat can now be detected with an electrochemical biosensor developed by the Complutense University of Madrid, which is able to recognize a DNA fragment that exists among 4500 mitochondrial genomes of horses, and which is absent in other mammals. “Thus, it is possible to identify selectively and without false…
Biosensor Can Detect Tumors at Early Stages
Before a malignant tumor is developed, the immune system tries to fight against proteins that are altered during their formation, producing certain cancer antibodies. A biosensor developed by scientists from the Complutense University of Madrid has been able to detect these defensive units in serum samples of patients with colorectal and ovarian cancer. The developed…
A Team of Physicists Dispel Rayleigh’s Curse
The resolution of an optical system (like a telescope or a camera) is limited by the so-called Rayleigh criterion. An international team, led by Complutense University of Madrid, has broken this limit, showing that it is not a fundamental curse. This opens the door to considerable improvement in resolution and could force the revision of…
First Direct Evidence for Ultra-fast Responses in Human Amygdala to Fear
For the first time, an international team of scientists lead by researchers from the Campus de Excelencia Internacional Moncloa (UCM-UPM) has shown that the amygdala in the human brain is able to detect possible threats in the visual environment at ultra-fast time scales. By measuring the electrical activity in the amygdala of patients that had…