Immune responses against commensal bacteria in donated organs add to the response against the organ itself, reducing the effectiveness of immunosuppressive drugs and causing damage to the organ graft. Organ transplant recipients take life-long immunosuppressive drugs to prevent their bodies from mounting an immune response against the donated organ, yet a substantial number of them still reject the organs. A new study by researchers from the University of Chicago shows that transplant recipients also mount an immune response against commensal…
If simply breathing can spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus to others nearby, what about blowing into a tuba? Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania used fluid mechanics to study the movement of aerosols generated by professional musicians. The latest research from the labs of Penn scientists Paulo Arratia and Douglas Jerolmack was an answer to “a call for help,” says Arratia. It was 2020, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, like so many cultural institutions, had suspended performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic….
The clear and periodic pattern of fast radio bursts may originate from a distant neutron star. Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have detected a strange and persistent radio signal from a far-off galaxy that appears to be flashing with surprising regularity. The signal is classified as a fast radio burst, or FRB — an intensely strong burst of radio waves of unknown astrophysical origin, that typically lasts for a few milliseconds at most. However, this new signal persists for up…
Several substances that killed antibiotic-resistant bacteria were found by Brazilian researchers in a marine sponge native to Fernando de Noronha, an archipelago off the coast of the Northeast. A research group led by scientists at the University of São Paulo (USP) in São Carlos, Brazil, has identified a number of bioactive compounds in a marine sponge collected on Fernando de Noronha, an archipelago about 400 km off the coast of Brazil’s Northeast region. Some of the substances proved capable of…
Researchers at Simon Fraser University have made a crucial breakthrough in the development of quantum technology. Their research, published in Nature today, describes their observations of over 150,000 silicon ‘T centre’ photon-spin qubits, an important milestone that unlocks immediate opportunities to construct massively scalable quantum computers and the quantum internet that will connect them. Quantum computing has enormous potential to provide computing power well beyond the capabilities of today’s supercomputers, which could enable advances in many other fields, including chemistry,…
Columbia Engineers build a robot that learns to understand itself, rather than the world around it. As every athletic or fashion-conscious person knows, our body image is not always accurate or realistic, but it’s an important piece of information that determines how we function in the world. When you get dressed or play ball, your brain is constantly planning ahead so that you can move your body without bumping, tripping, or falling over. We humans acquire our body-model as infants,…
UC San Diego researchers describe the biochemical pathway that leads to inflammation characteristic of autoimmune diseases, findings that may lead to new therapies. Mitochondria are self-contained organelles (they possess their own mini-chromosome and DNA) residing within cells and are charged with the job of generating the chemical energy needed to fuel functions essential to life and well-being. When stressed, damaged or dysfunctional, mitochondria expel their DNA (mtDNA), oxidized and cleaved, into the cytosol— the fluid within a cell in which…
A team of researchers, led by Virginia Tech, has engineered a glove that mimics the arm of an octopus. This work was featured on the cover of Science Advances. A team of researchers led by Virginia Tech’s Michael Bartlett have developed an octopus-inspired glove capable of securely gripping objects underwater. Their research was selected for the July 13 cover of Science Advances. Humans aren’t naturally equipped to thrive in an underwater environment. We use tanks to breathe, neoprene suits to protect and warm our…
With particles that release their payloads at different times, one injection could provide multiple vaccine doses. Most vaccines, from measles to Covid-19, require a series of multiple shots before the recipient is considered fully vaccinated. To make that easier to achieve, MIT researchers have developed microparticles that can be tuned to deliver theiir payload at different time points, which could be used to create “self-boosting” vaccines. In a new study, the researchers describe how these particles degrade over time, and…
… help to compress light for nanophotonic applications. KAIST researchers and their collaborators at home and abroad have successfully demonstrated a new platform for guiding the compressed light waves in very thin van der Waals crystals. Their method to guide the mid-infrared light with minimal loss will provide a breakthrough for the practical applications of ultra-thin dielectric crystals in next-generation optoelectronic devices based on strong light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. Phonon-polaritons are collective oscillations of ions in polar dielectrics coupled…
Scientists map atomic-level changes in the components of a running internal combustion engine using neutron techniques. The Science Researchers used neutrons to see how a new aluminum-cerium (AlCe) alloy behaves under the high temperatures and pressures inside an operating internal combustion engine. The technique involves measuring how neutrons scatter when they strike a material. This reveals characteristics deep inside the material’s atomic structure. Researchers fitted an AlCe cylinder head to a commercial engine typically used in construction and industrial applications….
New COMAP radio survey will peer beneath the “tip of the iceberg” of galaxies to unveil a hidden era of star formation. Sometime around 400 million years after the birth of our universe, the first stars began to form. The universe’s so-called dark ages came to an end and a new light-filled era began. More and more galaxies began to take shape and served as factories for churning out new stars, a process that reached a peak about 4 billion…
Neutron stars have the strongest magnetic fields in the universe, and the only way to measure their surface magnetic field directly is to observe the cyclotron absorption lines in their X-ray energy spectra. The Insight-HXMT team has recently discovered a cyclotron absorption line with an energy of 146 keV in the neutron star X-ray binary Swift J0243.6+6124, corresponding to a surface magnetic field of more than 1.6 billion Tesla. After direct measurement of the strongest magnetic field in the universe…
These newly discovered extreme environments offer clues on extraterrestrial life and may hold potential cancer-fighting compounds. Researchers at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science recently discovered rare deep-sea brine pools in the Gulf of Aqaba, a northern extension to the Red Sea. These salty underwater lakes hold secrets into the way oceans on Earth formed millions of years ago, and offer clues to life on other planets. In partnership with OceanX, Sam Purkis, professor and…
During sperm production, an enormous amount of DNA has to be packed into a very small space without breaking anything. A central role is played by certain proteins around which the DNA thread is wrapped – the protamines. A recent study by the University of Bonn provides new insights into this important mechanism. The results have been published in the journal PLoS Genetics. If you are moaning once again about your suitcase being far too small as your vacation approaches,…
… in advanced tumour disease. What factors influence the life expectancy of patients with advanced gastric cancer? Scientists at Leipzig University Hospital have discovered that the body’s inflammatory response is accompanied by reduced muscle quality in patients and ultimately constitutes the decisive factor for the prognosis. Their results have been published in the “Annals of Oncology.” A research group at Leipzig University Hospital, led by Professor Ulrich Hacker, together with scientists from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, has investigated…
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