A massive collision of galaxies sparked by one travelling at a scarcely-believable 2 million mph (3.2 million km/h) has been seen in unprecedented detail by one of Earth’s most powerful telescopes. The dramatic impact was observed in Stephan’s Quintet, a nearby galaxy group made up of five galaxies first sighted almost 150 years ago. It sparked an immensely powerful shock akin to a “sonic boom from a jet fighter” – the likes of which are among the most striking phenomena…
The mystery of why life uses molecules with specific orientations has deepened with a NASA-funded discovery that RNA — a key molecule thought to have potentially held the instructions for life before DNA emerged — can favor making the building blocks of proteins in either the left-hand or the right-hand orientation. Resolving this mystery could provide clues to the origin of life. The findings appear in research recently published in Nature Communications. Proteins are the workhorse molecules of life, used…
Study reveals low levels of common contaminants but high levels of other elements in waters associated with an abandoned lithium mine. Lithium ore and mining waste from a historic lithium mine located west of Charlotte, North Carolina, are unlikely to contaminate surrounding waters with common pollutants such as arsenic and lead, according to a new study. However, high levels of other metals — namely, lithium, rubidium and cesium — do occur in waters associated with the mine. The new findings,…
Rice engineers take unconventional route to improving thermophotovoltaic systems. Researchers at Rice University have found a new way to improve a key element of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems, which convert heat into electricity via light. Using an unconventional approach inspired by quantum physics, Rice engineer Gururaj Naik and his team designed a thermal emitter that can deliver high efficiencies within practical design parameters. The research could inform the development of thermal-energy electrical storage, which holds promise as an affordable, grid-scale alternative to…
Borrowing principles from pest management, ASU researchers aim to extend survival rate, quality of life for cancer patients. Just as crop-devouring insects evolve to resist pesticides, cancer cells can increase their lethality by developing resistance to treatment. In fact, most deaths from cancer are caused by the evolution of therapeutic resistance. In a new review, Arizona State University researchers, working with colleagues around the world, explore how established agricultural pest management strategies could be adapted to address cancer therapy. The…
A research team from the University of Freiburg and the Medical Center- University of Freiburg has developed a novel biomimetic speaking valve technology that could significantly increase the safety of tracheostomised patients. The challenge: if conventional speaking valves are used improperly, dangerous overpressure can occur, which can cause serious complications and even death. In a collaboration between the Freiburg Botanical Garden, the Medical Center – University of Freiburg and the Cluster of Excellence livMatS of the University of Freiburg, researchers…
ISTA scientists take a deep look into memory processing inside the hippocampus. Resembling a seahorse, as its name implies from the Greek words “hippos” (horse) and “kampus” (sea monster), the hippocampus is a brain region crucial for memory formation. But until recently, scientists have not been able to link memory formation to distinct molecular signals. Now, a team of scientists from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences likely opened this…
Second funding period for Research Training Group 2516 on structure formation in soft matter. German Research Foundation will continue its funding of the Research Training Group on soft matter for an additional four and a half years / Collaboration of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, the Technical University of Darmstadt, and the University of Stuttgart. The PhD students involved in the Research Training Group 2516. photo/©: Pol Besenius / JGU The doctoral training and…
Scientists at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN) in Dummerstorf have decoded the genome of the African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) in collaboration with international partners. The study (Nguinkal JA et al., Sci Data 11, 2024), which was recently published in the journal Scientific Data, represents a milestone for genetic research on the animal and aquaculture husbandry. The genome of the African catfish decoded The African catfish is one of the most important species in global fish production. It…
New research from the Kind Group at the Hubrecht Institute sheds light on how cells repair damaged DNA. For the first time, the team has mapped the activity of repair proteins in individual human cells. The study demonstrates how these proteins collaborate in so-called “hubs” to repair DNA damage. This knowledge offers opportunities to improve cancer therapies and other treatments where DNA repair is essential. The researchers published their findings in Nature Communications on November 21. DNA is the molecule…
The world’s thinnest spaghetti, about 200 times thinner than a human hair, has been created by a UCL-led research team. The spaghetti is not intended to be a new food but was created because of the wide-ranging uses that extremely thin strands of material, called nanofibers, have in medicine and industry. Nanofibers made of starch – produced by most green plants to store excess glucose – are especially promising and could be used in bandages to aid wound healing (as…
A large number of 2D materials like graphene can have nanopores – small holes formed by missing atoms through which foreign substances can pass. The properties of these nanopores dictate many of the materials’ properties, enabling the latter to sense gases, filter out seawater, and even help in DNA sequencing. “The problem is that these 2D materials have a wide distribution of nanopores, both in terms of shape and size,” says Ananth Govind Rajan, Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical…
… for continuous blood pressure monitoring. A team of researchers at the University of California San Diego has developed a new and improved wearable ultrasound patch for continuous and noninvasive blood pressure monitoring. Their work marks a major milestone, as the device is the first wearable ultrasound blood pressure sensor to undergo rigorous and comprehensive clinical validation on over 100 patients. The technology, published on Nov. 20 in Nature Biomedical Engineering, has the potential to improve the quality of cardiovascular…
Dr. Ksenia Fedosova from the Cluster of Excellence Mathematics Münster, along with an international research team, has proven a conjecture in string theory that physicists had proposed regarding certain equations. Their findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). String theory aims to explain all fundamental forces and particles in the universe – essentially, how the world operates on the smallest scales. Though it has not yet been experimentally verified, work in string theory…
The occurrence of multiple stressors undermines the acclimatisation strategies of juvenile herring: If larvae are exposed to several stress factors at the same time, their ability to respond to these changes at the molecular level is reduced. Experiments by a team from the northern German cities of Oldenburg and Kiel show that a combination of two factors is sufficient to prevent a reaction. When herring larvae are exposed to multiple stressors simultaneously, their ability to react to these changes at…
Plant biologists show how two genes work together to trigger embryo formation in rice. Rice is a staple food crop for more than half the world’s population, but most farmers don’t grow high-yielding varieties because the seeds are too expensive. Researchers from the University of California’s Davis and Berkeley campuses have identified a potential solution: activating two genes in rice egg cells that trigger their development into embryos without the need for fertilization, which would efficiently create high-yielding clonal strains…
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