A new study by the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich shows for the first time that bitter tasting protein fragments (peptides) are produced in the stomach during the digestion of the natural sweetener thaumatin. In a cellular test system, the peptides are able to stimulate the acid secretion of human stomach cells and influence inflammatory reactions. “Our research helps to elucidate the health effects of the plant protein, which is widely used as…
Discovery of orbital angular momentum monopoles boosts the emerging field of orbitronics, an energy-efficient alternative to electronics. Orbital angular momentum monopoles have been the subject of great theoretical interest as they offer major practical advantages for the emerging field of orbitronics, a potential energy-efficient alternative to traditional electronics. Now, through a combination of robust theory and experiments at the Swiss Light Source SLS at Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, their existence has been demonstrated. The discovery is published in the journal…
Some of the first data from an international space mission is confirming decades worth of speculation about the galactic neighborhoods of supermassive black holes. More exciting than the data, though, is the fact that the long-awaited satellite behind it—the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission or XRISM—is just getting started providing such unparalleled insights. “We have found the right tool for developing an accurate picture of the unexplored orders of magnitude around supermassive black holes,” Jon Miller, professor of astronomy at…
… a material vital for electronics. When Valery Levitas left Europe in 1999, he packed up a rotational diamond anvil cell and brought it to the United States. He and the researchers in his group are still using a much-advanced version of that pressing, twisting tool to squeeze and shear materials between two diamonds to see in situ, within the actual experiment, what happens and verify the researchers’ own theoretical predictions. How, for example, do crystal structures change? Does that…
… for predicting risk of sudden cardiac death. Scientists at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute have developed a world-first individualised risk prediction tool for people suffering from a type of heart arrhythmia that can cause sudden cardiac arrest. This is the first time a gene mutation-specific test has been applied to predict the severity of heart disease. The discovery was made in conjunction with colleagues at the Vanderbilt University Medical Centre and could also benefit patients suffering from other heart arrhythmias and neurological…
The number of tidal power and other offshore renewable energy installations is set to grow significantly around the UK coastline over the coming decades. However, launching state-of-the-art devices into often turbulent ocean flows has the potential to pose a range of challenges for the tidal energy industry, including uncertainty around how they may interact with the environment. To address that, a team of scientists used a combination of aerial drone technology and boat-based surveys to map out the complex tidal…
Lignocellulosic biomass is the largest renewable carbon resource on earth. Cellulose and hemicellulose, featuring polymeric carbohydrate structure, are important components of lignocellulose. Refinery of the carbohydrates to target products remains a major challenge for their valorization. One solution is fully breaking the C‒C bonds, so the carbohydrates are converted to C1 chemicals, such as CO and HCOOH. Photocatalysis on semiconductors can generate oxidative holes that can activate chemical bonds theoretically. The radical mechanism can circumvent the formation of humins that…
Recently, a research group led by Prof. WANG Xianlong from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, successfully synthesized high-energy-density materials cubic gauche nitrogen (cg-N) at atmospheric pressure by treating potassium azide (KN3) using the plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition technique (PECVD). The research results were published in Science Advances. Cg-N is a pure nitrogen material consisting of nitrogen atoms bonded by N-N single bonds, resembling the structure of diamond. It has attracted attention because it…
Biontech vaccine activated for booster vaccination against the current Corona variant JN.1 Production of adapted antibodies. The autumn wave of coronavirus is sweeping across Germany. Those affected mainly suffer from coughs, colds, sore throats and fever, but also from headaches, aching limbs, general weakness and shortness of breath. Because new SARS-CoV-2 variants and subtypes are constantly emerging, coronavirus vaccines must be constantly adapted, similar to influenza viruses. Currently, the virus variant Omikron JN.1 and its sub-lineages KP.2 and KP.3 are…
First study to date to investigate cancer risk in mosaic RASopathies due to disease-causing variants in the HRAS or KRAS genes shows the importance of close cancer surveillance. Hereditary changes in genes are often the cause of rare diseases. For example, disease-causing gene variants (PVs) in the HRAS gene cause Costello syndrome and PVs in the KRAS gene cause Noonan syndrome and cardio-facio-cutaneous syndrome. If such PVs only arise during embryonic development in the womb, those affected suffer from a…
Bonn researchers use nanobodies to elucidate pore formation by gasdermin D in cell membranes: The formation of pores by a particular protein, gasdermin D, plays a key role in inflammatory reactions. During its activation, an inhibitory part is split off. More than 30 of the remaining protein fragments then combine to form large pores in the cell membrane, which allow the release of inflammatory messengers. As methods for studying these processes in living cells have so far been inadequate, the…
Transport proteins are responsible for the ongoing movement of substrates into and out of a biological cell. However, it is difficult to determine which substrates a specific protein can transport. Bioinformaticians at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have developed a model – called SPOT – which can predict this with a high degree of accuracy using artificial intelligence (AI). They now present their approach, which can be used with arbitrary transport proteins, in the scientific journal PLOS Biology. Substrates in…
… comes together with PPPL’s contributions. First plasma is coming soon to the University of Seville’s compact spherical tokamak called SMART. Like atoms coming together to release their power, fusion researchers worldwide are joining forces to solve the world’s energy crisis. Harnessing the power of fusing plasma as a reliable energy source for the power grid is no easy task, requiring global contributions. The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) — a U.S. national laboratory funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) — is leading several efforts on this…
New step in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. Research at UMC Utrecht has identified 29 novel antibodies against the bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae, an important cause of drug-resistant infections. Using genetic and functional approaches, the researchers also managed to unravel how these antibodies interact with antigens on the bacterial surface. Finally, they found that some of these novel antibodies act synergistically to neutralize this pathogen. The increasing problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) urgently calls for the development of alternative therapies against…
Results from a preclinical study in mice, led by EPFL, and a collaborative clinical study in patients show that the type 2 immune response – associated with parasitic infection and thought to play a negative role in cancer immunity – is positively correlated with long-term cancer remission. In 2012, 7-year-old Emily Whitehead became the first pediatric patient to receive pioneering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR-T) therapy to fight the recurrence of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Twelve years later, Emily is in…
In a surprise finding, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the blowtorch-like jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of a huge galaxy seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory. The stars, called novae, are not caught inside the jet, but apparently in a dangerous neighborhood nearby. The finding is confounding researchers searching for an explanation. “We don’t know what’s going on, but it’s just a very exciting finding,” said lead author Alec Lessing of…
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