Before the huge potential of tiny nanocarriers for highly targeted drug delivery and environmental clean-up can be realized, scientists first need to be able to see them. Currently researchers have to rely on attaching fluorescent dyes or heavy metals to label parts of organic nanocarrier structures for investigation, often changing them in the process. A new technique using chemically-sensitive “soft” X-rays offers a simpler, non-disruptive way of gaining insight into this nano-world. In a study published by Nature Communications, a…
Tracking down species on the go using environmental DNA. Sloughed off skin and bodily fluids are things most people would prefer to avoid. But for marine biologist like Cheryl Lewis Ames, Associate Professor of Applied Marine Biology in the Graduate School of Agricultural Science at Tohoku University (Japan), such remnants of life have become a magical key to detecting the unseen. Any organism living in the ocean will inevitably leave behind traces containing their DNA – environmental DNA (eDNA) –…
Multistep technique uses small invertebrate to detect, count and characterize nanoplastics. If you’ve been to your local beach, you may have noticed the wind tossing around litter such as an empty potato chip bag or a plastic straw. These plastics often make their way into the ocean, affecting not only marine life and the environment but also threatening food safety and human health. Eventually, many of these plastics break down into microscopic sizes, making it hard for scientists to quantify…
Scientists at IST Austria discover how a high-risk gene for developing autism spectrum disorder affects brain development. Study published in Nature Communications. Although many forms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are thought to have genetic causes, the cellular and molecular functions of the identified genes remain unclear. Scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria studied a high-risk gene and discovered its important role during a critical phase of brain development. Within the European Union alone, about three…
Self-propelled particles can condense by turning and moving toward crowded areas. We observe water vapor condensing into liquid droplets on a daily basis, be it as dew drops on leaves or as droplets on the lid of a cooking pot. Since the work of Dutch physicist J.D. van der Waals in the 19th century, condensation has been understood to result from attractive forces between the molecules of a fluid. Now, an international team of researchers has discovered a new mechanism…
When activated, they damage brain development … Since our ancestors infected themselves with retroviruses millions of years ago, we have carried elements of these viruses in our genes – known as human endogenous retroviruses, or HERVs for short. These viral elements have lost their ability to replicate and infect during evolution, but are an integral part of our genetic makeup. In fact, humans possess five times more HERVs in non-coding parts than coding genes. So far, strong focus has been…
Neutrons show a connection between lithium concentration and depression Depressive disorders are among the most frequent illnesses worldwide. The causes are complex and to date only partially understood. The trace element lithium appears to play a role. Using neutrons of the research neutron source at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), a research team has now proved that the distribution of lithium in the brains of depressive people is different from the distribution found in healthy humans. Lithium is familiar…
For the first time, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces have synthesized sugar chains that resemble the envelopes of the four major variations of the bacterium streptococcus suis. This is an important first step for the development of glycoconjugate vaccines against a pathogen that is a serious problem in pigs. Once in the pigsty, the pathogen spreads rapidly, which regularly causes major problems for farms. The bacterium can cause diseases such as meningitis, pneumonia and pericarditis,…
Scientists led by Dr. Salvador Aznar-Benitah, head of the Stem Cells and Cancer laboratory at IRB Barcelona, have described the alterations that occur during mammary gland formation when heterochromatin (the part of DNA that does not actively produce proteins) is poorly regulated. The results, which have been published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, indicate that incorrect DNA packaging makes retrotransposons (a type of transposable element originated in ancestral fragments of viruses integrated into the cell genome) more accessible. As…
An imaging technique pioneered by Berkeley Lab is helping reveal the best antibodies for COVID-19 detection. Vaccines are turning the tide of the pandemic, but the risk of infection is still present in some situations. If you want to visit a friend, get on a plane, or go see a movie, there is no highly accurate, instant test that can tell you right then and there whether or not you have a SARS-CoV-2 infection. But new research from Lawrence Berkeley…
An international team of scientists compared the regeneration abilities of axolotls and frogs at the cellular and molecular levels. Their study, published in Developmental Cell, reveals the intrinsic inability of frog cells to regenerate a lost limb, a major difference from the axolotl’s extraordinary physiology. In Lake Xochimilco of central Mexico dwells a rare salamander, the axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum). In the wild, the axolotls do not metamorphose: adults very much resemble their larval counterparts and keep the external gills that…
New discoveries in the field of nanoscience … Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces developed a membrane that is composed of a bundle of nanometer-sized tubes. They used it as a nanoreactor to convert water marked with methylene blue into clear water in milliseconds using sunlight as a driver. ‘Running reactions in fluids with lower viscosity in a blink of an eye represents a new opportunity for chemistry,’ says Prof. Markus Antonietti, Director of the Department…
Dresden researchers discover how a protein creates the rotatory forces essential for animal development. Our body appearance is symmetric from the outside. If you take a look inside, you will find our organs are not at all arranged symmetrically. The heart, for example, is on our left side. These differences in structure, referred to as left-right asymmetry, emerge very early during the development and are crucial for an embryo to properly grow. Researchers have found in past studies that rotatory…
The working group around Dr. Philipp Rathert at the Institute for Biochemistry and Technical Biochemistry investigates the regulation of epigenetic networks of certain cancers and ways of treating them. The working group published its new findings in April. Epigenetics research is a relatively young discipline in biology. Epigenetic mechanisms regulate which genetic information is used when and how. They play an important role in controlling the activity of genes. The epigenetic modifications control the gene activity individually in each individual…
When neuroscientists at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria analyzed the exact properties of nerve connections in the brain, they made a startling observation: At a key connection, or synapse, messages are sent against the usual stream of information. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, reports that the signal glutamate likely plays a role in this unusual transmission. Information flows in a well-defined direction in the brain: Chemical and electrical signals are passed from one neuron…
Researchers reveal the diversity of our neurons… The nerve cells, also called neurons, in our brain control all the basic processes of our body. For this reason, there are different types of neurons distributed over specific regions of the brain. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolic Research and the CECAD Cluster of Excellence in Aging Research of the University of Cologne have developed an approach that allows them to show that neurons that are supposedly the same are…
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