Illuminating study from Rice, UT, Stanford advances ‘green’ reducing agents. There are many ways to initiate chemical reactions in liquids, but placing free electrons directly into water, ammonia and other liquid solutions is especially attractive for green chemistry because solvated electrons are inherently clean, leaving behind no side products after they react. In theory, solvated electrons could be used to safely and sustainably break down carbon dioxide or chemical pollutants in contaminated water, but it has been impractical to find…

Biomedical engineers at the University of California, Davis, have created semi-living “cyborg cells.” Retaining the capabilities of living cells, but unable to replicate, the cyborg cells could have a wide range of applications, from producing therapeutic drugs to cleaning up pollution. The work was published Jan. 11 in Advanced Science. Synthetic biology aims to engineer cells that can carry out novel functions. There are essentially two approaches in use, said Cheemeng Tan, associate professor of biomedical engineering at UC Davis and…

The search for nectar costs insects a lot of energy, so they have to be as efficient as possible. Colourful patterns on the petals can help with that. Be it mallow, foxglove or forget-me-not: many flowers bear colourful patterns, which are known as nectar guides in biology. They are assumed to show the pollinating insects the shortest way to the nectary. This guiding function could increase the efficiency of the insects in their search for food, and at the same…

NIH study provides new insights on role of gut in staph colonization. A promising approach to control Staphylococcus aureus bacterial colonization in people—using a probiotic instead of antibiotics—was safe and highly effective in a Phase 2 clinical trial. The new study, reported in The Lancet Microbe, found that the probiotic Bacillus subtilis markedly reduced S. aureus colonization in trial participants without harming the gut microbiota, which includes bacteria that can benefit people. The research was conducted by researchers at the…

An internal circadian clock controls the distinctive concentric rings of flowering in sunflowers, maximizing visits from pollinators, a new study from plant biologists at the University of California, Davis shows. The work is published Jan. 13 in eLife. A sunflower head is made up of hundreds of tiny florets. Because of the way sunflowers grow, the youngest florets are in the center of the flower face and the most mature at the edges, forming a distinctive spiral pattern from the…

The ultraviolet nail polish drying devices used to cure gel manicures may pose more of a public health concern than previously thought. Researchers at the University of California San Diego studied these ultraviolet (UV) light emitting devices, and found that their use leads to cell death and cancer-causing mutations in human cells. The devices are a common fixture in nail salons, and generally use a particular spectrum of UV light (340-395nm) to cure the chemicals used in gel manicures. While…

Hacking system converts split gene drives into full drives, offering new experimentation flexibility… but also reveals surprising fitness costs of full drive systems. Scientists continue to expand the technological frontiers of CRISPR, along with its enormous potential, in areas ranging from human health to global food supplies. Such is the case with CRISPR-based gene drives, a genetic editing tool designed to influence how genetic elements are passed from one generation to the next. Gene drives designed for mosquitoes have the…

Researchers find the genes and proteins involved in heliozoan arms withdrawal in response to environmental changes, which is one of the fastest examples of cell motility. Raphidocystis contractilis belongs to Heliozoa, a group of eukaryotes commonly found in fresh, brackish, and sea water. The organisms of this group have finger-like arms—axopodia—which radiate out from their body, giving them a sun-like appearance. Hence, they are also known as “solar worms”. Each axopodium is composed of the proteins, alpha-beta tubulin heterodimers, which…

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam (Germany) analyzed the inheritance of chloroplasts under different environmental conditions in almost 4 million tobacco plants. Contrary to the prevailing view that chloroplasts are only passed on by the mother plant, paternal chloroplasts can also be transmitted to the offspring under cold conditions, raising the possibility that the chloroplasts of the two parents exchange genetic material with each other. The new findings will facilitate the targeted use of…

… piloted in Gaza, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. Imperial researchers have developed a low-cost, easy-to-manufacture stabiliser for broken bones to help in regions where such devices are expensive or in short supply and people sometimes resort to homemade options. The stabiliser, known as an external fixator, holds broken bones in place with metal pins or screws attached to a surrounding metal frame. When soft tissue is severely damaged together with bone, external fixators are the first step in keeping fractures…

Ion-tunable antiambipolarity in mixed ion-electron conducting polymers enables biorealistic organic electrochemical neurons. Researchers at Linköping University (LiU), Sweden, have created an artificial organic neuron that closely mimics the characteristics of biological nerve cells. This artificial neuron can stimulate natural nerves, making it a promising technology for various medical treatments in the future. Work to develop increasingly functional artificial nerve cells continues at the Laboratory for Organic Electronics, LOE. In 2022, a team of scientists led by associate professor Simone Fabiano…

Analyzing a person’s gene expression requires mapping their RNA landscape to a standard reference to gain insight into the degree to which genes are “turned on” and perform functions in the body. But researchers can run into issues when the reference does not provide enough information to allow for accurate mapping, an issue known as reference bias. In a new paper published in the journal Nature Methods, researchers at UC Santa Cruz introduce the first-ever method for analyzing RNA sequencing…

This study compares the efficacy of three mass spectrometry instruments and sample preparation techniques for the clinical diagnosis of mold. In recent years, filamentous fungi or molds have emerged as causative agents underlying life-threatening infections in immunocompromised individuals. The timely management of these infections requires the rapid and accurate diagnosis of mold in clinical settings. Unfortunately, traditional methods are time consuming, given the long incubation periods required to culture and examine molds. On the other hand, advanced molecular techniques are…

… on label-free proteins with a single tryptophan. Proteins are naturally fluorescent in the ultraviolet, offering an appealing approach to probe proteins in their native state without introducing any external fluorescent label. The UV autofluorescence of proteins is based on the presence of tryptophan amino acids, which typically occur as 1 to 5 tryptophan per protein. However, due to weak signals and large backgrounds in the UV, the current technology was restricted to large proteins featuring several tens of tryptophan…

Researchers at the University of Freiburg discover how the “Zona Incerta” communicates with the neocortex. The neocortex is the largest and most complex part of the brain and has long been considered the ultimate storage site for long-term memories. But how are traces of past events and experiences laid down there? Researchers at the University of Freiburg Medical School led by Prof. Dr. Johannes Letzkus and the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research have discovered that a little-studied area of…

Researchers have observed steric effects—the interactions of molecules depending on their spatial orientation (not just between their electrons involved in bonding)—in a chemical reaction involving non-polar molecules for the first time. The breakthrough opens the door to an entirely new way to control the products of chemical reactions. A paper describing the research team’s findings was published in the journal Science on Jan. 12. One of the central goals of chemistry is to develop new methods of controlling chemical reactions….