Hycean worlds, which are a possible kind of exoplanet with deep oceans surrounded by a thick envelope of hydrogen, could provide the best chance for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect biosignatures, according to a new study.
Those potential signs of life are a group of chemicals called methyl halides, which on Earth are produced by some bacteria and ocean algae.Methyl halides have a strong infrared signature, making them relatively easy to detect with the JWST.
Science to Blow Your Mind! :D
A forest with high tree-species diversity is better at buffering heat peaks in summer and cold peaks in winter than a forest with fewer tree species. This is the result of a study led by researchers from the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig University, and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU).
The study was carried out in a large-scale planted forest experiment in China, and has been published in the journal Ecology Letters. It provides yet another argument for diversifying tree species in forests, especially under ongoing climate change.
For millions of people, losing muscle isn’t just about weakness; it’s about losing independence. Whether caused by Duchenne muscular dystrophy, aging or other degenerative conditions, muscle loss can make everyday activities—like walking, climbing stairs or even standing up—a daily struggle. But a recent discovery from researchers at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy could help change that.
The team, led by Ashok Kumar, Else and Philip Hargrove Endowed Professor of Drug Discovery and director of the Institute of Muscle Biology and Cachexia, discovered a potential therapeutic target in muscular disorders by identifying a previously unrecognized role of a protein called Fn14 in regulating satellite cell stability and function. They have published their findings in JCI Insight.
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To mitigate global climate change, emissions of the primary culprit, carbon dioxide, must be drastically reduced. A newly developed process helps solve this problem: CO2 is directly split electrochemically into carbon and oxygen.
As a Chinese research team reports in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, oxygen could also be produced in this way underwater or in space—without requiring stringent conditions such as pressure and temperature.
The blue-lined octopus (Hapalochlaena fasciata) is only a few centimeters long, yet it may be one of the most dangerous marine animals on Earth.
That’s because, as part of the blue-ringed octopus genus, it’s heavily armed – not just with eight arms, but also with tetrodotoxin (TTX), a potent neurotoxin.
The mantles of female blue-lined octopuses can grow about as big as a golf ball, roughly twice the size of males. This size discrepancy can be life-threatening for a male, whose instinct to mate puts him in danger of being eaten by a much larger female.
Among the many marvels of life is the cell’s ability to divide and thus enable organisms to grow and renew themselves. For this, the cell must duplicate its DNA—its genome—and segregate it equally into two new daughter cells.
To prepare the 46 chromosomes of a human cell for transport to the daughter cells during cell division, each chromosome forms a compact X-shaped structure with two rod-like copies. How the cell achieves this feat remains largely unknown.
Now, for the first time, EMBL scientists have directly observed this process in high resolution under the microscope using a new chromatin tracing method. The research is published in the journal Cell.
Last week, the Perseverance Science Team were astonished by a strange rock comprised of hundreds of millimeter-sized spheres… and the team are now working hard to understand their origin.
It has now been two weeks since Perseverance arrived at Broom Point, situated at the lower slopes of the Witch Hazel Hill area, on the Jezero crater rim. Here, a series of light- and dark-toned bands were visible from orbit, and just last week the rover successfully abraded and sampled one of the light-toned beds. It was from this sampling workspace where Perseverance spied a very strange texture in a nearby rock.
The US has continued its crackdown on foreign nationals travelling to the country, with a French scientist being denied entry in Texas and deported on 10 March for his personal views on the Trump administration’s policies.
The scientist works for France’s publicly funded National Centre for Scientific Research and was travelling to a conference near Houston when border officials stopped him, according to reports on Wednesday.
US authorities denied entry to the scientist and then deported him because his phone contained messages in which he expressed his opinion on the Trump administration’s science policies, France’s minister for higher education and research, Philippe Baptiste, said in a statement to Agence France-Presse on Thursday.
(via h1vetonic)
For roughly one in every hundred people, food containing even the smallest amounts of gluten can deliver a gutful of hurt and pose severe risks to their health.
While a domino effect of immunological reactions can be traced back to their genetic roots, a number of contributing factors are also involved, making it difficult to map the precise chain of events that causes celiac disease.
Using transgenic mice, an international team led by scientists from McMaster University in Canada has identified a crucial role played by the very cells making up the gut’s lining, describing a major stepping stone that could lead to new therapies.