244 articles from WEDNESDAY 13.11.2019

No deliveries: How cells decide when to accept extracellular packages

Endocytosis, a fundamental process that cells use to take in macromolecules, functions a lot like an airlock on a spaceship -- but squishier, says a researcher. Researchers have studied how cells initiate and perform endocytosis since the 1960s, but in a new article they finally describes how cells shut down this important cellular machinery. And their findings are not without controversy.

After visiting asteroid, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe heads back to Earth with samples

Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft and its science team bid a bittersweet farewell to the asteroid Ryugu, 180 million miles from Earth, and began the months-long return trip to Earth with a precious set of samples. "This is an emotional moment!" the team tweeted on Tuesday. “It's sad to say goodbye to Ryugu,” project manager Yuichi Tsuda said at the Japan Aerospace Exploration...

Mysteries behind interstellar buckyballs finally answered

Scientists have long been puzzled by the existence of so-called "buckyballs"—complex carbon molecules with a soccer-ball-like structure—throughout interstellar space. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Arizona has proposed a mechanism for their formation in a study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

When reporting climate-driven human migration, place matters

A quick Google search for "What is driving migration from Central America?" reveals that nearly all of the top hits claim climate change as a major catalyst for the mass movement of people out of their home countries. University of Arizona climate researchers, however, have shown that the reality is much more nuanced.

Multimaterial 3D printing manufactures complex objects, fast

3D printing is super cool, but it's also super slow -- it would take 115 days to print a detailed, multimaterial object about the size of a grapefruit. A new method allows printing with up to 8 different inks in a fraction of the time, thanks to special printheads that can seamlessly switch inks up to 50 times per second.

Researchers unravel protective properties of telomere t-loops

Loops at the ends of telomeres play a vital protective role preventing damage to chromosomes, according to new research. The study showed how the winding and unwinding of 't-loops' at the end of telomeres prevents chromosomes from being recognized as DNA damage. The study also uncovered how this process is regulated.

Extinct giant ape directly linked to the living orangutan

Researchers have succeeded in reconstructing the evolutionary relationship between a two million year old giant primate and the living orangutan. It is the first time genetic material this old has been retrieved from a fossil in a subtropical area. This allows the researchers to accurately reconstruct animal, including human, evolutionary processes way beyond the limits known today.

Slowing the progression of multiple sclerosis

Over 77,000 Canadians are living with multiple sclerosis, a disease whose causes still remain unknown. Presently, they have no hope for a cure. Researchers have now identified a molecule named ALCAM which, once blocked, delays the progression of the disease. Their results, obtained from in vitro human and in vivo mouse studies, could lead to the development of a new generation of therapies to...

Microparticles could help fight malnutrition

Researchers have now developed a new way to fortify staple foods with these micronutrients by encapsulating them in a biocompatible polymer that prevents the nutrients from being degraded during storage or cooking. In a small clinical trial, they showed that women who ate bread fortified with encapsulated iron were able to absorb iron from the food.

Something old, something new in the ocean's blue

Microbiologists have discovered a new metabolic process in the ocean. Ranging from molecular structures of individual genes and detection of their global distribution, their results give insight into the pathway process and its degradation products and thus provide valuable information for future calculations of the ocean`s carbon dioxide balance.

Tuna carbon ratios reveal shift in food web

The ratio of carbon isotopes in three common species of tuna has changed substantially since 2000, suggesting major shifts are also taking place in the phytoplankton populations that form the basis of the ocean's food web, according to a new international study. Much of the change occurring in phytoplankton physiology and species composition may be driven by increased ocean stratification, an...

Precisely poking cells en masse to cure cancer

A novel microfluidic device addresses one of the most costly steps in the engineered cell therapy manufacturing process, namely gene delivery. Deterministic mechanoporation, or DMP, uses fluid flow to pull each cell in a large population onto its own tiny needle. The flow is then reversed to release the cells from the needles, leaving a singular and precisely defined pore within each cell that...

Tuna carbon ratios reveal shift in food web

The ratio of carbon isotopes in three common species of tuna has changed substantially since 2000, suggesting major shifts are taking place in phytoplankton populations that form the base of the ocean's food web, a new international study finds.

Precisely poking cells en masse to cure cancer

What if you could cure cancer by re-engineering patients' cells to better target and destroy their own tumors? With the advent of powerful new cellular engineering technologies, this is no longer the stuff of science fiction.

NASA provides an infrared analysis of Tropical Storm Fengshen

Tropical Storm Fengshen continued to strengthen in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean as NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead. Infrared imagery from an instrument aboard Terra revealed very high, powerful storms with very cold cloud top temperatures circling the center.

New study proposes light signature for detecting black hole mergers

Gravitational wave detectors are finding black hole mergers in the universe at the rate of one per week. If these mergers occur in empty space, researchers cannot see associated light that is needed to determine where they happened. However, a new study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and the City University of New York (CUNY),...

A virtual reality camera captures life and science aboard the space station

With only minutes until sunrise aboard the International Space Station (ISS), astronaut Nick Hague rushed to shut off the lights in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM). Traveling 17,500 miles per hour, the space station orbits Earth 16 times in 24 hours, so every 90 minutes, the space station experiences a sunrise. For this sunrise, though, the speed of their approach was putting a time crunch on...

Climate change may be behind fall of ancient empire, say researchers

Dramatic shift from wet to dry climate could have caused crop failure in Neo-Assyrian empireThe Neo-Assyrian empire was a mighty superpower that dominated the near east for 300 years before its dramatic collapse. Now researchers say they have a novel theory for what was behind its rise and fall: climate change.The empire emerged in about 912BC and grew to stretch from the Mediterranean down to...

Experts crack mystery of ancient Egypt’s sacred bird mummies

DNA analysis helps work out origin of nearly 6 million mummified ibisesAn ancient Egyptian mystery has been solved, according to researchers, who say they have cracked the conundrum of where millions of mummified birds came from.Pharaohs and members of the nobility were often mummified, but the practice was not reserved for humans – cats, crocodiles, mice and mongooses are among the mummified...

ELeCt-ing a better candidate for chemo delivery

Chemotherapy has been the backbone of cancer treatment for decades, but it is notorious for its toxicity to healthy cells, severe side effects, and poor targeting of the intended tumors. Efforts to improve chemotherapy's efficacy and tolerability include packaging drugs into nanoparticles, which can protect them from degradation in the body, control their release pattern, and shield the patient...