167 articles from FRIDAY 23.9.2022

Asexual relationships need same ingredients as any other relationship

Many asexual individuals, those with little to no sexual attraction, are in long-term satisfying romantic relationships, but there has been little study on how and why they last and thrive. New research found that, despite asexuals' lack of or dislike for sexual attraction, the ingredients that make for a successful relationship among asexual individuals are virtually the same as those in any...

Disarming the immune system's lethal lung response

Neutrophils are the body's first line of defense against infection. But if too many attack for too long, they can damage the tissues they're meant to protect. In the lungs, this damage can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome, the leading cause of death due to COVID-19. Researchers have found that using a drug to inhibit a protein called PTP1B can prevent lethal lung inflammation in mice....

China Unveils Plans to Send Spacecraft to Jupiter and Uranus

It was 2,300 years ago that the ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan wrote the poem “Tianwen,” or “Heavenly Questions.” It is only now that China’s Tianwen spacecraft have begun flying missions designed to come up with some heavenly answers. And as Space.com reports, those missions are becoming increasingly ambitious. In 2020, the Tianwen 1 spacecraft was launched to Mars,...

A NASA Spacecraft Is About To Collide With an Asteroid in an Effort to Keep Earth Safe

Dimorphos is easily one of the least interesting objects in the solar system. It’s a rock—a moonlet, really—measuring just 160 m (525 ft.) across, orbiting the asteroid Didymos, which itself measures only 780 m (2,560 ft). Located 11 million km (6.8 million mi.) from Earth, the Didymos-Dimorphos system is just one tiny part of the river of rubble that circles the sun in the...

Simple process extracts valuable magnesium salt from seawater

Since ancient times, humans have extracted salts, like table salt, from the ocean. While table salt is the easiest to obtain, seawater is a rich source of different minerals, and researchers are exploring which ones they can pull from the ocean. One such mineral, magnesium, is abundant in the sea and increasingly useful on the land.

New research finds that viruses may have 'eyes and ears' on us

New UMBC-led research in Frontiers in Microbiology suggests that viruses are using information from their environment to "decide" when to sit tight inside their hosts and when to multiply and burst out, killing the host cell. The work has implications for antiviral drug development.

DNA nets capture COVID-19 virus in low-cost rapid-testing platform

Tiny nets woven from DNA strands can ensnare the spike protein of the virus that causes COVID-19, lighting up the virus for a fast-yet-sensitive diagnostic test—and also impeding the virus from infecting cells, opening a new possible route to antiviral treatment, according to a new study.

New research finds that viruses may have 'eyes and ears' on us

New research suggests that viruses are using information from their environment to 'decide' when to sit tight inside their hosts and when to multiply and burst out, killing the host cell. Right now, viruses are exploiting the ability to monitor their environment to their benefit. But in the future, 'we could exploit it to their detriment,' said one of the authors.

An AI message decoder based on bacterial growth patterns

A new encryption method uses simulated bacterial growth based on specific initial conditions to form patterns corresponding to letters. Depending on the initial conditions used, such as nutrient levels and space constraints, bacteria tend to grow in specific ways. Researchers have created a new type of encryption scheme based on how a virtual bacterial colony grows with specific initial...