179 articles from TUESDAY 31.1.2023

Biorefinery uses microbial fuel cell to upcycle resistant plant waste

Researchers have developed a sustainable, inexpensive two-step process that can upcycle organic carbon waste -- including lignin, a difficult-to-breakdown material that gives plants their structure. By processing waste through a microbe-driven biorefinery, the researchers turned lignin into carbon sources that could be used in high-value, plant-derived pharmaceuticals and antioxidant...

Quantum vortex formation in the lab

Quantized vortices can be generated in classical experiments of liquid helium and ultracold dilute gases to conduct fundamental and comparative studies of different superfluids. In a new report published in Science Advances, Ivan Gnusov and a research team in photonics and physics in the U.K., Russia and Iceland developed a "rotating bucket" experiment to optically contain the quantum fluid of...

Webb telescope catches early galaxy formation in action

Astronomers from the Cosmic Dawn Center have unveiled the nature of the densest region of galaxies seen with the James Webb Space telescope in the early universe. They find it to be likely the progenitor of a massive, Milky Way-like galaxy, seen at a time where it is still assembling from smaller galaxies. The discovery corroborates our understanding of how galaxies form.

Evolutionary trade-offs: Balancing genetic disease risks and pathogen protection

Certain genes can exist in different, functionally divergent variants in the individuals of a species. If they lead to clear differences, for example in a phenotype or susceptibility to disease, this is known in biology as a polymorphism. Typical examples are a number of genes whose variants are responsible for the expression of different blood groups. Interestingly, these polymorphic genes can be...

Researchers complete first real-world study of Martian helicopter dust dynamics

Mars is a dusty planet. From tiny dust devils to vast storms that shroud the planet, dust is a constant challenge for research missions. That was especially true for Ingenuity, the rotorcraft that since February 2021 has been exploring Mars alongside NASA's Perseverance rover. Now, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology, the Space Science Institute, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have...

‘Charmouth crocodile’ identified as new genus of croc-like creature

Remains of 2-metre-long animal were discovered in 2017 by two fossil hunters for whom it has been namedScientists have identified a new genus of fearsome crocodile-like creature that once hunted off what is now Dorset’s Jurassic Coast.The remains of the 2-metre-long animal were discovered by fossil hunters after a series of landslips on to a beach in 2017, and the newly recognised beast has been...

Examining the chemicals involved in insect mating

It's almost Valentine's Day, and love is in the air. Or in the waxy coating on your skin, if you are a vinegar fly. That's where flies encounter pheromones that play an important role in regulating sexual attraction.

How to make hydrogels more injectable

A new computational framework can predict the structures, properties, and performance of granular hydrogels. The new model could one day make it easier to design the right gel for a particular biomedical application.

New vaccine targets life-threatening fungal infections, a growing health concern

A new vaccine could be the first clinically approved immunization to protect against invasive fungal infections, a growing concern as antifungal drug resistance increases. Fungal infections cause more than 1.5 million deaths worldwide each year and cost billions. They also double hospitalization costs, double the length of hospital stays and double the risk of death in hospitalized patients,...