Biology: Developmental Engineering: Robotics Research
Published

Artificial human skin paves the way to new skin cancer therapy      (via sciencedaily.com) 

In a new study, researchers have managed to curb skin cancer. The study was conducted on artificial human skin.

Biology: Developmental
Published

Pioneering approach advances study of CTCF protein in transcription biology      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists used the auxin-inducible degron 2 system on CTCF, bringing the novel approach to bear on a fundamental protein.

Biology: Developmental Biology: Evolutionary
Published

Scientists discover the evolutionary secret behind different animal life cycles      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers uncover for the first time the mechanism that likely explains how embryos form either a larva or a miniature version of the adult.

Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Cosmology Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features
Published

Were galaxies much different in the early universe?      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The most sensitive telescope now searching for radio signals from cosmic dawn, an era around 200 million years after the Big Bang when stars ignited, has doubled its sensitivity, a new paper reports. While not yet detecting this radiation -- the redshifted 21-centimeter line -- they have put new limits on the elemental composition of galaxies during the Epoch of Reionization. Early galaxies seem to be low in metals, fitting the most popular theory of cosmic evolution.

Biology: Developmental
Published

Actin affects the spread of cancer in several ways      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The transport of molecules along the cell's skeleton plays a role in cancer metastasis, researchers show.

Biology: Developmental
Published

How cells prevent harmful extra DNA copies      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A protein that prepares DNA for replication also prevents the replication process from running out of control, according to a new study. The work solves a mystery that has long puzzled biologists.

Biology: Developmental Ecology: Endangered Species
Published

Botany: Chloroplast from the father      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Under cold conditions, not only the mother plant but also the father plant can pass on its chloroplasts to the offspring.

Biology: Developmental
Published

Genome editing procedures optimized      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists succeed in boosting the efficiency of CRISPR/Cas9 and related methods and modifying initially inaccessible DNA sequences. They fine-tuned these tools to enable effective genetic screening for modelling specific gene mutations.

Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Cosmology Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Darkest view ever of interstellar ice      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Astronomers used observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to achieve the darkest ever view of a dense interstellar cloud. These observations have revealed the composition of a virtual treasure chest of ices from the early universe, providing new insights into the chemical processes of one of the coldest, darkest places in the universe as well as the origins of the molecules that make up planetary atmospheres.

Biology: Developmental Biology: Microbiology
Published

New genetic disorder that causes susceptibility to opportunistic infections      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Immunogeneticists have discovered a new genetic disorder that causes immunodeficiency and profound susceptibility to opportunistic infections including a life-threatening fungal pneumonia.

Biology: Developmental Biology: Evolutionary
Published

DNA from domesticated chickens is tainting genomes of wild red junglefowl, study finds      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The red junglefowl -- the wild ancestor of the chicken -- is losing its genetic diversity by interbreeding with domesticated birds, according to a new study.

Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features
Published

Massive fuel-hungry black holes feed off intergalactic gas      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Research has revealed how supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are feeding off gas clouds which reach them by traveling hundreds of thousands of light years from one galaxy to another.

Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features
Published

Billions of celestial objects revealed in gargantuan survey of the Milky Way      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Astronomers have released a gargantuan survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. The new dataset contains a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objects -- arguably the largest such catalog so far. The data for this unprecedented survey were taken with the Dark Energy Camera.

Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Tumultuous migration on the edge of the Hot Neptune Desert      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A team reveals the eventful migration history of planets bordering the Hot Neptune Desert, these extrasolar planets that orbit very close to their star.

Biology: Developmental
Published

An Old Yellow Enzyme helps algae combat photooxidative stress      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Old Yellow Enzymes (OYEs) were discovered in the 1930s and have been the subject of much research ever since. This is because these biocatalysts -- coloured yellow by an auxiliary molecule -- are capable of performing reactions that are very valuable for the chemical industry, such as producing drug precursors or fragrances. Even though OYEs are found in many organisms, their natural role for these organisms has hardly been understood so far -- possibly because the research focus has been on their biotechnological application. Researchers have now shown that an OYE of the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is vital for this plant microorganism to protect itself from photooxidative stress.

Biology: Developmental
Published

New study decodes one of the living world's fastest cell movements      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Heliozoan axopodia are important for their motility. However, the underlying mechanism of their axopodial contraction has remained ambiguous. Recently, researchers have reported that microtubules are simultaneously cleaved at multiple sites, allowing the radiating axopodia in a heliozoan, Raphidocystis contractilis, to disappear almost instantly. They have now identified the gene set and proteins involved in this microtubule disruption. This research can help develop a method to detect water pollution and evaluate the efficacy of new anticancer drugs.

Biology: Developmental
Published

Modified CRISPR-based enzymes improve the prospect of inserting entire genes into the genome to overcome diverse disease-causing mutations      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Many genetic diseases are caused by diverse mutations spread across an entire gene, and designing genome editing approaches for each patient's mutation would be impractical and costly.

Space: Astrophysics Space: Structures and Features
Published

A star's unexpected survival      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Hundreds of millions of light-years away in a distant galaxy, a star orbiting a supermassive black hole is being violently ripped apart under the black hole's immense gravitational pull. As the star is shredded, its remnants are transformed into a stream of debris that rains back down onto the black hole to form a very hot, very bright disk of material swirling around the black hole, called an accretion disc. This phenomenon -- where a star is destroyed by a supermassive black hole and fuels a luminous accretion flare -- is known as a tidal disruption event (TDE), and it is predicted that TDEs occur roughly once every 10,000 to 100,000 years in a given galaxy.

Energy: Alternative Fuels Engineering: Nanotechnology Space: Astrophysics Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

The world in grains of interstellar dust      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Understanding how dust grains form in interstellar gas could offer significant insights to astronomers and help materials scientists develop useful nanoparticles.

Space: Astrophysics Space: Cosmology Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features
Published

Researchers measure size-luminosity relation of galaxies less than a billion years after Big Bang      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A team has studied the relation between galaxy size and luminosity of some of the earliest galaxies in the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, less than a billion years after the Big Bang.