Spaceflight is known to affect human physiology, but the molecular mechanisms driving these changes to our bodies in space, like for instance, the loss of muscular mass, are yet unknown. A recent study in the journal Cell used a multi-omics approach to try and examine these mechanisms. The researchers employed data from NASA’s GeneLab and […]
The imaginary friend is “an invisible character or personified object that takes part in children’s conversations or plays with them for a long period of time, at least several months”. The relationships are not identical; with personified objects the relationship is usually hierarchical, while with imaginary friends it is an egalitarian relationship. Peers tend to […]
Common glass, used in windows or bottles, for example, is made by heating a mixture of calcium oxide (lime), sodium carbonate (soda), and silicon (IV) oxide (sand), resulting in a calcium silicate. This silicate is not a crystal but a solid in which atoms are random and have no long-range ordered pattern. These kind of […]
While U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken draws attention to climate change in the Arctic at meetings with other national officials recently in Iceland, an even greater threat looms on the other side of the planet. New research shows it is Antarctica that may force a reckoning between the choices countries make today about greenhouse […]
Gene editing could be the solution to progeria, a genetic disease, characterized by extremely fast ageing. Progeria causes fast ageing and premature death in people carrying a single-point mutation in the LMNA gene, which basically leads to the production of a toxic protein which slowly damages the cells, ageing the bodies. This simple misspelling of […]
A cement is any of various substances used for bonding or setting to a hard material. A popular one, Portland cement, is a mixture of calcium silicates and aluminates made by heating limestone (CaCO3) with clay (that contains aluminosilicates) in a kiln. The product is then ground to a fine powder. When Portland cement is […]
As more and more people around the world are getting vaccinated, one can almost hear the collective sigh of relief. But the next pandemic threat is likely already making its way through the population right now. My research as an infectious disease epidemiologist has found that there is a simple strategy to mitigate emerging outbreaks: […]
Quantum objects are not abstract entities. On the contrary, they are quite real, As such, individual quantum objects can be detected, manipulated and their characteristics analysed using the appropriate techniques. Take the case of a single molecule adsorbed on a substrate. Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) would reveal electron densities of molecular orbitals, could be used […]
Astronomy • Biology • Microbiology • Physics
Authors: Predrag Slijepcevic, Senior Lecturer in Biology, Brunel University London and Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe, Honorary Professor, University of Buckingham Are we alone in the universe? The famous Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) programme has been trying to answer this question since 1959. American astronomer Carl Sagan, and many others, believed that other human-like civilisations must […]
Mitochondria are the energy-making machines in the cell. Also, since evolutionarily they are thought to evolve from symbiotic bacteria, they have their own little genomes, which are mainly evolved through the maternal side, and also maybe because of their important function, mutations in genes affecting them are very damaging, and even lethal. However, mitochondrial DNA […]