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A protein that makes hydrogen sulfide shows potential as a therapeutic target for Alzheimer’s disease

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say results of a new study are advancing efforts to exploit a new target for Alzheimer’s disease: a protein that manufactures an important gas in the brain.

Experiments conducted in genetically engineered mice reinforce that the protein, Cystathionine γ-lyase, or CSE—ordinarily known for producing hydrogen sulfide gas responsible for the foul smell of rotten eggs—is critical for memory formation, says Bindu Paul, M.S., Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacology, psychiatry and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who led the study.

The new research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was designed to better understand the basic biology of the protein, and its value as a novel target for drugs that boost the expression of CSE in people to help keep brain cells healthy and slow neurodegenerative disease.

Glacier loss to accelerate, with up to 4,000 disappearing each year by 2050s

Thousands of glaciers will vanish each year in the coming decades, leaving only a fraction standing by the end of the century unless global warming is curbed, a study showed on Monday.

Government action on climate change could determine whether the world loses 2,000 or 4,000 glaciers annually by the middle of the century, according to the research.

A few degrees could be the difference between preserving almost half of the world’s glaciers in 2100—or fewer than 10%.

New AI-based technology offers real-time electric vehicle state estimation for safer driving

A research team led by Professor Kanghyun Nam from the Department of Robotics and Mechanical Engineering at DGIST has developed a physical AI-based vehicle state estimation technology that accurately estimates the driving state of electric vehicles in real time.

This technology is viewed as a key advancement that can improve the core control performance of electric vehicles and greatly enhance the safety of autonomous vehicles. The work was conducted through international joint research with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and the University of Tokyo in Japan.

The work is published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

New ultrathin ferroelectric capacitors show promise for compact memory devices

An ultrathin ferroelectric capacitor, designed by researchers from Japan, demonstrates strong electric polarization despite being just 30 nm thick including top and bottom electrodes—making it suitable for high-density electronics. Using a scandium-doped aluminum nitride film as the ferroelectric layer, the team achieved high remanent polarization even at reduced thicknesses. This breakthrough demonstrates good compatibility with semiconductor devices combining logic circuits and memory, paving the way for compact and efficient on-chip memory for future technologies.

Modern electronic technology is rapidly advancing towards miniaturization, creating devices that are increasingly compact yet high-performing. As the devices continue to shrink in size, there is an increasing demand for ultra-small memory materials that can efficiently store data, even in smaller dimensions. Ferroelectric memory devices are promising options for future mobile and compact electronics, as they store information using switchable electric polarization, allowing data retention even without power. However, very few initiatives have reported progress in downscaling of these ferroelectric devices.

Bridging this gap, a research team led by Professor Hiroshi Funakubo from the School of Materials and Chemical Technology, Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo), Japan, in collaboration with Canon ANELVA Corporation (Canon ANELVA), successfully downscaled a total ferroelectric memory capacitor stack using scandium-substituted aluminum nitride ((Al, Sc)N) thin films with platinum electrodes, reducing the total thickness to just 30 nm including top and bottom electrodes.

Rad53 regulates RNase H1, which promotes DNA replication through sites of transcription-replication conflict

Wagner et al. demonstrate that RNase H1 only removes a subset of R-loops in vivo. In yeast, overexpressed RNH1 acts more frequently at dysregulated R-loops and infrequently, if at all, at other RNA-DNA hybrids. Endogenous Rnh1 is induced in a Rad53-dependent manner at transcription-replication conflicts to promote replication completion.

Physicists repair flaw of established quantum resource theorem

Quantum information theory is a field of study that examines how quantum technologies store and process information. Over the past decades, researchers have introduced several new quantum information frameworks and theories that are informing the development of quantum computers and other devices that operate leveraging quantum mechanical effects.

These include so-called resource theories, which outline the transformations that can take place in quantum systems when only a limited number of operations are allowed.

In 2008, two scientists at Imperial College London introduced what they termed the generalized quantum Stein’s lemma, a mathematical theorem that describes how well quantum states can be distinguished from one another. In this generalized setting, one typically considers multiple identical copies of a specific state (the null hypothesis) and tests them against a composite alternative hypothesis, i.e., a set of states (e.g., resource-free states).

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