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Behind the Science: How a ‘speech gene’ could help treat Huntington’s
Stanford Medicine researchers found cells that keep a speech-linked protein called FOXP2 from clumping; its tricks could break apart clumps of proteins that cause devastating brain diseases.
Successful experiments reprogram rogue T cells for targeted autoimmune disease therapy
Two teams of researchers have developed a cell reprogramming technology that converts rogue disease-causing T cells from our immune system into protective Treg cells. These cells help ensure that the immune system doesn’t attack the body’s own tissues. The breakthroughs could usher in more personalized and targeted cell therapies for a host of autoimmune diseases.
In the first paper, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, scientists developed a targeted cell therapy against pemphigus vulgaris (PV). This severe autoimmune skin disease causes blisters and sores.
They took the cells that were causing the disease (Dsg3-specific pathogenic T cells) from mouse models and human patients and converted them into harmless Treg cells. They used specialized chemical tools to switch on a gene called Foxp3, which controls a cell’s ability to help the immune system, and cut off a specific activation signal to prevent the cells from turning back into attackers.
James Webb Space Telescope Discovers Complex ‘Seeds of Life’ Molecules Beyond the Milky Way For the First Time
In a breakthrough first, University of Maryland scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope have announced the detection of large, complex, organic molecules beyond the Milky Way.
Often called “seeds of life” because these molecules make up the lifeforms found on Earth, the discovery was made within frozen ice particles around a young protostar, ST6, forming in a distant galaxy.
Retina e-paper promises screens ‘visually indistinguishable from reality’
In what could be an industry shifting breakthrough, researchers have created a screen about the size of a human pupil with a resolution that breaks through the limits of pixels. The invention could radically change virtual reality and other applications.
While most video screens such as those on our phones, TVs, and stadium jumbotrons seem to improve in resolution on a monthly basis, there has been an issue in improving the resolution of the tiny screens required in virtual reality apps. The problem is that as the screen moves closer to the human eye, the pixels that comprise it need to get smaller and smaller. Yet, if pixels get too small, their function starts to degrade and the image suffers. On a micro-LED screen, for example, pixels can’t get much smaller than one micrometer wide before losing their ability to render a clear, crisp image.
So instead of relying on pixels, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, the University of Gothenburg and Uppsala University in Sweden turned to a different technique. They created what they’ve termed “metapixels” out of tungsten oxide, a material that can switch from being an insulator to a metal based on its electrical state. The metapixels reflect light differently based on their size and how they’re arranged, and can be manipulated by an electrical current. In a way, they function much like the pigments in bird’s feathers, which can take on different colors based on how the light is hitting them.
Hydrogen atom
A hydrogen atom is an atom of the chemical element hydrogen. The electrically neutral hydrogen atom contains a single positively charged proton in the nucleus, and a single negatively charged electron bound to the nucleus by the Coulomb force. Atomic hydrogen constitutes about 75% of the baryonic mass of the universe. [ 1 ]
In everyday life on Earth, isolated hydrogen atoms (called “atomic hydrogen”) are extremely rare. Instead, a hydrogen atom tends to combine with other atoms in compounds, or with another hydrogen atom to form ordinary (diatomic) hydrogen gas, H2. “Atomic hydrogen” and “hydrogen atom” in ordinary English use have overlapping, yet distinct, meanings. For example, a water molecule contains two hydrogen atoms, but does not contain atomic hydrogen (which would refer to isolated hydrogen atoms).
Atomic spectroscopy shows that there is a discrete infinite set of states in which a hydrogen (or any) atom can exist, contrary to the predictions of classical physics. Attempts to develop a theoretical understanding of the states of the hydrogen atom have been important to the history of quantum mechanics, since all other atoms can be roughly understood by knowing in detail about this simplest atomic structure.
Solid electrolyte’s unique atomic structure helps next-generation batteries keep their cool
A team of UC Riverside engineers has discovered why a key solid-state battery material stays remarkably cool during operation—a breakthrough that could help make the next generation of lithium batteries safer and more powerful.
The study, published in PRX Energy, focused on a ceramic material known as LLZTO—short for lithium lanthanum zirconium tantalum oxide. The substance is a promising solid electrolyte for solid-state rechargeable batteries, which could deliver higher energy density than today’s lithium-ion batteries while reducing overheating and fire risks.
The study’s title is “Origin of Intrinsically Low Thermal Conductivity in a Garnet-Type Solid Electrolyte: Linking Lattice and Ionic Dynamics with Thermal Transport.”
Saturday Citations: Yet another solution for universal expansion; computing with brain organoids
This week, researchers reported the discovery of four Late Bronze Age stone megastructures likely used for trapping herds of wild animals. Physicists have proven that a central law of thermodynamics does not apply to atomic-scale objects that are linked via quantum correlation. And two Australian Ph.D. students coded a software solution for the James Webb Space Telescope’s Aperture Masking Interferometer, which has been producing blurry images.
Additionally, researchers are networking tiny human brain organoids into a computing substrate; evolutionary biologists have proposed that environmental lead exposure may have influenced early human brain evolution; and physicists have provided a predictive model to explain accelerating universal expansion without dark matter: