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A whitish, gray patch that sometimes appears in the night sky alongside the northern lights has been explained for the first time by researchers at the University of Calgary.

The article, which was published on Dec. 30 in the journal Nature Communications, explores a “structured continuum emission” that’s associated with .

“You’d see this dynamic green aurora, you’d see some of the red aurora in the background and, all of a sudden, you’d see this structured—almost like a patch—gray-toned or white toned-emission connected to the aurora,” says Dr. Emma Spanswick, Ph.D., lead author on the paper and an associate professor with the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science.

Geophysicists at ETH Zurich are using models of the lower mantle to identify areas where earthquake waves behave differently than previously assumed. This indicates the presence of zones of rocks that are colder, or have a different composition, than the surrounding rocks. This finding challenges our current understanding of the Earth’s plate tectonics – and presents the researchers with a major mystery.

CTMU https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Cognitive-Theoretic_Model_of_the_Universe


‘What happens after we die?’ is the most existential question humans face.

But a man with one of the highest IQs in history claims to know the answer.

Chris Langan, 72, is an American horse rancher who is alleged to have an IQ between 190 and 210. That ‘genius’ score is 30 to 50 points higher than Albert Einstein’s.

Epithelial tissues are in constant interaction with their environment. Maintaining their functionality requires dynamic balance (homeostasis) and that their cell numbers are tightly regulated. This is achieved by cell extrusion programs, a checkpoint mechanism eliminating unwanted or harmful cells.

Researchers at the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin (MPZPM), Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS, UP Cité, France) and Niels Bohr Institute (Denmark) have now demonstrated how physical signals can have an impact on the fate of extruding cells governing their death or survival. The results recently published in Nature Physics may establish novel paths for understanding tissue properties in both normal and pathological conditions.

Epithelia are dynamic and must constantly deal with cell renewal. Therefore, the removal of cells from a tissue, called apoptotic extrusion, occurs regularly. Its balance is key for epithelia homeostasis. In addition to this role in tissue homeostasis, cell extrusion is a major cause of tissue shape changes and tumor progression.

The gene neuropilin2 encodes a receptor involved in cell-cell interactions in the brain and plays a key role in regulating the development of neural circuits. Neuropilin2 controls migration of inhibitory neurons as well as the formation and maintenance of synaptic connections in excitatory neurons—two crucial components of brain activity.

A study led by neuroscientist Viji Santhakumar at the University of California, Riverside, and collaborators at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, now offers insights into how this gene contributes to the development of behavioral changes associated with and epilepsy.

The study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, offers a pathway for future treatments aimed at alleviating some challenging symptoms of these frequently co-occurring conditions.

The specific labeling of RNA in living cells poses many challenges. In a new article published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, researchers from the University of Innsbruck describe a structure-guided approach to the formation of covalent (i.e., irreversibly tethered) RNA-ligand complexes.

The key to this is the modification of the original ligand with a reactive “handle” that allows it to react with a nucleobase at the RNA binding site. This was first demonstrated in vitro and in vivo using the example of an RNA riboswitch.

The versatility of the approach is highlighted by the first covalent “fluorescent light-up RNA aptamer” (coFLAP). This system retains its strong fluorescence during imaging in living cells even after washing, can be used for high-resolution microscopy and is particularly suitable for FRAP (fluorescence recovery after photobleaching) for monitoring intracellular RNA dynamics.