Thankfully, no crew were onboard for what would have been a terrifying ride.
One minute and four seconds after the launch of an uncrewed flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch system on Monday, September 12, the rocket suffered an anomaly.
Continue reading “Blue Origin’s rocket exploded, but the capsule escape system worked a charm” »
Hubble walked so that JWST could run.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured the most detailed and painstakingly sharp images ever taken of the inner region of the Orion Nebula, known as the “picture book of star formation.” The stellar nursery is situated in the constellation Orion, 1,350 light-years away from Earth.
NASA, ESA, CSA, PDRs4All ERS Team; image processing Salomé Fuenmayor.
Continue reading “James Webb Space Telescope captures Orion Nebula with ‘breathtaking’ details” »
This will make solar the cheapest type of clean energy.
The biggest challenge with solar power is that it can be produced only during the day. This is also one of the major reasons why many people and industries abstain from investing in solar panels because they are not a stable source of power. However, 26-year-old innovator and entrepreneur Ben Nowack claims to have developed a method that would allow solar energy production during the night as well.
Boron as rocket fuel has been a tough nut to crack.
Rocket scientists in China are working to develop a boron-powered supersonic missile that can fly like a commercial airliner and then swim in the water to act as a torpedo, South China Morning Post.
IStock/AlexLMX
Continue reading “Boron-powered Chinese missile will work in the air and underwater” »
Work is afoot to build the necessary instruments to do so.
ETH Zurich, the Swiss federal institute, recently opened its new Center for the Origin and Prevalence of Life, an interdisciplinary institute to analyze the current and future observations of the Earth and the universe. During the opening ceremony, astrophysicist Sasha Quanz said that we might be able to detect the presence of life outside our solar system in the next 25 years, Space.com.
IStock/oorka.
The new data could help explain why and how solar wind accelerates at great speeds across the solar system.
The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter probe made the first-ever remote sensing observation of a solar “switchback”, according to a blog post from the agency.
Continue reading “The ESA’s Solar Orbiter records a solar ‘switchback’ proving they exist” »
The activity of neurons has been measured in a slice of mouse tissue using a quantum diamond sensor – and it might one day enable a new type of non-invasive brain scanning.
According to a study presented at ESC Congress 2022, short-term use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) is linked to a first-time hospitalization for heart failure in individuals with type 2 diabetes.
NSAIDs are the most common form of anti-inflammatory medication. The most popular NSAIDs include aspirin, ibuprofen (often known as Advil), and naproxen (known by the brand name Aleve and Naprosyn). However, despite their widespread use, these drugs can have side effects.
“In our study, approximately one in six patients with type 2 diabetes claimed at least one NSAID prescription within one year,” said first author Dr. Anders Holt of Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark.” In general, we always recommend that patients consult their doctor before starting a new medication, and with results from this study, we hope to help doctors mitigate risk if prescribing NSAIDs.
Summary: Determining the structure of vitronectin, a protein implicated in age-related macular degeneration and some neurodegenerative disorders, and using pressure to alter the protein shape may help in the development of new treatments for AMD.
Source: Sanford Burnham Prebys.
Research led by Sanford Burnham Prebys professor Francesca Marassi, Ph.D., is helping to reveal the molecular secrets of macular degeneration, which causes almost 90% of all age-related vision loss.
Animal studies on great apes have long been banned in Europe for ethical reasons. For the question pursued here, organoids (three-dimensional cell structures a few millimeters in size that are grown in the laboratory) are an alternative to animal experiments. These organoids can be produced from pluripotent stem cells, which then differentiate into specific cell types, such as nerve cells. In this way, the research team was able to produce both chimpanzee brain organoids and human brain organoids. “These brain organoids allowed us to investigate a central question concerning ARHGAP11B,” says Wieland Huttner of the MPI-CBG, one of the three lead authors of the study published in EMBO Reports.
“In a previous study we were able to show that ARHGAP11B can enlarge a primate brain. However, it was previously unclear whether ARHGAP11B had a major or minor role in the evolutionary enlargement of the human neocortex,” says Wieland Huttner. To clarify this, the ARGHAP11B gene was first inserted into brain ventricle-like structures of chimpanzee organoids. Would the ARGHAP11B gene lead to the proliferation of those brain stem cells in the chimpanzee brain that are necessary for the enlargement of the neocortex?
“Our study shows that the gene in chimpanzee organoids causes an increase in relevant brain stem cells and an increase in those neurons that play a crucial role in the extraordinary mental abilities of humans,” said Michael Heide, the study’s lead author, who is head of the Junior Research Group Brain Development and Evolution at the DPZ and employee at the MPI-CBG.
