Toggle light / dark theme

Summary: The protein Arginase-2 works through mitochondria to reduce inflammation. The findings could lead to new treatments for diseases associated with neuroinflammation, including multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Source: RCSI

RCSI researchers have discovered a new way to ‘put the brakes’ on excessive inflammation by regulating a type of white blood cell that is critical for our immune system.

“An exciting outcome of this research is that it definitively shows the critical protective element at chromosome ends is the telomere DNA loop,” said Associate Professor Cesare.

“This likely explains why telomere length regulates ageing; cells must need long enough telomeres to make the DNA loops and this becomes difficult as cells age.”


Telomeres are the protective caps at chromosome ends. In adult cells, telomeres shorten each time a cell divides and this contributes to ageing and cancer. Pluripotent stem cells, however, are specialised cells that exist in the earliest days of development. These pluripotent cells do not age and have the ability to turn into any type of adult cell.

The surprise finding, published today in Nature, shows that telomeres in pluripotent stem cells are protected very differently than telomeres in adult tissues.

The Partei für Gesundheitsforschung (German Party for Health Research) demands, that the state should invest about 5 billion Euro per year additionally into biomedical research to hasten the development of effective medicine against the diseases of old age.

Here is our election program in German: https://parteifuergesundheitsforschung.de/wahlprogramm-der-p…erttemberg.

Please also consider donating money to the party, so that we can participate in more future elections. To participate in this years federal election in 12 states we would need e.g. at least about 50.000 Euro and unfortunately the party has almost no money at the moment. Election campaigns are a very good way to do advocacy for our cause and we can reach a lot of people this way, that we otherwise wouldn’t reach. Donating details: https://parteifuergesundheitsforschung.de/donate.

Integrated circuits, brain sciences, genetics and biotechnology, clinical medicine and health care, and deep Earth, sea, space and polar exploration were named as the other five sectors that will be given priority in terms of funding and resources, according to a draft of the government’s 14th five-year plan for 2021–25, and its vision through 2035.


‘Basic research is the wellspring of scientific and technological innovation, so we’ll boost spending in this area by a considerable sum,’ Premier Li Keqiang says.

The Spiral of the Southern Pinwheel The Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which was originally designed for the Dark Energy Survey, has captured one of the deepest images ever taken of Messier 83, a spiral galaxy playfully known as the Southern Pinwheel. Built by the US Department of Energy, DECam is mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab.

SpaceX has launched another batch of its Starlink satellites — the usual complement of 60 of the low Earth orbit spacecraft, which will join the more than 1000 already making up the existing constellation. This is the fifth launch of Starlink satellites for SpaceX this year, and the twentieth overall.

Earlier this year, SpaceX opened up Starlink access to anyone in a current or planned service area via a pre-order reservation system with a refundable up-front deposit. The company aims to continue launches like this one apace throughout 2021 in order to get the constellation to the point where it can serve customers over a much larger portion of the globe. SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell has previously said that the company expects it should have coverage over much of the globe at a constellation size of around 1200 satellites, but the company has plans to launch more than 30000 to fully build out its network capacity and speed.

While SpaceX is making good progress on Starlink with its Falcon 9 launcher, it’s also looking ahead to Starship as a key driver of the constellation’s growth. Starship, SpaceX’s next-generation launch vehicle currently under development in South Texas, will be able to deliver to orbit 400 Starlink satellites at a time, and it’s also being designed with full reusability and fast turnaround in mind.

After his PhD thesis invalidates an old assumption, Norman Cao wonders what’s next.

“What are some challenges in controlling plasma and what are your solutions? What is the most effective type of fusion device? What are some difficulties in sustaining fusion conditions? What are some obstacles to receiving fusion funding?”

For the past four years, graduate student Norman Cao ’15 PhD ’20 has been the Plasma Science and Fusion Center’s (PSFC’s) go-to “answer man,” replying to questions like these emailed by students and members of the general public interested in getting a deeper understanding of fusion and its potential as a future energy source.

Satellite observations have revealed an unprecedented ‘space hurricane’ in Earth’s upper atmosphere, hinting that such events could occur on other planetary bodies.

Scientists have previously documented hurricanes in the lower atmospheres of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Similar phenomena have even been spotted on the Sun. But the existence of space hurricanes — hurricane-like circulation patterns in planets’ upper atmospheres — has been uncertain.


Earth’s upper atmosphere cooks up a storm.