Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) have for the first time precisely characterized the enzyme styrene oxide isomerase, which can be used to produce valuable chemicals and drug precursors in an environmentally friendly manner. The study appears today in the journal Nature Chemistry.

Enzymes are powerful biomolecules that can be used to produce many substances at ambient conditions. They enable “green” chemistry, which reduces environmental pollution resulting from processes used in synthetic chemistry. One such tool from nature has now been characterized in detail by PSI researchers: the enzyme styrene oxide isomerase. It is the biological version of the Meinwald reaction, an important chemical reaction in organic chemistry.

“The enzyme, discovered decades ago, is made by bacteria,” says Richard Kammerer of PSI’s Biomolecular Research Laboratory. His colleague Xiaodan Li adds: “But because the way it functions was not known, its practical application has been limited up to now.” The two researchers and their team have elucidated the structure of the enzyme as well as the way it works.

A collaborative effort between Harvard and Google has led to a breakthrough in brain science, producing an extensive 3D map of a tiny segment of human brain, revealing complex neural interactions and laying the groundwork for mapping an entire mouse brain.

A cubic millimeter of brain tissue may not sound like much. But considering that tiny square contains 57,000 cells, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, and 150 million synapses, all amounting to 1,400 terabytes of data, Harvard and Google researchers have just accomplished something enormous.

A Harvard team led by Jeff Lichtman, the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and newly appointed dean of science, has co-created with Google researchers the largest synaptic-resolution, 3D reconstruction of a piece of human brain to date, showing in vivid detail each cell and its web of neural connections in a piece of human temporal cortex about half the size of a rice grain.

NASA ’s upcoming Gateway space station, set to orbit the Moon, will rely heavily on its Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) for energy and maintaining its orbit. Currently under development with Maxar Technologies, the PPE uses solar electric propulsion to efficiently power the station. This system, designed to significantly reduce the need for propellant, will be integrated with Gateway’s habitation module and launched to support deep space exploration and future Artemis missions to Mars.

As astronauts live and work on Gateway to enable sustained exploration and research in deep space, their efforts will be made possible by Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE). A foundational component of the lunar outpost and the most powerful solar electric spacecraft ever flown, PPE will provide Gateway with power and allow it to maintain its unique orbit around the Moon.

Gateway will be humanity’s first space station in lunar orbit and serve as an essential element of NASA’s Artemis missions. As astronauts live and work on Gateway to enable sustained exploration and research in deep space, their efforts will be made possible by the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE). A foundational component of the lunar outpost and the most powerful solar electric spacecraft ever flown, PPE will provide Gateway with power and allow it to maintain its unique orbit around the Moon.

New observations reveal that X-ray emissions from the Cloverleaf odd radio circle are linked to merging galaxy groups, offering new insights into these mysterious cosmic structures.

Astronomers have discovered enormous circular radio features of unknown origin around some galaxies. Now, new observations of one dubbed the Cloverleaf suggest it was created by clashing groups of galaxies.

Studying these structures, collectively called ORCs (odd radio circles), in a different kind of light offered scientists a chance to probe everything from supersonic shock waves to black hole behavior.

Flatiron Institute senior research scientist Shiwei Zhang and his team have utilized the Hubbard model to computationally re-create key features of the superconductivity in materials called cuprates that have puzzled scientists for decades.

Superfast hovering trains, long-distance power transmission without energy loss, and quicker MRI scanners — all these incredible technological innovations could be within reach if we could develop a material that conducts electricity without any resistance, or “superconducts,” at approximately room temperature.

In a paper recently published in the journal Science, researchers report a breakthrough in our understanding of the origins of superconductivity at relatively high (though still frigid) temperatures. The findings concern a class of superconductors that has puzzled scientists since 1986, called ‘cuprates.’

New photonic integrated circuit technology based on lithium tantalate improves cost-efficiency and scalability, making significant advancements in optical communications and computing.

Optical communications and computing systems have been revolutionized by the rapid advancement in photonic integrated circuits (PICs), which combine multiple optical devices and functionalities on a single chip.

For decades, silicon-based PICs have dominated the field due to their cost-effectiveness and their integration with existing semiconductor manufacturing technologies, despite their limitations with regard to their electro-optical modulation bandwidth. Nevertheless, silicon-on-insulator optical transceiver chips were successfully commercialized, driving information traffic through millions of glass fibers in modern data centers.

Integrating human pluripotent stem cell models with population genetics and cellular genomics can help elucidate functional mechanisms underlying complex disease risk loci and uncover relationships between common genetic variation and pharmacotherapeutic phenotypes.

Since the first microbial genome was sequenced in 1995, scientists have reconstructed the genomic makeup of hundreds of thousands of microorganisms and have even devised methods to take a census of bacterial communities on the skin, in the gut, or in soil, water and elsewhere based on bulk samples, leading to the emergence of a relatively new field of study known as metagenomics.

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