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Great interview with planetary scientist Isaac Smith, an expert on Mars polar science at York University in Toronto. Well worth a listen.

Three spacecraft are currently en route to Mars, but none will visit the poles. Yet Mars’ poles drive much of the Martian climate. And their understanding is key to deciphering what might have been happening on the Red planet some 3.5 billion years ago when it had lakes, deltas, rivers, and perhaps even transient oceans. I’m very pleased to welcome planetary scientist Isaac B. Smith of York University in Toronto — an expert on Mars polar science and exploration — to discuss the need for a Martian polar lander as well as a broader look at Mars science.

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An intriguing new study, from a team of Swiss researchers, has revealed neural activity during REM sleep in a particular region of the brain known to affect appetite and feeding behaviors significantly influences waking eating patterns.

Despite a hefty volume of robust study, REM sleep is still a mysterious and unique sleep phase. Named after the rapid eye movements that occur in all mammals during this sleep phase, it has also been referred to as paradoxical sleep, due to the strange similarity in brain activity between waking states and REM sleep.

The new research homed in on a brain region called the lateral hypothalamus. This tiny brain region, found in all mammals, is known to play a fundamental role in food intake, compulsive behavior, and a number of other physiological processes.

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Could find the coronavirus kill switch and shut it off then let the immune system eat the remainder.

A single protein derived from a common strain of bacteria found in the soil will offer scientists a more precise way to edit RNA.

The protein, called AcrVIA1, can halt the CRISPR-Cas13 editing process, according to new research from Cornell, Rockefeller University and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center published in the journal Science July 3.

“We’re expanding our scientific toolbox to effectively use a CRISPR without causing side effects,” said co-author Martin Wiedmann, Ph.D. ’97, the Gellert Family Professor in Food Safety and director of Cornell’s Food Safety Laboratory and Milk Quality Improvement Program. “Thanks to this bacterium, we’re getting a chance to turn off and on our ability to make changes to RNA.”

Continue reading “Listeria protein provides a CRISPR ‘kill switch’” | >

By formulating positively charged fluorescent dyes into a new class of materials called small-molecule ionic isolation lattices (SMILES), a compound’s brilliant glow can be seamlessly transferred to a solid, crystalline state, researchers report August 6 in the journal Chem. The advance overcomes a long-standing barrier to developing fluorescent solids, resulting in the brightest known materials in existence.

“These materials have potential applications in any technology that needs bright fluorescence or calls for designing optical properties, including harvesting, bioimaging, and lasers,” says Amar Flood, a chemist at Indiana University and co-senior author on the study along with Bo Laursen of the University of Copenhagen.

“Beyond these, there are interesting applications that include upconverting light to capture more of the solar spectrum in solar cells, light-switchable materials used for information storage and photochromic glass, and circularly polarized luminescence that may be used in 3D display technology,” Flood says.

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ST. LOUIS (KTVI) — The Perseid meteor shower is now underway and is about one week from its mid-August peak.

Considered the best meteor shower of the year, you can see up to 50 meteors per hour, according to NASA, and sometimes even more if conditions are right. The fast and bright meteors often leave long wakes of light behind them as they streak through the atmosphere, making them easy to see even for the casual astronomer.

The Perseids get their name from the constellation Perseus because they appear to radiate from that spot in the sky, but the constellation isn’t the source. When comets come around the sun, they leave a dusty trail behind them. This time each year, Earth passes by debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle, which burns up in our atmosphere.

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