(21 Oct 2017) LEADIN:
Forget plugging in to charge up your new electric car, engineers are now working towards a future where you never need to plug in ever again.
Continue reading “Self charging car batteries mean you’ll never need to plug in” »
In a recent study, a group of researchers from Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Feinberg School of Medicine, and Tel Aviv University examined astrocytes in mice and found that these cells exhibited a senescent phenotype that led to neurodegeneration and neurotoxicity [1].
Age-dependent increase in senescent astrocytes adjacent to Aβ plaques
Cellular senescence, discovered in 1961 by Leonard Hayflick and Paul Moorhead, is a state in which cells no longer perform their functions, instead emitting harmful chemicals that turn other cells senescent… These cells are caused primarily by telomere shortening and DNA damage, they are known to contribute to many diseases, and this is not the first study that links them to neurodegeneration.
A whole new moon
Lava tubes. Cave cities. Extreme sports. The next century of lunar settlement is wilder than you think.
The rules about what makes a good magnet may not be as rigid as scientists thought. Using a mixture containing magnetic nanoparticles, researchers have now created liquid droplets that behave like tiny bar magnets.
Magnets that generate persistent magnetic fields typically are composed of solids like iron, where the magnetic poles of densely packed atoms are all locked in the same direction (SN: 2/17/18, p. 18). While some liquids containing magnetic particles can become magnetized when placed in a magnetic field, the magnetic orientations of those free-floating particles tend to get jumbled when the field goes away — causing the liquid to lose its magnetism.
Continue reading “Permanent liquid magnets have now been created in the lab” »
Trump meets with astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and the family of Neil Armstrong to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
A stealthy new drug-delivery system disguises chemotherapeutics as fat in order to outsmart, penetrate and destroy tumors.
Thinking the drugs are tasty fats, tumors invite the drug inside. Once there, the targeted drug activates, immediately suppressing tumor growth. The drug also is lower in toxicity than current chemotherapy drugs, leading to fewer side effects.
“It’s like a Trojan horse,” Northwestern University’s Nathan Gianneschi, who led the research. “It looks like a nice little fatty acid, so the tumor’s receptors see it and invite it in. Then the drug starts getting metabolized and kills the tumor cells.”
Hardcore gamers predict Google’s no-console Stadia video games will fail, but Google doesn’t need them. The real target: the 57% of gamers who don’t want to buy a console.
People have been gazing skyward at night for all of human history, studying the stars and wondering what could lie beyond them. But soon, scientists will have a powerful new tool at their disposal: the Giant Magellan Telescope, which is expected to be the world’s largest optical telescope once it’s completed.
Under the football stadium at the University of Arizona, Patrick McCarthy, the vice president and senior astronomer at the GMT project, heads the international group building the Giant Magellan.
“One of the big discoveries in astronomy in the past 20 years is that 97% of the universe, we have no idea what it is,” McCarthy said.
