NASA has chosen a set of companies to partner on moon exploration, and the winners will be announced tomorrow (Nov. 29).
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The introduction of the gene editing tool CRISPR in 2007 was a revolution in medical science and cell biology. But even though the potential is great, the launch of CRISPR has been followed by debate about ethical issues and the technology’s degree of accuracy and side effects.
However, in a new study published in Cell, researchers from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research have described how Cas12a, one of the CRISPR technologies, works at the molecular level. This makes it possible to fine-tune the gene-editing process to achieve specific desired effects.
“If we compare CRISPR to a car engine, what we have done is make a complete 3D map of the engine and thus gained an understanding of how it works. This knowledge will enable us to fine-tune the CRISPR engine and make it work in various ways—as a Formula 1 racer as well as an off-road truck,” says Professor Guillermo Montoya from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research.
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The universe has been making stars for a good 13 billion years or so, and a natural question to ask might be “how many stars have existed in that time?” But now astronomers have taken it several steps further and asked “how much light has been emitted in that time?” Using a new measurement method, the team has apparently managed to quantify all the starlight every produced in the observable universe – and the result is a figure that’ll make your eyes water.
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For the first time, researchers have succeeded in creating an iron molecule that can function both as a photocatalyst to produce fuel and in solar cells to produce electricity. The results indicate that the iron molecule could replace the more expensive and rarer metals used today.
Some photocatalysts and solar cells are based on a technology that involves molecules containing metals, known as metal complexes. The task of the metal complexes in this context is to absorb solar rays and utilise their energy. The metals in these molecules pose a major problem, however, as they are rare and expensive metals, such as the noble metals ruthenium, osmium and iridium.
“Our results now show that by using advanced molecule design, it is possible to replace the rare metals with iron, which is common in the Earth’s crust and therefore cheap,” says Chemistry Professor Kenneth Wärnmark of Lund University in Sweden.
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Are you using NASA land processes data?
Posted in space
Looking to download LP DAAC products directly from Data Pool for your research project via a script but unsure how to login using your NASA Earthdata account?
Check out newly released Python and R scripts for downloading files directly from the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) Data Pool. The Python and R scripts show you how to configure a connection to download data directly in Python/R from an Earthdata Login-enabled server, specifically the LP DAAC Data Pool.
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Showrunner Jeff Buhler has built a fascinating world around Martin’s story seeds, starting by setting the action within the foreseeable future, rather than in an incomprehensibly distant one. The invented technologies here are particularly intriguing, like the genetic modifications first officer Melantha Jhirl (Jodie Turner-Smith) has to make her better suited for space travel, or the cybernetics technician Lommie (Maya Eshet) uses to interface with machinery. Given the state of real-world technological developments in genetic engineering and research into brain-machine interfaces, the series feels plausible and grounded, even though it’s set in a spacefaring future.
The 10-episode space series adapts a 40-year-old George R.R. Martin novella.
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