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Nearby super-Earth may be our best chance yet to find alien life

A nearby super-Earth may be one of the best chances yet to search for life beyond our solar system. A newly detected super-Earth just 20 light-years away is giving scientists one of the most promising chances yet to search for life beyond our solar system. The discovery of the exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of its star was made possible by advanced spectrographs designed at Penn State and by decades of observations from telescopes around the world.

A possible “super-Earth” located less than 20 light-years from Earth is giving researchers renewed optimism in the search for planets that might host life. The newly identified world, GJ 251 c, earned its “super-Earth” label because current data indicate it is almost four times the mass of Earth and is likely a rocky planet.

“We look for these types of planets because they are our best chance at finding life elsewhere,” said Suvrath Mahadevan, the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Astronomy at Penn State and co-author of a recent paper in The Astronomical Journal. “The exoplanet is in the habitable or the ‘Goldilocks Zone,’ the right distance from its star that liquid water could exist on its surface, if it has the right atmosphere.”

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Targeting key proteins in fight against ALS

Northwestern Medicine scientists have zeroed in on a cellular gatekeeper that may hold promise for treating abnormal protein accumulation in neurodegenerative diseases, according to a study published in Nature Communications. “In all neurodegenerative diseases, there is an accumulation of misfolded proteins,” said Robert Kalb, MD, the Joan and Paul Rubschlager Professor, chief of Neuromuscular Disease in the Ken and Ruth Davee Department of Neurology, and director of the Les Turner ALS Center, who was senior author of the study.

“We think that these misfolded proteins are a target for disease—the disease is actually driven by the accumulation of these misfolded proteins.”

In the current study, Kalb and his collaborators aimed to investigate the role of RAD23, a protein that is involved in the identification and disposal of damaged or misfolded proteins. Under normal circumstances, elimination of misfolded proteins is essential for maintaining a healthy collection of proteins in cells, a process known as protein homeostasis, or proteostasis.

Drought tolerance mechanisms across C3 and C3–C4 intermediate photosynthetic types revealed by physiological and gene expression profiling

Abiotic stress, particularly drought, significantly reduces crop yields and threatens global agricultural sustainability. This study investigated drought and recovery responses in four plant species with contrasting photosynthetic types: Triticum aestivum (C3), Helianthus annuus (C3), Chenopodium album (intermediate-C4), and Alternanthera brasiliana (C4-like). Drought markedly reduced plant fresh biomass (up to 80% in H. annuus) and relative water content, particularly in C. album. Oxidative damage intensified, with H. annuus showing the greatest increase in hydrogen peroxide (258%) and C. album exhibiting the highest malondialdehyde accumulation (284%). Antioxidant enzymes were strongly activated; catalase activity increased dramatically in C. album (837%) and H. annuus (630%).

Mechanistic insights into fatty acid odor detection mediated by class II olfactory receptors

Cryo-EM structures reveal how Olfr110, a class II odorant receptor, binds hydrophobic odorants such as unsaturated fatty acid metabolites in a large polar pocket with an unconventional activation mechanism, defining the structural basis of odor recognition and guiding drug targeting.

Dark energy survey scientists release analysis of all six years of survey data

The Dark Energy Survey Collaboration collected information on hundreds of millions of galaxies across the universe using the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at CTIO, a program of NSF NOIRLab. Their completed analysis combines all six years of data for the first time and yields constraints on the universe’s expansion history that are twice as tight as past analyses.

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is an international, collaborative effort to map hundreds of millions of galaxies, detect thousands of supernovae, and find patterns of cosmic structure that will help reveal the nature of the mysterious dark energy that is accelerating the expansion of our universe.

From 2013 to 2019, the DES Collaboration carried out a deep, wide-area survey of the sky using the 570-megapixel DOE-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam), mounted on the NSF Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at NSF Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. For 758 nights over six years, the DES Collaboration recorded information from 669 million galaxies that are billions of light-years from Earth, covering an eighth of the sky.

Clinically Suspected Neurodegeneration in Histiocytic Neoplasms as Causes of Neurologic DeclineA Retrospective Study

Clinically suspected neurodegeneration in histiocytic neoplasms as causes of neurologic decline: a retrospective study.

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to evaluate the causes of suspected neurodegeneration in adults with histiocytic neoplasms. MethodsPatients with histiocytic neoplasms were identified. Inclusion criteria were diagnosis of histiocytic neoplasm; the treating hematologist suspected neurodegeneration; and patients age 18 years or older. Active CNS histiocytic neoplasm was defined as new or enlarging T2 lesions, or gadolinium enhancing lesions on MRI.

Red light therapy shows promise for protecting football players’ brains

Punch-drunk syndrome, boxer’s madness, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The name has changed over the years, but the cause is clear: repeated impacts can affect long-term brain health, with symptoms ranging from confusion to memory loss and potentially dementia. More than 100 former NFL football players have been posthumously diagnosed with CTE.

What’s less clear is how to fix the problem. Even impacts that don’t directly affect the head may cause microscopic damage or initiate toxic processes that unfold over time, and current therapies for concussion and head impacts tend to address symptoms, like headache and balance issues, that can arise well after the initial injury.

But an unorthodox treatment called red light therapy, which shines powerful near-infrared light at the brain through the skull, may be able to prevent or reduce subtle damage to the brain before symptoms start, by reducing brain inflammation caused by repetitive impacts.

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