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Industrial and agricultural activities produce large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Many bacteria also produce methane as a byproduct of their metabolism. Some of this naturally released methane comes from the ocean, a phenomenon that has long puzzled scientists because there are no known methane-producing organisms living near the ocean’s surface. A team of researchers from MIT and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has made a discovery that could help to answer this “ocean methane paradox....

The device is made by spraying a thin layer of perovskite — an inexpensive compound of lead and iodine that has been shown to be very efficient at capturing energy from sunlight — onto a commercially available solar cell. The solar cell that forms the bottom layer of the device is made of a compound of copper, indium, gallium, and selenide, or CIGS. The team’s new cell converts 22.4 percent of the incoming energy from the sun, a record in power conversion efficiency for a perovskite–CIGS tandem solar cell....

The team from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), the University of Innsbruck, and the University of Oulu are now reporting in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters on the new degradation mechanism for dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which is released mainly by the oceans. The new findings show that important steps in the Earth’s sulfur cycle have not yet been properly understood, as they call into question the previously assumed formation pathways for sulfur dioxide (SO2), methanesulfonic acid (MSA), and carbonyl sulfide (OCS) based on DMS degradation, which strongly influence the Earth’s climate through the formation of natural particles and clouds....

A report on the research was published online by the journal Science. The scientists used cryo electron microscopy, or cryoEM, to obtain the first atomic model of the virus particle, which is made up of more than 3,000 protein molecules comprising tens of millions of atoms. “We’ve known that HSV-1 can hide inside the nucleus of the nerve cell and establish life-long latent infection inside most of us,” said Xinghong Dai, a UCLA researcher and the study’s first author....

Richard Kim, a scientist from Ames Lab, explained the two features that make the new scanning probe microscope unique. First, the microscope uses the terahertz range of electromagnetic frequencies to collect data on materials. This range is far below the visible light spectrum, falling between the infrared and microwave frequencies. Secondly, the terahertz light is shined through a sharp metallic tip that enhances the microscope’s capabilities toward nanometer-length scales. “Normally if you have a light wave, you cannot see things smaller than the wavelength of the light you’re using....

Recent advancements allow for novel approaches against an old enemy. Scientists from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and Naval Medical Research Center partnered with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Acuitas Therapeutics to develop a novel vaccine based on mRNA technology that protects against malaria in animal models, publishing their findings in npj Vaccines. In 2019, there were an estimated 229 million cases of malaria and 409,000 deaths globally, creating an extraordinary cost in terms of human morbidity, mortality, economic burden, and regional social stability....

Staying close to home and avoiding crowded places can help older adults reduce their risk of COVID-19. But a new national poll suggests it comes with a cost, especially for those with health challenges. In June of this year, 56% of people over the age of 50 said they sometimes or often felt isolated from others – more than double the 27% who felt that way in a similar poll in 2018....

By utilizing genomic research, scientists were able to uncover the previously unknown genes responsible for its formation. This breakthrough opens doors to the discovery of a multitude of new natural compounds with medical applications. Microorganisms in their natural habitat often face varying environmental conditions and have evolved to produce a diverse range of natural products with various chemical compositions and functions to aid their survival. Benzobactines – powerful, but rare Benzoxazolinate is a rare natural compound that confers extraordinary bioactivities on natural products....

New research suggests that the sugar molecule that puts the “D” in DNA — 2-deoxyribose — could exist in the far reaches of space. A team of NASA astrophysicists were able to create DNA’s sugar in laboratory conditions that mimic interstellar space. The researchers believe their results, published on Tuesday in Nature Communications, show that yet another of life’s critical chemical building blocks could be widespread in the universe and potentially seed other planets as well....

Steven Jasinski and colleagues discovered 20 identifiable skeletal elements of the new dromaeosaurid in deposits of the Ojo Alamo Formation in the San Juan Basin, New Mexico, USA. The dinosaur has been named Dineobellator notohesperus from the Navajo word Diné (Navajo people) and the Latin word bellator (warrior). The authors report a number of unique features, including vertebrae near the base of the tail that curved inwards, which could have increased Dineobellator‘s agility and improved its predation success....

Many people struggle to keep their weight in check as they get older. Now new research at Karolinska Institutet has uncovered why that is: Lipid turnover in the fat tissue decreases during aging and makes it easier to gain weight, even if we don’t eat more or exercise less than before. The study is published in the journal Nature Medicine. The scientists studied the fat cells in 54 men and women over an average period of 13 years....

Now Northwestern University researchers have developed a new hair dye process that is much milder than traditional hair dyes. The dye uses synthetic melanin to mimic natural human hair pigmentation. “We have worked with melanin for several years, focused on how we can capture some of its properties that naturally arise in biology. For example, as a pigment and a color element in all kinds of organisms,” said Northwestern’s Nathan Gianneschi, who led the research....

Ralf Jungmann, Ph.D., an alumnus of the Wyss Institute and currently a Professor of Biochemistry at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) and the Max Planck Institute (MPI) in Germany and Wyss Institute Core Faculty member Peng Yin, Ph.D. have been developing DNA-PAINT, a powerful molecular imaging technology that involves transient DNA-DNA interactions to accurately localize fluorescent dyes with super-resolution. However, although the researchers demonstrated DNA-PAINT’s potential by visualizing single biomolecules such as proteins in fixed cells at a fixed close distance, the technology could not yet investigate molecules deep inside of cells....

Scientists at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health have developed a universal vaccine that protected mice not just against COVID-19 but also other coronaviruses and triggered the immune system to fight off a dangerous variant. While no one knows which virus may cause the next outbreak, coronaviruses remain a threat after causing the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the global COVID-19 pandemic. To prevent a future coronavirus pandemic, UNC-Chapel Hill researchers designed the vaccine to provide protection from the current SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and a group of coronaviruses known to make the jump from animals to humans....

Researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) are conducting a clinical trial designed to help understand rare but potentially serious systemic allergic reactions to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. The single-site trial will enroll up to 100 people aged 16 to 69 years old who had an allergic reaction to a first dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Study participants will receive a second dose of vaccine as inpatients under carefully controlled conditions at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland....

Using a technique called solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, the MIT team found that two cholesterol molecules bind to a flu protein called M2 to sever the viral buds from their host. The molecular configuration creates an exaggerated wedge shape inside the cell membrane that curves and narrows the neck of the budding virus until the neck breaks. While previous research had demonstrated that M2’s action during budding was dependent on cholesterol concentrations in the cell membrane, the new study demonstrates the exact role cholesterol plays in releasing the virus....

Blood draws are no fun. They hurt. Veins can burst, or even roll — like they’re trying to avoid the needle, too. Oftentimes, doctors use blood samples to check for biomarkers of disease: antibodies that signal a viral or bacterial infection, such as SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, or cytokines indicative of inflammation seen in conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and sepsis. These biomarkers aren’t just in blood, though....

The fire started on July 31, and by the morning of August 2, the long smoke plume had Arizona residents waking up to an orange-tinted sky. High temperatures, strong winds, and steep terrain have made fire-fighting difficult. As of the morning of August 3, the fire had consumed more than 40 square miles (100 square kilometers) and was 5 percent contained. California officials have ordered more than 7,000 people to evacuate, and at least one home was destroyed....

The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is one of the Milky Way’s closest galactic neighbors. Even though it is a small, or so-called dwarf galaxy, the SMC is so bright that it is visible to the unaided eye from the Southern Hemisphere and near the equator. Many navigators, including Ferdinand Magellan who lends his name to the SMC, used it to help find their way across the oceans. Modern astronomers are also interested in studying the SMC (and its cousin, the Large Magellanic Cloud), but for very different reasons....

Picture is a young Putty-nosed monkey (Cercopithecus nictitans), rescued by CERCOPAN primate sanctuary in Nigeria. Credit: LaetitiaC/Wikipedia The study reinterprets evidence about primate language and concludes that Old World monkeys can combine two items in a language sequence. And yet, their ability to combine items together seems to stop at two. The monkeys are not able to recombine language items in the same open-ended manner as humans, whose languages generate an infinite variety of sequences....