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“Dancing Ghosts” – A New, Deeper Scan of the Sky Throws Up Big Surprises for Astronomers

Lead Image: Image Credit: Jayanne English/EMU/Dark Energy Survey Scanning through data fresh off the telescope, we saw two ghosts dancing deep in the cosmos. We had never seen anything like it before, and we had no idea what they were. Several weeks later, we had figured out we were seeing two radio galaxies, about a billion light-years away. In the center of each one is a supermassive black hole, squirting out jets of electrons that are bent into grotesque shapes by an intergalactic wind. But where does the intergalactic wind come from? Why is it so tangled? And what is…

Transformative Technology: To Understand Biology, Scientists Turn to the Quantum World

Lead Image: Many important phenomena in biology originate from single atoms. Quantum biosensing offers a way to investigate these biological events with unprecedented sensitivity. Above, an artistic representation of a method to use nano-sized particles to take a temperature reading inside a cell. Credit: Georg Kucsko Researchers hope sensors using quantum tech could transform biology research. Scientists discovered nuclear magnetic resonance, a physical phenomenon where nuclei absorb and re-emit energy when placed in a magnetic field, in 1938. But it took almost 30 years for this fundamental physics discovery to find its most widely known application: MRI imaging, a crucial…

Scientists Discover the Mode of Action of Essential Proteins Involved in Cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease

Lead Image: In blue, the region that binds the amino acids transported in and out of the cells. The amino acid binding center of this region is highlighted. Molecular dynamics and modeling were used to determine how different amino acids bind the transporter. Credit: Oscar Llorca (CNIO) The proteins that belong to the HAT family are essential for life as they transport amino acids across the cell membrane. Although the members of this family are practically identical, some transport certain amino acids and not others. This specialization determines their involvement in specific functions, such as cell growth or neuronal functions,…

The Strange Story of Turkey Tails Speaks Volumes About Our Global Food System

Lead Image: Headed for export? Intensive livestock farming is a huge global industry that serves up millions of tons of beef, pork, and poultry every year. When I asked one producer recently to name something his industry thinks about that consumers don’t, he replied, “Beaks and butts.” This was his shorthand for animal parts that consumers – especially in wealthy nations – don’t choose to eat. On Thanksgiving, turkeys will adorn close to 90 percent of U.S. dinner tables. But one part of the bird never makes it to the groaning board, or even to the giblet bag: the tail.…

Astronomers Discover Ancient “Failed Star” With Lithium Deposits Intact

The Spanish-Mexican team has found that the boundary between those objects which destroy lithium and those which preserve it lies at 51.5 times the mass of Jupiter. The brown dwarf Reid 1B is a major deposti fo lithium which will never be destroyed. Planets such as Jupiter and the Earth are even less massive and do not destroy their lithium. The Sun has destroyed all the lithium that was in its nucleus and preserves some in its upper layers, which are slowly mixing with its interior. Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC) A team of researchers at the Instituto de…