Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin): Sources, benefits and dosage
Vitamin B2 is also important for eye health. For example, riboflavin changes vitamin B6 and folate (vitamin B9) into forms that the body can use. B2 may be important to maintaining a...
The Human Skeletal System
In addition to all those bones, the human skeletal system includes a network of tendons, ligaments and cartilage that connect the bones together. The skeletal system provides the str...
Self-healing landscape: Landslides after earthquakes
Large ground cracks on a small ridge and landslide in the background after the Nepal quake of April 2015, upper Bhote Koshi river valley Credit: O. Marc, GFZ In mountainous regions ...
Scientists discover electrical control of cancer cell growth
The research focused on a molecular switch called K-Ras. When K-Ras is locked in the on position, it drives cell division, which leads to the production of a cancer, said John Hancoc...
Record-high pressure reveals secrets of matter
As pressure increases, the distance between the atoms decreases, and the outer electrons, the highly mobile valence electrons, interact with each other. Osmium is the metal with the ...
Nine risk factors may contribute to two-thirds of Alzheimer’s cases worldwide: All potentially modifiable; could prove promising options for prevention, say researchers
Nine potentially modifiable risk factors may contribute to up to two thirds of Alzheimer’s disease cases worldwide, suggests an analysis of the available evidence, published online i...
New drug protects against the deadly effects of nuclear radiation 24 hours after exposure
An interdisciplinary research team led by The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston reports a new breakthrough in countering the deadly effects of radiation exposure. UTMB ...
NASA is laser-focused on deep space communication
Researchers for the Comm Delay Assessment investigation set out to determine whether communication delays, like those astronauts could experience on a long-duration mission to an ast...
How DNA ‘proofreader’ proteins pick and edit their reading material
Fortunately, our bodies have a system for detecting and repairing these mismatches – a pair of proteins known as MutS and MutL. MutL puts a nick in the newly synthesized DNA strand t...
Eyeing the stars: Ethiopia’s space programme
Reflective one-meter telescopes are pictured at the grounds of The Entoto Observatory and Research Center, on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia High above the crowded streets o...
Discovery of new code makes reprogramming of cancer cells possible
Now, researchers on Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus have discovered a way to potentially reprogram cancer cells back to normalcy. The investigators showed, in laboratory experiments, th...
Cameras delivered for OSIRIS-REx mission as launch prep continues
The University of Arizona’s camera suite, OCAMS, sits on a test bench that mimics its arrangement on the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. They will map the asteroid Bennu, help choose a sample...
Boosting your body for lift off: NASA’s One-Year Mission investigates the metabolism
The test results establish a profile of the body’s response to spaceflight, helping scientists understand how the body reacts in microgravity in different groups of people. On Earth,...
Bilingualism and the brain: How language shapes our ability to process information
There, speaking two languages is limited mostly to those with high socioeconomic status. I study bilingual children, and sometimes even infants raised in a bilingual context. adverti...
AIM: Asteroid touchdown
The 15 kg Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout-2 (Mascot-2) is building on the heritage of DLR’s Mascot-1 already flying on Japan’s Hayabusa-2. Launched in 2014, the latter will land on ast...
After a half century, the exotic pentaquark particle is found
Combining a quark and an antiquark (a quark’s antimatter equivalent) creates a type of hadron called a meson, while baryons are hadrons composed of three quarks. Protons, for example...
What flows on Pluto?
Contrasting that with the other major finding of 3000 m water-ice mountains on Pluto – does it leave you wondering why ice can form mountains on Pluto, but methane flows? Part of the...
Vitamin B6: Sources & Benefits
Since the body can so easily run out of B6, it is important to consume foods that contain B6. First breath Vitamin B6 may have given rise to Earth’s first oxygen-producing organisms...
The unique ecology of human predators
Are humans unsustainable ‘super predators’? Want to see what science now calls the world’s super predator? Look in the mirror. Humans hunt and kill large land carnivores such as bear...
The human genome: A complex orchestra
Chromatin, a complex of protein and DNA, packages the genome in a cell. The scientists’ study in Cell reports how genetic variation affected three molecular layers in immune cell lin...
Rosetta’s comet contains ingredients for life
They include the amino acid glycine, which is commonly found in proteins, and phosphorus, a key component of DNA and cell membranes. Hints of the simplest amino acid, glycine, were f...
Regulatory, certification systems creating paralysis in use of genetically altered trees
These threats pose a real and present danger to the future of many of our forest trees, notes Steven Strauss, a distinguished professor of forest biotechnology at Oregon State Univer...
Primates have been infected with viruses related to HIV for 16 million years
A study published on August 20th in PLOS Pathogens of antiviral gene sequences in African monkeys suggests that lentiviruses closely related to HIV have infected primates in Africa a...
Physicists create a magnetic wormhole in the lab – Physics World
The team has built a spherical wormhole, made from ferromagnetic and superconducting components, that is magnetically cloaked. The superconductor repels external magnetic fields, the...
Obesity breakthrough: Metabolic master switch prompts fat cells to store or burn fat
By analyzing the cellular circuitry underlying the strongest genetic association with obesity, the researchers have unveiled a new pathway that controls human metabolism by prompting...