NASA and an international team of planetary scientists have found evidence in meteorites on Earth that indicates Mars has a distinct and global reservoir of water or ice near its surface. Though controversy still surrounds the origin, abundance and history of water on Mars, this discovery helps resolve the question of where the “missing Martian water” may have gone. Scientists continue to study the planet’s historical record, trying to understand the apparent shift from an early wet and warm climate to today’s dry and cool surface conditions....

Unlike proteins that usually contain hundreds of amino acids, peptides contain – at most – dozens of such acids. The cyclic peptides the researchers discovered bind specifically to chains of ubiquitin proteins – proteins that are usually used as a “death tag” for damaged proteins. The labeling of the damaged proteins leads to their being broken down in the proteasome, or the cell’s “garbage can.” Peptides typically contain no more than a few dozen amino acids, in contrast to proteins which usually contain hundreds....

Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, along with their colleagues, have discovered new genetic causes for three rare conditions – primary lymphedema, thoracic aortic aneurysm disease, and congenital deafness – using a novel computational approach they developed to analyze extensive genetic datasets from rare disease cohorts. The project was a collaborative effort that involved researchers from various parts of the world, including the University of Bristol in the UK, KU Leuven in Belgium, the University of Tokyo, the University of Maryland, Imperial College London, and others....

The research, published on March 10 in the journal Science Advances, has important implications in the search for extraterrestrial life because it gives researchers a new clue to look for, said Vikas Nanda, a researcher at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM) at Rutgers. Based on laboratory studies, Rutgers scientists say one of the most likely chemical candidates that kickstarted life was a simple peptide with two nickel atoms they are calling “Nickelback” not because it has anything to do with the Canadian rock band, but because its backbone nitrogen atoms bond two critical nickel atoms....

“Life-saving bone marrow transplants have been the common practice for decades, but this doesn’t work for everybody,” says Stowers Institute Investigator Linheng Li, Ph.D., study lead who is also co-leader of the cancer biology program at the University of Kansas Cancer Center and an affiliate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine. Only 30 percent of patients have a bone marrow donor match available in their families, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services....

This work, led by Dr. Patrick Varga-Weisz shows how chemicals produced by bacteria in the gut from the digestion of fruit and vegetables can affect genes in the cells of the gut lining. These molecules, called short chain fatty acids, can move from the bacteria and into our own cells. Inside our cells, they can trigger processes that change gene activity and that ultimately affect how our cells behave. This new research shows that the short chain fatty acids increase the number of chemical markers on our genes....

Black holes with millions or even billions of solar masses are found in the centers of most galaxies. The most powerfully active nuclear black holes are in quasars and these have been spotted as far away as the epoch when the universe was less than a billion years old, suggesting that the galaxy-black hole symbiosis was already underway at this early time. Accreting black holes can emit powerful jets or winds that reverse the accretion and drive material outward, sometimes quenching the star formation....

This approach could also be used to study other biological phenomena such as programmed cell death or metastasis, the researchers say. “Noninvasive monitoring of single-cell mechanical properties could be useful for studying many different types of cellular processes,” says Scott Manalis, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in the MIT departments of Biological Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the senior author of the study....

Sunscreen that includes zinc oxide, a common ingredient, loses much of its effectiveness and becomes toxic after two hours of exposure to ultraviolet radiation, according to a collaboration that included Oregon State University scientists. The toxicity analysis involved zebrafish, which share a remarkable similarity to humans at the molecular, genetic and cellular levels, meaning many zebrafish studies are immediately relevant to people. Findings to be published tomorrow (October 14, 2021) in Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences....

Vibrio vulnificus bacteria grow in warm shallow coastal waters and can infect a cut or insect bite during contact with seawater. A new study led by the UK’s University of East Anglia (UEA) shows that the number of V. vulnificus infections along the East Coast of the US, a global hotspot for such infections, has gone up from 10 to 80 per year over a 30-year period. In addition, every year cases occur further north....

Graduate Center, CUNY researchers uncover evidence suggesting that volcanic carbon emissions were not a major driver of the Earth’s most recent extinction event. Earth has experienced five major mass extinction events over the past 500 million years. Massive volcanic eruptions have been identified as the major driver of the environmental changes that precipitated at least three of these extinction events. The fifth and most recent event — the end-Cretaceous mass extinction — occurred 66 million years ago and was responsible for wiping out dinosaurs....

College Station — An international collaboration whose search for dark matter is powered by detectors being fabricated at Texas A&M University has for the first time observed a concrete hint of what physicists believe to be the particle behind dark matter and therefore nearly a quarter of the universe — a WIMP, or weakly interacting massive particle. Scientists with the international Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS) experiment involving Texas A&M high-energy physicist Rupak Mahapatra are reporting a WIMP-like signal at the 3-sigma level, indicating a 99....

How relapse happens: Opiates reduce the brain’s ability to form, maintain synapses. Preclinical research was focused on revealing the molecular mechanisms behind addiction and relapse. Exposure to heroin sharply reduces levels of the protein necessary for developing and maintaining the brain’s synapses, a preclinical study by University at Buffalo researchers has found. The development of addiction relapse is directly related to the impact that reductions in this protein, called drebrin, have on specific cells involved in the brain’s pleasure-seeking/reward pathways....

Researchers at MIT have developed a new approach to creating the complex array of wires and connections on microchips, using a system of self-assembling polymers. The work could eventually lead to a way of making more densely packed components on memory chips and other devices. The new method — developed by MIT visiting doctoral student Amir Tavakkoli of the National University of Singapore, along with two other graduate students and three professors in MIT’s departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) — is described in a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials....

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately one in five adults will develop long-term effects from COVID-19. Difficulty thinking or concentrating, sleep problems, headache, lightheadedness, change in smell or taste, pins-and-needles sensation, and depression or anxiety are all neurological symptoms associated with long COVID. However, research studies have found that COVID-19 may be associated with changes to the heart, lungs, or other organs even in asymptomatic patients....

How to wear your mask. Wear your mask secure over your mouth and nose.Wear your mask secure over your mouth and nose. How to store your mask when going to the bathroom, taking a drink or eating. Place your mask on a clean paper towel. (Exterior of the mask facing down with the ties placed away from the inside.)Store your mask in a clean paper bag. How NOT to wear your mask....

A small study has shown that SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in patients who had an inflamed heart muscle in the past is not associated with a recurrence of the condition or other serious side effects. The research is presented at ESC Acute CardioVascular Care 2022, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).[1] “These results provide reassuring data that may encourage patients with a history of myocarditis to get vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2,” said study author Dr....

Organic solar cells are cheaper to produce and more flexible than their counterparts made of crystalline silicon, but do not offer the same level of efficiency or stability. A group of researchers led by Prof. Christoph Brabec, Director of the Institute of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET) at the Chair of Materials Science and Engineering at FAU, have been working on improving these properties for several years. During his doctoral thesis, Andrej Classen, who is a young researcher at FAU, demonstrated that efficiency can be increased using luminescent acceptor molecules....

A groundbreaking study published in Nature Physics by a team of scientists from Stanford University in the United States and University College Dublin (UCD) in Ireland has revealed that a new type of highly specialized analog computer, equipped with quantum components in its circuits, can solve complex problems in quantum physics that were previously beyond reach. If these devices can be scaled up, they have the potential to provide insights into some of the most significant unresolved issues in physics....

To find out whether non-human mammals have a sense of rhythm, the team decided to study one of the few ‘singing’ primates, the critically endangered lemur Indri indri. The researchers wanted to know whether indri songs have categorical rhythm, a ‘rhythmic universal’ found across human musical cultures. Rhythm is categorical when intervals between sounds have exactly the same duration (1:1 rhythm) or doubled duration (1:2 rhythm). This type of rhythm makes a song easily recognizable, even if it is sung at different speeds....