Author: Rojitson

Researchers have worked out the optimal recipe for making giant, long-lasting soap bubbles. It should allow anyone to reliably blow bubbles at least 12 centimetres across and potentially create some large enough to envelop a person. Marina Pasquet, who carried out the work with her colleagues at the University of Paris-Saclay, started the project by investigating liquids that artists and performers were using to make giant bubbles. “There are a lot of recipes out there,” says Pasquet, who is now at the University of California, Berkeley. Soap bubbles are essentially packages of air surrounded by an iridescent liquid film. A phenomenon…

Scientists have discovered possible genetic risk factors involved in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). ME/CFS is a poorly understood condition that affects around 17 million people worldwide. To better understand its cause, Steve Gardner at UK biotech firm PrecisionLife and his colleagues analysed DNA samples from 2382 participants of the UK Biobank study, who all had ME/CFS. Most genetic studies look for differences in individual DNA letters, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Gardner and his colleagues instead hunted for differences in combinations of SNPs, allowing them to identify genetic traits that may only be…

A robot can autonomously navigate inside a building using a magnetometer and a detailed map of local magnetic anomalies. The technique could provide a means for people as well as robots to find their way around large buildings.Satellite navigation systems like Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo can provide accurate location information all over the planet, but they have weaknesses. Signals can be jammed in times of conflict, as GPS signals currently are in Ukraine, and they tend to be difficult to pick up indoors. The US Air Force has run tests of magnetic anomaly navigation on fighter jets,…

A network of blood vessels in whales’ brains may protect them from powerful pressure pulses generated during swimming. Whales get around by moving their tails up and down, which, in combination with breath-holding, sends a wave of pressure from the tail to the head. This would typically cause injury to the brain, but whales manage to evade such damage. “The squeezing actions create pressure pulses which can travel in the blood through veins or arteries,” says Robert Shadwick at the University of British Columbia in Canada. “Unlike a running mammal, [whales] cannot alleviate the locomotion-induced pulses by exhaling air.” Researchers…

A bubble of hot electrons appears to be circling Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, at extraordinary speeds. This strange bubble could help us learn about how black holes devour the material around them.Maciek Wielgus at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany and his colleagues used the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to observe the area surrounding Sagittarius A* as the black hole was emitting a huge flare of X-rays.Minutes after the flare occurred, the researchers saw an enormous “hot spot” of radiation, most likely made up of…

A Gene-replacement therapy that is administered directly to the brain has allowed some children with a rare genetic condition to walk and talk for the first time. “It’s a dream come true,” says Richard Poulin, whose daughter Rylae-Ann received the therapy in November 2019, aged 18 months. Rylae-Ann, who lives in Thailand, went from being unable to say any words, move or even lift her head to “running, jumping, kicking a ball, riding a horse, swimming and speaking in multiple languages”, according to Poulin. Rylae-Ann was born with AADC deficiency, a genetic condition with fewer than 150 documented cases worldwide.…

Storytelling is an essential feature of the human condition, propose Mike Sharples and Rafael Pérez y Pérez in Story Machines. It allows us to make meaning in the world and in our lives, to communicate with one another, to teach, to learn, and to explore. The book, which provides a readable, engaging, and instructive introduction to the mechanisms according to which computers have been made to produce “stories,” also confronts more fundamental questions: What constitutes our own creativity? Can stories do their cultural work without connecting a reader to a human writer? If computers cannot understand, appreciate, or intend the…

From the Epic of Gilgamesh to alchemists’ quest to find the fabled philosopher’s stone, stories of perilous, yet ultimately fruitless, pursuits of immortality are ubiquitous. Even today, humanity seems determined to unlock the secrets of a long life. But now we look to science, not legend. In Jellyfish Age Backwards, molecular biologist Nicklas Brendborg takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the science of ageing. We begin with a visit to a few of the many natural wonders that defy our ideas of ageing. These include the 400-year-old shark that roams the Greenland Sea and the species of tiny jellyfish,…

The first global survey of marine RNA viruses has found thousands of new ones, some of which play a key role in locking away carbon. Between 2009 and 2012, seawater samples were collected from the oceans, including the Arctic (pictured). While identifying DNA-based viruses was the initial aim, Guillermo Domínguez-Huerta at the Ohio State University and his team have now surveyed RNA viruses in the samples. They identified more than 5,000 types, almost all new to science. The team looked at the role some of these RNA viruses play in carbon sequestration. Every day, dead Plankton sink to the bottom…

Brain cells that generate fever and other symptoms of sickness have been identified in mice. Animals tend to respond to being ill in the same way, for example with fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, and by seeking warmth. Earlier studies suggest fever helps by increasing body temperature – making it harder for pathogens to survive – while fatigue and loss of appetite link to energy regulation. To pin down the parts of the brain responsible, Catherine Dulac at Harvard University and her team gave mice molecules that induce effects akin to a genuine illness. They used sequencing and imaging to…