Author: Rojitson

Healthy human brains can be hotter than we thought, reaching nearly 41°C in women, according to a small study. The findings could change how people with brain injuries are medically managed, says Nina Rzechorzek at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. Normal brain temperature is generally assumed to be the same as that of the rest of the body – about 37 °C – yet we had no way to know for sure. People with head injuries sometimes have highly sensitive temperature probes put into their brains, but this isn’t done to people who aren’t undergoing medical treatment.…

A one-off injection might permanently reduce the risk of heart disease by reversibly switching off a gene in the liver, according to a study in mice. The findings suggest that the approach used, called epigenome editing, can produce long-term changes in gene activity without the potential risks associated with permanent gene editing. Liver cells produce a protein called PCSK9 that breaks down another protein that removes cholesterol from the blood. So blocking the PCSK9 protein, or stopping it being made, can lower cholesterol levels and should cut the risk of heart disease. There are already cholesterol-lowering drugs that work in…

No one was surprised last week  when researchers with a massive new dark matter detector called LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) reported finding nothing. After all, LZ started hunting its quarry, hypothetical weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), a few months ago and has collected just a few percent of its expected data. Still, the announcement piqued the interest of physicists. LZ, a U.S. detector, is turning on at the same time as similar detectors in Italy and China. They likely mark the final or nearly final phase in the decadeslong quest to spot these particles, a potential solution to one of physics’ greatest…

There is a long-standing debate in biology about the relative importance of existing variation versus new mutations in evolution. Now, this has been put to the test in an experiment with bacteria that ran for 2000 generations – and new mutations quickly won out. After 500 generations, the pre-existing variation no longer mattered, and all further evolution was due to new mutations, says Minako Izutsu at Michigan State University. “Five hundred generations in our experiment are 75 days. It’s really short,” says Izutsu. “I thought the effects of standing variation would last longer.” Mutations in the genomes of organisms provide…

The European SpaceAgency has released a newtranche of data fromitsGaia space telescope, and nowwe can look back into the history of our galaxy Our map of the Milky Way has been upgraded, and it now lets us rewind the paths of stars to look back in time. The data set that enables this, released by the European Space Agency’s (ESA)’s Gaia space telescope, includes the detailed chemical make-up and speeds of almost 2 billion stars. From its vantage point 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, Gaia has been measuring already known stars and seeking new ones since its launch in 2013.…

With the cryptocurrency market spiralling downward and the bursting of the non-fungible token (NFT) bubble, many sceptics believe that the metaverse—a thoroughly immersive emerging version of the internet—is just another fleeting trend. Mathew Ball’s The Metaverse seeks to reassure the reader that it is not. Reporting that the term “metaverse” was mentioned more than 260 times in US Securities and Exchange Commission filings in 2021, Ball suggests that “the sheer number of companies that see potential value in the Metaverse speaks to the size and diversity of the opportunity.” The three-part book provides more than just a definitive definition of…

With more energy than a billion Suns, a size greater than our solar system and the potential to destroy entire planets millions of miles away, some stars certainly know how to go out with a bang When we delve into certain realms of astronomy, the scale of events and objects are often impossibly large to imagine. If we think of planets like Earth and Mars we can at least get some sort of grasp as to their size, as we can consider them relative to other bodies. As we get to bigger objects, like Jupiter and the Sun, our understanding…

Life and water are inextricably linked. Life as we know it needs a solvent in order to exist – a liquid carrier that can dissolve biological molecules, allowing them to come into contact and therefore enabling the chemistry of life to occur. Water is the only molecule known to be able to perform this function. Water is quite unlike any other solvent in the known universe. Its chemical structure means that one side of each molecule is positively charged and the other is negatively charged. This makes water molecules sticky, attracting anything else with a positive or negative charge, including…

When we imagine a dystopian future, it’s almost always filled with robotic assistants. We do not have to stretch our imaginations too far to think of ways that machines could help us: they could play a role in warfare, join rescue teams, or carry our shopping. Today, many scientists are dedicated to constructing machines that can fill these roles – and finding the optimal designs was easy, as nature had already provided the templates. Animals have adapted to excel in every environment on the planet. Species exist in extreme temperatures, reside on mountaintops, and live in the depths of the ocean.…

The human brain is often said to be the most complicated object in the known universe, encompassing around 100 billion neurons arranged in a massive network, where each neuron is connected to approximately 10,000 others. Our superior aptitude to learn, interpret and think creatively has helped us to cure diseases, place humans on the Moon, and develop helpful computer programs that surround us in our everyday lives. Computer power and capability has improved massively in the past few decades, and today a computer can solve a mathematical problem almost instantly, much faster than the human brain. Shops, schools, hospitals, and…