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    Category Biology/Biotechnology

    Earth’s extremes point the way to extraterrestrial life

    August 26, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Biology/Biotechnology

    A giant of a moon appears before a giant of a planet undergoing seasonal changes in this natural color view of Titan and Saturn from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    A giant of a moon appears before a giant of a planet undergoing seasonal changes in this natural color view of Titan and Saturn from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    Astrobiologists draw upon what is known about Earth’s most extreme lifeforms and the environments of Mars and Titan, Saturn’s moon, to paint a clearer picture of what life on other planets could be like. Some of the most unusual organisms found on Earth provide insights for Washington State University planetary scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch to predict what life could be like elsewhere in the universe.

    NASA’s discovery last month of 500 new planets near the constellations Lyra and Cygnus, in the Milky Way Galaxy, touched off a storm of speculation about alien life...

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    Dietary Iron Intake, equivalent to Heavy Red Meat consumption, Suppresses Leptin, a hormone that regulates Appetite

    August 25, 2015, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Serum leptin and adipocyte leptin mRNA levels decrease with dietary iron...

    Serum leptin and adipocyte leptin mRNA levels decrease with dietary iron overload. (A) Iron levels measured by ferrozine-based colorimetric assay in mice fed low normal– and high-iron diet (n = 4 mice/group). (B) Tfrc mRNA levels quantified by qPCR and normalized to cyclophilin A in adipose tissue from mice fed different levels of dietary iron (n = 6 mice/group). (C) Serum leptin levels from the mice (n = 6 mice/group). (D) Intracellular leptin levels by Western blotting. Data are representative of 3 experiments with n = 4 per replicate. (E) Quantification of leptin protein levels from D normalized to tubulin (n = 4 mice/group). (F) Leptin mRNA levels quantified by qPCR and normalized to cyclophilin A in adipose tissue from mice fed different dietary iron (n = 6 mice/group)...

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    Genetic Study finds Association between Reduced Vitamin D and Multiple Sclerosis Risk

    August 25, 2015, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology, Health/Medical

    Vitamin D pathway. In blue are the genes containing, or in proximity to, SNPs that were genome-wide significant for 25OHD level in SUNLIGHT (n = 33,996). The p-values for the association with 25OHD level were 1.9 × 10−109 for GC, 2.1 × 10−27 for DHCR7, 3.3 × 10−20 for CYP2R1, and 6.0 × 10−10 for CYP24A1. Note that each gene plays an independent role in modulating the level of 25OHD. Kidney and liver images credit: https://openclipart.org/. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001866.g002

    Vitamin D pathway. In blue are the genes containing, or in proximity to, SNPs that were genome-wide significant for 25OHD level in SUNLIGHT (n = 33,996). The p-values for the association with 25OHD level were 1.9 × 10−109 for GC, 2.1 × 10−27 for DHCR7, 3.3 × 10−20 for CYP2R1, and 6.0 × 10−10 for CYP24A1. Note that each gene plays an independent role in modulating the level of 25OHD. Kidney and liver images credit: https://openclipart.org/. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001866.g002

    Genetic findings support observational evidence that lower vitamin D levels are associated with increased risk of multiple sclerosis...

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    Another Milestone in Hybrid Artificial Photosynthesis

    August 25, 2015, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology, Biology/Biotechnology, Environment/Geology

    Artificial photosynthesis used to produce renewable molecular hydrogen for synthesizing carbon dioxide into methane. Credit: Berkeley Lab

    Artificial photosynthesis used to produce renewable molecular hydrogen for synthesizing carbon dioxide into methane. Credit: Berkeley Lab

    Researchers using a bioinorganic hybrid approach to artificial photosynthesis have combined semiconducting nanowires with select microbes to create a system that produces renewable H2 and uses it to synthesize CO2 into methane, the primary constituent of natural gas.

    “By generating renewable hydrogen and feeding it to microbes for the production of methane, we can now expect an electrical-to-chemical efficiency of better than 50% and a solar-to-chemical energy conversion efficiency of 10% if our system is coupled with state-of-art solar panel and electrolyzer.”

    The concept in the 2 studies is essentially the same – a membrane of semiconductor nanowires t...

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