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Scientists have recreated the reaction by which carbon isotopes made their way into different organic compounds, challenging the notion that organic compounds, such as amino acids, were formed by isotopically enriched substrates. Their discovery suggests that the building blocks of life in meteorites were derived from widely available substrates in the early solar system.

Their findings were published online in Science Advances on April 28, 2021.

Carbonaceous meteorites contain the building blocks of life, including amino acids, sugars, and nucleobases. These meteorites are potential providers of these molecules to the prebiotic Earth.

The small organic molecules found in meteorites are generally enriched in a heavy carbon isotope (13C)...

Researchers have found a way to use light and a single electron to communicate with a cloud of quantum bits and sense their behaviour, making it possible to detect a single quantum bit in a dense cloud.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, were able to inject a ‘needle’ of highly fragile quantum information in a ‘haystack’ of 100,000 nuclei. Using lasers to control an electron, the researchers could then use that electron to control the behaviour of the haystack, making it easier to find the needle. They were able to detect the ‘needle’ with a precision of 1.9 parts per million: high enough to detect a single quantum bit in this large ensemble.

The technique makes it possible to send highly fragile quantum information optically to a nuclear system for storage, and ...

Twenty minutes or longer in the car also raises risk of birth defects. A new study finds that California’s commuters are likely inhaling chemicals at levels that increase the risk for cancer and birth defects.

As with most chemicals, the poison is in the amount. Under a certain threshold of exposure, even known carcinogens are not likely to cause cancer. Once you cross that threshold, the risk for disease increases.

Governmental agencies tend to regulate that threshold in workplaces. However, private spaces such as the interior of our cars and living rooms are less studied and less regulated.

Benzene and formaldehyde — both used in automobile manufacturing — are known to cause cancer at or above certain levels of exposure and...

With the help of the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, and other ground-based telescopes, astronomers have confirmed that a faint object discovered in 2018 and nicknamed “Farfarout” is indeed the most distant object yet found in our Solar System. The object has just received its designation from the International Astronomical Union.

Farfarout was first spotted in January 2018 by the Subaru Tel...