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    Astronomers discover Unusual Monster Galaxy in the Very Early Universe

    February 7, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The three panels show, from top to bottom, what XMM-2599’s evolutionary trajectory might be, beginning as a dusty star-forming galaxy, then becoming a dead galaxy, and perhaps ending up as a “brightest cluster galaxy,” or BCG. (NRAO/AUI/NSF/B. Saxton; NASA/ESA/R. Foley; NASA/StScI)

    An international team of astronomers led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, has found an unusual monster galaxy that existed about 12 billion years ago, when the universe was only 1.8 billion years old.

    Dubbed XMM-2599, the galaxy formed stars at a high rate and then died. Why it suddenly stopped forming stars is unclear.

    “Even before the universe was 2 billion years old, XMM-2599 had already formed a mass of more than 300 billion suns, making it an ultramassive galaxy,” ...

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    Coin-sized Smart Insulin Patch, Potential Diabetes Treatment

    February 6, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    New device to automatically manage glucose levels and deliver needed insulin quickly

    UCLA bioengineers and colleagues at UNC School of Medicine and MIT have further developed a smart insulin-delivery patch that could one day monitor and manage glucose levels in people with diabetes and deliver the necessary insulin dosage. The adhesive patch, about the size of a quarter, is simple to manufacture and intended for once-a-day use.

    The study, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, describes research conducted on mice and pigs. The research team, led by Zhen Gu, PhD, professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, is applying for FDA approval of clinical trials in humans...

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    Handheld 3D Skin Printer Demonstrates Accelerated Healing of Large, Severe Burns

    February 6, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    The handheld 3D skin printer developed by U of T Engineering researchers works like a paint roller, covering an area with a uniform sheet of skin, stripe by stripe. Blue dye was used for this photo shoot for visibility purposes. (Photo: Daria Perevezentsev)

    Researchers develop a skin printer that works like a paint roller, depositing bio ink that speeds up wound healing. A new handheld 3D printer can deposit sheets of skin to cover large burn wounds – and its “bio ink” can accelerate the healing process.

    The device, developed by a team of researchers from the University of Toronto Engineering and Sunnybrook Hospital, covers wounds with a uniform sheet of biomaterial, stripe by stripe.

    The bio ink dispensed by the roller is composed of mesenchymal stroma cells (MSCs) — stem cell...

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    Pluto’s Icy Heart Makes Winds Blow

    February 6, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Four images from NASA’s New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this global view of Pluto.
    Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

    A “beating heart” of frozen nitrogen controls Pluto’s winds and may give rise to features on its surface, according to a new study.

    Pluto’s famous heart-shaped structure, named Tombaugh Regio, quickly became famous after NASA’s New Horizons mission captured footage of the dwarf planet in 2015 and revealed it isn’t the barren world scientists thought it was.

    Now, new research shows Pluto’s renowned nitrogen heart rules its atmospheric circulation...

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