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    For Hottest Planet, a Major Meltdown, study shows

    January 26, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist’s rendering of a “hot Jupiter” called KELT-9b, the hottest known exoplanet – so hot, a new paper finds, that even molecules in its atmosphere are torn to shreds. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    In the scorching atmosphere of exoplanet KELT-9b, even molecules are torn to shreds. Massive gas giants called “hot Jupiters”—planets that orbit too close to their stars to sustain life—are some of the strangest worlds found beyond our solar system. New observations show that the hottest of them all is stranger still, prone to planetwide meltdowns so severe they tear apart the molecules that make up its atmosphere.

    Called KELT-9b, the planet is an ultra-hot Jupiter, one of several varieties of exoplanets—planets around other stars—found in our galaxy...

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    ‘Jumping Genes’ help Stabilize DNA Folding Patterns

    January 26, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Fig. 2
    Contribution of TEs to the conservation landscape of human and mouse loops. a Flowchart describing the methodology used to annotate loop orthology. b Venn diagram representing the various classes of chromatin loops based on their orthology and bar plots showing the contribution of REs to anchor CTCFs of each class of loops. c Age distribution and age of individual TEs that contribute loop anchor CTCF sites (black dots for orthologous loops; gold dots for non-orthologous loops) (left), total contribution to loop anchor CTCF sites (middle), distribution of orthologous and non-orthologous loops (right) derived from the top 13 TE subfamilies in mouse and d humans. Estimated primate/rodent divergence time (82 million years ago) is from Meredith et al. [47]. e Contact maps representing a conse...
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    Astronomers detect Large Amounts of Oxygen in Ancient Star’s Atmosphere

    January 26, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    ARTISTIC IMAGE OF THE SUPERNOVA EXPLOSIONS OF THE FIRST MASSIVE STARS THAT FORMED IN THE MILKY WAY. THE STAR J0815+4729 WAS FORMED FROM THE MATERIAL EJECTED BY THESE FIRST SUPERNOVAE. Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC)
    Artistic image of the supernova explosions of the first massive stars that formed in the Milky Way. The star JO815+4729 was formed from the material ejected by these first supernovae. Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC)

    An international team of astronomers from the University of California San Diego, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), and the University of Cambridge have detected large amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere of one of the oldest and most elementally depleted stars known – a “primitive star” scientists call J0815+4729.

    This new finding, which was made using W. M...

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    Researchers Regrow Damaged Nerves with Polymer and Protein

    January 25, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    We’re the first to show a nerve guide without any cells was able to bridge a large, 2-inch gap between the nerve stump and its target muscle,” said senior author Kacey Marra, Ph.D., professor of plastic surgery at Pitt and core faculty at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. “Our guide was comparable to, and in some ways better than, a nerve graft.” 

    University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers have created a biodegradable nerve guide – a polymer tube – filled with growth-promoting protein that can regenerate long sections of damaged nerves, without the need for transplanting stem cells or a donor nerve.

    So far, the technology has been tested in monkeys, and the results of those experiments appeared today in Science Translational Medicine.

    “We’...

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