New CRISPR platform expands RNA editing capabilities

The CRISPR family enzyme Cas13 (pink) is at the heart of the RESCUE platform, where it uses a special guide (red) to target RNAs in the cell (blue).
Image: Stephen Dixon

The new system, dubbed RESCUE, allows RNA edits to be made that were not previously possible. CRISPR-based tools have revolutionized our ability to target disease-linked genetic mutations. CRISPR technology comprises a growing family of tools that can manipulate genes and their expression, including by targeting DNA with the enzymes Cas9 and Cas12 and targeting RNA with the enzyme Cas13. This collection offers different strategies for tackling mutations. Targeting disease-linked mutations in RNA, which is relatively short-lived, would avoid making permanent changes to the genome...

Read More

Alternating Currents cause Jupiter’s Aurora

Magnetic field perturbations and electron observations
Magnetic field perturbations δBϕ (shown in white) and electron observations (JADE and JEDI) between 0.1 keV and 1 MeV obtained during PJ6 from 06:42 to 07:07 ut. a, Electron differential number flux (or intensity) as function of energy versus time summed over all JADE-E and JEDI look directions. JADE-E is the JADE sensor measuring energies from 0.1 keV to 100 keV. The black vertical arrows represent upward respectively downward currents in the regions separated by the vertical dashed lines based on the Birkeland current model on Fig. 3. b, Pitch angle versus time spectrogram summed over all JADE-E energies (0.1 keV to 100 keV). c, Pitch angle versus time spectrogram summed over all JEDI energies (30 keV to 1 MeV).
Magnetic field perturbations and electron observations.

An international research team has measured the system of currents that generates Jupiter’s aurora. The scientists found out that sulphur dioxide gas from the gas giant’s Moon Io is the cause of the system of currents. Using data transmitted to Earth by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, they showed that the direct currents were much weaker than expected and that alternating currents must therefore play a special role. On Earth, on the other hand, a direct current system creates its aurora. Jupiter’s electric current system is kept going in particular by large centrifugal forces, which hurl ionized sulfur dioxide gas from the gas giant’s moon Io through the magnetosphere.

Professor Dr Joachim Saur from the Institute of Geophysics and Me...

Read More

Device Channels Heat into Light

A Rice University simulation shows an array of cavities patterned into a film of aligned carbon nanotubes. When optimized, the film absorbs thermal photons and emits light in a narrow bandwidth that can be recycled as electricity. (Credit: Chloe Doiron/Rice University)
A Rice University simulation shows an array of cavities patterned into a film of aligned carbon nanotubes. When optimized, the film absorbs thermal photons and emits light in a narrow bandwidth that can be recycled as electricity. Illustration by Chloe Doiron

Carbon nanotube films enable method to recycle waste heat. Engineers have shown how their carbon nanotube films can be used to create a device to recycle waste heat. The device could enhance solar cell output and increase the efficiency of industrial waste-heat recovery.

The ever-more-humble carbon nanotube may be just the device to make solar panels – and anything else that loses energy through heat – far more efficient.

Rice University scientists are designing arrays of aligned single-wall carbon nanotubes to channel mi...

Read More

Moon-forming Disk discovered around Distant Planet

A color-enhanced image of millimeter-wave radio signals from the ALMA observatory in Chile shows a disk of gas and dust (right of center) around exoplanet PDS 70 c, the first-ever observation of the kind of circumplanetary disk that is believed to have birthed the moons of Jupiter more than 4 billion years ago. (Image courtesy of A. Isella, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO))

Astronomers report first observations of a ‘circumplanetary disk’. Using Earth’s most powerful array of radio telescopes, astronomers have made the first observations of a circumplanetary disk of gas and dust like the one that is believed to have birthed the moons of Jupiter.

The find, reported online today in Astrophysical Journal Letters, adds to the intriguing story of planet PDS 70 c, a still-forming gas giant about 37...

Read More