Recent Comments

    Engineers create an Inhalable form of Messenger RNA

    January 6, 2019, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    MIT researchers have designed inhalable particles that can deliver messenger RNA. These lung epithelial cells have taken up particles (yellow) that carry mRNA encoding green fluorescent protein.
    Credit: Asha Patel

    Patients with lung disease could find relief by breathing in messenger RNA molecules. In an advance that could lead to new treatments for lung disease, researchers have now designed an inhalable form of mRNA. This aerosol could be administered directly to the lungs to help treat diseases such as cystic fibrosis, the researchers say.

    mRNA, which can induce cells to produce therapeutic proteins, holds great promise for treating a variety of diseases...

    Read More

    Physicists uncover new Competing state of matter in Superconducting material

    January 6, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Ames Laboratory researchers used laser pulses of less than a trillionth of a second in much the same way as flash photography, in order to take a series of snapshots. Called terahertz spectroscopy, this technique can be thought of as “laser strobe photography” where many quick images reveal the subtle movement of electron pairings inside the materials using long wavelength far-infrared light.
    Credit: US Department of Energy, Ames Laboratory

    A team of experimentalists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and theoreticians at University of Alabama Birmingham discovered a remarkably long-lived new state of matter in an iron pnictide superconductor, which reveals a laser-induced formation of collective behaviors that compete with superconductivity.

    “Superconductivity is a str...

    Read More

    Tiny satellites could be ‘Guide Stars’ for huge next-generation Telescopes

    January 6, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In the coming decades, massive segmented space telescopes may be launched to peer even closer in on far-out exoplanets and their atmospheres. To keep these mega-scopes stable, MIT researchers say that small satellites can follow along, and act as “guide stars,” by pointing a laser back at a telescope to calibrate the system, to produce better, more accurate images of distant worlds. In the coming decades, massive segmented space telescopes may be launched to peer even closer in on far-out exoplanets and their atmospheres. To keep these mega-scopes stable, MIT researchers say that small satellites can follow along, and act as “guide stars,” by pointing a laser back at a telescope to calibrate the system, to produce better, more accurate images of distant worlds.
    Credit: Christine D...
    Read More

    Next up: Ultracold Simulators of Super-Dense Stars

    January 5, 2019, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    Rice University graduate student Tom Langin makes an adjustment to an experiment that uses 10 lasers of varying wavelengths to laser-cool ions in a neutral plasma.
    Credit: Photo by Brandon Martin/Rice University

    Rice University physicists have created the world’s first laser-cooled neutral plasma, completing a 20-year quest that sets the stage for simulators that re-create exotic states of matter found inside Jupiter and white dwarf stars. The findings are detailed this week in the journal Science and involve new techniques for laser cooling clouds of rapidly expanding plasma to temperatures about 50 times colder than deep space.

    “We don’t know the practical payoff yet, but every time physicists have laser cooled a new kind of thing, it has opened a whole world of possibilities,” said ...

    Read More