A snapshot of a simulated giant molecular cloud marked with with star clusters in formation. Credit: McMaster University

Clusters of stars across the vast reaches of time and space of the entire universe were all created the same way, researchers at McMaster University have determined. Researchers Corey Howard, Ralph Pudritz and William Harris used highly-sophisticated computer simulations to re-create what happens inside gigantic clouds of concentrated gases known to give rise to clusters of stars that are bound together by gravity.

The state-of-the-art simulations follow a cloud of interstellar gas 500 light years in diameter, projecting 5 million years’ worth of evolution wrought by turbulence, gravity and feedback from intense radiation pressure produced by massive stars within forming...

The fruit fly intestine shares much of the same physiology of the human intestine, just simpler and on a smaller scale. Credit: Adam Wong, PhD. Modified from Disease Models & Mechanisms. doi: 10.1242/dmm.023408.

Study teases out how ‘good bacteria’ keep us metabolically fit. The innate immune system, our first line of defense against bacterial infection, has a side job that’s equally important: fine-tuning our metabolism. The study, led by Paula Watnick, MD, PhD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Boston Children’s Hospital, reveals that innate immune pathways, best known as our first line of defense against bacterial infection, have a side job that’s equally important.

In the intestine, digestive cells use an innate immune pathway to respond to harmful bacteria...

Chemical synthesis routes to P3HB. a Classical route via the ROP of rac-β-BL to iso-enriched P3HB. b The new route via the ROP of rac-DL to perfectly isotactic P3HB. (Pm is the probability of meso linkages between HB units, and mm is isotactic triad made up of two adjacent meso diads)

The team describes synthesis of a polymer called bacterial poly(3-hydroxybutyrate), or P3HB. Colorado State University polymer chemists have taken another step toward a future of high-performance, biorenewable, biodegradable plastics. The compound shows early promise as a substitute for petroleum plastics in major industrial uses.

P3HB is a biomaterial, typically produced by bacteria, algae and other microorganisms, and is used in some biomedical applications...

Hubble Space Telescope image of the young massive star cluster R136 in the 30 Doradus star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The core of this cluster contains several very massive stars with masses of several 100 times the mass of the Sun, which could have formed by stellar collisions. Credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. O’Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee

A team of international astrophysicists may have found a solution to a problem that has perplexed scientists for more than 50 years: why are the stars in globular clusters made of material different to other stars found in the Milky Way? In a study published by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the team led ...