Tests showed that subcutaneous implants, left, of a hydrogel developed at Rice University encouraged blood vessel and cell growth as new tissue replaced the degrading gel. Credit: Hartgerink Research Group/Rice University

A synthetic, injectable hydrogel developed to deliver drugs and encourage tissue growth turns out to have therapeutic properties all its own. Researchers in the Rice lab of chemist and bioengineer Jeffrey Hartgerink had just such an experience with the hydrogels they developed as a synthetic scaffold to deliver drugs and encourage the growth of cells and blood vessels for new tissue.

To do so, they often tested the gels by infusing them before injection with bioactive small molecules, cells or proteins...

University of Houston optometrist Nimesh Patel has quantified the changing eye structure of returning International Space Station astronauts.

Findings examine pre- and post-flight space station astronauts. Astronauts who spend time aboard the International Space Station return to Earth with changes to the structure of their eyes which could impact their vision. NASA has studied the phenomenon, known as space flight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS), for several years, and now a University of Houston optometrist has quantified some of the changes using optical coherence tomography imaging, reporting his findings in JAMA Ophthalmology...

Stars indicate quasars and bright (faint) galaxies at the same epoch are shown as circles (dots). The galaxy overdensity with respect to the average density is shown by the contour. The pair members are associated with high density regions of galaxies. Credit: NAOJ

Astronomers have identified nearly 200 ‘protoclusters,’ the progenitors of galaxy clusters, in the early Universe, about 12 billion years ago, about 10X more than previously known. They also found that quasars don’t tend to reside in protoclusters; but if there is one quasar in a protocluster, there is likely a second nearby. This result raises doubts about the relation between protoclusters and quasars.

In the Universe, galaxies are not distributed uniformly...

In a controlled environment, the fastest-growing orientation of graphene crystals overwhelms the others and gets “evolutionarily selected” into a single crystal, even on a polycrystalline substrate, without having to match the substrate’s orientation. An Oak Ridge National Laboratory-led team developed the novel method that produces large, monolayer single-crystal-like graphene films more than a foot long. Credit: Andy Sproles/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US Dept. of Energy

A new method to produce large, monolayer single-crystal-like graphene films more than a foot long relies on harnessing a “survival of the fittest” competition among crystals...