Rutgers researchers identified a small set of simple protein building blocks (left) that likely existed at the earliest stages of life’s history. Over billions of years, these “Legos of life” were assembled and repurposed by evolution into complex proteins (right) that are at the core of modern metabolism. Credit: Vikas Nanda/Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Rutgers scientists have found the “Legos of life” – 4 core chemical structures that can be stacked together to build the myriad proteins inside every organism – after smashing and dissecting nearly 10,000 proteins to understand their component parts...

This image illustrates the “multi-messenger” emission from a gigantic reservoir of cosmic rays that are accelerated by powerful jets from a supermassive black hole. Credit: Kanoko Horio

New model connects the origins of very high-energy neutrinos, ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, and high-energy gamma rays with black-hole jets embedded in their environments. One of the biggest mysteries in astroparticle physics has been the origins of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, very high-energy neutrinos, and high-energy gamma rays. Now, a new theoretical model reveals that they all could be shot out into space after cosmic rays are accelerated by powerful jets from supermassive black holes.

The model explains the natural origins of all three types of “cosmic messenger” particles simultaneously, and is the...

Two images of EVIR-engineered dendritic cells (green) capturing tumor antigens in exosomes (gold/red). Cell nuclei are colored blue. Credit: C. Cianciaruso/M. De Palma/EPFL

Researchers at EPFL have created artificial molecules that can help the immune system to recognize and attack cancer tumors. Immunotherapies are breakthrough treatments that stimulate the patient’s immune cells to attack the tumor through the recognition of tumor antigens. They can be very effective, but currently can only cure a minority of patients with solid tumors. Researchers and physicians are now looking into ways of increasing the precision and strength of the immune attack on the tumor.

One approach is the “dendritic cell vaccine...

Artist’s concept shows the gaseous exoplanet CoRoT-2b with a westward hot spot in orbit around its host star. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (IPAC)

Puzzling finding raises new questions about atmospheric physics of giant planets. The hottest point on a gaseous planet near a distant star isn’t where astrophysicists expected it to be – a discovery that challenges scientists’ understanding of the many planets of this type found in solar systems outside our own. Unlike our familiar planet Jupiter, hot Jupiters circle astonishingly close to their host star – so close that it typically takes fewer than three days to complete an orbit. And one hemisphere of these planets always faces its host star, while the other faces permanently out into the dark.

Not surprisingly, the “day” side of the pl...