Untreated mouse skin showing no hair growth (left) compared to mouse skin treated with the drug UK5099 (right) showing hair growth. Credit: UCLA Broad Stem Cell Center/Nature Cell Biology

UCLA researchers have discovered a new way to activate the stem cells in the hair follicle to make hair grow. The research may lead to new drugs that could promote hair growth for people with baldness or alopecia, which is hair loss associated with such factors as hormonal imbalance, stress, aging or chemotherapy treatment. Hair follicle stem cells are long-lived cells in the hair follicle; they are present in the skin and produce hair throughout a person’s lifetime...

Ephemeral collision complexes mediate chemically termolecular transformations that affect system chemistry. Nature Chemistry, 2017; DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2842

Finding opens door to innumerable possibilities, from new engine types to planetary chemistry for cloud formations, climate change, and the conditions for creating life. A new study led by Michael P. Burke, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia Engineering, has identified the significance of a new class of chemical reactions involving 3 molecules that each participate in the breaking and forming of chemical bonds. The reaction of 3 different molecules is enabled by an “ephemeral collision complex,” formed from the collision of 2 molecules, which lives long enough to collide with a third molecule.

This fourth class, w...

Incoherent Diffractive Imaging via Intensity Correlations of Hard X Rays. Physical Review Letters, 2017; 119 (5) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.053401 Image: Anton Classen

Physicists have developed a new technique for determining molecular structure. Physicists from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY, Hamburg) have come up with a method that could significantly improve the quality of X-ray images in comparison to conventional methods. Incoherent diffractive imaging (IDI) could help to image individual atoms in nanocrystals or molecules faster and with a much higher resolution.

For >100 years, X-rays have been used in crystallography to determine the structure of molecules...

This dwarf galaxy is named NGC 5949. It sits at a distance of around 44 million light-years from Earth, placing it within the Milky Way’s cosmic neighborhood. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

In a new paper, an astrophysicist argues that species such as ours go extinct soon after attaining high levels of technology. The universe is incomprehensibly vast, with billions of other planets circling billions of other stars. The potential for intelligent life to exist somewhere out there should be enormous. That’s the Fermi paradox in a nutshell. Daniel Whitmire, a retired astrophysicist who teaches mathematics at the University of Arkansas, once thought the cosmic silence indicated we as a species lagged far behind.

“I taught astronomy for 37 years,” said Whitmire...