Chaotic advection accelerates interfacial transport under hydrothermally relevant conditions Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

A Texas A&M University team has uncovered a physical mechanism that may help answer one of the major questions concerning the origin of life, “How did the building blocks form?” Scientists have long known that the building blocks of life – amino acids, nucleobases and sugars – were present in the early ocean, but they were very low in concentration. In order for life to emerge, these building blocks needed to be combined and enriched into long-chain macromolecules.

“In the early ocean, those building blocks were present in the environment,” Ugaz said. “They were there, but they were so dilute; there is a question about how they combined...

PNPLA1 is involved in acylceramide synthesis.

The gene responsible for generating acylceramide, the key lipid in forming the skin barrier that protects us from pathogens, allergens and other harmful substances. This finding could prove crucial in developing medicines for treating atopic dermatitis and ichthyosis. Defects of the skin barrier can trigger skin diseases such as atopic dermatitis, which afflicts ~10% of the population in some developed countries. Acylceramide, a lipid only found in skin, plays a pivotal role in forming this barrier. Although most of the genes needed to generate this special lipid have been recently identified, the gene responsible in the final step to produce acylceramide has been missing...

Amorphous silicon core inside a 1.7-micron inner-diameter glass capillary Image: Penn State

A new method to improve semiconductor fiber optics may lead to a material structure that might one day revolutionize the global transmission of data, according to an interdisciplinary team. Researchers are working with semiconductor optical fibers, which hold significant advantages over silica-based fiber optics, the current technology used for transmitting nearly all digital data. Silica – glass – fibers can only transmit electronic data converted to light data. This requires external electronic devices that are expensive and consume enormous amounts of electricity...

Unprocessed images of Saturn’s moon Atlas was taken on April 12, 2017, by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

These raw, unprocessed images of Saturn’s moon, Atlas, were taken on April 12, 2017, by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The flyby had a close-approach distance of about 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers). These images are the closest ever taken of Atlas and will help to characterize its shape and geology. Atlas (19 miles, or 30 kilometers across) orbits Saturn just outside the A ring—the outermost of the planet’s bright, main rings.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/cassini-sees-flying-saucer-moon-atlas-up-close