Elimination of Type of Bacteria Suggests Treatment for Endometriosis

Fusobacterium (white dots) is highly expressed near the uterus (endometrium) of endometriosis patients.  (Credit: Professor Yutaka Kondo)

A research group from the Graduate School of Medicine and iGCORE at Nagoya University in Japan, has discovered that using an antibiotic to target Fusobacterium reduced the formation of lesions associated with endometriosis, a gynecological disorder characterized by endometrial tissue usually found inside the uterus being found outside it. Their findings suggest an alternative treatment for this disorder. The study was published in Science Translational Medicine.

Endometriosis affects one in ten women between the ages of 15 and 49. The disorder can cause lifelong health problems, including pelvic pain and infertility...

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Clean, Sustainable Fuels made ‘from Thin Air’ and Plastic Waste

Carbon capture from air and its photoelectrochemical conversion into fuel with simultaneous waste plastic conversion into chemicals.
Carbon capture from air and its photoelectrochemical conversion into fuel with simultaneous waste plastic conversion into chemicals.
Credit: Ariffin Mohamad Annuar

Researchers have demonstrated how CO2 can be captured from industrial processes – or even directly from the air – and transformed into clean, sustainable fuels using just the energy from the Sun.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, developed a solar-powered reactor that converts captured CO2 and plastic waste into sustainable fuels and other valuable chemical products. In tests, CO2 was converted into syngas, a key building block for sustainable liquid fuels, and plastic bottles were converted into glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry.

Unlike earlier tests of their solar fuels tec...

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Weigh a Quasar’s Galaxy with Precision

EPFL / Austin Peel, CC-BY-SA.

A team of researchers from EPFL have found a way to use the phenomenon of strong gravitational lensing to determine with precision – about 3 times more precise than any other technique – the mass of a galaxy containing a quasar, as well as their evolution in cosmic time. Knowing the mass of quasar host galaxies provides insight into the evolution of galaxies in the early universe, for building scenarios of galaxy formation and black hole development. The results are published in Nature Astronomy.

“The unprecedented precision and accuracy achieved with gravitational lensing provide a new avenue for obtaining robust mass estimates in the distant Universe, where conventional techniques lack precision and are susceptible to biases,” says EPFL astrophysicist...

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Jupiter’s Moon Europa may have had a Slow Evolution

Amid the Jovian system, Europa is of particular interest to scientists because of the strong evidence for nutrients, water and energy to potentially provide a habitable environment for some form of life beyond Earth. In addition, Europa is believed to be made up into four layers (from surface to center): an ice shell, salt water ocean, rocky mantle, and metallic core.Read More