Off-Patent Liver Disease Drug could Prevent COVID-19 Infection and Protect against Future Variants, researchers find

Close up of bile duct/liver organoid infected with SARS-CoV-2 – red indicates the virus. (Credit: Teresa Brevini)

Unique experiments involved ‘mini-organs’, animal research, donated human organs, volunteers and patients. Cambridge scientists have identified an off-patent drug that can be repurposed to prevent COVID-19 — and may be capable of protecting against future variants of the virus — in research involving a unique mix of ‘mini-organs’, donor organs, animal studies and patients.

The research, published today in Nature, showed that an existing drug used to treat a type of liver disease is able to ‘lock’ the doorway by which SARS-CoV-2 enters our cells, a receptor on the cell surface known as ACE2...

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New Quantum Dots study uncovers Implications for Biological Imaging

CdZnSe/CdZnS quantum dots (QDs) have a complex internal structure that extends the lifetime. (A) TEM analyses reveal a zinc selenide-rich core interior and a cadmium sulfide shell exterior. (B) Time resolved emission reveals lifetime tunability by simple alterations to the QD structure. The lifetimes can be 10-times greater compared with similar materials.

Researchers report the synthesis of semiconductor ‘giant’ core-shell quantum dots with record-breaking emissive lifetimes. In addition, the lifetimes can be tuned by making a simple alteration to the material’s internal structure.

A new study involving researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago achieved a milestone in the synthesis of multifunctional photonic nanomaterials.

The group, which included collaborators from Pr...

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Researchers say Space Atomic Clocks could help uncover the Nature of Dark Matter

Artist’s impression of a space atomic clock used to uncover dark matter. (Credit: Kavli IPMU)

Studying an atomic clock on-board a spacecraft inside the orbit of Mercury and very near to the Sun might be the trick to uncovering the nature of dark matter, suggests a new study published in Nature Astronomy.

Dark matter makes up more than 80 per cent of mass in the universe, but it has so far evaded detection on Earth, despite decades of experimental efforts. A key component of these searches is an assumption about the local density of dark matter, which determines the number of dark matter particles passing through the detector at any given time, and therefore the experimental sensitivity...

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Giant Mantle Plume reveals Mars is more Active than previously thought

Artist's impression of an active mantle plume underneath the Martian surface.
Artist’s impression of an active mantle plume – a large blob of warm and buoyant rock – rising from deep inside Mars and pushing up Elysium Planitia, a plain within the planet’s northern lowlands.Adrien Broquet & Audrey Lasbordes

Orbital observations unveil the presence of an enormous mantle plume pushing the surface of Mars upward and driving intense volcanic and seismic activity. On Earth, shifting tectonic plates reshuffle the planet’s surface and make for a dynamic interior, so the absence of such processes on Mars led many to think of it as a dead planet, where not much happened in the past 3 billion years.

In the current issue of Nature Astronomy, scientists from the University of Arizona challenge current views of Martian geodynamic evolution with a report on the discover...

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