New research led by NASA provides a closer look at a nearby star thought to resemble our young Sun. The work allows scientists to better understand what our Sun may have been like when it was young, and how it may have shaped the atmosphere of our planet and the development of life on Earth.

Many people dream of meeting with a younger version of themselves to exchange advice, identify the origins of their defining traits, and share hopes for the future. At 4.65 billion years old, our Sun is a middle-aged star. Scientists are often curious to learn exactly what properties enabled our Sun, in its younger years, to support life on nearby Earth.

Without a time machine to trans...

The average American eats roughly 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day – more than three times the recommended amount for women and more than double the recommended amount for men.

Although this overconsumption is known to contribute to Type 2 diabetes and other disorders, the exact ways in which eating too much sugar sets the stage for metabolic diseases on a cellular level has been less clear. Now, a team led by Van Andel Institute scientists has found that surplus sugar may cause our cellular powerplants – mitochondria – to become less efficient, reducing their energy ouput.

The findings, published today in Cell Reports, highlight the cellular implications of excessive sugar consumption and provide an important new model to study the initial metabolic events that may contribute ...

Natural Barometer Inside Cells Helps Maintain Healthy Blood Pressure. University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have determined the location of natural blood-pressure barometers inside our bodies that have eluded scientists for more than 60 years.

These cellular sensors detect subtle changes in blood pressure and adjust hormone levels to keep it in check. Scientists have long suspected that these barometers, or “baroreceptors,” existed in specialized kidney cells called renin cells, but no one has been able to locate the baroreceptors until now.

The new findings, from ...

University of Basel researchers have reached an important milestone in their quest to produce more sustainable luminescent materials and catalysts for converting sunlight into other forms of energy. They have developed a new class of compounds, based on the cheap metal manganese, with promising properties that until now have primarily been found in noble metal compounds.

Smartphone screens and catalysts for artificial photosynthesis — to produce fuels from sunlight, for example — often contain very rare metals...