biomolecules tagged posts

Organic materials discovered on Mars may have originated from atmospheric formaldehyde, according to new research, marking a step forward in our understanding of the possibility of past life on the Red Planet.

Scientists from Tohoku University have investigated whether the early atmospheric conditions on Mars had the potential to foster the formation of biomolecules – organic compounds essential for biological processes.

Their findings, published in Scientific Reports, offer intriguing insights into the plausibility of Mars harboring life in its distant past.

Today, Mars presents a harsh environment characterized by dryness and extreme cold, but geological evidence hints at a more hospitable past.

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Purdue University researchers have created a drug delivery method using silicon nanoneedles with diameters 100 times smaller than a mosquito’s needle. These nanoneedles are embedded in a stretchable and translucent elastomer patch that can be worn on the skin to deliver exact doses directly into cells.
Credit: Purdue image

Minimally invasive patch delivers exact doses directly into cells, lessens pain, toxicity. Purdue University researchers have developed a new flexible and translucent base for silicon nanoneedle patches to deliver exact doses of biomolecules directly into cells and expand observational opportunities.

“This means that eight or nine silicon nanoneedles can be injected into a single cell without significantly damaging a cell...

Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

All living beings need cells and energy to replicate. Without these fundamental building blocks, living organisms on Earth would not be able to reproduce and would simply not exist. Little was known about a key element in the building blocks, phosphates, until now. University of Hawaii at Manoa researchers, in collaboration with colleagues in France and Taiwan, provide compelling new evidence that this component for life was found to be generated in outer space and delivered to Earth in its first one billion years by meteorites or comets. The phosphorus compounds were then incorporated in biomolecules found in cells in living beings on Earth.

The breakthrough research is outlined in “An Interstellar Synthesis of Phosphorus Oxoacids,” authore...

A blue crystal recovered from a meteorite that fell near Morocco in 1998. The scale bar represents 200 microns (millionths of a meter). Credit: Queenie Chan/The Open University, U.K.

Study also suggests dwarf planet in asteroid belt may be a source of rich organic matter. A detailed study of blue salt crystals found in two meteorites that crashed to Earth – which included X-ray experiments found that they contain both liquid water and a mix of complex organic compounds including hydrocarbons and amino acids. A detailed study of the chemical makeup within the tiny crystals, which included results from X-ray experiments also found evidence for the pair’s past intermingling and likely parents...