An mRNA vaccine protected mice against deadly intestinal C. difficile bacteria
Clostridioides difficile is a notoriously nasty intestinal bug, with few effective treatments and no approved vaccines. But the same technology that enabled the first COVID-19 vaccines has shown early promise, in mouse experiments, against this deadly infection, which kills 30,000 people in the United States each year. An mRNA vaccine designed to target C. difficile […]
Physicists just discovered the rarest particle decay ever
It’s the rarest particle decay ever discovered. Scientists have clinched the case for a special type of decay of subatomic particles called kaons. Further study of the rare decay could reveal a potential flaw in the standard model, physicists’ stalwart theory of subatomic particles. The decay is known as a “golden channel” because its rate […]
The discovery of microRNA wins the 2024 physiology Nobel Prize
An unexpected discovery about what made a tiny worm refuse to grow up has now led to the 2024 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Victor Ambros, now at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester, and Gary Ruvkun, of Harvard Medical School, found that small snippets of RNA called microRNAs can help […]
A transatlantic flight may turn Saharan dust into a key ocean nutrient
As dust from the Sahara blows thousands of kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean, it becomes progressively more nutritious for marine microbes, a new study suggests. Chemical reactions in the atmosphere chew on iron minerals in the dust, making them more water soluble and creating a crucial nutrient source for the iron-starved seas, researchers report September […]
A neutrino mass mismatch could shake cosmology’s foundations
As the youthful universe congealed under the pull of gravity, matter knotted itself into galaxies, galaxy clusters and filaments, weaving a dazzlingly intricate cosmic web. This web’s structure is thanks, in part, to the handiwork of neutrinos — lightweight, subatomic particles that surge through the cosmos in unimaginable numbers. Because they streak about at high […]
This engineer’s light-based computers take inspiration from the brain
Bhavin Shastri still gets excited when he sees a laser pointer, and he’s been fascinated by them since he was about 10 years old. “I was amazed that a light beam could maintain its brightness, centered in a tiny spot even after traveling a great distance,” Shastri says. “A laser pointer in my hand felt like a […]
A brain network linked to attention is larger in people with depression
Symptoms of depression fluctuate over time, but many brain imaging studies of the condition only study one point in time. That’s made it hard to connect networks of brain activity to various symptoms and mood changes. Now, a new study using long-term brain imaging data shows one brain network involved in guiding attention is nearly […]
How did dark matter shape the universe? This physicist has ideas
At age 12, Tracy Slatyer felt sorry for a book. She read a newspaper article about how lots of people were buying A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. “But then … nobody was actually reading it,” she says. “People were just leaving it on their coffee tables.” Determined to rectify this wrong, Slatyer […]
A materials scientist seeks to extract lithium from untapped sources
Electric vehicles promise to help wean us off of fossil fuels, but they introduce a new problem: how to get enough of the lithium that EV batteries require (SN: 5/7/19). Materials scientist Chong Liu of the University of Chicago has some ideas. Existing technology can extract lithium only from sources with highly concentrated ions, like […]
A study in mice hints at a new way to treat spinal cord injuries
After a devastating spinal cord injury, mice’s nerve cells balloon up in size. Some of these neurons stay swollen longer than expected and begin to die, a study published September 25 in Science Translational Medicine shows. A drug that brought this swelling down improved the mice’s recovery, though it’s not yet known if the approach […]