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New research has identified a straightforward and environmentally friendly way to decompose Teflon, one of the most resilient plastics in use today, and convert it into valuable chemical ingredients. Scientists at Newcastle University and the University of Birmingham have created a clean, energy-saving process for recycling Teflon (PTFE), which is…
A photosynthetic bacterium shows a surprising ability to absorb persistent PFAS chemicals, offering a glimpse into biological tools that might one day tackle toxic contamination. Researchers are now exploring genetic and synthetic biology approaches to enhance these early signs of PFAS-handling potential. Source link
A new study led by Mount Sinai researchers reports that commonly used cardiac screening methods fail to identify almost half of the people who are actually at risk of having a heart attack. The findings were released on November 21 in a brief report in the Journal of the American…
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have clarified how spermine – a small molecule that regulates many processes in the body’s cells – can guard against diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s: it renders certain proteins harmless by acting a bit like cheese on noodles, making them clump together.…
Biomedical researchers at Texas A&M University report that they may have found a way to halt, or even reverse, the loss of cellular energy that comes with damage and aging. If future studies confirm the results, the discovery could lead to major changes in how many diseases are treated across…
A large 20-year investigation following nearly 11,000 adults in Bangladesh found that reducing arsenic in drinking water was tied to as much as a 50 percent drop in deaths from heart disease, cancer and several other chronic illnesses. The research offers the strongest long-term evidence so far that lowering arsenic…
Scientists have long recognized that conditions affecting the body can also influence the brain. Issues such as obesity, high blood pressure and insulin resistance place strain on the body’s metabolic and vascular systems. Over time, this buildup of stress can accelerate cognitive decline and raise the likelihood of Alzheimer’s disease.…
New findings indicate that people who do not treat obstructive sleep apnea face a greater likelihood of developing Parkinson’s disease. Using continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, can help lower that risk by improving sleep quality and maintaining steady airflow throughout the night. The study was published on November 24…
Scientists have found that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) begins long before the first aches or stiffness appear. Instead of starting when joint pain becomes noticeable, the disease quietly builds over many years. RA is a chronic autoimmune disorder that leads to inflammation and damage in the joints. According to new research,…
Stanford Medicine scientists report that giving mice both blood-forming stem cells and pancreatic islet cells from an immunologically mismatched donor either completely prevented or fully reversed Type 1 diabetes. In this disease, the body’s own immune defenses mistakenly attack and destroy the insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas. None of…
Why do people choose to settle in cities, and what motivates them to leave? Modern urban areas continue to gain and lose residents for many reasons, including economic pressures, congestion, lifestyle shifts, pollution and, at times, major public health events. It appears this pattern has existed for a very long…
Lentils currently cultivated in the Canary Islands have an unbroken local history that reaches back nearly 2,000 years. This remarkable continuity has been revealed by the first genetic analysis of archaeological lentils, conducted by researchers at Linköping University and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain. Because…
Ketones appear throughout organic molecules, which is why chemists are eager to create new reactions that take advantage of them when forming chemical bonds. One reaction that has remained especially difficult is the one-electron reduction of ketones needed to generate ketyl radicals. These radicals are highly useful intermediates in natural…
Most chemical reactions rely on heat to move forward, but light has recently become an important alternative. Using light makes it possible to guide reactions with extremely fine control, a field known as photochemistry. Until now, many of these light-driven processes depended on ruthenium, osmium, or iridium — elements that…
New work from astrophysicists at Michigan State University may help resolve a scientific question that has lingered for more than a century: where do galactic cosmic rays come from? Cosmic rays — high-energy particles moving close to the speed of light — are known to arrive from within the Milky…
As we move from Mars’s equatorial region toward its northern latitudes, we encounter Coloe Fossae. This area contains a series of long, shallow grooves set within a landscape of deep valleys, scattered impact craters, and surface textures that point to a distant ice age on the Red Planet. Ice ages…
Off the coast of Papua New Guinea, scientists have identified a previously unknown type of hydrothermal field where two different processes occur at the same time: hot hydrothermal fluids rise from below the seafloor while unusually large quantities of methane and other hydrocarbons escape from the sediments. This combination has…
When militia attacks interrupted shipping routes in the Red Sea, few people expected the effects to reach the skies above the South Atlantic. For Florida State University atmospheric scientist Michael Diamond, however, the sudden rerouting of commercial vessels created a rare chance to investigate a major climate question — How…
A new JNeurosci study led by Tian-Ming Gao and colleagues at Southern Medical University examined how adenosine triphosphate (ATP) signaling might influence depression and anxiety in male mice. ATP is best known as the cell’s main source of energy, but it also acts as a chemical messenger that helps neurons…
Researchers report that people who have more muscle and a lower visceral fat to muscle ratio tend to show signs of a younger biological brain age. This conclusion comes from a study that will be presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).…
The personalized recommendation systems that curate content on platforms such as YouTube may also interfere with how people learn, according to new research. The study found that when an algorithm decided which information appeared during a learning task, participants who had no background knowledge on the topic tended to focus…
Eric Boyd and his research team investigated how a burst of small earthquakes in 2021 affected the communities of microbes living deep beneath the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field. These microbes inhabit rock and water systems far below the surface, where sunlight never reaches. Instead of relying on photosynthesis, they depend…
A broad mass of unusually warm rock located far below the Appalachian Mountains in the United States may be connected to the separation of Greenland and North America 80 million years ago, according to new findings from researchers at the University of Southampton. The team argues that this deep heat…
A newly identified native bee with tiny devil-like “horns,” named Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer, has been documented in Western Australia’s Goldfields. Its discovery reveals how many of Australia’s native pollinators have yet to be studied or even recognized. The unusual species was spotted during targeted surveys of the critically endangered wildflower…
They’re tiny particles — with potentially huge human consequences. Researchers at Aarhus University have uncovered a flaw in how cells form what are known as exosomes, and this defect is associated with a mutation found in some people living with dementia. The discovery may offer new insight into how Alzheimer’s…
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) researchers have uncovered how ribosomes are able to alert the cell when something is wrong. Ribosomes are best known as the cell’s protein builders. They attach to mRNA and travel along it, interpreting the genetic code and linking amino acids to form new proteins.…
New findings from the University of Birmingham suggest that regularly eating foods rich in flavanols, including tea, berries, apples, and cocoa, may help protect men’s blood vessels from the negative effects that occur during long periods of sitting. Sedentary habits are widespread in modern life. Young adults spend an estimated…
Using lasers as precision tools to study how clouds become electrically active may sound futuristic, but researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) have turned it into practical laboratory work. By capturing and charging tiny airborne particles with focused beams of light, scientists can watch how their…
Mosses are well known for surviving in places that challenge most life, including the Himalayan peaks, the scorching deserts of Death Valley, the Antarctic tundra, and the cooling surfaces of active volcanoes. Their remarkable durability led researchers to test moss sporophytes, the reproductive structures that hold spores, in an even…
About 3,500 years ago, hunter-gatherer communities began shaping enormous earthen mounds along the Mississippi River at Poverty Point, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in northeast Louisiana. Tristram “T.R.” Kidder, the Edward S. and Tedi Macias Professor of anthropology, describes the scale of the undertaking this way: “Conservatively, they moved 140,000…
