From Italy and the World

Earth’s potassium arrived by meteoritic delivery service finds new research led by Carnegie’s Nicole Nie and Da Wang. Their work, published in Science, shows that some primitive meteorites contain a different mix of potassium isotopes than those found in other, more-chemically processed meteorites. These results can help elucidate the processes…

CNN  —  Sayfullo Saipov was found guilty of murder by a federal jury for using a rented truck to fatally strike eight people on a New York City bike path on Halloween Day in 2017. Jurors deliberated about six hours over two days in the case involving the deadliest terrorist…

CNN  —  The Swedish government was complicit in the burning of the Quran at a protest in Stockholm last weekend, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu reportedly said Thursday. Increased tensions between the two countries come at a time when Sweden is relying on Turkey to support its bid for membership…

CNN  —  All five former Memphis police officers who were fired for their actions during the arrest of Tyre Nichols earlier this month have been charged with murder, according to Shelby County court records. Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmit Martin, and Desmond Mills Jr. have each been charged…

Tyre Nichols (Courtesy Ben Crump and Nichols Family) Nearly three weeks ago, Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was hospitalized after a traffic stop in Memphis that resulted in a violent arrest and subsequent death of a driver. Here’s what we know about the timeline of the incident, investigations from authorities and…

Nanotechnology researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas have made novel carbon nanotube yarns that convert mechanical movement into electricity more effectively than other material-based energy harvesters. In a study published Jan. 26 in Nature Energy, UT Dallas researchers and their collaborators describe improvements to high-tech yarns they invented…

An artificial intelligence program may enable the first simple production of customizable proteins called zinc fingers to treat diseases by turning genes on and off. The researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the University of Toronto who designed the tool say it promises to accelerate the development of…

Treating cancer with combinations of drugs can be more effective than using a single drug. However, figuring out the optimal combination of drugs, and making sure that all of the drugs reach the right place, can be challenging. To help address those challenges, MIT chemists have designed a bottlebrush-shaped nanoparticle…

A University of Queensland-led study has shown that expanding global seaweed farming could go a long way to addressing the planet’s food security, biodiversity loss and climate change challenges. PhD Candidate Scott Spillias, from UQ’s School of Earth and Environmental Science, said seaweed offered a sustainable alternative to land-based agricultural…

Undernourished coastal communities in the tropics — where children’s growth can be stunted by a lack of micronutrients — can get the vitamins and minerals they need from sustainable small-scale octopus fisheries, say researchers. Research led by Cambridge scientists, and published today in Nature Food, shows that tropical small-scale octopus…

Starting with the emergence of quantum mechanics, the world of physics has been divided between classical and quantum physics. Classical physics deals with the motions of objects we typically see every day in the macroscopic world, while quantum physics explains the exotic behaviors of elementary particles in the microscopic world.…

Scientists have discovered the first gamma-ray eclipses from a special type of binary star system using data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. These so-called spider systems each contain a pulsar — the superdense, rapidly rotating remains of a star that exploded in a supernova — that slowly erodes its…

The mint family of herbs, which includes sage, rosemary, basil, and even woody plants like teak, offers an invigorating jolt to our senses of smell and taste. Michigan State University researchers have found that these plants have diversified their specialized natural characteristics through the evolution of their chemistry, which could…

Human brain atlases can be used by medical professionals to track normative trends over time and to pinpoint crucial aspects of early brain development. With these atlases, they are able to see what typical structural and functional development looks like, making it easier for them to spot the symptoms of…

As lithium-ion batteries have become a ubiquitous part of our lives through their use in consumer electronics, automobiles and electricity storage facilities, researchers have been working to improve their power, efficiency and longevity. As detailed in a paper published today in Nature Materials, scientists at the University of California, Irvine…

Two novel research studies from Cedars-Sinai move the needle on predicting two important heart conditions — sudden cardiac arrest, which is often fatal, and increased coronary artery calcium, a marker of coronary artery disease that can lead to a heart attack. The studies were led by investigators in the Smidt…

Fathers exposed to chemicals in plastics can affect the metabolic health of their offspring for two generations, a University of California, Riverside, mouse study reports. Plastics, which are now ubiquitous, contain endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, that have been linked to increased risk of many chronic diseases; parental exposure to…

Scientists have created an AI system capable of generating artificial enzymes from scratch. In laboratory tests, some of these enzymes worked as well as those found in nature, even when their artificially generated amino acid sequences diverged significantly from any known natural protein. The experiment demonstrates that natural language processing,…

CNN  —  Three people received medical treatment during filming for a real-life “Squid Game” show, Netflix has confirmed, but the streaming giant denied that anyone suffered “serious injury.” Netflix announced last year that it was launching “Squid Game: The Challenge” as a reality competition series based on its smash-hit drama…

A transporter which some bacteria use to recycle fragments of their cell wall has been discovered by researchers at Umeå university, Sweden. They found that the transporter controls resistance to certain kinds of cell-wall targeting antibiotics. The transporter that Professor Felipe Cava and PhD student Michael Gilmore at Umeå university…

By using artificial human skin, a research group from the University of Copenhagen have managed to block invasive growth in a skin cancer model. The study has been published in Science Signaling and looks at what actually happens when a cell turns into a cancer cell. “We have been studying…

In an observational feat of high precision, scientists used a new technique with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to capture the shadows of starlight cast by the thin rings of Chariklo. Chariklo is an icy, small body, but the largest of the known Centaur population, located more than 2 billion…

People with early cardiovascular disease may be more likely to have memory and thinking problems and worse brain health in middle age, according to new research published in the January 25, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Cardiovascular diseases such as heart…

Scientists from Rice University are using fluorescence lifetime to shed new light on a peptide associated with Alzheimer’s disease, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates will affect nearly 14 million people in the U.S. by 2060. Through a new approach using time-resolved spectroscopy and computational chemistry, Angel…

In their new paper for the Geological Society of America journal Geology, Dulcinea Groff and colleagues used radiocarbon ages (kill dates) of previously ice-entombed dead black mosses to reveal that glaciers advanced during three distinct phases in the northern Antarctic Peninsula over the past 1,500 years. The terrestrial cryosphere and…

When bacteria interact, they give off cellular signals that can trigger a response in their neighbors, causing them to behave in different ways or produce different substances. For example, they can communicate to coordinate movement away from danger or to emit light to ward off predators. In new research published…

A new study suggests that the format in which graphs are presented may be biasing people into being too optimistic or pessimistic about the trends the graphs display. Academics from City, University of London and University College London found that when people made predictions about how a trend would develop…

Nutrients from salmon carcasses can substantively alter the growth and reproduction of plant species in the surrounding habitat, and even cause some flowers to grow bigger and more plentiful, SFU researchers have found. Their study, published today in the journal Royal Society Open Science, is the first to demonstrate a…

Regularly eating a high fat/calorie diet could reduce the brain’s ability to regulate calorie intake. New research in rats published in The Journal of Physiology found that after short periods of being fed a high fat/high calorie diet, the brain adapts to react to what is being ingested and reduces…