Science & Medicine
Here we bring you the latest on all things science from physical science, evolution, astronomy, space, physics, chemistry, and medicine.
How these strange cells may explain the origin of complex life
Michael Marshall / ScienceNews
In many submerged regions, murky mud shelters strange life-forms that seem to be the key to one of the biggest mysteries of life on Earth.
These creatures belong to a domain of life called the archaea: single-celled microorganisms that look much like bacteria under a microscope. Ten years ago, a new group called the Asgard archaea was identified in sediments from the North Atlantic Ocean. They are nothing like us: They live mostly in places with little or no oxygen, and they are almost unbelievably ancient, with a lineage tracing back perhaps 3 billion years. Yet their DNA shows that the Asgard archaea sit startlingly close to humans on the tree of life.
In 2015, game-changing research made the case that these odd microbes can explain the origin of eukaryotes, the domain of life that includes organisms made of cells containing a membrane-bound nucleus. Since then, an explosion of studies has added to evidence that the Asgard archaea are the key to the birth of all known complex life. Read more here.
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Scientists Watch Black Hole Create Near Light Speed Winds in Hours
By European Space Agency (ESA) – SciTechDaily
A brief X-ray flare from a supermassive black hole generated ultra fast winds in less than a day. The discovery links black hole activity with solar-style magnetic eruptions and sheds light on galactic evolution.
An international group of scientists used the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton and XRISM, a JAXA-led mission with ESA participation, to detect and analyze an unprecedented outburst from a supermassive black hole. This enormous object generated intense winds that hurled material outward at nearly 60,000 km per second. Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Leading X-ray space telescopes XMM-Newton and XRISM have now recorded this remarkable blast in detail. Within only a few hours, the black hole produced powerful winds that pushed gas and dust into space at astonishing speeds of 60,000 km per second (135 million mph).
The supermassive black hole lies inside NGC 3783, a striking spiral galaxy recently photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomers observed a sudden flash of X-ray light erupt from…Read more here.
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Simple supplement mix shows remarkable results in brain cancer
Cactus Communications / ScienceDaily
Most cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy, are designed to attack and destroy cancer cells. A growing group of researchers is now asking whether this long-standing approach may be missing something important. What if the real path to a cure is not to damage cancer, but to coax it into healing instead?
That provocative idea is at the heart of work led by Professor Indraneel Mittra at the Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer in Mumbai, India.
The concept is not completely new. In 1986, an article in the New Journal of Medicine by Dr. Harold Dvorak suggested that cancer behaves very much like a wound that never heals. Cancer and chronic wounds share many biological features, and Professor Mittra argues that, rather than always trying to destroy tumors, medicine should explore ways to help them move toward a healed, less aggressive state.
In a recent study involving people with glioblastoma, one of the most feared brain cancers, his team reports that a simple combination of two low-cost nutraceuticals appears to support exactly this…Read more here.
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Webb Detects a Possible Ingredient of Life on Distant Exoplanet – Scientists Urge Caution
By University of Arizona – SciTechDaily
More research is needed before scientists can determine whether the recently observed methane signatures point to the presence of an atmosphere or are simply the result of contamination from the host star.
Of the seven Earth-sized planets circling the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, one world stands out to researchers because it moves through the star’s “Goldilocks zone” – a region where liquid water could exist – but only if the planet has its own atmosphere. And where there is water, there might be life.
Two recently scientific papers detail initial observations of the TRAPPIST-1 system obtained by a research group using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. In these publications, the authors, including Sukrit Ranjan with the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, present a careful analysis of the results so far and offer several potential…Read more here.
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