A small protein could lead to a cure for traumatic brain injuries.
A short protein fragment, or peptide, may lead the way to healing traumatic brain injuries, a primary cause of death and disability among youth. Currently, drugs to treat such injuries are injected directly into the brain — an invasive technique — or into the bloodstream, which allows the medication to spread throughout the brain, causing harmful side effects. Attaching drugs to the new peptide, called CAQK, woul ...read more
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New study finds truth in an ancient myth.
According to ancient Chinese texts that mix historical events with legend, about 4,000 years ago a hero named Yu tamed a flood and went on to become China’s first emperor. The story may be largely myth, but geologic evidence reported in Science this August suggests that at least the Great Flood was real — and really Great. “It’s sort of the equivalent of if we found evidence of Noah’s flood from the Bible,” says T ...read more
The move paves the way for animal-human hybrid research.
Remember the freakish animal-human hybrids in The Island of Dr. Moreau? The science fiction fantasy might return, approaching science fact. In August, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposed lifting a funding ban on research that uses human stem cells to create animal embryos. The move would free U.S. scientists to create, under carefully monitored conditions, the genetic equivalent of an animal-human hybrid. These “chi ...read more
Nuclear chemist Dawn Shaughnessy pushes against the limits of matter.
And then there were 118. In January, an international collaboration of scientists added four new elements to the periodic table: nihonium, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson. It took the scientists three months to make each atom using a particle accelerator in Dubna, Russia. For years, they smashed together lighter elements at ever-higher energies, hoping they’d fuse perfectly into one heavy, brand-new element. But ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
