Author: EUSci
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NASA rover ‘Perseverance’ sets off in search of life on Mars
Launched on 30 July, NASA’s Mars 2020 mission is sending the Mars rover ‘Perseverance’ to search for traces of ancient life and study samples of rock and soil in a crater that once held a lake nine times the size of Loch Ness. It was launched at 07:50 local time from Cape Canaveral Air Force…
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Blood iron emerges as a potential key to anti-ageing
Growing old may be an inevitable part of our lives, but can we overcome the wrinkles and debilitating age-related diseases? What is the secret behind why some people spring into old age with energy and good health? According to science, some key answers could lie in your DNA. New research published in Nature Communications has…
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Scientific culture – do we need to slow down?
Seán Dunphy explores how the structures of academic funding and publishing have shaped modern scientific culture. Scotsman Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin is one of the most impactful in science, but Fleming’s intention was never to study antibiotics; rather, it came as an accident while studying Influenza. Like Fleming, neither Jared Leadbetter nor Joseph Mougous…
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Myth-busting the Golden Ratio
[latexpage] The Golden Ratio is widely praised for its aesthetic beauty: has its significance been blown out of proportion? Number enthusiasts are likely familiar with the idea of the golden ratio, and the artistically minded may have heard of its applications in design. The golden ratio is a simple relation between two quantities commonly occurring…
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ESA & NASA Solar Orbiter captures first pictures of ‘campfires’ on the Sun
The first images taken by the spacecraft Solar Orbiter have been released, revealing many miniature solar flares near the surface of the Sun, which have been called ‘campfires’. An international collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, Solar Orbiter was launched on 10 February 2020 and in mid-June completed its first close pass…
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How do mountains grow?
Climate controlled erosion is often considered the driving force in managing mountain height; however, a recent study concluded that tectonics may have a greater impact than erosion. Armin Dielforder, Ralf Hetzel, and Onno Oncken, the authors of the study, explained that the maximum potential height of a mountain is limited by what can be upheld…
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Feeling the heat: why the South Pole is warming up so quickly
The South Pole is one of the coldest and most remote regions on our planet. It is a polar desert of long and sunless winters, quasi-continuous frigid winds, and precious little wildlife or vegetation. But as distant and inaccessible as it may be, it is not so isolated that it is exempt from the changes…
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COVID-19 may trigger diabetes
There is emerging evidence that the relationship between COVID-19 and diabetes is bi-directional. Recent observations suggest that COVID-19 symptoms are not only exacerbated by diabetes but that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19) also triggers the development of diabetes in non-diabetic COVID-19 patients. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that the risk of…
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Dexamethasone: a steroid superhero?
With the US buying up the world’s stock of Remdesivir, will dexamethasone emerge as the wonder cure to save lives amidst this pandemic? Researchers have made an exciting discovery in the race to find effective therapies against COVID-19. Dexamethasone, a cheap and widely prescribed steroid, has emerged triumphant in the RECOVERY trial conducted at the…
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Stem cells could bypass embryo laws to shine a light on human development
14 Days. This is the maximum number of days researchers are allowed to sustain an embryo. In 1979, when this policy was first proposed by the Ethics Advisory Board of the US Department of Health, Education and Wealthfare, culturing an embryo ex vivo (removed from the body) was an extremely difficult and expensive task, and…