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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 23, 2024 at 9:26am

The researchers achieved videography by combining a novel water-based transmission electron microscopy method with detailed, atom-level computational modeling. The water-based technique involves encapsulating nanometer-scale droplets in graphene so they can withstand the vacuum in which the microscope operates. Comparing the resulting video data to molecular models, which show how things should move based on the laws of physics, helps the researchers not only interpret but also validate their experimental data.
Currently, this is really the only experimental way to film this kind of motion over time. Life is in liquid, and it's in motion. Scientists 're trying to get to the finest details of that connection in an experimental way.
For the new study—the first published demonstration of the electron videography technique—the researchers examined nanoscale discs of lipid membranes and how they interacted with proteins normally found on the surface of or embedded in cell membranes.
Part 3

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 23, 2024 at 9:09am

Electron microscopy techniques image at the molecular or atomic scale, yielding detailed, nanometer-scale pictures. However, they often rely on samples that have been frozen or fixed in place, leaving scientists to try to infer how molecules move and interact—like trying to map the choreography of a dance sequence from a single frame of film.

Usually, researchers have to crystalize or freeze a protein, which poses challenges in capturing high-resolution images of flexible proteins. Alternately, some techniques use a molecular tag that they track, rather than watching the protein itself. In this study they are seeing the protein as it is, behaving how it does in a liquid environment, and seeing how lipids and proteins interact with each other.

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 23, 2024 at 9:06am

Electron videography captures moving dance between proteins and lipids

In a first demonstration of "electron videography," researchers have captured a microscopic moving picture of the delicate dance between proteins and lipids found in cell membranes. The technique can be used to study the dynamics of other biomolecules, breaking free of constraints that have limited microscopy to still images of fixed molecules.

Scientists are now  are going beyond taking single snapshots, which gives structure but not dynamics, to continually recording the molecules in water, their native state.

They can really see how proteins change their configuration and, in this case, how the whole protein-lipid self-assembled structure fluctuates over time.

The researchers reported their technique and findings in the journal Science Advances.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 23, 2024 at 8:50am

The researchers also described other instances over a period of 19 months of observation when fosas appeared to stalk lemurs but were unsuccessful in bringing one down as food.

The impact of predation—combined with low reproductive rates and potentially high inbreeding of the lemur population of Betampona—could affect the survival of this species at this site, researchers said.

These most recent observations of fosa attacks are especially troubling, as the observation of predation attacks, especially by the elusive fosa, are very rare.

"It leads to questions of why the fosa are so bold to predate on lemurs in front of humans, and whether the fosa leave Betampona to hunt elsewhere and then return, or whether they are targeting the lemurs within the reserve,"the researchers say. "It is an incredible scenario in which you have a vulnerable species potentially over-predating on several critically endangered species."

G. Bonadonna et al, Response of diademed sifaka (Propithecus diadema) to fosa (Cryptoprocta ferox) predation in the Betampona Strict Nature Reserve, Madagascar, Ecology and Evolution (2024). DOI: 10.1002/ece3.11248

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 23, 2024 at 8:49am

When one vulnerable species stalks another

What can be done when one threatened animal kills another? Scientists studying critically endangered lemurs in Madagascar confronted this difficult reality when they witnessed attacks on lemurs by another vulnerable species, a carnivore called a fosa.

This dynamic can be particularly complex when the predation occurs in an isolated or poor-quality habitat, according to research by scientists  in Madagascar.

In the new paper published in Ecology and Evolution, researchers describe how they were observing small groups of critically endangered diademed sifaka lemurs (Propithecus diadema) at Betampona Strict Nature Reserve when the predator struck.

"We were conducting our daily behavioural observations when we came across a very unusual sight—a predation attempt by a fosa, which is the biggest predator in Madagascar", the researchers depicted the story.

"What we saw was very rare," they wrote in their paper. "There are other small carnivores in Madagascar, but they are not big enough to be able to prey upon an adult diademed sifaka because they are among the biggest lemurs. There are not so many predators that could actually get them."

With slender bodies and long tails, fosas (or fossas, Crytoprocta ferox) have many cat-like features. They are great climbers and are sometimes compared to small cougars, though they are actually part of the weasel family.

The fosa is categorized as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, and is at risk of extinction, as are almost all of its lemur prey. Fosas also eat other small animals such as birds and rodents.

But they're rarely caught in the act. Fosas are stealthy hunters. Researchers have mostly determined what fosas eat by examining bones and other evidence left behind in scat.

"We noticed that a female diademed sifaka that we were following after the first attack didn't run away very far," they said. "Instead she stayed still and remained vigilant, looking at the fosa."

 also documented the later discovery of the remains of another diademed sifaka, presumed to have been killed by a fosa because of the condition of the remains and because of the way that branches had been broken in the area. Signs indicated a struggle in the trees.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 23, 2024 at 8:39am

In their new study, the scientists look at the dense environment of dusty disks, from which a new solar system with a star and planets emerges eventually. Such disks form when clouds suddenly collapse under the force of gravity. In this environment, water molecules are much more prevalent—forming ice on the surface of any growing agglomerates of particles that could inhibit the reactions that form peptides.

By emulating the reactions likely to occur in the interstellar medium in the laboratory, the study shows that, although the formation of peptides is slightly diminished, it is not prevented. Instead, as rocks and dust combine to form larger bodies such as asteroids and comets, these bodies heat up and allow for liquids to form. This boosts peptide formation in these liquids, and there's a natural selection of further reactions resulting in even more complex organic molecules. These processes would have occurred during the formation of our own solar system.

Many of the building blocks of life such as amino acids, lipids and sugars can form in the space environment. Many have been detected in meteorites.

Because peptide formation is more efficient in space than on Earth, and because they can accumulate in comets, their impacts on the early Earth might have delivered loads that boosted the steps towards the origin of life on Earth.
So what does all this mean for our chances of finding alien life? Well, the building blocks for life are available throughout the universe. How specific the conditions need to be to enable them to self-assemble into living organisms is still an open question. Once we know that, we'll have a good idea of how widespread, or not, life might be.

Serge A. Krasnokutski et al, Formation of extraterrestrial peptides and their derivatives, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adj7179

Part 3

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 23, 2024 at 8:38am

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, comprises two long strands forming a double helix structure. Each strand is composed of smaller molecules called nucleotides. Every nucleotide contains three components: a sugar molecule (deoxyribose in DNA), a phosphate group, and a nitrogenous base. There are four types of nitrogenous bases in DNA: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). These bases pair specifically (A with T, C with G) to form the rungs of the double helix ladder, with the sugar and phosphate groups forming the backbone of the DNA molecule.

Peptides are an assemblage of amino acids in a short chain-like structure. Peptides can be made up of as little as two amino acids, but also range to hundreds of amino acids.

The assemblage of amino acids into peptides is an important step because peptides provide functions such as "catalyzing," or enhancing, reactions that are important to maintaining life. They are also candidate molecules that could have been further assembled into early versions of membranes, confining functional molecules in cell-like structures.

However, despite their potentially important role in the origin of life, it was not so straightforward for peptides to form spontaneously under the environmental conditions on the early Earth. In fact, the scientists behind the current study had previously shown that the cold conditions of space are actually more favourable to the formation of peptides.

In the very low density of clouds of molecules and dust particles in a part of space called the interstellar medium, single atoms of carbon can stick to the surface of dust grains together with carbon monoxide and ammonia molecules. They then react to form amino acid-like molecules. When such a cloud becomes denser and dust particles also start to stick together, these molecules can assemble into peptides.
Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 23, 2024 at 8:35am

Crucial building blocks of life on Earth can more easily form in outer space, says new research

The origin of life on Earth is still enigmatic, but we are slowly unraveling the steps involved and the necessary ingredients. Scientists think life arose in a primordial soup of organic chemicals and biomolecules on the early Earth, eventually leading to actual organisms.

It's long been suspected that some of these ingredients may have been delivered from space. Now a new study, published in Science Advances, shows that a special group of molecules, known as peptides, can form more easily under the conditions of space than those found on Earth. That means they could have been delivered to the early Earth by meteorites or comets—and that life may be able to form elsewhere, too.

The functions of life are upheld in our cells (and those of all living beings) by large, complex carbon-based (organic) molecules called proteins. How to make the large variety of proteins we need to stay alive is encoded in our DNA, which is itself a large and complex organic molecule.
However, these complex molecules are assembled from a variety of small and simple molecules such as amino acids—the so-called building blocks of life.

To explain the origin of life, we need to understand how and where these building blocks form and under what conditions they spontaneously assemble themselves into more complex structures. Finally we need to understand the step that enables them to become a confined, self-replicating system—a living organism.

This latest study sheds light on how some of these building blocks might have formed and assembled, and how they ended up on Earth.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 22, 2024 at 11:58am

Haug and Spavieri estimate that a micro black hole battery weighing just one kilogram could provide "enough energy for a family for generations" – approximately 470 million times the energy of the most efficient 200-kilogram lithium battery that currently exists.

"While achieving such a level of technological advancement is certainly not imminent, it's not inconceivable that battery technology development could follow a trajectory similar to that of computer technology," Haug and Spavieri write.
The pair aren't the first team to suggest such a wild idea, which just goes to show the gravity (pun intended) of the energy transition we face, to power the world without burning fossil fuels that are cooking the planet.

Previous work has considered similarly small Schwarzschild black holes, but Haug and Spavieri reason the charged black holes described by the Reissner–Nordström metric are eight times more energy-dense.

Of course, whether such tiny, non-rotating black holes exist, or even be created in a practical setting, is a project for future imaginations.

"If we use strategically placed neutron stars as magnets, this would still require [a particle] accelerator around the size of the Solar System," Haug and Spavieri note. "This solution seems quite unrealistic, but never say never."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1574181824000247...

Part 3

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 22, 2024 at 11:57am

In theory, oppositely charged micro black holes could then be brought together, one by one, leading them to merge into a single black hole that 'evaporates' very quickly into pure energy. The extracted energy wouldn't come from within the black hole, but just outside it: where gravity concentrates.
This mind-bending suggestion is not beyond the realms of possibility. Tiny, primordial black holes are thought to exist, but have never been detected – perhaps because they have radiated away most of their energy after forming in the primeval plasma that filled the Universe following the Big Bang.
But the prospect of 'micro black hole batteries' will more than likely remain purely hypothetical, saying more about how far trends in battery technology have to go than where we'll actually end up.

"Today's batteries are extremely inefficient compared to their ultimate potential, and we are likely just at the very beginning of a battery revolution," Espen Haug, a theoretical physicist and finance analyst at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and Gianfranco Spavieri, a physicist at the University of the Andes Venezuela, write in their published paper.
part 2

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