The misfolded proteins responsible for a fatal neurological disease in deer have a twist. The first detailed structure of an infectious prion that causes chronic wasting disease, or CWD, reveals features that could help guide vaccine development or explain why the disease has not yet made the leap to humans, researchers report Oct. 24 in…
Some of the apparent quirks of Uranus may be due to bad timing. In 1986, the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past the planet, recording the mysteries of its magnetic field. It turns out that Uranus may have been in an unusual state. A solar wind event days before the flyby compressed the giant planet’s magnetosphere,…
DENVER — A drug found in nearly every medicine cabinet could be a treatment for a rare genetic disease. Ibuprofen can help children with mutations in a gene called MAN1B1suggests a study on fruit flies. Geneticists Clement Chow of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City reported the results Nov. 6 at the annual…
A truck full of antimatter would make for a seriously epic road trip. And scientists are now one step closer to transporting the substance in vehicles. Scientists at the European laboratory CERN have demonstrated the ability to transport a cloud of subatomic particles on board a truck, using protons as a support for their antimatter…
Some massive stars can go out with a bang, not a bang. A star that blinked out of view may be a “failed supernova,” a stellar explosion that died down instead of fully exploding, a new study reports. If true, the failed supernova would mark the birth of a black hole. At the end of…
A massive Mayan landscape is hidden beneath a forested area of southern Mexico. The newly discovered city, called Valeriana, spans an area roughly the size of Beijing and has “all the hallmarks of a classic Mayan political capital,” researchers reported in October. Antiquity. Its plazas connected by a grand causeway, temple pyramids, and water reservoir…
Scientific watchmakers have created a prototype of a nuclear clock, hinting at future possibilities for using atomic nuclei to make precise time measurements and make new tests of fundamental theories of physics. While the definition of “watch” is scientifically nebulous, the prototype has yet to be used to measure time. So it should technically be…
One of the richest biodiversity hotspots in the world is Peru’s Madre de Dios, a region of the Amazon located at the base of the Andes Mountains. When biogeochemist Jacqueline Gerson first traveled there in 2017, she found herself on a boat heading downstream through the forest. As she passed the banks of the river,…
Quantum entanglement has made its way to the top. Scientists have measured the strange quantum phenomenon of entanglement in top quarks, the heaviest fundamental subatomic particles known. It is the first detection of entanglement between pairs of quarks – a class of subatomic particles that make up larger particles, including protons and neutrons. Particles that…
The opposing fountains of plasma and particles spanning 23 million light-years are the longest pair of black hole jets ever seen. That’s far enough away to affect the evolution of the universe on a cosmic scale, astronomers report Sept. 18. Nature. “Traditionally, astronomers believed that all jets remain inside, or at least very close to,…
